Chicago Fire Department history « chicagoareafire.com

Chicago Fire Department history

This from Steve Redick:

I shared this official CFD image a while ago. Since that time Jack Connors took the time to identify all the rigs in the image.

click to download

notes about vintage Chicago FD apparatus

Tags: Chicago Fire Department history, classic Chicago FD apparatus, historic fire apparatus, Jack Connors

This entry was posted on October 8, 2020, 1:00 PM and is filed under Fire Department History, Historic fire apparatus. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Comments

#1 by Bill Post on October 13, 2020 - 2:05 AM

Assuming that the photo is supposed to be Cold Box response for the mid 1960’s, there really was that much of a difference between a Cold Box and a Still and Box response.

On a Still and Box you would also get four engines, two trucks and a squad however two Snorkels would be dispatched. Depending on the location of the fire you might also get a Snorkel Squad so there could have as many as three Snorkels on a Still and Box alarm.

As the photo was taken during 1964, there were only two Snorkel Squads in service as Snorkel Squad 3 wasn’t put in service until May 16th 1965. I know for a fact that Snorkel Squad 1 would respond as far north as Foster Avenue on a Still and Box alarm and if the fire was north of Foster, SS 1 wouldn’t be dispatched until the 2-11 alarm along with the other Snorkel Squads. I don’t know how far south SS 2 would go on the Still and Box alarm. Phil Stenholm would you know?

Would you know when the 2nd battalion chief and the division marshall stopped being dispatched on a Cold Box? In recent years only a single battalion chief is sent. A squad is not dispatched unless it turns out to be an actual fire.

For those who don’t know the difference, a Cold Box or simply a Box was a manual box pulled for a hospital, nursing home, or a large public building such as a movie theater or McCormick Place. A Still and Box was dispatched if there were phone calls coming in as well as a box being pulled, or if requested by the first due companies or battalion chief.

Two Snorkel companies were on Still and Box alarms from 1961/62 until around 1970 when they started taking some of them out of service. There were seven Snorkel companies when Snorkel 1 went out of service on May 16 1965 to create Snorkel Squad 3. Snorkel 2 was taken out of service in 1969 as part of the Maatman efficiency study of 1968. Snorkel 6 was to be taken out of service however Snorkel 7 was destroyed in a wall collapse at the ruins of an extra alarm fire at 1748 N Ashland where firefighter Jack Walsh was killed. So Snorkel 7 remained out of service instead. All three of Chicago’s Snorkel Squads were recommended to be taken out of service in 1969 but since Fire Commissioner Quinn decided to keep Snorkel Squad 1 he took Snorkel 2 out of service instead. He also took Salvage Squad 1 out of service in place of Snorkel Squad 1.
#2 by Phil Stenholm on October 9, 2020 - 12:21 AM

The Battalion Chief’s station wagon on the left is a 1960 Ford and the Battalion Chief’s station-wagon on the right is a 1963 Ford, and combine that with the light on dark Illinois license plates with “Land of Lincoln” above the numbers/letters instead of below, and that pinpoints the photo to 1964.

Also, the unidentified engine right rear is a 1952 or 1953 Pirsch.

While it would appear that all of the cars and rigs in the photo are from the 1st division, there were no other 1952 or 1953 Pirsch pumpers besides Engine 18 in service in the 1st Division in 1964, so I would bet the unidentified rig is probably Engine 48 (1953 Pirsch D-236).

Engine Co. 48 was doubled up with Engine Co. 16 at 4005 S. Dearborn back then and so it frequently went on a change of quarters to other firehouses in other divisions, and thus they may have been drilling with the 1st Division at the Academy that day (Engine Co. 48 wasn’t taken out of service until September 1965, so D-236 wasn’t a spare rig yet).