This from Code Photography:
Here are some photos and a video from the 2nd alarm fire in Harvey. I believe 5 people were transported and one dog was rescued.More photos can be found at: 2nd Alarm House Fire (1/22/15) – codephotography
Jan 23
Posted by Admin in Fire Scene photos, Fire Scene video | Comments off
This from Code Photography:
Here are some photos and a video from the 2nd alarm fire in Harvey. I believe 5 people were transported and one dog was rescued.More photos can be found at: 2nd Alarm House Fire (1/22/15) – codephotography
Tags: Code Photography, fire scene photos, fire scene video, Harvey Fire Department, house destroyed by fire in Harvey, winter fire scene
Jan 23
Posted by Admin in Apparatus on-scene, Fire Scene photos | 5 Comments
Harvey firefighters went to a 2nd Alarm for a house fire at 192 E. 157th Street yesterday afternoon (1/22/15). Images from Josh Boyajian and Tim Olk.
From Josh Boyajian:
Yesterday we took in Harvey’s Fire @ 192 e. 157th st. We were coming from Merrionette Park so it took us a little bit. When we got there, Harvey was on the first floor working but still had heavy fire showing from the 2nd. Crews had a hard time getting a knock on the fire due to the construction of the house, but kept it from spreading to the adjacent house to the east. Here are some of my pictures.Full Gallery is on my site.-Josh
Tags: fire scene photos, Harvey Fire Department, house destroyed by fire in Harvey, Josh Boyajian, South Holland Fire Department, Tim Olk, winter fire scene
Here are some photos of the Full Still house fire in Harvey on 8/19/14. Companies arrived with smoke coming out the front door and determined the fire to be in the basement which is when they requested a full still. Here is the link to more photo’s: http://codephotography.smugmug.com/Scenes/Harvey/House-Fire-81914/i-sCfnBBv
-Code Photography
Tags: Code Photography, fire scene photos, firemen enter burning house, Harvey Fire Department, house fire in Harvey
Jun 27
Posted by Admin in Apparatus on-scene, Fire Scene photos | Comments off
This from Tim Olk:
House fire this morning at 16322 S. Park Avenue in markham
Tags: fire trucks at fire scene, Harvey Fire Department, Hazel Crest Fire Department, house destroyed by fire in Markham, Markham Fire Department, Tim Olk
Jun 25
Posted by Admin in Apparatus on-scene, Fire Scene photos | 3 Comments
This from Dennis McGuire, Jr.:
Last night at approximately 22:00 hrs the Harvey Fire Department responded to 14829 S. Loomis for a reported fire in a building. Upon arrival of the 1st engine the one-story auto repair shop, 50×60, was fully involved and thru the roof. Three firefighters were transported to the hospital with minor injuries. Command did request a Full Still alarm response off of Box# 2 with an extra engine called.
Tags: commercial fire in Harvey, Dennis McGuire Jr., fire engines at night fire scene, fire scene photos, Harvey Fire Department
Mar 30
Posted by Admin in Apparatus on-scene, Fire Scene photos | 2 Comments
This from Eric Haak:
Just three quick shots from Harvey’s full still Sunday afternoon. I did not arrive in time to get much but with the nice sunlight and blue skies, I thought I would send in a couple of rig shots. Harvey’s first-in engine was the ex-Dixmoor Engine 33. Fire was in the rear porches and gave off an impressive header. Companies did a great job of keeping it out of the attic and keeping it from extending into the rest of the structure which was an occupied residence.
Tags: Dixmoor Fire Department, E-ONE Typhoon fire engine, Eric Haak, fire scene photos, Harvey Fire Department, Harvey running with Dixmoor fire engine, Lansing Fire Department, Pierce Velocity tower ladder
Dec 4
Posted by Admin in Fire Department News, Fire Service News | 1 Comment
ABC7 has an article on the closing of the Dixmoor Fire Department
If a fire breaks out in the Village of Dixmoor, a neighboring suburb will respond. Harvey officials say its fire department will step in after Dixmoor was forced to close its fire department because of financial issues.
Shuttered and dark, the Dixmoor Fire Department is no more. Citing a budget deficit of a more than a million dollars village officials voted to disband the town’s fire department. According to village, the department, which had 20 firefighters, cost the town $773,000 a year.
The union that represents the first responders says the average salary of a Dixmoor firefighter is around $28,000 a year. They were notified in a letter dated last Tuesday of the December 1 dissolution.
Neighboring south suburb Harvey will now provide fire protection for the village and to pay a private ambulance service to provide paramedics.
“I believe this is a good opportunity to share services that benefit both communities in order to provide services efficiently and professionally to the residents of Harvey and Dixmoor,” Harvey’s mayor Eric Kellogg said in a statement.
The small South suburb of Dixmoor has its share of political scandals, which some say have left the town struggling to survive financially because of falling revenue among other things.
Many residents are concerned about the future of their village. The agreement between Harvey and Dixmoor is a three-year agreement, but officials would not say what it is costing Dixmoor, only that it is less than what it would cost to maintain their own fire department.
Tags: Dixmoor dissolves fire department, Dixmoor Fire Department shuttered, Dixmoor to shutdown fire department, Harvey Fire Department, Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg, Village offering Harvey for fire protection Dixmoor contracts with neighb
Nov 21
Posted by Admin in Fire Department History, Fire Department News, Fire Service News | 8 Comments
The Southtown Star, a Sun-Times publication, is reporting that the village of Dixmoor is closing the Dixmoor Fire Department effective December 1, 2013.
Financially struggling Dixmoor has decided to dissolve its fire department at the end of the month.
In a letter dated Tuesday, the village attorney notified the union representing fire department employees “that this shall serve as notice that the Village will be moving forward with implementing the dissolution of the Fire Department. The final effective date shall be December 1, 2013.”
Earlier this year, newly elected Mayor Dorothy Armstrong said Dixmoor was facing a budget deficit of more than $1 million. Armstrong said it was costing the village $773,000 a year, a third of its revenue, to maintain its fire department, which had 20 firefighters.
I tried to reach Armstrong for comment but was unsuccessful. However, several village employees confirmed that the fire department was being disbanded Dec. 1.
“The new mayor has been trying to do this for three years, going back to the time when she was a trustee,” said Tim McDonald, president of Local 73 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents the employees. “The village board passed a resolution during a special meeting this week to disband the department and didn’t even allow for public comment before the vote was taken.
“When she (Armstrong) called for a vote, trustees asked if they could comment, and the mayor told them they could comment after the roll call. This is a joke, and this is why Dixmoor will always be looked on as a joke by serious people.” McDonald said that even before the village board voted to dissolve the fire department, it had laid off six of the 12 full-time firefighters. The village also employs about a dozen part-timers.
A firefighter who said “we’re not allowed to talk publicly about this” told me that Dixmoor is planning to have the Harvey Fire Department provide fire protection for the village and to pay a private ambulance service to provide paramedics.
“I called the Harvey clerk, and they (city council) don’t even have a meeting scheduled until Dec. 9, so I don’t know what Dixmoor is going to do after Nov. 30, the last effective date our guys will be working,” McDonald said.
Dixmoor is one of the smallest and poorest suburbs in the Chicago area, with a population of 3,644, according to the 2010 census. It showed that the median household income was $38,817 and 35.6 percent of Dixmoor residents live in poverty.
The village has a history of political scandals. For a time, it had a park district police force of more than 100 part-time officers and a full-time police chief — even though the park district owned only one park.
No one mowed the grass at the small park, the cyclone fence was rusting and all the playground equipment was broken or unusable. A bond issue of more than $100,000 had been sold to build a fieldhouse, but no fieldhouse was built.
A former park board president and several other park district officials eventually went to prison for stealing the district funds.
In another scandal, Donald Luster, who was elected mayor in 2001, promising to “Bring the Luster back to Dixmoor,” was sentenced to two years on probation for fraud and failing to file an Illinois income tax return. He had collected unemployment insurance during 1999 while earning more than $9,000 a week.
As recently as last year, former Dixmoor Mayor Keevan Grimmett was accused of living in his village hall office. Grimmett was kicked off the election ballot last spring because the local election board found that he did not live at his registered address.
A year ago, Trustee Michael Smith resigned after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of stealing gasoline from the town.
And in February, news reports revealed that only three of Dixmoor’s five police cars had gas, and the fire chief complained that his staff wasn’t being paid.
The union spokesman told me
saidDixmoor firefighters are paid “about $12 to $13 an hour, so they’re by no means highly compensated. They’re basically out there risking their lives for their community for 28 grand a year.”McDonald told me that Local 73 won a grievance against Dixmoor for back pay for firefighters but had not yet collected.
“We were being nice guys and weren’t asking the village to pay up,” he said. “But we don’t have any reason to play nice any more if they’re going to get rid of the fire department.
“They owe about $12,000 to each fire department employee because they gave raises to the police department and didn’t compensate the fire department personnel.”
McDonald said the Local 73 contract with the village that requires that its members get pay raises if the compensation of any other village workers is increased.
I’m not sure if it makes sense for a small village such as Dixmoor to have a fire department when it’s struggling to survive financially (due to falling revenue, incompetence and graft).
I suggested as much to McDonald, who replied, “The people of the village deserve their own fire department. What’s going to happen to the people in Dixmoor if a neighboring fire department is off fighting a fire in its own area and can’t respond?
“And if this village is struggling financially, where is it going to come up with the money to pay our people the money they are owed? It makes no sense.”
It’s nearly impossible to find a government official in Dixmoor who’s willing to comment about anything on the record. Given the village’s sorry political history and resulting bad publicity, maybe that’s understandable.
But I’ve been warning folks for years that there are a number of south suburbs facing financial collapse. Dixmoor is one of those.
Dissolving the fire department might be the right decision, but I wouldn’t blame the residents if they questioned the credibility of their elected leaders.
As poor as many of the residents are, they still pay taxes for village services.
The fact is, they haven’t had much to show for their money over the years.
Tags: dissolution of the Fire Department, Dixmoor dissolves fire department, Dixmoor Fire Department, Dixmoor Mayor Dorothy Armstrong, Dixmoor to shutdown fire department, future uncertain for Dixmoor Fire Department, Harvey Fire Department, Local 73 of the Service Employees International Union
Oct 9
Posted by Admin in Fire Scene photos | Comments off
If you enjoy viewing photos of fire scenes and you haven’t been checking out the new FireScenes.Net blog that went live one month ago, you’re missing some very interesting posts. But, for Chicago area enthusiasts, there’s a special treat – several ‘never before seen’ images submitted by Eric Haak from Chicago, Harvey, Alsip, and Dolton to name a few. Prior to his submissions to chicagoareafire.com, Eric did not have a means to share his fire scene photos, and he is generously culling through his archives and posting them to FireScenes.Net.
In addition, several other contributors to chicagoareafire.com who frequent the fire action in Detroit are also finding this as a new venue to share images which some of our readers have enquired about in the past. Since this site features Illinois and ‘just over the border’ fires in Wisconsin and Indiana, it’s not really the place for Detroit stuff, so these images are beginning to find their way to the new blog.
Tags: Alsip Fire Department, Detroit Fire Department, Dolton Fire Department, Eric Haak, fire scene photos, FireScenes.NET, Harvey Fire Department
Aug 9
Posted by bgshap in Apparatus on-scene, Fire, Fire Service News | Comments off
This from Dennis McGuire, Jr.
Caught this before the engine arrived, not much to say. Car accident resulting in the car catching fire. Engine 4 responded and put fire out.
Tags: car burns in Harvey, car fire, Dennis McGuire Jr., firefighters extinguish car fire, Harvey Fire Department
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