It was so cold in Chicago Wednesday night, the hoses froze while firefighters battled the flames at Andy’s Deli.
These pictures shared by Larry Shapiro of ChicagoAreaFire.com show how the CFD had to carefully get the hoses back to the rigs. Then they drove back to the station with the hoses on top of the apparatus.
Firefighters first had to deal with frozen hydrants around the building that houses Andy’s Deli.
According to Shapiro, the Mobile Ventilation Unit (9-2-3) from Engine 106′s quarters was called in to “push the fire to the rear and through the roof to allow companies to get at it since much of the roof had remained intact.”
Larry Shapiro has many more photographs which can be viewed here.
ICY DRIVEWAY: In North Buffalo, Pennsylvania, apparatus from East Franklin and Worthington after Worthington’s truck slid down a driveway at the scene of a garage fire. There was some damage to both rigs and the hose lines. PittsburghLive.com reports a heavy duty tanker from South Buffalo had to pull another Worthington rig out of a snow bank — it also slid on the driveway. Read more here.
Preparing for the blizzard, now underway, the Chicago Fire Department placed 50 snowmobiles at firehouses around the city. Additional firefighters are assigned to the units to make sure CFD gets to residents on snow blocked streets.
It is believed to be the first time the city has used snowmobiles to help out during a massive snowfall. The vehicles will be sent to half of the Chicago Fire Department’s 100 firehouses around the city.
Some suburban fire departments will also be using snowmobiles to respond to emergency medical needs in hard-to-reach spots.
“We have a six-wheel ATV sitting here,” said Barrington Fire Chief Jim Arie, also chief of the Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District that has fire stations in rural Barrington Hills and Lake Barrington. “We’d use that if our engines or ambulances were not able to get to an emergency or to a patient.”
The Harlem-Roscoe Fire Department is also using snowmobiles. Chief Don Shoevlin tells WIFR, “The snowmobiles are equipped with oxygen a heart monitor, even a back-board to haul away injured patients.” WIFR has the full story here.
Two Chicago firefighters were killed Wednesday morning and 19 were injured battling a fire in an abandoned building, and the roof collapsed.
Corey Ankum and Edward Stringer were both taken to Chicago area hospitals. Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told ChicagoBreakingNews.com both firefighters died of trauma.
Photo from Chicago Sun-Times
Engine Co. 98 was among the apparatus which escorted Firefighter Stringer’s body from the hospital.
More pictures can be found here on the Chicago Sun-Times and here from the Chicago Tribune.
The brother of a firefighter on the scene describes what happened after the collapse in ChicagoBreakingNews.com:
Steven Ellerson, a 20-year veteran, rushed in with others to rescue them. “He heard someone calling for help and he looked for him,” Ellerson’s brother Maurice Matthews said.
Ellerson found Ankum on the floor, gasping.
“He found him and knew he was struggling to breathe so he took off his mask to give him some oxygen,” Matthews said. “Corey’s head was stuck somehow and they couldn’t get him out. So my brother went to give him his coat but they came and got my brother out of there. My brother didn’t want to leave him, but there was no choice.
“It was a chaotic scene,” Matthews said. “These guys put their lives on the line every day.”
STATter911.com has extensive coverage including more about Firefighter Ankum and Firefighter Stringer, the Mayday call, the Chicago Fire Department press conferences, reports from the scene, and Mayor Richard Daley’s statement here.
Chicago Tribune and Chicago History Museum
These deaths come on the 100-year anniversary of the Chicago Stockyards Fire. Twenty-one firefighters, including the chief, were killed that day when a six-story brick wall fell while they were battling a fire that started in the basement of Warehouse 7. They had rushed to the fire with their horse-drawn steam engines and trucks.
Two days ago, the Chicago Tribune published a story called “100 years since Stockyards fire raged: Remembering Chicago’s ‘forgotten tragedy.’” You can read it here. The headline refers to the title of Bill Cosgrove’s book “Chicago’s Forgotten Tragedy.” More about him and the book can be found here.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Cosgrove was approached by Chicago Firefighter Bill Cattorini in 1998 about establishing a memorial to the firefighters after passing by the spot of the 1910 fire. They decided the memorial should honor all Chicago firefighters who died in the line of duty. The memorial was dedicated on December 22, 2004, and a ceremony now takes place every October 8–the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire. More on the story here.
This video from 2008 shows old photographs from the fire, and Cosgrove describes the apparatus arriving at the scene of the Stockyards Fire:
Click here for MyFoxChicago’s coverage of the 2010 ceremony at the memorial.
The video below is a montage of photos from the 2010 remembrance and pictures of the 21 killed in the Stockyards fire set to music.
It isn’t Macy’s but for fire buffs this may be better. The 2010 Belk Carrousel Parade in Downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, considered the largest parade in the Southeast, was held on Thanksgiving Day. The Charlotte Fire Department participated in a big way. Here’s the description from CharlotteFireDept‘s YouTube entry:
Among the vintage fire trucks scene in the video are a rare 1902 American Fire Engine Company, Metropolitan Horse Drawn Steamer, a 1928 American LaFrance pumper, a 1948 Mack pumper, a 1958 Bullet-nose Seagrave pumper, and a 1971 Seagrave pumper. All of these apparatus were purchased new and served on the front lines for the City of Charlotte. Special thanks to Paul Scoogins and Scoggin Farms for providing the two beautiful male percheron horses to pull ‘Old Sue’.
ICY DRIVEWAY: In North Buffalo, Pennsylvania, apparatus from East Franklin and Worthington after Worthington’s truck slid down a driveway at the scene of a garage fire. There was some damage to both rigs and the hose lines. PittsburghLive.com reports a heavy duty tanker from South Buffalo had to pull another Worthington rig out of a snow bank — it also slid on the driveway. Read more here.
