Chicago Conflagration
FEATURES
FIRE REPORTS
Strategic Concepts and Tactical Support Avert Major Disaster
In September 1986, the Chicago, IL, Fire Department battled a spectacular multiple-alarm inferno that extended to several buildings in the city’s “central manufacturing district.” Hampered by the fire’s intense radiant heat and the limited accessibility of apparatus to the fireground, the firefighters had their work cut out for them in combatting this incident. It was later discovered that the fire was started as a prank by neighborhood youths.
THE AREA
Located approximately five miles southwest from downtown Chicago, the “central manufacturing district” contains factory and warehouse buildings that date back to the turn of the century. The majority of these buildings are of heavy timber construction and remain occupied today by storage and manufacturing firms.
The neighborhood’s water supply system was originally developed by the owners of the manufacturing district before the municipal water department took responsibility for the area. Although the city recently upgraded the main water supply to the district by adding a new 12-inch main on 37th Street, many of the tributary mains supplying hydrants on the side streets in the district are the original piping, the condition of which remains unknown.
Photo by Huey Adams
The area (see diagram) is bounded on the north and south by fenced-in truck yards and railroad tracks. All of the streets in the complex are accessible from only one east-west thoroughfare—37th Street. This neighborhood has been notorious in the past for multiple-alarm fires due to the age, size, and complexity of the buildings, the difficulty of access (all fire companies must enter from the same street), and the tendency of the fire to gain considerable size before being noticed in this “outof-the-way” location.
THE FIRE
At 3:30 P.M. on September 18, 1986, the Englewood Fire Alarm Office of the Chicago Fire Department received a telephone call from a citizen in the central manufacturing district reporting a fire in the vicinity of Loomis Street and 37th Street. A full “still” alarm assignment was dispatched. This included Engine Companies 39 and 49, Truck Companies 33 and 18, Snorkel Squad 1, and the chief of the 15th Battalion. The battalion chief was “on the air” at the time and was contacted by radio.
Immediately upon being given the location, the chief reported that smoke was visible from the area. As a result of this report and the experienced fire alarm operator’s familiarity with the large and older buildings in the area, a “box” alarm assignment was sent by the alarm office. (The “still and box” alarm assignment is usually the result of a fire company on the scene requesting additional help.)
This box assignment called for the response of Engine Companies 28 and 29, Truck Company 8, Tower Ladder 39, an additional battalion chief, an ambulance and supervisor, an air mask supply truck, one of the department’s three communication/command vans, and the 4th deputy district chief.
The 15th Battalion arrived on the scene three minutes after the initial alarm and reported fire in a 100 X 200-foot, four-story, vacant, heavy timber constructed building at 1416 West 37th Street. First-arriving firefighters found an extremely heavy smoke condition in the vacant factory with a large volume of fire in the center of the structure.
The chief entered the building while Engine 49 began to stretch a 2’/2-inch handline toward the front doors. The decision was quickly made to abandon the inside attack and the engine company was ordered to operate their deck gun onto the fire area through the front windows of the building. Truck 33 began to set up an aerial pipe on 37th Street.
At 3:35 PM, two minutes after his arrival, the 15th Battalion chief requested a 2-11 alarm, which would bring him four additional engines, two more truck companies, three more battalion chiefs, a district chief, and several headquarters personnel, including a safety officer and media liaison officer. Flames broke out some windows on the east side of the building, and two 2‘/2-inch lines were laid on Loomis Street to protect the three-story exposure to the east.
Squad 1 immediately set their snorkel up at the northeast corner of the building on Loomis Street in an attempt to knock down the fire and prevent extension of fire to the east and north exposures. Both the snorkel and the handlines had to quickly back off to flanking positions as the building became totally involved, and the radiant heat on Loomis Street became unbearable. Tower Ladder 39 was set up in front of the fire building on 37th Street, and, along with Engine 49’s deck gun and Truck 33’s aerial pipe, did an excellent job of protecting the exposures to the south across 37th Street.
JASPER STREET
ALLEYWAY
LOOMIS STREET
However, the main volume of fire was traveling northward on all floors and through the roof of the original fire building. As the handlines and snorkel on Loomis Street were being relocated, the fire quickly communicated to a five-story factory at 3630 South Loomis Street. Companies that had been stretching 2!/2-inch handlines into all floors of this building off of the fire escape on the north side in order to gain vantage points to work streams on the original fire building were quickly overwhelmed by the fire, which was now traveling through all floors of the second building. They had to abandon their effort within that exposure as it too quickly became totally involved. Several pieces of apparatus, which had taken initial positions to contain the fire in the original fire building, had to be relocated as the intense heat began melting plastic light lenses and made human operation near the building impossible!
Eighteen minutes after he arrived the 15th Battalion chief requested a 3-11 alarm, which dispatched four more engines and three more truck companies, more battalion chiefs, a water supply officer, and Deputy Commissioner of Fire Suppression Maloney to the scene. The three 3-11 alarm truck companies were tower ladders.
At this point, firefighting efforts had to be concentrated on three major areas: First, to cut off the extension of fire from the two totally involved buildings to the occupied factory buildings on the east side of Loomis Street; second, to protect the three-story occupied factory building at 1428 West 37th Street, which was located directly west of the original fire building; and finally, to protect the factory at 3611 South Jasper Street, which was in extreme jeopardy since the window frames on all floors of the east side of the building were already on fire!
To cut off extension to the exposures east across Loomis Street, firefighters worked a deck gun between the fire building and the exposures from 37th Street, while Squad 1, now relocated to the north of their original location, used a stream from their snorkel basket to combat the intense heat that threatened the factories just 25 feet from the main body of the fire.
A 4-11 alarm was ordered at 4 P.M. by the chief of the 4th District. This brought an additional four engine companies to the fire, along with the response of First Deputy Fire Commissioner Altman. Engines were instructed to stretch handlines over and through the fences on the north end of the complex and to pump “in-line” if necessary until reaching hydrants on 35th Street.
Tower Ladder 10 was ordered to gain a position and operate on the west side of the fire building from Jasper Street. They set up in a vacant lot to try to knock down some of the fire, which was radiating heat to the 3611 South Jasper building. The basket of the tower ladder had to be raised unmanned and operated from the pedestal as the heat was too great to allow manual operation in the “bucket.”
At the same time, lines were being charged into the building’s sprinkler system, which can be given much of the credit for saving this exposed structure. Engine Company 123, under the direction of Deputy Fire Commissioner Brichetto, made a valiant effort to work their portable deluge gun on the west side of the building, but found their stream converted to steam by the extreme heat before it could reach the fire.
Although 16 engine companies were already on the scene, the intense fire and limited access continued to hamper firefighting efforts. At 4:25 P.M., Deputy Commissioner Maloney requested a 5-11 alarm, dispatching four more engines and the response of Fire Commissioner Louis Galante. (A 5-11 alarm is the largest alarm for which a pre-determined response is designated. The need for more help beyond a 5-11 must come as a “special” request for specific equipment that is needed.)
A special request was included for 6-1-1, the department’s hose wagon that carries over 5,000 feet of 5-inch diameter hose. Six additional engine companies were also requested in the next few minutes. This brought a total of 26 engines on the scene, with a pumping capacity of over 35,000 gpm.
Engine Company 42 was set up on the west side of the fire so they could work their deck gun on the original fire building and also knock down the fire in the building at 1428 West 37th Street, where the third floor was now involved. They were supplied by an engine company pumping from a hydrant three blocks away on Ashland Avenue (supplied by a 36-inch main) by use of the 5-inch hose from the hose wagon. This 5-inch “portable main” was also able to supply several additional handlines. At this point, there were 11 master streams working on the fire in addition to at least eight large-diameter handlines in various locations.
Within one hour after the fire started, the floors and west walls of the original fire building and the 3630 South Loomis building began to collapse. Although this initially caused the fire to burn with even greater intensity, it eventually made for easier access to the buildings and partially reduced the intense radiant heat from the area.
Through the use of supply lines to the sprinkler system and Truck Company 10’s tower ladder stream, the fire was controlled in the 3611 South Jasper building. Equally diligent efforts by Snorkel Squad 1 and other companies on the east exposure kept damage to a minimum on the Loomis Street side. At 6 P.NL, 2½-hours after the initial alarm, Commissioner Galante declared the fire under control and “struck out” the alarm.
Several companies stayed on the scene overnight and throughout the next day. It would be over a week until companies stopped returning to the scene on a daily basis in order to fight “rekindle” fires in the buried rubble of the collapsed buildings. These efforts were hampered by fourand fivestory unsupported walls that remained standing on some sides of the structures that had to be carefully avoided for safety reasons.
ARSON DETERMINED
The large volume of fire encountered by the first-arriving companies, combined with’ the fact that the original fire building was vacant and all utilities had been shut off, made the fire suspicious from the start. Members of the department’s Office of Fire Investigation automatically responded on the “box” alarm and worked along with the Chicago Police Department’s Bomb and Arson Squad.
Workers in the area had reported seeing youths run from the building shortly before the fire was reported. The investigators were able to identify three neighborhood juveniles and one adult as the offenders, based on their descriptions and the help they received from an anonymous caller who contacted a local television station’s “hot-tip line” with information about the fire.
In a matter of days, the suspects were apprehended and confessions were obtained from two of the juveniles who claimed that they started the fire by using available “rubbish” that they had found in the vacant building. They also admitted that they had no specific reason for starting the fire except that it was a prank for excitement.
On December 8, 1986, the three juveniles pleaded guilty to arson and received from 6-12 months probation for their actions. They also agreed to assist in the case against the one adult, who, at presstime, is awaiting trial and facing a possible 6-30 year sentence under Illinois law.
CONCLUSIONS
Despite the intense heat of the fire and the collapsing walls of the fourand five-story buildings, only one minor injury was reported. (A firefighter was struck in the face by a stream.) The safety record of this fire scene was the result of intelligent apparatus placement and relocation, a correct initial size-up of the need for a defensive exterior attack rather than an offensive interior attack, and a well coordinated incident command system that included the use of a safety chief at the scene.
Quick action by both the alarm office and the 15th Battalion chief in requesting extra alarms undoubtedly helped keep the fire from reaching even larger proportions. This type of response is possible only with pre-planned systems that specifically designate which companies are to respond on each alarm. A definite plan of action for responses to large-scale fires is necessary, whether it is in a large department such as Chicago’s or through mutual aid agreements in smaller departments.
Although the recently improved water mains in this area helped, there are still problems of limited access and a limited number of hydrants compared to the large number of engine companies necessary to fight fires that occur in these large buildings of this district. Of invaluable assistance in fighting this fire was the use of the lightweight 5-inch diameter hose to provide an additional delivery to the area from a larger main, along with the response of the fire department’s command van, which contains the maps that indicate the location of these mains.*
