Rockford area action

[CVFD5342]

I dont want to thread jack others so I figured I would start a thread of Rockford news and information. Hopefully it will stay busy. Anyone and everyone is welcome.

[firebugfd105]

QUIET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :(

Could you like call us for mutual aid so we could at least take a truck or two out of the station. I would definitily appricated it :p

All I have heard today is you guys, Gary, Indiana and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

[doughesson]

I read a few years ago that all of the departments in Northern Illinois have signed one big axx mutual aid agreement which technically means a Chicago house could get tapped out to go to Champaign and help.
Is that still the case to your knowledge?

[CVFD5342]

Kinda. THere broke in to divisons. If you tap all your resources for one divison you can go interdivisonal. Utica is one example and the big school fire in mt.morris is another. It works wonderful.

[jboczek]

doug, it's called Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, MABAS for short. It did start in Northern IL, but it has spread down South, too. It's THE mutual aid agreement for Illinois. The northerners have been using it for years so they can tell you lots of great stories where it's worked out well. If we needed it bad enough, help would come from anywhere in IL.

[firefighterox]

We are relatively far north and we are just starting MABAS division 57. We are a little behind the 8 ball here. Very stuck in our ways sometimes.

[CVFD5342]

Anybody headed to New Orleans yet?

[GFPD23]

not wanting to hijack this thread but, can you tell me what happened at MT Morris School. I used to live in that town and am just curious. I was around when the Leaf River school burned down and that was a big fire.
Thanks

[npfd801]

Really big fire. Really big. Burned it to the ground.

Check out this link:

Mount Morris Fire (http://rhough.home.insightbb.com/MMFD/MonthlyLog.html)

Go to Feb of 2004, you'll see pics of the fire. If I recall correctly, started by some workers on the roof using a torch to heat something, or a similar situation. Check out the rainbow of apparatus colors, you couldn't ask for more colors - Mt. Morris with yellow, Leaf River with pumpkin orange, Polo with white, Byron with red... At least there were some colors in the shots to contrast all the snow.

[GFPD23]

hey nfpd801

Thanks for that link! wow you weren't kidding that it was a big fire. I hope that no one was injured. I remember the school well. I lived in Mt Morris from 94 until 98 working for the FS in Oregon delivering propane. I still have fond memories of that area and the people. Now back to our regularly scheduled thread. :)

[k3twpfire]

Anybody headed to New Orleans yet?

Hey!.. I thought this thread was about Rockford Area action??!?! :D :D

[npfd801]

Well, it hit the fan today, everyone is scrambling for a "possible" state-wide response to the south, with what I'm sure will be all the MABAS division locals reporting into to the statewide MABAS what they can send and how mnay folks.

We currently have twelve or so willing and able to go, with lots more willing but I'm sure in my position, with family and career obligations that limit our ability to respond. A house fire requiring me to leave work is a bit different than a two-week or more deployment to God knows where. If I went, I'd most likely be looking for work in two or so weeks.

Most interesting to me was talk of deploying the local resources via aircraft out of the Rockford airport. That would be interesting as heck...

Good luck to all who go, if indeed they're deployed.

[k3twpfire]

MABAS 7 Task Force was set to deploy tomorrow morning.

[lilyogi]

Mabas Div 30 leaving in the morning, we have 4 possibly 6 guys and an engine going from Erie.

[npfd801]

I suspect everyone's meeting at some rally point from Illinois, the Division 8 folks are leaving at 2:00 this morning or something to get where they're going.

Three from my department, many others from surrounding departments as well.

So what do you guys think? Will we all be re-deploying in two weeks?

[firebugfd105]

Mabas Division 29 is leaving on Monday.

[CVFD5342]

Ive have been and still am in Michigan. Who from divison 8 went down? I had an idea. now that the gov. opened school dist. to refugees I wonder if there is a wway we can contact the union or higher ups in New Orleans to open up some homes to the firefighters families si they can do there jobs and take care of things and not have to worry about there families saftey.

So now that I have been gone a few days...anyone catch any good fire traffic from the area that I missed?

[firebugfd105]

So now that I have been gone a few days...anyone catch any good fire traffic from the area that I missed?


Rockford Fire has a structure fire in progress now on Brook Rd.

[CVFD5342]

Good Semi tailer fire on 39 this morning. i guess it was full of paint and some acids. burn quite awhile and both rockford and serts hazmat were on scene. We supllied a tanker and squad. anyone else there?

-nic

[npfd801]

We never got dispatched, I was duty officer so I should have heard it. Who's call was it? We rarely go further south than you guys..

Nic - you have any luck with getting an e-mail through to me?

[firebugfd105]

Hey npfd801..I finally found some of those older pictures when I was on North Park..I will work on scanning them in tomorrow at work and send them to you.


:)

[npfd801]

I look forward to them... You have my e-mail, right?

[firebugfd105]

I think so, let me look.

[firebugfd105]

I look forward to them... You have my e-mail, right?

Misplace...could I have it again please. :p

[npfd801]

Yeah, I know Sycamore isn't the Rockford area, but we're not that far apart...

They just went to a 2nd alarm on a high rise fire, could be interesting...

[jaybird210]

Funny how that works.....

'Bout 2300 last night we got toned-out for this. Went something like this: "Hinckley Fire, request for mutual aid to Sycamore. Respond with an ambulance to their station." That's it, nothing else; No info that this is a MABAS alarm; no info on what the nature is or where staging might be. Well, we have only one ambo, so we don't do change-of-quarters with it. So I reply, We are unable to provide an ambulance. I hear IC request another ambulance "from somebody down that direction." Ohhhhhh-kay. Big Rock gets toned-out. Then, one of my leiutenants calls me and asks if I am aware that their fire station is their staging area. Um, nope, didn't know anything was up. So, I calls dispatch, and ask them, Were we supposed to go to staging at a scene, or was this a change-of-quarters request? Well, gee, I dunno. Lemme look. (!!?!?!) After a few minutes of talking to herslef, she figures out that we were to go to staging. Well, I said, that's different. Tone us out again, we'll go to the scene. Toned us out again, I get a block from my house, and we can cancel. Great.

I know there were at least six transports. I don't have any info yet regarding the fire or the nature of the transports. When I know something, ya'll will know something.... :)

[npfd801]

To me, with all of the success of MABAS - the weakest point for our area is the dispatch. While the MABAS dispatch around here is certainly pretty good, once it gets filtered down to the individual departments tasked with getting the various departments out things don't always go well.

Our dispatch has missed the MABAS tones, not checked the actual units we're supposed to send as opposed to what the MABAS dispatch says on a box-card, etc. I've even caught a mutiple failure in the system where we didn't get requested by MABAS, and our dispatch missed it, and we were due to be RIT. Luckily I was listening to the scanner, and only because my pager had croaked.

Personally, I love how our dispatch will hear a fantastic size-up from the first in unit, and reply, "10-4 - Unit XXX on scene." ARRGGHHH!!!

You are not alone Jay...

Was Sycamore using a card for EMS as well? It sounded like he was really just kind of pulling assets piecemeal. Not armchair quarterbacking, just curious.

[jaybird210]

Was Sycamore using a card for EMS as well? It sounded like he was really just kind of pulling assets piecemeal. Not armchair quarterbacking, just curious.

I'm not sure; I'm betting it was a build-a-box on the EMS side. Counting their two ambulances, I counted nine at staging at one point or another. We would have made ten, and I think if there hadn't been all the cornfusion at the beginning of our dispatch, we would've been there. The TC I talked to at our dispatch center didn't have a quick and clear answer when I called, so I'm guessing it was piecemeal. In my preliminary investigations thus far into this incident (!), I think the building in question was a low-rise senior citizen complex. So it may have started out as something not so big, then all the old folks started complaining of pain/sickness/etc. Now I've got x number of patients that I didn't have before. And it may have been a case of monkey-see, monkey-do: "Well, if Gertrude doesn't feel right and is going to the hospital, maybe I better go, too." One patient turns into two, that turns into five, that turns into eight.

I haven't talked to anybody at Sycamore FD yet; I was planning on calling the chief this afternoon and explaining what went on at our end. Then I might have a little info. Please stand by.

[jaybird210]

From today's Chronicle (http://www.dekalb-chronicle.com/articles/2005/09/12/news/news01.txt)

Six hurt in Sycamore fire
One man in critical condition at Loyola with severe burns
By Renee Messacar and Dana Herra - Staff Writers

SYCAMORE - Six people were injured - one critically - during a fire at Civic Apartments, 350 Grant St., on Sunday night.

Although officials are still investigating the fire, it appears someone left a cigarette or pipe burning in a fifth-floor apartment around 10 p.m., said Sycamore Fire Chief Bill Riddle. Riddle learned this morning that the apartment's resident reportedly doesn't smoke, but friends who might have visited him earlier do smoke.

A recliner caught fire, and the resident, whom neighbors identified as Don Wirth, suffered severe burns. He was taken to Loyola Hospital in Maywood where he was listed in critical condition this morning.

Two other fifth-floor residents, whom neighbors identified as Ken Braxton and Bobby Farthing, were sent to Kishwaukee Community Hospital for smoke inhalation after they tried to control the blaze and save him by using an emergency fire hose, residents said. They were treated and released.

One Sycamore firefighter and two Sycamore police officers were treated and released from Kishwaukee for minor injuries.
Sycamore firefighters tend to residents who were evacuated from Civic Apartments, 350 Grant St. in Sycamore, on Sunday night after a fire. Six other fire departments also responded to the alarm.

"Ken Braxton and Bobby Farthing live on the fifth floor, and they tried to help their dear friend," resident Shelley Wagner said. "The neighbors all care about each other very much. They smelled smoke, so they went in with the fire hose and tried to help."

Riddle said two men extinguished the majority of the fire. When the fire department arrived a few minutes later, it cleared residents from the building, extinguished the remaining fire and checked the rest of the building.

Six other fire departments assisted in getting residents, some of whom are elderly or disabled, out of the building and extinguishing the fire, Riddle said. Civic Apartments is owned and run by the DeKalb County Housing Authority and includes about 75 one-bedroom apartments for low-income singles and couples.

Wagner said she was impressed with the heroism of emergency personnel.

"It was amazing," she said. "There was one, I'm not sure if he was a paramedic or a firefighter, who got cut, and he was dripping blood up and down the stairs while he was carrying out people in wheelchairs. He never stopped, even though he was bleeding. He had no consideration for himself."

Building staff also helped residents leave their apartments.

Resident Ray Wiora said a maintenance worker in the building whom Wiora identified as Dave Aldis, helped evacuate residents and kept an outdoor head count to make sure everyone was accounted for. After the fire department left, Aldis stayed to clean up, Wiora said.

"He was here all night," he said. "He handled the situation great and did a fantastic job."

Wirth's apartment has fire, water and smoke damage, Riddle said. The rest of the fifth floor has water and smoke damage and some other areas of the building have water damage.

Apartment manager Kendra Chaplain said Wirth's apartment is a total loss. Neither Chaplain or Riddle had an estimate yet on the cost of damage.

Fifth-floor residents were taken to a motel for the remainder of the night, Riddle said. Other residents returned to their apartments.

Chronicle photo by Holly Lund.

[npfd801]

You know, everyone second guesses the use of standpipes/tenant use hoses for fires. Sounds like these two guys did a bang-up job, and my hats off to them for what sounds like a heck of an effort to save a friend.

[CVFD5342]

I didnt hear about the Sycamore fire. Sounds like the residents did what they had to do to get the job done.

Joel- the i39 fire was NewMilfords. Great show from what I hear. :rolleyes: