On the evening of November 6, 2010, fire broke out in the back, second floor bedroom, of this late 1800’s apartment building in Chicago’s old Pilsen neighborhood. In the days after the fire, family members speculated that the cause was a space heater, although a determined cause was never reported.
The result was the tragic death of a father and his young son. The 3-year old was found in the same room as the fire’s origin. The father had run back inside the burning apartment in an attempt to rescue his children and was successful in wrapping his one-year old daughter in a blanket before he succumbed to the smoke. She was found lying next to him and the fact that her head was wrapped in the blanket probably saved her life.
I arrived to see her being rushed to the ambulance but was unaware of what else had happened. The father would die several weeks later. The picture sequence seems out of order but the less smokey images are actually from when I first arrived. The fire eventually made it’s way into the attic and it was brought under control using an exterior attack from Tower Ladder 5, who was running a spare rig that day.
Hello Larry. They got this one out very quickly and with the temps being what they were, I didn’t hang around to get too many additional shots.
Shortly before 1400hrs on Saturday afternoon, Chicago’s 17th Battalion Chief was dispatched to the report of a fire on the 5700 block of South Indiana. While en route, the Englewood Fire Alarm Office received reports that there were occupants trapped on the second floor and the fire response was elevated to a Still and Box.
The first due engine’s house was only 5 blocks away from the incident and Engine 84 was on-scene in less than 2 minutes reporting a fire on the second floor of a 3-story, 30×70 ordinary, occupied apartment building. If you weren’t within a couple miles of this one, there wasn’t much to see as the fire was contained to one unit of the 6-unit building.
I arrived as Truck 51 was just raising their main to the roof and within a few minutes, the fire was out. All searches proved to be negative. Seven adults and six children were displaced by the fire, but a family cat miraculously survived. As I was leaving, the soot and water drenched pet was returned to it’s grateful owner. It initially looked DOA, but then it started moving and seemed to be fine. Still companies were Engine 84, Engine 47, Truck 51, Truck 30. I believe the box engines were 50 and 16. I have included a shot of Engine 50 seeing that it is the oldest active engine in the fleet.
