It’s a somber Christmas Eve throughout the fire/EMS community as the reality of the double-LODD descends on the Chicago Fire Department.  The fact that the collapse was so unecessary makes it that much harder.  The fire had little or no impact on the roof collapse, just bad timing.  I expect that the city prosecuter is looking for any way to place criminal charges against the building owner who had repeatedly refused to follow the compliance orders from the building inspectors to get the roof and rafters repaired.

The Chicago Tribune has a STORY HERE this morning about the CFD firefighters descending on the FD commissary to get their uniforms up-to-snuff for the upcoming observances:

They started lining up outside the Chicago Fire Department commissary at dawn.  Some had risen early. Others hadn’t slept at all.

Under the lightening sky, members of Chicago’s fire department carried old shirts in need of buttons, coats in need of new insignia and the weight of the task at hand: readying their dress uniforms for the upcoming funerals of two firefighters who died Wednesday battling a South Shore blaze.

“This is something small that we can do, but it means a lot,” said firefighter Nick Pellegrini, who knew both fallen comrades. “Our uniforms are a part of who we are.”

Throughout Thursday morning and into the afternoon, hundreds of Chicago firefighters, engineers, lieutenants and captains traveled to the Pilsen-area store to update the dress uniforms they will wear for the coming processions, in keeping with department tradition. At times, the fluid gathering resembled a wake, with colleagues talking, embracing and replaying the previous 24 hours in sadness and disbelief.

The quick-buck artists are already descending like the vultures they are to line their purses with well-intentioned dollars from vulnerable colleagues who are grieving the tragedy.  The statewide IAFF organization, Associated Fire Fighters of Illinois has sent out the following release:

Chicago Local #2 is asking everyone not to support a company called Phoenix Graphics Online.  They have posted memorial stickers from yesterday’s tragic Line of Duty Deaths  We have not been able to verify that anyone from the family will benefit from these sales.  PLEASE DO NOT PATRONIZE.

The stickers in question are pictured on the Phoenix Graphics website:

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Dave Statter has posted links to web pages and forums that the CFD and Local 2 are utilizing to accept condolences and messages HERE.

And lastly for now, Firefighter Close Calls.com has sent the following message:

CHICAGO FIREFIGHTER LODD’s MEMORIAL INFORMATION:

CFD IAFF Local 2 is advising that they do have rooms blocked out for next week and are being held at the following hotels for 12/27 through 12/31.

=Hyatt Regency Chicago
151 East Wacker
$89 a night rate plus tax – block is under “Firefighters Union”
(312)565-1234 – mention block

=Fairmont
200 North Columbus
$119 a night plus tax with free parking – block is under “Fire”
1-800 526-2008 – mention block

MORE SPECIFIC MEMORIAL SERVICE DETAILS WILL FOLLOW (FRIDAY).

We’d better get this equipment checked out now.  I’m going to get some more coffee started.  See you back in the day room.

Yesterday’s tragedy in Chicago came suddenly, as they always do, but also for the crews working at the scene.  The fire was out and never was very large to begin with.  Just routine, more or less, and it never got into the roof at all.  Chicago FD has a policy of never going inside buildings with bowstring rafters, which this one had, that are on fire.  No, just a trash fire inside a small, vacant commercial occupancy.

But after the fire was out, the FF’s were going through on a secondary search because it was known that vagrants slept inside the place at night.  So it was proper to take a look, and then it happened…… horribly timed, the roof just fell in and pulled the rear wall down with it, despite no fire damage to the roof area.  What caused that to happen?

It is now coming out that the roof had several leaks and had partially rotted away, plus the leaks caused several of the rafters to rot also, completely losing their integrity.  This was discovered so early because it was all right there in the building inspector’s reports that were looked at yesterday.  Dave Statter at STATter911 has the story on this turn of events.  CLICK HERE to read about the long list of violations that were never corrected relating to the unsafe roof of the occupancy.  Dave has before and after photos of the former laundry plus some explanatory graphics.  Last year the city had filed suit against the owner for non-compliance, but still the violations were never corrected.  This should never have happened.

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The Fire Critic has some background information of the two FF’s who perished, Corey Ankum and Edward Stringer HERE.

The Chicago Area Fire Departments website is always a good place to go for complete photo coverage of Chicago-area events.  They have an impressive stable of professional photographers who provide unmatched images of an emergency incident.  One of them, Tim Olk has a 134-image photo gallery from the roof collapse HERE.  You won’t see these in any newspapers.

Tim Olk photo

In an eerie coincidence, yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of a fatal fire in the Chicago stockyards  where a building collapse killed 21 firefighters and 3 civilians.  At the time yesterday’s incident was taking place, a memorial service at the Stock Yards Firefighter Memorial was being held and several dozen firefighters were in attendance when the word quickly went around that another potentially-fatal collapse had just taken place.

It’s a somber day, but we still have to do our tasks and get this equipment checked out.  I’m going to get the coffee started.