For those not watching Chicago news right now (really, any station), a floor of the 135 S Lasalle building is on fire. The fire keeps spreading across the floor.
18 injured so far, nobody dead yet, thank goodness. Amazingly, the firefighters seem to be keeping the fire to the one floor. Water and smoke damage will be insane.
Crap!
I must say that the thread title/member name combo there was a little alarming.
Glad you’re not in any personal danger.
I’m starting to think that this happens enough that we could have a thread similar to Sequential Thread Titles… Something like “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Appropriate User Name/Thread Combos”
Yikes, I didn’t even think about that. It’s somewhat amusing to think that the fire alarm would go off and I’d stop to post in MPSIMS. :eek:
The building is about 2 blocks from where I work - it’ll be interesting to see what it looks like tomorrow.
Latest: 1/3 of ALL of Chicago’s firefighting personel and equipment are fighting this fire. This thing is huge.
No deaths reported, some people hospitalized for smoke inhalation, as expected. Here’s hoping all the firefighters stay safe.
Oh no! I used to work very close to there, in 11 S. LaSalle, and I saw the Loop Fire (Chicagoans know what I’m referring to) burning last year. I watched the firefighters for a while and felt all entertained by the whole thing - til I got home and learned that 6 people had died, asphyxiated in a locked stairwell. Just horrible. I think everyone took another look at their emergency plans after that, and made a lot of changes. I hope it was enough.
:: crossing fingers ::
Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.
Considering that modern Chicago is pretty much built on the ashes of a fire, we suck at fire safety. The last place I worked (before the Cook County fire), the doors at the bottom of the stairwell were locked too. One of my managers went down the stairs for some reason, couldn’t get out the bottom, couldn’t get back in to the office, and spent the night in the stairwell.
At my new job, we just did a fire-drill, down 20 flights of stairs. I was very happy to do it. Too bad it took 6 people to make us care. 
I feel sorry for the people in the Sears Tower and Aon Building! We had to walk down eleven flights of stairs a couple months for a fire drill and people were complaining.
i’ve seen the pictures. i hope things go well there.
i always think of chicago and fire in the beginning of dec. ola fire.
is the building sprinkled? we had a high rise in philly that burned quite a few floors before hitting sprinklers. the building was under a grandfather clause.
The building is from the 30’s I think, and so it’s also exempt from having to put in sprinklers.
The firefighters went out on an overhang and hit the fire from outside, and that seems to have helped. It’s just smoldering now, almost over.
There’s a bill coming up about whether all buildings should be retro-fitted with sprinklers. Obviously it would be pretty expensive, but this fire never would have gotten this far with sprinklers in place. Surely calling out 1/3 of Chicago’s available fire-fighting resources is pretty expensive too…
Still no deaths, no new injuries. Looks like this is coming out ok, ignoring the huge amount of fire, smoke and water damage, which is just money after all.
crosses fingers and prays for everyone
Is that what reindeer leave behind?
Oops. I suck at spelling. 
Still burning, unbelievable. I doubt the building will be open tomorrow. It sort of seemed under control for awhile, but now it’s flared up again. Seems like most of the building is filled with Lasalle Bank offices, 3,000 people total. It’s really lucky that this started after most people went home.
Best article I’ve seen so far:
http://www.teamamberalert.net/news/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5737
The people on TV would like you to know that traffic downtown is really bad right now. Duh?
What does this mean? Do you have to ring different numbers for different kinds of fires? 
That’s actually out of date - it’s now a 511 fire, with a 3 emergency.
Not that that helps me understand what the hell they’re talking about. But 511 is apparently the highest level they can go, the highest amount of resources they can put on one fire and still cover the rest of the city safely. 300+ firefighters, last I heard. Any firefighters on here who can explain the numbering system?
In the early 1980’s a woman died of smoke inhalation in the Chicago Loop building complex where I work. There was a 911 tape of her final minutes.
Needless to say, the entire building complex is now sprinklered, alarmed, and so forth.
After the Country Building fire last year a lot of people got concerned about the stairwells - but in our building the locks are electronic. If the power goes out, the stairwell doors unlock because there’s no longer any power to keep them locked. The are also supposed to unlock as soon as fire alarm is pulled.
This really annoys the security people.
That’s part of the reason for the locked stairwells in the county building - the security paranoia that decrees Doors Shall Always Be Locked without taking into account that sometimes you need to get out in a hurry.
On the plus side, since 9/11/01 folks have gotten a bit more serious about emergency drills. Back then, I’d say about a third of my co-workers didn’t have a clue where the stairs were, and whined about drills. After Sept 2001 they suddenly all wanted maps.
And the County Building fire last year reminded everyone why we do this, so the folks starting to slack off got serious about this again.
At present, all Chicago skycrapers are required to have two emergency drills a year. The fire department is involved. During the last one we had, we were informed that failure to comply would result in fines. In addition my company (and many others) has additional drills throughout the year now. This may have saved some lives in this fire - folks had some idea where to go and what to do.
In fact, the staff at my company got so good at emptying out the offices the safety guy started to get concerned that there might be an emergency where we shouldn’t run for the door and we had a drill to practice staying in place. OK, yeah, that’s a little out there… on the other hand, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared for anything these days, does it?
I don’t know why they don’t simply force these companies/owners to install sprinklers. I don’t give a shit what it costs. They have no way of getting people out!!! I was in a house fire once, and let me tell ya…there’s nothing scarier.
A bill was (and as of yet, still is) going to be voted on this Friday which would exempt residential buildings, and give commercial buildings a number of years to install sprinklers - the building in question would have 12 years to install them. A lawyer who was involved in the high-rise fire last October (where 6 people died, trapped in a stairwell) says there are too many loopholes in this bill, that the time given is too long, and that all of the debate has been in subcommittee meetings out of sight of the public. He prefers another bill that had been debated previously.
The fire took about 6 hours to put out - in contrast, the last high rise fire took under 2 hours. 300 firefighters were there, and this long battle put such a strain on the system that suburban fire departments have mobilized units as backup for Chicago until they get rested and the gear is again made ready for use. (A number of the smoke inhalation cases among the firefighters were supposedly due to their tanks running out of oxygen.) 30-some injuries, 22 of which were firefighters.
I was in Chicago all weekend. How in the hell did I miss this?