On the 4th of July, Chicago firefighters battled a 2-11 alarm fire at 1900 S. Wentworth Avenue in the city's Chinatown neighborhood. The Still Alarm assignment was dispatched at 2350 hours for a fire in a building under construction. Second Battalion firefighters arrived to find a 3.5 story light-weight construction single-family building fully involved in fire. The building sat at the northern end of a row of similar buildings, each of which was under construction. The buildings in this row were separated from one another by narrow, 3-foot-wide gangways.
Before Chicago firefighters could place their first lines in service, the fire spread to the exposure building in sector 2. As the fire spread and the initial fire building suffered a partial collapse, incident commanders requested the 2-11 alarm and Collapse Rescue assignments.
Chicago firefighters used an exterior attack to bring this fire under control in 90 minutes. For additional pictures of this fire, visit the 5-11 Club's web site, www.5-11club.org.
