VIDEO: Fireground scene at a house fire operation on West Elm Street near Walnut Avenue in Arlington Heights Thursday night.
Arlington Heights police and firefighter/paramedics responded about 8:52 PM Thursday to a report of a house fire at 414 West Elm Street Arlington Heights, IL. Police and firefighter/paramedics received a report that a fire may have started near an electric box on the second floor attic near a chimney. Firefighters were able to overcome several 0°F cold weather challenges for the working house fire on Elm Street near Walnut Avenue.
First firefighters on the scene from Ambulance 2 and Squad 2 at about 8:57 p.m. reported no smoke showing, but then immediately updated that smoke was showing from the chimney area between the attached garage and the living area. Arlington Heights crews from Ambulance 2 and Squad 2 reported a chimney fire at about 9:00 p.m. and called for a working fire response. For a short time, as of about 9:02 p.m., only the ambulance crew and rescue squad crew were on the scene, but they went to work investigating the source of the fire and called for the working fire response.
Buffalo Grove Tower 25 and Rolling Meadows Engine 15 crews were assigned to replace the busy Arlington Heights crews.
Starting about 7:52 p.m. the first due engine (Engine 2) was out of district and busy with Engine 4’s crew chasing the source of water flow on a broken sprinkler system on another call at Nokia, 1501 Shure Drive, but Engine 2’s crew was able to pick up and respond by about 8:59 p.m. Engine 2’s crew was on scene by about 9:11 p.m. The Tower Ladder (Tower 1) crew was busy on an activated carbon monoxide detector call ion South Dryden.
Both Rolling Meadows Engine 15 and Arlington Heights Engine 3 from the south side of Arlington Heights were the first fire suppression crews at the front of the house. Engine 3’s crew — assigned to hook up to a hydrant — had a problem getting a water supply — possibly from a frozen or broken fire hydrant.
Crews had water on the fire by 9:10 p.m. Firefighters had two lines on the fire — one in the first floor living room and one in the attic space. There was fire reported behind a wall on the first floor near the fireplace.
The fire was reported stopped by about 9:14 p.m. Minimal water was needed to extinguish the fire.
Fire crews were exposing hot spots at about 9:15 p.m. Mount Prospect Tower Ladder 13’s crew was set up as the RIT team (standby rescue team). Palatine Quint 83 stood by as the reserve company.
Firefighters were investigating whether the fire was from an electrical box or a chimney fire. A fire investigator was called out to the scene. ComEd was also requested to the scene, but Nicor was not requested.
A neighbor reported the home was recently remodeled.
Northwest Central Dispatch was having some Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) issues around the time of this call, but the issues did not seem to directly affect the response to this incident, or the issues were overcome by human 9-1-1 operators.
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