"On arrival we had a working fire on the second floor of the building with at least four people trapped on the roof who had made their own escape out of a window and were able to step onto the flat roof," Lt. Joshua Monroe wrote in his report after the Oct. 8 fire at 1717 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
"We also had three apartments with people who were unable to escape and needed rescue with ground ladders."
Firefighters and police officers worked together to get everyone to safety.
"I talked to one tenant of the building who is also the building manager who said the common hallway was filled with black smoke and that it was too hot to enter," Monroe wrote in his report.
This week, after the North Chicago City Council honored its public safety crews, Monroe recalled the chaotic and harrowing response.
"I could see flame showing from the back hallway area and there were four to five people on a flat roof and then we realized we had people pounding on the windows. Our guys had to break out most of the windows," he said. "Everybody was just frantically throwing up ladders and getting people down. They did a great job considering how tense the situation was.
"It was about five to 10 minutes, maybe it just seemed that long, of intensity. We were pretty lucky to get there when we did."
According to Monroe's report, firefighters James Axtt and Todd Lucassen set up ladders and rescued two people from a second floor window. Meanwhile, firefighters Raul Jon Herrera, Keith Peacy and Adam Chiappetta rescued two more people from another second floor window. Reid Mammoser and Juan Lopez were attacking the flames from inside when they found another person trapped in a second floor apartment, the fire report stated.
Police officers Sgt. Corey Marquardt and Jason Geryol helped those who had escaped onto the roof one story above the ground, officials said. Police officers John Burns, Arthur Strong, Curtis Sellers and Carl Sain were also recognized for their roles.
"I am extremely proud of all personnel involved is incident," Fire Chief Dell Urban said. "This incident epitomizes teamwork and the great things that can be accomplished when our departments work together. They all were instrumental in saving several of our citizens this morning. In total, nine residents were rescued from ground ladders.
Two were taken by ambulance to Vista East Medical Center in Waukegan, and a third went to Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, Urban said.
"One great thing was it was right at shift change and we had a plethora of people to respond and it made all the difference. It was double the normal manpower," Urban said.
Also honored were North Chicago emergency dispatchers Shawndra Johnson and Maurice Brewton, who were lauded for quickly requesting extra equipment and personnel from Knollwood, Gurnee, Zion, Libertyville and Great Lakes. Johnson and Brewton also called a PACE bus to the scene for the 18 displaced residents.
Sonia Arty, management analyst in the fire chief's office, was thanked by the city council for taking care of the residents, who were first bused to the North Chicago Public Library.
"There was a little bit of chaos," said Arty, who along with fire Lt. Kimberly Schaefer bought food and drinks for the displaced residents. "They separated themselves. I think everyone was trying to calm down and make sense of what was happening that morning."
The library provided a room for families while others stayed in their cars in the parking lot until American Red Cross officials arrived, Arty said.
"I think everyone was just upset. It was a pretty bad situation. It was cold and a lot of kids didn't have shoes," she said.
Patricia Kempf, with the Red Cross, said the organization helped 20 people, nine of them children. The six families and other displaced residents received immediate disaster relief including food, clothing, a place to stay and emotional support.
North Chicago Community Partners offered to help as well.
"Everyone was saved and that's an awesome day for us," Artsy said.
There was only one smoke detector in the building and it isn't clear if it was even working, Monroe said. The fire department later determined the fire to be suspicious based upon two points of origin and notified the Illinois State Fire Marshall of the circumstances.
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