Chicago's Learned Lessons

Lessons learned in a deadly 2003 high rise fire may have saved lives this week when a fire broke out on the 29th floor of a landmark 43-floor building in downtown Chicago.

Six people died in a fire last year at a county government building, prompting authorities to overhaul many rescue techniques. The reforms were put to the test Monday as flames began shooting from windows at LaSalle Bank's corporate headquarters in the historic skyscraper that used to bear the name of department store magnate Marshall Field.

As workers huddled inside, hundreds of firefighters went to work against the fire, but a much smaller team of rescuers rushed into the building with just one job: finding workers trapped by smoke and flames.

The fire burned for five and a half hours Monday night, and 37 people were injured - 22 of them firefighters. There were no fatalities.

Authorities credit the new rescue tactics with saving lives, and say they were also fortunate that stairwell doors in the 70-year-old building stayed unlocked and that many workers listened to firefighters' directions and remained in place.

"The lights were out and it was pitch black, and the smoke was so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. But at every landing there was a fireman keeping us moving," said Jim Rubens, an attorney who was rescued after about 40 minutes of sitting on the floor, the only place workers could find air to breathe.

The fire department on Tuesday continued to search for clues about the cause of the fire that started on the 29th floor and spread to the 30th.

Workers reported some confusion, complaining they sometimes could not get through to fire officials on the telephone and could not always make out instructions being broadcast in hallways. Many remained behind doors they dared not open for fear of letting in more smoke.

But it was clear firefighters had learned from the October 2003 fire at the Cook County Administration Building, where victims' bodies were found in a stairwell 90 minutes after firefighters arrived.

This time, members of a "rapid ascent team" arrived knowing beforehand their only mission would be to search for trapped occupants.

"They start going up and down stairwells and floor by floor, searching from top to bottom," department spokesman Larry Langford said.

Of the 450 fire department personnel on the scene, as many as 75 did nothing but search for people inside, Fire Commissioner Cortez Trotter said.

The search led to dozens of workers who, with stairwells and hallways filling with smoke, could only close office doors, stuff jackets and rags along the floor to keep out smoke, and call 911.

Just weeks after the 2003 fire in which victims perished in stairwells after doors locked behind them, the City Council passed an ordinance requiring those doors remain unlocked.

Attorney Bob Bailey put his raincoat at the bottom of his door to keep smoke out of his 39th-floor office until firefighters arrived. He said he probably would have died had he not been able to retreat to his office because "there was too much smoke in the stairwell."

Bailey is also grateful for a design difference between the LaSalle building - which has windows that can be opened - and the county building that caught fire last year - whose windows don't open.

"We might be dead if we hadn't been able to open the windows," Bailey said.

Another key difference lay in how the fire department coordinated its efforts. Confusion arose at the 2003 fire because of the department's practice of relieving the firefighter in command whenever someone of a higher rank arrived.

"Now, the first person stays in charge and consults" with command personnel who arrive at the scene later, Langford said.

Monday night's fire occurred in one of the 170 high-rises in the city where the department has conducted fire drills since the 2003 fire, meaning its occupants were trained to react to an emergency.

About 3,000 people work in the building. Most people there work normal business hours, but some departments are open 24 hours. The 29th floor, where the fire originated, is home to LaSalle Bank's trust division.

By Don Babwin