CHICAGO — Upcoming changes to the Chicago Fire Department’s fireground operations, set to take effect late June, have raised safety concerns among the president of the Chicago Firefighters Union, its members and several city aldermen.
“There’s going to be a lot of buildings burning down and potential death,” Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2 President Patrick Cleary told WGN. “That’s what’s gonna happen.”
The issue drawing strong concern centers on new guidelines that impact the first fire engine arriving at a fire scene. Under the updated policy, the officer of the four-person engine company must assume the role of incident commander, while two remaining firefighters are assigned specific tasks outside a burning structure.
Firefighters will only be permitted to break protocol and enter with more than one firefighter upon arrival if there are visible victims in immediate danger or if bystanders report that people are trapped inside.
Based on staffing, WGN reported that the new order means 22% of the department’s companies must wait for a battalion chief or another company to arrive before entering a burning building.
“You have an engineer working the pumps. You have one guy running to the hydrant — the hook up close to the hydrant — you have one person left,” Cleary said. “And we cannot send one person by themselves inside of a building. So, there will be no person going inside that building while it’s on fire.”
The procedural changes were prompted in part by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) following the death of Lieutenant Kevin Ward in August 2023. Ward was one of three firefighters injured while battling a house fire in Norwood Park. All three became trapped in the basement, and Ward succumbed to his injuries three weeks later.
The City of Chicago requested an extension on implementing the new policy last month, but OSHA denied the request. The federal agency has been fining the city $10,000 per day since May 12 and will continue to do so until the updated guidelines are in place.
