Chicago Tribune Story by Jon Yates and Mickey Ciokajlo

Article Summary
The final report from the Cook County panel investigating October's deadly Loop fire recommends sweeping changes at the Chicago Fire Department, from an overhaul of the department's promotion system to improved firefighter training. The 94-page report levels harsh criticism at the Fire Department as well as at the management and security companies of the Cook County Administration Building for how they reacted to the Oct. 17 fire.

"We hope the commission's report and its recommendations can at least make sure some response comes out of those unfortunate deaths and we can avoid this kind of tragedy in the future," retired federal judge Abner Mikva said at a news conference when the report was released.Mikva chaired the five-member commission that wrote the report.

At a separate news conference, Chicago Fire Commissioner Cortez Trotter announced he had put together a team of outside experts to work with the Fire Department to review the report and determine which of its recommendations it will implement.

The report said the "actions and inactions" of the Fire Department, building management and security "contributed to the loss of life." The panel found that if the building at 69 W. Washington St. had been equipped with sprinklers or had stairwell doors that automatically unlocked in a fire, none of the deaths or injuries would have occurred. The report recommends building code changes that require sprinklers in all commercial high-rises.

Though it spreads blame around, the report is particularly critical of the Fire Department. The panel found the department fought the blaze from the wrong stairwell, placed more emphasis on battling the blaze than saving lives, and failed to direct workers away from trouble. The report includes 20 recommended changes for the department, including better coordination with the city's Office of Emergency Management to ensure firefighters at the scene get information quickly from 911 calls, and the implementation of a better communications system while battling high-rise fires. The report also recommends that the Fire Department develop a physical-fitness training program, increase the capacity of its air tanks, conduct full top-to-bottom searches of high-rise stairwells while fires are raging and take responsibility for directing building occupants to safe stairwells during evacuations.

All six victims of the fire died in the building's southeast stairwell. All investigating agencies agree the fire started in the 12th-floor storage room of the secretary of state's business office. The county report calls the cause of the fire "undetermined," while the Fire Department has ruled it "incendiary," or started by a person. A chemist hired by the county panel, Arthur Krawetz, said he reviewed the testing done at a state lab and found it inconclusive. Police have yet to rule on whether they believe the fire was arson.

The panel's most pointed criticism of the Fire Department is that firefighters reported seeing civilians on the southeast stairwell but did not search for others.

The report goes on to say that the Fire Department "did not use multiple hose lines early enough to fight this fire," and complicated the problem by setting up its attack in the same stairwell as the building's smoke tower, a shaft designed to vent smoke out of the structure. That move, the report says, "caused smoke from the tenants' space on the 12th floor to inundate the southeast stairwell where civilians were trapped."

The report also criticizes the building's management company, 69 West Washington Management. The report says the company failed to train its staff on building evacuation procedures, and says the building's engineer, Dave Rabka, should not have ordered a full evacuation.

Dan Boho, a lawyer for the management company, Tuesday defended Rabka's decision as a judgment call and said building staff were trained for evacuations. Boho said that the company conducted four fire drills in the 15 months before the blaze and that news footage shows smoke emanating from the smoke tower's opening on the roof 10 minutes into the firefighting effort, proof the device worked.

The report faults both the Fire Department for not requesting the building's pre-fire plan when it arrived on the scene, and the building's management for not offering firefighters a copy.

Six days after the fire, County Board President John Stroger appointed the commission. Starting Dec. 1, the panel took the public testimony of 47 witnesses, including firefighters, survivors and outside experts. A second outside investigation by James Lee Witt, former leader of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is under way. 

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