Palatine honors firefighters killed on job 72 years ago

Two Palatine volunteer firefighters who were struck and killed by a passenger train downtown while responding to a call 72 years ago were remembered at a ceremony Monday.

Wesley Comfort Jr. and Leonard Nebel were honored for their service at the Palatine Firefighters Memorial, near the crash site. The morning ceremony started when an honor guard with a bagpiper arrived to the memorial after marching from the Colfax Street firehouse.

Retired Palatine firefighter Mark Hallett said Nebel and Comfort were dispatched to the fateful call about 1:30 p.m. Oct. 1, 1946, from the Slade Street station.

"They were responding to a reported house fire at Smith and Dundee roads," Hallett said. "The engine that they were in collided with a moving train at the Brockway Street crossing here to our right and they were dragged nearly a hundred feet down the line. Unfortunately, at the time of this incident, there were no warning lights or gates at this crossing."

Nebel, 41, died instantly when the fire truck collided with the train. He managed a family grocery business in Palatine and was survived by a wife and five children.

Comfort, 24, was a decorated World War II veteran who served in the Army under the command of Gen. George S. Patton. The son of Palatine's fire chief at the time, Comfort died from his injuries four days after the crash.

Nebel and Comfort were the first Palatine firefighters killed in the line of duty.

"The members of the Palatine Fire Department will never forget the ultimate sacrifice of these two firefighters," Hallett said during the ceremony Monday.

Dedicated in 2006, the memorial at Brockway and Slade features a bronze sculpture depicting two firefighters. Besides Comfort and Nebel, it honors John Wilson, Warren Ahlgrim and Richard Freeman, volunteer firefighters who died in the Ben Franklin store blaze on Feb. 23, 1973.

Retired Palatine fire Battalion Chief Scott Ohlrich, who chaired a committee in charge of building the memorial, now teaches fire science at Harper College and attended Monday's ceremony, which included a wreath presentation and ringing of a ceremonial fire bell.

Joining Ohlrich were about a dozen Harper fire science students, who afterward discussed the events that claimed the Palatine firefighters' lives and job safety.

"It's important for us to remember that it's a dangerous job," he said. "We try to keep that on the front burner every day."