Girl's death inspires Arlington Heights fire safety program
Forty-one years have passed, yet Bernie O'Neill can remember the powerful, suffocating stench of smoke from the fire that gutted his family's Palatine home and claimed his only sister's life.
"It's a smell that you're going to remember for the rest of your life," said the 55-year-old Arlington Heights resident. "You couldn't see. You couldn't breathe. It was so thick."
O'Neill was 14 at the time. His older brother, Michael, then 17 years old, and younger brother, Thomas, then 4 years old, both of Barrington, survived the fire in October 1974, along with their now deceased parents. Their eldest brother, Pat, was away at college at the time and now lives in Elmhurst.
Their sister, Katie, 7, never made it out.
In Katie's memory, Arlington Heights launched The Katie Project in January 2014, which offers free smoke detector checks and replacement alarms and batteries to residents, said village Trustee Joe Farwell, Katie's cousin.
It's a community initiative to raise awareness about fire safety and make it easier for elderly residents.
Farwell said he felt compelled to act after three women were killed in a November 2013 fire inside a Dunton Avenue home that lacked a working smoke detector.
"It was a revelation for me," Farwell said. "It just struck a cord. In 2013, it just shouldn't happen."
Within days of that fire, Farwell came up with idea for The Katie Project.
On Saturday, roughly 15 volunteers visited 31 homes of residents who signed up for the service. Since the initiative began, volunteers have replaced about 500 smoke detectors in nearly 200 homes. Volunteers also use the opportunity to talk to homeowners about replacing carbon monoxide detectors.
"It's a terrific effort," said Frank Tully of Hanover Park, a first-time volunteer. "People talk to their neighbors about this, and it spreads awareness."
Arlington Heights Fire Lt. Andrew Larson said even though Arlington Heights is an affluent community, there are many people living in old homes who need this service.
O'Neill said smoke alarms weren't common in most homes in the 1970s.
On that fateful day in 1974, the flames had been raging for a while before the O'Neill brothers realized their home was on fire after hearing their father's screams around 3 a.m. It is believed the fire broke out in the family room.
"I don't think anyone knows how it started," O'Neill said. "We couldn't see anything because there was smoke everywhere. We (three) got out of bedroom windows onto the roof."
Their parents, Bernard and Joan, made it down the stairs but collapsed in the hallway before they could reach the front door. They were rescued by firefighters and were treated in the hospital for burns and smoke inhalation for weeks after.
Katie's bedroom was directly above the family room, and there was no roof she could get to from her window. Firefighters later found her body in the upper hallway just outside her bedroom. She died of smoke inhalation.
The family's pet poodle, Cricket, who originally had escaped the fire, went back into the house and died by Katie's side.
"It could have been that he tried saving her," O'Neill said.
It's a story the O'Neills haven't shared much in recent years. They recognize that had there been a working smoke detector to warn them early on, perhaps Katie would have survived.
"It happens real fast," O'Neill said. "If my dad didn't wake up, none of us would have been alive."