This Memorial Day weekend marks the 43rd Anniversary of the Totem Lumber Fire on 25th Avenue. The fire started on the Saturday shortly after lunch on Memorial Day weekend 1976. George Kubalewski was the shift commander. Walter Siwek was the Fire Chief.
Totem Lumber opened in Schiller Park in 1958.
The fire burned for 36 hours. Under the fire department mutual aid agreements 14 fire departments responded with almost all 100 firefighters. Fire engines pumped water to the scene from as far away as 25th and Irving and Leland and 25th. No neighboring properties were damaged. That was an era when Charles V Leiser, Bill Schultz, Reno Biasi, Chester Kwiat, Herb Milnes, Carl Schuyler, Robert Ritt, Gerry Phipps were on the Schiller Park Fire Department.
Roy F. McCampbell's Blog 
I remember the fire like it was yesterday. We were in Florida at my sister’s college graduation. The dean of the school waded through the audience to find my Dad and whispered in his ear. He turned white, said something quick to my Mom and left for the airport. On the approach to O’Hare airport the pilot announced that one of the runways was closed because a huge fire at a business just below the approach and that if you looked out of the left side of the plane you could see the flames going hundreds of feet in the air. Everyone rushed to that side of the plan to look. One guy saw my Dad sitting on the other side and asked him if he wanted to see the fire. My Dad responded, “No, that’s my lumberyard that is on fire”. The whole plane got real quiet and went back to their seats. I can still smell the soot and ashes from going there afterwards and trying to help salvage whatever we could. I felt like my clothes smelled that way for months.
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