EVANSTON (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The Evanston Fire Department on Monday honored its fallen firefighters.
Two Evanston firefighters died in 1905. Then it was 80 years before the fire department lost another firefighter. His name was Marty Leoni.
Thomas Leoni was 31 years old when his brother Marty died at a fire scene in 1985.
"Half the people there said the kids were in there yet, and the other half said no. He goes and volunteers and says, 'I'll do it,’” the sibling told WBBM Newsradio at Monday’s event.
"So he ran up the back staircase, kicked in the door, and that's when the backdraft came up and caught him."
The memorial is held every year on July 22, the day Marty Leoni died.