The fire started small, as most fires do. It began at half past seven, just thirty minutes before closing, in the petite’s department on the second floor of Fox and Farnstock, the large department store on State Street, occupying nearly a full city block of Chicago. Being a quiet Tuesday evening, on a hot July day, the store was not crowded. The summer sale racks were picked over, and most of the customers were just stopping in for a brief blast of air conditioning before heading back out onto the hot streets. The fire’s humble beginning was in the pocket of a light grey pants suit hanging on the eighty percent off clearance rack right by the dressing room. The cause was the small bundle of wooden matches with a short, lit fuse dropped in the pocket by the woman who had just left the dressing room looking three or four sizes larger than when she went in.

When the fuse burned to the match-heads, there was a sudden burst of flame as the sulphur ignited. The fire almost died at its birth, there wasn’t much oxygen in the pocket, but the heat managed to burn a hole large enough to allow the precious oxygen in to fuel the fire. After a tenuous start, the flames leaped from the pants suit and invited the neighboring floral skirt to join in. The skirt, made from a petroleum-based product called polyester, eagerly accepted and extended the invitation to the rest of the clearance rack. Within three minutes of its brief existence the fire reached the other side of the rack where the small bomb made from a half-dozen taped together butane lighters had been slipped into the pocket of a powder blue blouse.

Three things happened almost simultaneously. First, a female clerk straightening up the accessories display saw the fire and screamed as she ran to the phone to call security. Second, the small bomb exploded and the sound travelled across the entire sales floor. Third, the sprinkler system activated and the fire alarm sounded. This combination of the scream, the explosion, and the sprinklers caused panic in the customers on the second floor. The announcement over the loudspeaker for everyone to evacuate to store in an orderly fashion, combined with the fire alarm, caused the rest of the store to panic and the customers, as well as the employees, rushed the exits.

The store may not have been crowded, but there were more than a hundred people trying to exit, most of them at the main entrance on State Street. As they were leaving, the security alarms were going off as well. No one really paid any attention, getting people away from a potentially deadly fire was a greater priority than searching them. Besides, the fire alarms probably activated them anyway. This pleased two people very much. One was the woman who had gained weight in the dressing room after wrapping four expensive Jacques Tres Couteux evening gowns around her waist under her sweatshirt. The other was a tall, thin man with a pencil thin mustache who reached behind the jewelry counter in the confusion grabbing what was later evaluated as over seventeen thousand dollars worth of diamonds and emeralds.
Chicago’s finest and bravest arrived moments after the alarm sounded. Police officers Bobby VanDerPloeg and Dave Murphy were the first on the scene and they posted themselves at the main door to help insure an orderly evacuation. More police arrived and spread out to the other exits. Engine 351 was the first fire truck on the scene and Captain Jarred Snoots took command of putting out the fire.

As one officer was helping an elderly woman, he noticed a woman in bulky sweat clothes exit as the alarms went off again. There was something strange about her, especially the sweats in July. He made a mental note of her appearance for future reference. She was about five foot six, had brown hair that was slightly curly and pulled back into a ponytail, brown doe-like eyes, and seemed a tad overweight. She also had a hurried and nervous look about her that he chalked up to exiting a fire scene. As he watched her leave, he missed the tall thin man with the pencil thin mustache two people behind her.

The sprinklers did their jobs and kept the fire under control until the fire department could finish the job. Thirty minutes after the fire began its short life; the firemen declared their work done and began to haul out the lines. As they were doing this, the Chicago Police Anti-Terrorism Task Force was roping off areas of the street. The FBI arrived next and tried to take over, but they were given a hard time from the Arson Squad and the Anti-Terrorism Task Force. A major argument almost broke out on State Street. The firemen just shook their heads as they loaded up their trucks. The uniformed police kept doing their job restoring order among the civilians.

In the confusion between the explosion, and the fire being brought under control, people had scattered. Some to the underground Red Line train station, some to the elevated Brown Line station on State, others toward the various bus stops. Some just ran down the streets. A few stragglers were standing across the street looking at the building. The air was buzzing with people talking about the fire, questioning whether it was terrorism. Was this just the beginning of something worse, or an isolated event? After New York, it was rumored that Chicago was the natural choice for another attack. One well-dressed woman was sobbing into her cell phone, "this is the worst thing that has ever happened in my entire life." Another woman was crying on the shoulder of a man and one young man was sitting on the sidewalk with his head in his hands, sobbing.