Mutual Aid Box Alarm System

History[]

The Mutual Aid Box Alarm System or MABAS for short, was formed in 1968 in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. A Captain from the Elk Grove Village Fire Department proposed the system and managed it's implementation. Structured on Chicago box alarm cards that pre-assign apparatus to respond on a given level of alarm, MABAS adopted this simple model and still uses it today.

Member departments of MABAS were organized into divisions in the early 1970s. These divisions usually consist of 12 to 20 departments.

Since September 11th 2001, MABAS has rapidly grown throughout the State of Illinois as well as Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan and parts of Iowa and Missouri. Today (Jan 2020) MABAS includes approximately 1,175 of the state’s 1,246 fire departments organized within 69 divisions. MABAS divisions geographically span an area from Lake Michigan to Iowa's border and south almost into Kentucky. Wisconsin divisions also share MABAS with their Illinois counterparts. The cities of Chicago, St. Louis, and Milwaukee are also MABAS member agencies. MABAS has expanded into all 102 Illinois counties.

External Links[]

• Illinois MABAS Website
• Wisconsin MABAS Website
• MABAS on Chicagoareafire.com
• Michigan MABAS Website

Division Assignments[]

• Divisions 1 through 67 are Illinois.
• Divisions 100 through 162 are Wisconsin.
• Divisions 201 through 209 are Indiana
• Divisions 3101 through 3801 are Michigan.