6 Hurt In Extra-Alarm Fire In Little Village
Updated 1/1/11 - 10:31 p.m.CHICAGO (CBS) -- Six people were hurt, including three firefighters, in an extra-alarm fire that engulfed a pair of three-flat buildings in the southwest side Little Village neighborhood.
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Wind gusts of nearly 40 miles an hour fed the flames, spreading quickly from a three-flat at 4315 W. 25th Pl. to the building next door at 4319, prompting officials to request the 2-11 alarm.
Both buildings were gutted, but firefighters were able to keep the flames from spreading to the rest of the row of closely-spaced two- and three-flat buildings on the 4300 block of West 25th Place.
CBS 2's Susanna Song reports that 25 people were left homeless as a result of the fire. The American Red Cross was helping to provide them with food and shelter.
Chicago Fire Dept. District Chief Thomas Kennedy said the first firefighters found a woman and her daughter leaning out a second-floor window, calling for help and unable to get out.
"Firefighters quickly went to work, rescued those individuals and then battled the fire," he said.
Sandra Serrano said it was frightening watching her cousin and 7-year-old niece hanging from the window, screaming for help as flames spread inside the attic.
"It was horrible, waking up in the New Year, to hear the fire crackling," Serrano said. "I guess the siding was falling apart."
Firefighters reached the woman and child by ladder as the black smoke got thicker.
The woman and child gulped a lot of smoke and were transported to Mt. Sinai Hospital; a second woman slipped and fell on the ice that formed as water ran off.
Serrano said she lost "everything" in the fire.
"Pretty much everything is totaled. Couldn't go in there," she said.
One firefighter suffered a laceration to his face when something fell on him as he fought the fire. Another firefighter suffered fatigue, while the other hurt his leg when a stairwell collapsed.
No injury is said to be life-threatening.
Kennedy said the fire began near the rear of the three-flat at 4315 W. 25th Pl. The cause was undetermined, and he would not comment on reports from neighbors who said they heard that someone cooking in an attic apartment started the fire accidentally.
