Chicago City Hall and Cook County Building evacuated after small fire
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago City Hall and the Cook County Building were evacuated Wednesday morning due to a small fire.
What was expected to be a standard procedural day for the Chicago City Council quickly took a chaotic turn when fire alarms started going off mid-meeting.
The fire started around 11:15 a.m. in a records room on the 3rd floor of the county side of the building, in the middle of a City Council meeting on the 2nd floor at City Hall, forcing everyone in the meeting to evacuate to the lobby downstairs.
"The whole City Hall and I guess County Building had to be evacuated. So we were making we were ushering people out," said Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th).
The fire brought approximately 100 firefighters and several ambulances to the scene.
The Chicago Fire Department said, because of the building's age, height, and sheer number of people inside, they took every step to keep people safe.
The fire started in a records closet on the 3rd floor of the Cook County Building, after several cardboard boxes caught fire. Officials said the fire caused light smoke on the 3rd and 4th floors. The 1st floor lobby and the City Council chamber on the 2nd floor also smelled of smoke after the fire.
The fire was quickly extinguished, and crews opened windows in the building and set up large fans to clear out the smoke.
No one needed serious medical attention.
"All of the other occupants in the building were all safe at that time," CFD Deputy District Chief John Giordano said.
Besides the interruption of the day's City Council meeting, employees in multiple city and county offices also were directed to the lobby, or told to shelter in place.
Lori Wilson had to leave her office, and wasn't allowed back in for about an hour.
"It was fine. You know, everybody was coming down the stairs. So it wasn't really chaos, it's just now getting back in is going to be probably more chaos than coming out," she said.
The City Council meeting resumed after a nearly two-hour recess as firefighters put out the fire and made sure the building was safe for everyone to return.
The cause of the fire was under investigation Wednesday afternoon.
Mayor Brandon Johnson originally was set to take questions from the press after Wednesday's council meeting, as he usually does, but the briefing was cancelled after the fire. The mayor is seeking to pass his revised budget plan on Friday, and before the fire, the council took a routine procedural step to set up that vote.
However, aldermen said it remains unclear if Johnson will have the 26 votes he needs on Friday to pass his budget plan, including a $68.5 million property tax hike, and $165 million in other tax increases.
