Firefighter hurt when extra-alarm blaze blasts through furniture store on Chicago's Far South Side
Flames and thick smoke engulfed a furniture store in the Chicago's Roseland neighborhood Thursday night — and a firefighter was briefly unaccounted for.
Thsy firefighter was injured, though not seriously.
The Fire Department was called at 6 p.m. to Elegant Furniture & Linen, a family-owned furniture store at 11243 S. Michigan Ave. When the first battalion chief arrived at the scene, there was only light smoke, according to Deputy Fire Commissioner Brian Helmold.
But soon enough, the skies over Roseland were lit bright with angry flames, as Chicago firefighters worked in freezing temperatures to get control of the fire. The Fire Department went on to raise a 2-11 alarm for additional equipment and manpower.
Furniture store owner Ahmad Zoubi and four workers were inside the store when the fire started.
"I hear some like a thump. Then we go, me and my workers, to see what's going on. We see smoke. Want to try to go to the basement. We can't — bad smoke," said Zoubi, "and the fire come up."
When they opened the door to the basement, Zoubi said the flames overtook the entire business.
"We ran away outside, and that's what happened," he said. "The building gone, and the store."
Zoubi watched in horror as his family-owned furniture business of 13 years went up in flames. The CFD said the mattresses in the basement ignited the fire.
Video taken by witness Alfonso Quiroz showed flames consuming the interior of the store and blasting through the windows.
Firefighters initially went inside the store to battle the fire. But while firefighters were conducting a primary search in that basement full of mattresses, there was a flashover, in which combustible materials all ignite at once.
"All that material in the basement that was flammable lit up," Helmold said.
One firefighter did not make it out before the flashover. He became disoriented, and radioed a mayday call in distress. But CFD members rushed in and got their brother without any serious injury.
"Training paid off today here," Helmold said.
The firefighter went to the hospital briefly, but was not admitted.
Meanwhile, nobody was left inside the building when the flames started raging, so the Fire Department used aerial towers to fight the blaze from a safe distance overhead, Helmold said.
Helmold said the furniture store was an old structure with heavy timbers and wood as part of its construction, and the mattresses and furniture inside — along with the cold air blasting in from outside — made for an especially dangerous situation with the fire.
"That material is all synthetic. It's petroleum-based. Once you bring in that rush—because it's cold, the building's heated—it's going to draw that cold air in," Helmold said. "That's going to help push the intensity of that flame."
Helmold also described the building as architecturally deceiving, dropping 10 feet lower to accommodate three stories in the back and two in the front.
Helmold said the building was a total loss and what was left of it would have to be cleared away.
The fire spread to two other buildings. The owner of the furniture store is grateful he and his workers walked away.
"So sad, it's really bad, yeah," said Zoubi. "What can I say? It's God. Things happen."
