CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The Chicago Fire Department said Wednesday’s deadly, high-rise fire on the South Side was caused by “careless use of smoking materials.”
Fire officials said the blaze, in which one person was killed and nine others were injured, was the first time in recent memory that they’ve had a high-rise fire spread so fast and so far upward.
“It is a frustrating feeling that the fire is outrunning you,” said Chicago Fire Department Spokesman Larry Langford. “And you’re doing the best you can. You call for more assistance, and then you lose the elevators.”
By the time firefighters made it to the floor where the fire started — the 15th — Langford said the fire was already on the 16th floor.
"And it's moving very rapidly because as it breaks the windows on the floor above, the curtains catch fire, the furniture catches fire and you have another inferno,” he said. “ And you're literally chasing it up to get in front of it, and it's very hard to do."
With the windows breaking so high above the ground, Langford added that the wind was literally fanning the flames. Meanwhile, the elevator that firefighters had been using stopped working. Crews had to walk up to the upper floors with heavy, 200-foot hoses.
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“It’s almost like you’re asking what next is going to happen, and the fire is just taking off, and it’s heading to the roof, and you start getting a feeling that it’s not going to stop until it gets there,” he said. “But you still try.
“You still get all the equipment you can,” Langford continued.. “You get those hoses in line. You try to stop it, make sure you get no lateral spread while you’re trying to stop the vertical spread.”
City records show the building, located at 4850 S. Lake Park Ave. and known as the Harper Square Cooperative, failed every single inspection it had dating back to October 2021.
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