Check out the local report on CNN affiliate WGN-TV.
Chicago (CNN) — Two Chicago firefighters were killed Wednesday and 14 were injured, four of them seriously, while battling a blaze in an abandoned building on the city’s south side, the city’s fire department said.
The fire was reported shortly before 7 a.m. at a commercial building on East 75th Street, said Larry Langford, spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department.
The routine fire call became a multiple-alarm blaze after part of the roof collapsed as firefighters were inside, he said. Four firefighters were trapped after the collapse occurred, and two of them died from their injuries, Langford said.
The building was boarded up in the front but the back was open, leading firefighters to think that homeless people may have sought shelter there, Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff told reporters. The cause of the fire is under investigation, he said.
Firefighters briefly trapped
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The fire in the building’s northeast corner had been brought under control, Hoff said, and firefighters were working on hot spots and “looking for homeless or vagrant people” when the collapse occurred.
A wall of the building collapsed into an alley, Langford said, bringing part of the roof down with it.
A search of the rubble found no one else, Langford said. Heavy equipment was being brought in to take the building apart.
He said it was his understanding that both of the fallen firefighters had children. While the loss of a firefighter is always a tragedy, he said, “it’s been compounded” by the deaths occurring so close to the holidays.
Another firefighter died recently while battling a downtown blaze, he said.
None of the remaining injured firefighters were thought to have life-threatening injuries, he said.
