Aug. 29--Chicago Police Department arson detectives are investigating a suspicious fire in which two men died Saturday morning on the city's Southwest Side.
According to police, the fire broke out shortly before 10 a.m. at a structure on the 5200 block of South Lorel Avenue in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood, according to Officer Janel Sedevic, a Chicago police spokeswoman. Sedevic said two men were discovered unresponsive inside of the building.
The two men, ages 63 and 26, were the only people in the house at the time, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford. A child also lived in the single-family home, he said, but had stayed somewhere else overnight.
Firefighters responded to the scene after receiving several calls from neighbors alerting them of the fire. They arrived within three minutes and weren't able to gain entry right away, said Paul Foertsch, a fire chief with the department.
The firefighters then fought their way through the heavy volume of fire on the house's first and second floor. Once the flames were controlled, they discovered the victims, Foertsch said.
The 63-year-old man was found on the first floor while the 26-year-old man was found on the second floor near the window, where he was crouched in a position that indicated he was trying to protect himself, Langford said.
"He was probably trying to get to the window but couldn't," Langford said. "The flames had to be just ferocious."
"There was no way they could've saved anybody. Within two minutes, the house was filled with heavy black smoke," said Eric Haak, who lives three blocks from the house and witnessed some of the fire. "There was fire coming out of all the windows and doors. At that point, anyone inside was already deceased."
Fire officials consider the fire to be suspicious, Langford said. He said the burn patterns were interesting, and that it was unusual for a morning fire to go from "first call" status to "fully involved" status in just three minutes.
"Houses don't become fully involved that rapidly unless there's something fueling the fire," he said.
Neither of the victims has been officially identified. Fire officials have not yet determined how or where the fire was started.
The Cook County medical examiner's office said it had been notified of the fire deaths at the Lorel Avenue address.
