Two Dead In South Side House Fire
Updated 07/25/11 - 5:01 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Two men died Monday afternoon in a house fire in the Back of the Yards neighborhood when flames blocked the only way in or out of the attic where they were when the fire broke out.
The Fire Department was called to the scene of a fire at 1208 W. 52nd St. at about 1:15 p.m. on Monday, according to a Fire Department spokesperson.
The fire started in a third-floor rear bedroom and spread to the rear porch of the home, blocking the only way in or out of the attic where the two men were later found dead, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said.
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The men, one in his 20s and the other in his 40s, were found during a primary search of the building by firefighters. Firefighters said the two men were already dead when rescue crews reached them.
Langford said they have not found any working smoke detectors, but one resident cried as she told CBS 2's Pamela Jones that she did have a smoke detector in her second floor apartment and it woke her up.
"I was asleep and I heard windows breaking and I thought there was a fire upstairs and when I came down, when I out of the room, all of that smoke was coming into my house. And so I just got up and put my shoes on and ran out of the house," she said.
As of 5 p.m., investigators were still working on finding out what started the fire.
A spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Buildings said that in 2005, the building owners were cited for several building code violations, including no smoke detectors in the interior stairwell or the rear enclosed porch.
