Chicago firefighters respond to the Hyatt Regency Chicago Hotel, where two cars caught fire in the parking garage on Oct. 25, 2012. (Credit: CBS)
Reporting Bob Roberts
CHICAGO (CBS) – Two cars caught fire in the garage beneath the East Tower of the Hyatt Regency Chicago Hotel Wednesday night, temporarily inconveniencing hundreds of hotel guests.
No one was hurt in the smoky fire, which began at about 7 p.m. two floors below the entrance to the garage.
Fire personnel ordered elevators shut down in the east tower of the hotel, at 151 E. Wacker Dr., as they tried to determine if smoke from the garage was making its way into the hotel above it.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Bob Roberts Reports
Once satisfied that the fire was not, Chicago Fire Department Deputy District Chief Steve Chikerotis released the elevators. But he said firefighters had to put out the fire in both cars, then conduct three searches, going car-to-car to make sure no one was hurt or overcome.
“(It’s) probably equivalent to the size of about four football fields full of cars that we had to search,” he said. “There was zero visibility initially and slowly it started lifting.”
Chikerotis said nothing appears suspicious. He said it appears that an electrical fire consumed the first car, and that the flames spread to the second car, which burned in an adjacent space.
