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Four Critically Injured In Lakeview Apartment Fire

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Four people were critically injured in a fire early Friday in the Lakeview neighborhood.

The fire started around 1:50 a.m. at a three-flat in the 3600 block of North Janssen Avenue.

Witnesses said flames were shooting 20 to 30 feet in the air. Firefighters said it likely started on the third floor of the building.

Neighbor Joseph Alfe said he woke up when he heard yelling, and thought someone might be fighting outside.

"So I looked out the window, and seen a gentleman wrapped in a shower curtain, screaming 'Get out!' and that's when I realized that there was something going on, and noticed then behind us that the flames were coming out of the neighboring window, third floor," he said.

Two people jumped from the third floor windows to escape the flames. Two others were rescued by firefighters.

"He jumped from the third floor. I know that there's another woman that jumped from the third floor on the other side onto our garage roof, and … the unit below us, those guys helped her get down," Alfe said.

A woman who lives in the building said the man who jumped out began screaming for others inside to get out. She said, if not for him, the situation might have been much worse.

"My smoke detector didn't go off at that point, so if he hadn't have been screaming, I would have still been sleeping, so thank God that he did that," Jessica Johnson said.

Firefighters were able to put out the blaze in about 30 minutes. A man and a woman were taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition. Another man and woman were taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, also in critical condition.

The Chicago Police Bomb and Arson Unit was investigating the cause of the fire, but police said that is not unusual for a fire of this size.

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