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Employees Claim They Found Bottles Apparently Filled With Gas Week Before Mattress Warehouse Fire

CHICAGO (CBS) --The Chicago Fire Department has labeled an extra-alarm fire at a mattress warehouse on the Southwest Side Saturday night as suspicious and police bomb and arson investigators are now a part of the investigation.

CBS 2's Sandra Torres spoke with several employees who say this fire could have been prevented and they claim to know who did it.

The fire began around 8 p.m. Saturday at the four-story mattress warehouse in the intersection of 48th Place and Christiana Avenue. It took three hours for crews to get it under control and two firefighters were hurt.

The employees CBS 2 talked to say a week ago they started smelling gasoline and even showed us pictures they took of bottles filled with what they believe was gasoline near the mattresses.

They say they tried to alert Chicago police and the Chicago Fire Department about it but nothing was done about it.

"We knew what was going to happen because we've seen all the workers from right here putting gas all over, pouring gas, we've seen bottles of gas, we smelled the gas so basically we actually went to the station and let the police know what was going on, what was going to happen but they said there wasn't going to be no case because there was no fire yet," said Jose Cecilio.

The employees say they will speak with police and share their evidence. Police say they are investigating the claims.

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