Two people died in a fire at a home near 51st Street and Lorel Avenue on Aug. 29, 2015. (Courtesy Radioman911.com)
By Marwa Eltagouri, Alexandra Chachkevitch and Deanease Williams-Harris
Officials 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 the building.
Chicago Police Department arson detectives are investigating a suspicious fire in which two men died in the morning Aug. 29, 2015, on the city's Southwest Side. (Marwa Eltagouri / Chicago Tribune)
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. They arrived within three minutes and weren't able to gain entry right away, said Chief Paul Foertsch, a district chief with the department.
The firefighters then fought their way through the heavy volume of fire on the house's first and second floors. 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 way 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, the department's response time for this incident.
"Houses don't become fully involved that rapidly unless there's something fueling the fire," he said.
No working detectors were found in the building, according to Langford.
The investigation is being conducted jointly by Chicago Police Department Arson and Area Central Detectives, along with the Chicago Fire Department Office of Fire Investigation, the Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Langford said in a later news release.
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.