Feeling the Heat, the Fire Stays in Hunt

The Chicago Fire isn’t ready to give up its title yet.

The Fire stayed alive in the MLS Western Conference semifinals with a 4-0 victory over the Dallas Burn before 13,197 Saturday night at Chicago.

Chicago evened the best-of-three series with the deciding game to be played Wednesday night at Dallas.

The Fire, the defending MLS Cup champion, dominated play early, and it paid off when Peter Nowak scored in the 18th minute. Diego Gutierrez sent a pass to Nowak, who was alone in the box, dribbled ahead to his left and sent a shot past Dallas goalkeeper Matt Jordan.

The Burn had a six-game winning streak entering the match but was 0-9 this season when allowing the first goal.

The Fire put the game away with two goals in the last 10 minutes of the first half.

Mark Dodd replaced Jordan in goal at halftime, but he didn’t slow down the Fire, which got a goal from Dema Kovalenko in the 46th minute to round out the scoring.