Chicago apartment fire kills four children trapped inside
A fire that ripped through an apartment building on Chicago’s south side Monday killed four children trapped inside and injured their mother and her boyfriend as they jumped from a window to escape the flames, officials said.
The siblings ranged in age from 5 to 16 years old, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told The Times. One of them, a 16-year-old girl, was found in a bedroom apparently trying to shield one of the younger children.
The other children are believed to be a 5-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy.
The fire started about 3:25 a.m. in a second-story apartment, in the back of the building, spreading down the hall and up a stairwell to the family’s home, officials said.
The fast-moving blaze ripped through the brick building, blowing out the windows.
“It was like a blowtorch,” Langford told The Times. “There was a lot of flame.”
Langford said crews were on the scene within three minutes of receiving the call, and were able to knock down the fire in about 10 minutes.
The mother, 31, and her boyfriend jumped from a third-story window, narrowly escaping the blaze. The woman suffered several broken bones, Langford said, but her injuries are not life-threatening. The woman’s boyfriend is in critical condition at a nearby hospital, and suffered smoke inhalation, Langford said.
It’s still unclear whether the man was the father of any of the children.
About 35 other residents escaped the building and are now displaced, he said.
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