Two firefighters were hospitalized and nearly a dozen people left without a home Monday after a fire quickly spread across multiple buildings on Chicago’s South Side.
More than 140 firefighters from 30 companies were called to East 76th Street and Drexel to battle a blaze that began just after 1 a.m. in a home in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood.
The home that the fire was sparking in was vacant, police said, but it quickly spread to the neighboring homes on either side where families had been sleeping.
Everyone inside the homes made it out safely, but the heat from the growing flames combined with muggy weather conditions proved to be too much for some firefighters. Two were transported to area hospitals to be treated for minor injuries, including heat exhaustion, officials said.
"These types of fires are very taxing on our bodies,” Chicago Fire Department District Chief Rosalind Jones said.
It took more than two hours for fire crews to put out the fire, police said. The cause is still under investigation.
