Two women in their 20s were killed Thursday night in a Northwest Side apartment fire that Chicago Fire officials are calling "suspicious."
There were no smoke detectors in the garden apartment on the 4500 block of West Parker Avenue in the Belmont Gardens neighborhood, and authorities weren't notified until the second-floor hallway alarm went off at around 11 p.m.
Firefighters were on the scene in minutes, officials said, and pulled a woman from the apartment, but it was too late. The second woman was found dead inside a short time later. Their identities have not been released.
Firefighters said the building itself was never on fire, but something in the apartment was, so officials are viewing the blaze as suspicious.
Bomb and Arson investigators were on the scene to try and figure out what happened.
Joel Gonzalez, who lives on the second floor, said he's surprised there wasn't an alarm in the garden apartment.
"This building had to have been inspected last week, and all the alarms were up and everything," Gonzalez said. "Everything was fine."
Gonzalez said he thought the women may have been moving out Thursday because neighbors heard a lot of activity and banging.
The women were a couple and both worked and went to school. A man lived in the apartment too, Gonzalez said, but he hasn't been seen in about a week.
"I didn't think it was that big," Gonzalez said of the fire. "I figured, OK, maybe it's just something burning, maybe the kitchen or whatever. To know how big it got and to know there were actually two casualties, that's scary."
