One man is dead and more than two dozen others are displaced after a massive blaze spread to multiple homes on Chicago's West Side Thursday morning.
The fire sparked just before 3 a.m. in an abandoned building in the 1800 block of South Drake in the city's Lawndale neighborhood, authorities said.
The fire consumed the basement and first floor of the abandoned building but quickly spread to the back porches of two neighboring dwellings.
Inside one building were six adults and six children and in another were nine adults and five children.
All residents in the nearby homes were evacuated safely, but a man's body was found in a bedroom inside the abandoned building following the blaze.
Fire officials said one man was also found sleeping during a search in one of the neighboring homes, but they were able to wake him up and get him out unharmed. He was checked by paramedics at the scene and released.
Initially, firefighters rushed to the wrong block after a caller reported a garage fire in the area, authorities said.
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The cause of the fire remains unclear but investigators said the scene is being treated as a crime scene as of Thursday morning.
