A 5-year-old boy and his grandfather were killed in a fire at a home in suburban Cicero early Tuesday, according to fire officials and the victims' family.
Authorities said the fire began at around 12 a.m. at an apartment building in the 4700 block of West 12th Place in Cicero.
Firefighters arrived on the scene to find the whole building in flames from top to bottom, whipping through the back with the stairwell fully engulfed, leaving them unable to get inside to rescue the victims, Cicero Fire Chief Dominick Buscemi said.
Others in the two-unit building escaped on their own, according to Buscemi, who said flames gutted the entire building and left four to five other people displaced.
The two victims were a 5-year-old boy identified as David Castellanos III and an elderly man identified as David Castellanos, who were found in the same unit, fire officials said. A relative at the scene identified the two as a boy and his grandfather.
The blaze was still burning but under control as of 3:30 a.m., Buscemi said, adding that windy conditions made fighting the fire more difficult.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation Tuesday, officials said.
