According to fire investigators, the fire that ripped through a Palatine condo complex was accidental and may have been started by a cigarette on a balcony.
According to the Daily Herald, ABC7 Chicago’s news partner, investigators used a drone to inspect parts of the charred building due to structural safety concerns.
Last week’s fire severely damaged 22 condo units, evicting the residents.
Several people were displaced after a fire ripped through the northwest suburban apartment complex earlier this month, causing part of the roof to collapse.
According to the Red Cross, 50 to 60 people were displaced, but no one was injured in the fire, which began shortly after 5 p.m. on March 19.
“It’s awful,” witness Sarah Martinez said. “It’s going to affect many families in the area and we are very sad for them.”
As nearby residents watched the wreckage, billowing black smoke filled the skies.
The building’s exterior was left in shambles.
Flames spread from building 12A to 12B Dundee Quarter, which are attached three-story buildings with a fire separation between them, according to Palatine Fire Department Deputy Chief Anthony Lavacchi.
As people’s bedrooms burned and their belongings were destroyed, you could see right into their units.
“It’s devastating. You can see in that one,” Bustamante said. “You can literally see the actual closet, the rooms inside. It hurts.”
The apartment complex has several nearby buildings. According to neighbors, this isn’t the first fire in the area.
“This is the third building that burned down in this area,” said Eric Lopez, who lives nearby. “They seem not to be able to get it under control. There’s another building on the other side that’s burnt up.”
A donation drive was underway to collect items for fire-displaced families.
Organ donation will take place for the family members of a Chicago fireman who passed away following a fire on the city’s Northwest Side, a CFD source said.
Emory Day-Stewart, a 2-year-old firefighter, and Autumn Day-Stewart, a 9-year-old, both passed away on Friday, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Summer Day-Stewart, the firefighter’s 36-year-old wife, and Ezra Stewart, his 7-year-old son, both passed away this week.
According to a fire department source, Stewart consented to give the organs of all four members of his family so that people who require transplants can survive.
According to the source, the fire department initially let other members know whether someone needed a gift.
According to fire officials and a spokesman for Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2, Stewart, a firefighter-EMT with the department for almost three years, learned of a fire at his Montclare home in the 2500-block of North Rutherford Avenue around 9 p.m. on Tuesday while working on Truck 55 in Old Norwood Park.
A battalion chief hurried Stewart home, where he attempted CPR on his wife.
According to fire officials, the home’s kitchen was where the fire began.
According to the medical examiner’s office, smoke inhalation injuries caused Emory and Autumn to pass away.
For Stewart’s family, the firefighters’ union is accepting donations at classy.org/give/473700.
The deceased’s family posted pictures of them online.
(Source: Chicago Sun-Times 2023, Sun-Times Media Wire, Copyright.)
A house fire on Chicago’s Northwest Side on Tuesday night critically injured the wife and three children of an on-duty Chicago firefighter.
The fire broke out shortly after 9 p.m. in the 2500 block of North Rutherford Avenue, according to Chicago police.
Firefighters rescued a 34-year-old woman, two young girls, ages 2 and 7, and a 7-year-old boy who had all been exposed to smoke.
Stroger Hospital received an adult and two children.
According to Chicago fire officials, another child was transported to Community First Hospital.
According to CFD spokesman Larry Langford, the fire occurred at the home of an active Chicago firefighter who was on-duty at the time of the blaze.
According to Langford, the firefighter rushed to the scene after hearing his own address over the scanner.
A neighbor reported hearing a loud bang and looking out the window to see the house completely engulfed in flames. That’s when he called for assistance.
“I know there’s three children in the house and a mother,” John M. said.
The home’s damage was visible early Wednesday morning.
Fire inspectors have arrived to determine the cause of the fire.
A man was taken to the hospital with serious injuries after a house fire in McHenry early Saturday morning.
The fire was reported just after midnight in the 600 block of Meadow Road, according to a news release from the McHenry Township Fire Protection District.
Firefighters report that traffic is closed at Ashland Avenue. An update from Chicago Fire Media states that the fire has been extinguished. Firefighters are working to extinguish the flames coming from a residence.
Around 10:06 a.m. Wednesday, January 25, 2023, Chicago police, firefighters, and paramedics responded to a report of a high-rise apartment building fire at 4850 South Lake Park Chicago — Harper Square Co-Operative.
At least five people were hurt (Code Yellow and Code Green for two initially). According to firefighters, two people were injured and are receiving medical treatment as a result of the EMS Plan 1 response. Over and above the EMS Plan 1 response, two additional ambulances were requested to the scene.
The fire department issued a warning about debris falling from the upper floors.
Still and Box, as well as EMS Plan 1, arrived at 10:11 a.m.
2-11 Alarm at 10:23 a.m. on orders of 2-2-1.
3-11 Alarm on 2-1-10 orders at 10:45 a.m.
4-11 Alarm on 2-1-10 orders at 11:17 a.m.
At 10:47 a.m., EMS Plan 2 was activated.
All ambulance crews with equipment assigned to respond to the lobby.
Residents are being rescued from apartments on the floors above the fire, which could be the 15th and 16th floors. Residents on floors 17 through 25 are being rescued.
On the 15th floor, there is a fire. According to Chicago Fire Media on Twitter, the fire was under control by 10:40 a.m., but a fire was also reported on the 22nd floor.
An update will be provided Thursday afternoon following a massive fire that broke out at the Carus Chemical plant in La Salle on Wednesday morning. Some of the neighbors are concerned.
The surrounding residential area appears to have been sprayed with chemicals.
Carus has established a hotline for residents of La Salle at (815) 224-6662.
As a precaution, a shelter-in-place order was issued for several hours, but it has since been lifted.
La Salle is located approximately 94 miles southwest of Chicago.
Residents are free to go about their normal lives on Thursday, going to work, school, or just going about their daily routines, while officials investigate what happened.
A video of a fireball during the incident has gone viral on social media.
“I pull up to the stop sign, and hear a loud explosion,” Khaleef Hammad, a witness, said.
When Hammad captured the moment the plant caught fire, he was only a block away.
“Oh it was loud. It was multiple explosions. Not just one, it was quite a few,” he said.
The chemical plant produces potassium permanganate, which is non-combustible but can hasten the combustion of explosive material once ignited.
Residents posted pictures of a substance that had coated their homes, yards, decks, and cars.
“When I hit the windshield wipers, it looked black to me, then it turned green and now it’s like a brown color. And it’s caustic. I know what it is; they know what it is,” said resident Jamie Hicks.
A viewer sent in photos of what she claimed the substance did to her lawn furniture. It appears to be rusted, with a hole eaten through the furniture, which she claims has been there since the fire.
A Carus Chemical representative attempted to reassure residents as firefighters contained and then extinguished the chemical fire.
“Some of the material that was released during the incident is used to as a drinking water material,” Carus Vice President Allen Gibbs explained. “If you come into contact with that material, it can stain your skin. The stain is not harmful to one’s health.
Residents are being warned to avoid the green residue that has been seen in the area. According to the La Salle Police Department, an oxidizer that appears green in color has been released. The substance should not be touched, according to police, and it can be deactivated.
“In order to deactivate it, you will need a 1:1:1 mixture of: 1 gallon of water, 1 gallon of peroxide, 1 gallon of vinegar,” police said.
The mayor of La Salle is thankful as environmental workers monitor the air and water for possible contamination, acknowledging that things could have been worse.
“Thank God (it was a) situation where nobody (was) killed or seriously injured … miracle in itself,” said Mayor Jeff Grove.
One firefighter was slightly injured at the scene of the massive blaze, which broke out around 9 a.m. at the 1500 Eighth St. plant.
A fire broke out at a senior apartment building on Chicago’s Northwest Side, causing three people to be hospitalized.
Around 6:40 a.m. Tuesday, emergency crews were called to the West Byron Place Senior Apartments, located at 2815 West Byron Street. According to officials, a fire was discovered in a fourth-floor apartment and was quickly extinguished.
One person was removed from the unit in critical condition, according to officials.
According to the Chicago Fire Department, firefighters performed CPR on the scene before transporting the victim to the street level, where medics continued to work to save her life. She was then taken to a nearby hospital.
The fire department stated that they canvassed the building to ensure that no other residents required assistance following the fire.
The building, according to officials, had operational fire detectors.
The cause of the fire is still being investigated.
Instead of waking up to gifts and holiday cheer, one family’s Christmas morning was ruined by a fire, leaving them without a place to stay for the holidays.
It happened in Cicero at a duplex apartment on 29th Place near 50th Court.
Their belongings are still scattered on the icy ground after a family of five, with one more on the way, was forced to flee their home of more than a decade and watch it burn on a cold Christmas morning.
“They were looking forward to Christmas, especially my 3-year-old,” Julio Avila said.
Avila was about to start a holiday tradition with his family when he realized he’d soon be preparing to save their lives instead.
“I told my wife, ‘wake up, so we can start wrapping up the presents,'” Avila explained. “Like, 15 minutes later, that’s when my middle child is the one who told me, ‘Dad, something’s on fire!'”
They were still wrapped in some of the same clothes they were wearing when the fire ripped through their second-floor Cicero apartment, sending them into the frigid cold as years of memories and Christmas gifts burned.
“Her baptism dresses, her first communion dresses, stuff that can’t be replaced, you know?” Avila stated.
He claimed that the fire started in the basement of the duplex, just below his daughters’ bedroom, and that the entire structure was destroyed. The family is now homeless because his wife is about to give birth to their first child.
“We had everything already set for the baby upstairs, and I think we have to start all over again because everything got damaged,” Avila explained.
But the patriarch of the family remains strong, planning to make more memories with the one Christmas miracle that remains: their lives.
“You know, we haven’t really celebrated Christmas yet. I’m just trying to settle in, and we might do Christmas another day, you know?” Avila stated.
Avila stated that another family on the first floor was also displaced.
The fire’s origin is still being investigated.
Avila’s brother set up a GoFundMe page for the family, which had raised more than $3,000 as of Monday evening.
According to the Chicago Fire Department, an extra-alarm house fire in the city’s South Austin neighborhood on Christmas Eve Saturday displaced at least 12 people.
The fire broke out shortly after 5 a.m. in a two-story home on the West Side near Leamington and Ferdinand, according to officials.
According to the fire department, no injuries were reported.
The cause of the fire is being investigated.
The American Red Cross of Greater Chicago is on the scene to assist those who have been displaced.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office announced Sunday that Joseph Kromelis, the famed “Walking Man” of downtown Chicago, died nearly seven months after an attacker set him on fire.
Kromelis, 75, was a well-known figure in downtown Chicago.
He was known as the “Walking Man” because he was frequently seen walking around the area.
He was critically injured in May while sleeping on the ground near Kinzie Street and Lower Wabash Avenue.
Someone doused him in flammable liquid and set him ablaze.
Following the attack, Joseph Guardia was charged with attempted murder and arson.
Tuesday morning, Chicago fire crews are battling a massive fire in an apartment building in the city’s South Side Hyde Park neighborhood.
On December 6, 2022, Chicago firefighters respond to a 3-alarm fire in a 4-story residential building in the 5100 block of S. Kenwood Ave.
As early as 4:30 a.m., large flames and heavy smoke could be seen coming from a four-story apartment building in the 5100 block of South Kenwood Avenue.
According to Chicago police, a woman was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition following the incident, which occurred around 3:30 a.m.
5130 South Kendwood 2 -11 alarm. 4 story, residential 4 lines on fire. Cfd on scene. 1 victim at this time. pic.twitter.com/PnFKzN2jf2
Those in the burning building as well as those in nearby buildings were asked to leave their homes early Tuesday.
“Something jolted me awake, and I heard fire engines approaching, and people knocking on doors, saying, ‘fire, fire, gotta get out.’ ‘Get out of the building, the building is on fire,’ someone on the street yelled “Ryan Winters, a neighbor, stated.
On December 6, 2022, Chicago firefighters respond to a 3-alarm fire in a 4-story residential building in the 5100 block of S. Kenwood Ave.
According to Chicago fire officials, approximately 250 firefighters are on the scene.
“I woke up about 4 o’clock to noise in the backyard, and I looked out to see someone chopping down the wooden fence between the properties,” said neighbor Joan Allison.
On December 6, 2022, Chicago firefighters work to extinguish an extra-alarm blaze in a four-story residential building in Hyde Park.
There are some street closures in the area as crews work to extinguish the raging fire, which had grown in size by 6:30 a.m., with flames and heavy smoke billowing from the building’s roof.
Hoarding conditions, according to Chicago Fire Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt, made it difficult for firefighters to access the fire early on.
On December 6, 2022, Chicago firefighters pour water on a blaze in a four-story apartment building in Hyde Park that injured a resident.
Firefighters are on the defensive after the building’s roof caved in, Nance-Holt said at a press conference around 7 a.m.
“We’re pouring tons of water on this fire,” she explained. “(Crews have) a lot of work ahead of them.”
According to Nance-Holt, at least eight people have been displaced.
The daughter and sister of a family found slain following a house fire in Southern California spoke out Wednesday at an emotional press conference that featured an update on the investigation from police officials.
“Nobody could have imagined this happening to our family, to my family, especially it just being one day after Thanksgiving,” Michelle Blandin said, wiping away tears. She expressed gratitude to the public for the outpouring of solidarity in the aftermath of the heinous incident.
Blandin paid tribute to her parents, Mark and Sharie Winek, and her sister, Brooke Winek, who were the victims of a triple homicide, according to investigators. Coroner’s office have not published the official causes of death.
Blandin also made a poignant request for help for Brooke Winek’s young girls, who was a single mother.
“For my two young nieces who are now left motherless, we hope that this community can wrap your arms around them and lift them up,” she said. “They have the most difficult journey ahead, as they are minors and they don’t understand everything that has happened.”
Alison Saros, a family acquaintance and former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, informed reporters that the surviving teen victim is still in the custody of Child Protective Services.
“I think the question we all need to ask ourselves isn’t ‘What happened that day or the next day, but why? And what can we do as parents, as community members, as law enforcement, in order to make a difference, to raise awareness for what’s going on.”
Saros expressed gratitude to the numerous law enforcement and fire departments involved in the emergency response and following investigation, as well as the Riverside County district attorney’s office, which she said reached out to the victims’ families to give assistance and support. According to Saros, this assistance included trauma counseling and assistance with burial expenses.
On Tuesday, detectives returned to the location to acquire additional evidence.
“The family is going to have this house boarded up, just for safety reasons,” Ofc explained. Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback stands outside the home on Price Court. “Our detectives wanted to come out here and just to a secondary walkthrough while it was light and not as smoky.”
Detectives collected many bags of evidence Tuesday afternoon, accompanied by family members of the victims. The police did not specify what was discovered.
Austin Edwards, 28, the suspect in the triple-murder case, is accused of luring a 15-year-old girl who lives at the residence into an online relationship, a practice known as catfishing.
Edwards, a newly hired sheriff’s officer in Virginia, is said to have driven all the way across the nation to meet the teen girl.
“He took an oath to protect, and yet he failed to do so,” Blandin said of Edwards. “Instead, he preyed on the most vulnerable.”
The facts leading up to the awful display of violence at the residence are still being investigated, but Edwards is accused of murdering the 15-year-mother old’s and two grandparents and then fleeing the scene with her.
A 911 call from a neighbor alerted authorities to the possibility of the suspect fleeing the scene with the girl; the house caught fire shortly afterwards. Because investigators obtained the suspect’s license plate information from that phone call, they were able to quickly track him down using technology.
Three hours later, he was met by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies and murdered in a shootout.
Detectives have interrogated the teen girl, but they claim they still don’t know how it all started or what Edwards’ objectives were when he drove to California.
“We’re still looking into when he arrived… in Riverside here, but that’s going to take a while,” Railsback said. “We have this whole digital crime scene that we’re going to have to locate, with warrants probably, and sort through to see if there’s anything where he relayed his intentions or his plans.”
Despite how heinous this crime was, Riverside police believe catfishing is a common occurrence.
“The art of catfishing is when you lie about your own persona to entice somebody who wouldn’t normally be attracted to who you really are,” Riverside Det. Robert Olsen explained.
“A lot of these cases will start with the perpetrator actually discussing things with our children that our children are interested in, whether it be music or sports, or television, movies,” he said. “In that process, once they gain trust, they move on to what’s known as grooming.”
Olsen stated that his team has made around 40 charges for online enticement of a minor since June 2020.
“We have arrested women, government officials, celebrities, there are no specific profiles, that’s what makes this crime so difficult (to investigate),” he explained.
Olsen believes that parents must take charge of their children’s safety.
“As soon as you place a smart device in your child’s hand, which nowadays is between 4 and 5 years old,” he says, “you need to make it a habit of theirs to allow you to look through that device whenever you want, because you have the passcode, not them.”
“Because when they become teens now, and they start getting into chat rooms where some of this behavior is really occurring, they won’t become rebellious when you walk up and snatch their tablet out of their hand because you want to see what they’re doing.”
According to investigators, the killings of a husband and wife and their daughter in Riverside were supposedly the result of a catfishing episode involving one of the victims’ teenage daughter.
According to a Riverside Police Department update provided on Sunday, Mark Winek, his wife Sharie Winek, and their 38-year-old daughter Brooke Winek were killed by a guy who was allegedly involved in an internet relationship with Brooke’s adolescent daughter.
Everything happened the day after Thanksgiving.
Officers were dispatched about 11:08 a.m. to do a welfare check on “a young female who appeared distressed” as she got into a Red Kia Soul with a man.
While cops were responding, calls began to come in about a fire a few homes down from where the welfare check originated.
Riverside Fire Department firefighters tried to extinguish the fire and discovered the deaths of all three Winek family members laying on the ground in the front entry way.
“Their bodies were pulled outside where it was determined they were victims of an apparent homicide,” police said in a statement.
A preliminary investigation indicated that the young female identified in the initial welfare check call was an adolescent who resided at the home where the fire broke out, according to police. She was with a man named Austin Lee Edwards, 28, of North Chesterfield, Virginia.
According to detectives, Edwards met the underage girl online “through the common form of online deception known as catfishing.”
According to police, Edwards drove to Riverside from Virginia, where he parked his car in a neighbor’s driveway and strolled to the teen’s house. According to investigators, Edwards enticed the adolescent into an online romance.
“We had a grandmother, grandfather and a mother of this teen murdered by this suspect who traveled from across the country for, most likely, the sexual exploitation of this teenager,” RPD Ofc. Ryan Railsback said on Sunday during an interview with our Los Angeles sister station, ABC7 Eyewitness News. “What happened here in terms of the ‘catfishing’ as they call it … that common practice of, you know, online deception where you’re pretending to be someone else.”
Later that day, Edwards was discovered driving with the teen through San Bernardino County by the county sheriff’s department in the unincorporated town of Kelso.
Deputies shot and killed Edwards after he fired rounds at them, according to police. According to officials, the teen was not wounded and is safe.
According to investigators, Edwards previously worked for the Virginia State Police before joining the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
“Our hearts go out to the Winek family and their loved ones during this time of tremendous grief, as this is a tragedy for all Riversiders,” Riverside Police Chief Larry Gonzalez said. “This is simply another horrifying reminder of the cyber predators who prey on our children. If you haven’t previously discussed online and social media safety with your children, do it now. If you haven’t already, start now to better protect them.”
The precise reason of death for the Winek family is unknown.
The cause of the house fire is still being investigated, while police stated that “it appears at this point to have been intentionally ignited.”
Neighbors told Eyewitness News at a vigil on Saturday that the Winek family was always neighborly and went out of their way to aid the community. The victims’ families were present but refused to speak with the reporters.
Some have expressed their grief.
“I simply want everyone to know how wonderful they were. They do not deserve it. I’m not eating anything. I’m not going to sleep. It just hit me like a ton of bricks “Bonnie Davis, who has lived next door to the Wineks for two decades, agreed. “They were just that type people that you would just never wake up to think that you would hear this of them.”
The vigil was arranged by a woman who only wanted to be identified as Joi, who told Eyewitness News she was new to the Riverside community before hearing the news.
“When I heard that news, I just dropped to my stomach like, ‘What do you mean they didn’t make it?'” she added.
Joi recalls Mark Winek stepping up to assist her after learning she was a single mother. He coached young athletes at Arlington High School, according to a GoFundMe page set up for the family.
“He said right away, ‘I’m going to mow your lawn, I’m going to help you out when you’re not here,'” Joi explained.
Though the victims’ families did not speak directly to Eyewitness News, they did issue a public statement to those who attended the vigil, saying, “Thank you for being here honoring my family and respecting our privacy at this time.”
The family stated that they may issue another statement on Monday.
Anyone with information should contact Detective Josh Ontko at (951) 353-7135 or JOntko@RiversideCA.gov, or Detective Bryan Galbreath at (951) 353-7105 or BGalbreath@RiversideCA.gov.
Video of Officers further advise medics are transporting two people who sustained injuries to a nearby hospital. Emergency personnel advise an officer was transported to a nearby hospital. Two people are currently being assessed by medics on the scene. #MyLifeInTheChi
