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Six children dead in Chicago fire

Posted on: Sunday, 3 September 2006, 10:45 CDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Six children were killed early Sunday morning, and their mother and three siblings seriously injured, when a fire believed to be started by a candle tore through an apartment with no electricity or smoke detectors, authorities said.

Two of the four survivors were in critical condition, local media reported.

The blaze, in the working class Rogers Park neighborhood on the city's north side, started shortly after midnight (O400 GMT), Commander Will Knight of the Chicago Fire Department told Reuters. It remained confined to the third-floor, three-bedroom apartment where the family of 10 lived, he said.

Five of the dead children were aged 3, 3, 6, 10 and 12, said fire commissioner Raymond Orozco in a press conference on Sunday.

Orozco was uncertain of the age of the sixth child who died but local media, citing the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, said she was 16.

"This is obviously a very tragic day for this family," said Orozco, who said the deaths were the most in a Chicago fire in many years.

The first call reporting the blaze came in at 12:18 a.m. (0418 GMT). Within four minutes, fire units were on the scene, where they saw heavy smoke pouring from the top floor.

Knight said the apartment had no electricity or smoke detectors and that investigators found candles throughout the unit.

Tenants in the first and second floors of the brick building were allowed back into their apartments before sunrise.

The medical examiner's office declined to provide a cause of death for any of the six, so it was unclear whether they were killed by smoke inhalation or burns.

Source: REUTERS

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