CHICAGO (Chicago Sun Times) – A mayday alert was issued after a vacant apartment in the South Side Gresham neighborhood went up in flames Friday morning, temporarily entrapping a Chicago firefighter and multiple squatters.
At 3:15 a.m., an abandoned duplex in the 7800 block of South Sangamon caught on fire after two women lit candles inside, according to Chicago police and Chicago Fire Department district chief Dan Cunningham. The women, 38 and 41 years old, woke up to the apartment ablaze on its north side.
The mayday was declared when the second floor pancaked onto the first with the fire still ongoing, leading to “a very precarious situation,” Cunningham said. Firefighters were working on the second floor during the collapse, which trapped one in debris for about a minute, but he escaped with no injuries.
