His mother tried rescue to the boy from the second-floor bedroom where a small fire started, but was unable to and escaped with burns to her body, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
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Relatives are overcome with emotion as they are confronted with police tape around the home, where just hours earlier 2-year-old Ace Jackson died when the fire broke out in his second-floor room. His mother and two other relatives were downstairs.
"All chaos broke out," said the boy's uncle, Andre Becker. "They ran out and tried to go back in to get him but they were overcome by smoke."
Firefighters were called to the home in the 12200 block of Lafayette Avenue about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. They said the fire began on the second floor of the single-family house and was possibly sparked by a space heater plugged into an extension cord, which may have overheated.
"Then it just bursts into flames without much warning. We don't know for sure this is the space heater cord but they're concentrating on it now," said Larry Langford with Chicago Fire Department.
CFD cautions people not to use extension cords with space heaters. They say the house had smoke detectors but they were apparently not working.
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"The people on the first floor may not have known the fire was going on. A smoke detector could have warned them and resulted in a different outcome," Langford said.
Becker said they are a close family who were just lost his grandmother to COVID last month.
"Days away from Christmas. Not a lot to celebrate now," he said.
Jackson would have turned 3-years-old next month, the family says. His mother was also taken to the hospital with burns to her feet.
Firefighters said they will be out in the neighborhood Wednesday to distribute smoke detectors.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this post.