CFD battles extra-alarm fire near Lake Street on West Side; CTA Green Line service resumes
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Chicago Fire Department battled an extra-alarm fire on the West Side Wednesday morning.
Smoke and flames raged out of an industrial building on Lake Street in the city's Austin neighborhood.
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Nearly 130 Chicago firefighters from across the city were brought in to battle the extra-alarm inferno.
"Our first arriving companies did what we call set the stage," CFD District Chief Shun Haynes said. "They did an outstanding job of setting the stage - allowing us to get out tower ladders in position and then positioning our engine companies coming from the east and coming from the west."
District Chief Haynes said the call was made to shut down the CTA's Green Line for hours over concerns for passenger safety.
"We all know Chicago is known as being the Windy City," he said. "At the height of the fire we had a lot of smoke, right? And we didn't want the smoke to shift, you're talking about visibility and smoke possibly filling up our train cars."
Firefighters hammered the fire for hours with thousands of gallons of water from ladder trucks and from hoses attacking the blaze from multiple angles.
"Flames were shooting out the window a good 20, 25 feet and my concern of course was the L tracks that were nearby.," Stephen Cox, who works nearby, said.
Cox works across the street for a landscaping contractor and was on scene 30 minutes after the fire erupted.
He said his immediate concern was for the possibility of the fire spreading to nearby businesses.
"There's stuff stored all along here that can easily catch fire," Cox said. "There's a pallet supply store next to us. People have stacks of pallets and things that can easily catch on fire."
Fire officials said two men were working inside the now torched building and managed to get out safely.
However, at least one person living nearby had to be taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation.
CFD said the cause of the fire was accidental ignition from use of tools during removal of old machinery from the building which used to be a printing plant.
CTA service on the Green Line is back up and running.
