CTA bus driver, passenger spring into action to help residents escape South Side fire
CHICAGO — The quick actions of a CTA bus driver and passenger helped residents escape burning homes on the South Side apparently unscathed overnight.
According to Chicago police, officers responded to a residential fire in the 8000 block of South Shore Drive just after 2 a.m. Monday, where two homes were on fire. When firefighters arrived, flames were shooting from the roof of one of the homes and out of an upstairs window.
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Meanwhile, the driver of a CTA bus and one of his passengers spotted the flames from about a block away and rushed into the homes to wake up residents and get them outside, where they were put on the bus. The passenger said some of those caught in the fire were children.
“Kids, grandparents, (they were) in one house,” Chris Campbell, the CTA passenger, told WGN-TV. “We went to a second house, woke them up. Went to a third house, got them up.
“The bus driver took them, we got them out of the house, got them away from the fire, put them on the bus.”
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One woman, who escaped the fire with her two children, spoke to WGN-TV
“I saw a fireball at the top of my ceiling, in my kitchen,” the woman said. “… I have an enclosed back porch. It was all fire, just red.
“I just told my kids, ‘Get up, get up, get up, get up.'”
Residents say the fire started in the back of one home and spread to the house next door. A third house was also damaged.
Neighbor John Gabrysiak told WGN-TV he observed a fire on the roof next door from his back kitchen window when he woke up, and it spread from there.
“It definitely got worse afterwards,” Gabrysiak said.
The Chicago Fire Department was on scene until about 5 a.m. Monday chasing hotspots, but fire officials say nobody was injured. They said at least 10 people were displaced by the fire, ranging in age from three to 90.
This was also the second straight day firefighters went to this address. Neighbors say the garage in the alley behind the home where Monday’s fire started had previously burned down.
“(Sunday) morning, a little after 2 o’clock in the morning, I heard some loud popping sounds,” Gabrysiak said. “When I looked out my back window, the garage there was fully engulfed in flames and the electric wires were popping all over the place.”
Investigators have not determined what caused Monday’s early-morning fire, or if it was connected to the garage fire before it.
Meanwhile, the Red Cross is helping residents displaced by Monday’s fire find places to live.
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