'It was extensive:' Suburban family displaced after fire destroys home on Thanksgiving morning
PARK RIDGE, Ill. — A suburban family is picking up the pieces after their home erupted into flames on Thanksgiving morning.
The fire broke out just after 8 a.m. at the two-story home, located near Gillick Street & South Fairview Avenue, in Park Ridge.
The flames then spread, causing a great deal of damage, fire officials said.
“It was extensive. There was, you know, fire on multiple levels of the house. So it is, there’s extensive damage to the home. It’s certainly not habitable,” Jeff Sorensen, the Fire Chief for the City of Park Ridge, said.
According to Sorensen, the blaze began in the rear of the home and crews faced significant challenges while working to get it under control.
Sorensen said that crews had received multiple reports that there were victims inside the home, making it difficult for them to search the home and extinguish the blaze.
“Immediately we began searches on all levels of the home. They are searching for people and they are also doing a fire attack. So there are two things going on right at once. It required a lot of resources,” Sorensen said.
Eventually, nearby departments were called in to help.
“This eventually went to a box alarm, which brings yet more additional communities, so you are looking at probably 12 to 15 communities that responded to help us neighboring fire departments. Also, we were being cautious, we wanted to make sure we had the resources in case we started finding victims and needed to get them out of here quickly,” Sorensen said.
While crews did find signs of potential victims, they soon learned that nobody was home.
“We also had cars in the driveway so that’s usually an indicator in an early morning fire that you have people home, especially on a holiday,” Sorensen said. “It’s very stressful on the crews, especially when you go multiple minutes, they probably went 15-20 minutes thinking they had victims, they just weren’t finding them.”
According to Sorensen, the home did have working smoke alarms.
“In the end, no victims, no fatalities, no injuries to any civilians or to any of our fire personnel, which is great, especially on Thanksgiving,” Sorensen said.
By the afternoon hours, a GoFundMe fundraiser had been set up on behalf of the impacted family, who lost everything in the fire.
The cause of the fire remains undetermined and an investigation is ongoing.
