Eight people ranging in age from 3 months to 16 years died Sunday when a fire blazed through a home during a sleepover in Chicago, according to multiple reports.
Update 10:45 a.m. EDT Aug. 27: The fire, reported early Sunday at a home in Little Village, is the deadliest blaze in Chicago in more than a decade, fire department spokesman Larry Langford told The Chicago Tribune.
Officials said Saturday that firefighters found no working smoke detectors in the home.
"It was not hard to get out. The fire started in the rear, and the entryway to the front was wide open," Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told the Tribune. "Had they been awake or if someone had woken them, they would have gotten out."
Marcos Contreras, 15, told the Tribune his sister woke him Sunday to alert him to the fire, which happened at a home that some of his siblings and cousins were visiting for a sleepover.
"By the time we got here, the whole house was on fire," Marcos told the Tribune. "They were taking out my cousins and my brothers. ... I don't even got words to explain the pain I'm feeling right now. ... It just feels like my whole world is crashing."
Authorities have not released the names of the people killed in the fire. Family members told WLS-TV the victims came from at least two families and ranged in age from 3 months to 16 years.
Fire officials said Sunday that investigators determined the blaze started on an enclosed porch at the back of the building. Authorities are still investigating to determine what sparked the fire.
Original report: According to CNN, officials with the Chicago Fire Department said one of the dead was a baby. Two children and a firefighter also were being treated for injuries at a nearby hospital, authorities said. The firefighter was in good condition, WGN reported. One teen and an adult were in critical condition, the television station reported.
Fire officials, who said the home had no smoke detectors, were still investigating what caused the fire.
Firefighters were called just before 4 a.m., Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt said. The blaze consumed at least two buildings, according to The Chicago Tribune. The blaze was brought under control by 5:10 a.m., WLS reported.
Merritt said that all of the people killed and injured were all taken from the same residence, the Tribune reported.
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