A woman died and two others were injured after a Logan Square storefront they had been occupying caught fire Thursday night, according to authorities.
A mattress in a back bedroom of the building, in the 3400 block of West Armitage Avenue, caught fire about 11:40 p.m.
A fire crew arrived four minutes after the first 911 call and entered the front through heavy smoke and found all three “pretty quick,” according to a Chicago Fire Department spokesman.
The woman was taken to Norwegian American Hospital and pronounced dead. She was in her 40s, according to police. The Cook County medical examiner’s office wouldn’t say whether they were notified of a death connected with this incident.
Two others, both men, were taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. One, whose age wasn’t available, is alert and talking. The other, in his 60s, had burns to 30 percent of his body and is now intubated.
The building had been vacant for six months, authorities said, and it appears the three had been illegally occupying the apartment for a few months because of the amount of liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia found by firefighters.
Curt Isakson is a 35 year veteran of the fire service. Curt is currently a Battalion Chief for Escambia County Fire Rescue. Previously worked 9 years with the Pensacola Fire Department where he was assigned as the Company Officer on Rescue 31. Curt’s fire service experiences started at a young age as a Junior firefighter with the Midway Fire Protection District and rose through the ranks to Captain. He has worked in volunteer, career, and combination departments.
Curt has held all ranks up to Battalion Chief and been assigned to operations, training, inspections, and was Chief of Special Operations for 7 years. Curt owns and operates County Fire Tactics that covers a very diverse range of fire service topics, as well as Firefighter Rescues, a site that documents rescues made by firefighters around the country.
He has annual contracts with numerous departments to provide standardized monthly training for these departments that respond daily together under an automatic aid agreement. Curt teaches nationally to include; FDIC, Firehouse Expo, Firehouse World, Orlando Fire Conference, Atlanta Fire Conference, Bowling Green State University, and owns/operates the annual HROC, COBC, WOTF, CFT ODP on Pensacola Beach. He is a Florida Certified Fire Officer, Instructor, Inspector, Arson, and FLUSAR.
