Date | August 26, 2018 |
---|---|
Time | 03:00 CDT |
Duration | 60-70 minutes [1] |
Location | Little Village, Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
Type | Structure fire |
Outcome |
|
Casualties | |
10 deaths |
On August 26, 2018, a fire began early that morning in Chicago's Mexican-American Little Village neighborhood. The fire killed ten children, including six children under the age of 12. [2]
The fire is the deadliest residential fire to have occurred in Chicago since 1958. [3] In the aftermath of the fire, multiple violations were found in the apartment where the fire occurred with apartment owner, Merced Gutierrez, appearing in court for the 40 violations found at the site of the fire.
On February 22, 2017, a fire occurred in a vacant first-floor apartment at the end of the building, leaving no injuries. [4] In March 2018, Illinois's Department of Children and Family Services investigated a hotline call that claimed that the apartment was hazardous and smelled of marijuana. [5]
The fire started at around 3 a.m. CDT on August 26, 2018, at an apartment building at 2200 block of South Sacramento Avenue. 45 minutes later, a witness called 911 at 3:45 a.m. to report the fire, which was causing flames to erupt from the second-floor rear unit. [4] [5] Children from the ages of 3 months to 16 years, were at a sleepover in the apartment at the time of the fire had occurred. [5]
The investigation by the Chicago Fire Department indicated that the fire was the result of a destroyed item from the fire in the apartment later that morning. [4] Arson and foul play were not considered factors. [2] [4] No adults were present in the apartment during the fire. [2]
The exact cause to the fire was unknown at the time investigation began. [5] Eight children died immediately in the fire while two were hospitalized under critical condition at the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County and died in the following days. [6]
Fire officials initially said that no smoke detectors were detected in the second-floor rear unit, but they changed their statements and found a smoke detector without batteries. [4]
Many criticized the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as they were previously alerted for the building's hazardous state. [5] In a statement, the department said it tried to prevent neglect when investigating struggling families. [5] In months before the fire, there were 21 complaints against a mother of one of the victims, with one complaint being verified in 2015. [5] The mother was cited for endangerment after one of her daughters committed a crime with an infant relative. [5]
A memorial service for six of the children was held on September 1 at Our Lady of Tepeyac Church. [5]
The Chicago Fire Department handed out smoke detectors to the neighborhood while raising awareness of using the devices to prevent deadly fires. [8]
Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a statement regarding the fire said: "Our thoughts go out to not only the families of those who perished but to members of the department who pushed as hard as possible to reverse the deadly fate of the eight who are now gone". [9]
The owner of the apartment, 80 year old Merced Gutierrez, was criticized and blamed for the fire for causing many violations at the apartment. [3] As a result of the violations, Gutierrez appeared in court on August 30 and was ordered to no longer rent anyone the apartment. [8] The city will conduct another inspection on December 4 with another hearing on the code violations is set two days later. [8]
A smoke detector is a device that senses smoke, typically as an indicator of fire. Smoke detectors/Alarms are usually housed in plastic enclosures, typically shaped like a disk about 150 millimetres (6 in) in diameter and 25 millimetres (1 in) thick, but shape and size vary. Smoke can be detected either optically (photoelectric) or by physical process (ionization). Detectors may use one or both sensing methods. Sensitive alarms can be used to detect and deter smoking in banned areas. Smoke detectors in large commercial and industrial buildings are usually connected to a central fire alarm system.
ValuJet Airlines Flight 592 was a regularly scheduled flight from Miami to Atlanta. On May 11, 1996, the ValuJet Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9 operating the route crashed into the Everglades about 10 minutes after departing Miami as a result of a fire in the cargo compartment possibly caused by mislabeled and improperly stored hazardous cargo. All 110 people on board were killed. The airline already had a poor safety record before the crash, and the accident brought widespread attention to the airline's problems. ValuJet's fleet was grounded for several months after the accident. When operations resumed, the airline was unable to attract as many customers as it had before the accident. It acquired AirTran Airways in 1997, but the lingering damage to the ValuJet name led its executives to assume the AirTran name. It is the deadliest plane crash in Florida as of 2024.
South Lawndale is a community area on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. Over 80% of the residents are of Mexican descent and the community is home to the largest foreign-born Mexican population in Chicago.
Fire prevention is a function of many fire departments. The goal of fire prevention is to educate the public on the precautions that should be taken to prevent potentially harmful fires from occurring. It is a proactive method of preventing fire-based emergencies and reducing the damage caused by them. Fire prevention education can take the form of videos, pamphlets, and banners. Often, the messages and lessons are simple tips. Many fire departments will have one or more Fire Prevention Officers, which may also be a routine duty of firefighters.
A blech is a metal sheet used by many observant Jews to cover stovetop burners on Shabbos, as part of the precautions taken to avoid violating the halachic prohibition against cooking on the Sabbath.
The Wincrest Nursing Home fire took place on Friday, January 30, 1976, in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The fire occurred when an arsonist set a wardrobe closet on fire at the Wincrest Nursing Home building, located at 6326 N. Winthrop Avenue. The alarm sounded at 11:30 a.m. and the fire was put out at 1:30 p.m. Although the building itself sustained minor smoke, fire and water damage, 23 people died from smoke inhalation. A 21-year-old housekeeper was arrested by authorities and was charged with multiple counts of arson.
The 2013 Serendra explosion was an explosion that occurred in the Two Serendra condominium complex occurred in Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines. The explosion killed at least 3 people, and another 5 were injured in the area.
The Southwest Inn fire in Houston, Texas on May 31, 2013 was a fire in an Indian restaurant that spread to an adjoining hotel. The fire claimed the biggest casualty loss for the Houston Fire Department since its inception. Four firefighters were killed and 13 others were injured that day while fighting the five-alarm fire at the Southwest Inn located in Southwest Houston. On March 7, 2017, Captain Bill Dowling, who lost both his legs battling the fire in 2013, died of complications from his line-of-duty injuries.
The Burning Room is the 27th novel by American crime author Michael Connelly, and the seventeenth novel featuring Los Angeles Police Department detective Harry Bosch. The book was published by Little, Brown and Company on November 3, 2014.
On December 2, 2016, at about 11:20 p.m. PST, a fire started in a former warehouse that had been unlawfully converted into an artist collective with living spaces in Oakland, California which was hosting a concert with 80-100 attendees. The blaze killed 36 people, making it the deadliest fire in the history of Oakland. The building, located in the Fruitvale neighbourhood, was only zoned for industrial purposes, and residential and entertainment uses were prohibited. It was also the deadliest building fire in the United States since The Station nightclub fire in 2003, the deadliest in California since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the deadliest mass-casualty event in Oakland since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
On 25 March 2018 at 16:00 local time, a fire engulfed the "Zimnyaya vishnya" shopping mall and entertainment complex in Kemerovo, Russia. It killed at least 60 people according to official statements. The blaze started somewhere on the top floor of the four-story complex, and people were seen jumping from windows to escape it. 100 people were evacuated, and another 20 were rescued. Others claim the number of people killed in fire is being covered up, and that the real figure runs into the hundreds. According to the Russian authorities, the source of these rumors was a Ukrainian prankster who called the morgue posing as an emergency services officer. In 2018, he uploaded recordings of these calls to his YouTube channel and confirmed the calls during subsequent interviews.
On the night of December 28, 2017, a fire tore through an apartment building in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Thirteen people died, and fourteen others were injured. At the time, it was the city's deadliest fire in 25 years, being surpassed a little over four years later by another apartment fire in the Bronx that killed seventeen people.
The sinking of MV Conception occurred on September 2, 2019, when the 75-foot (23 m) dive boat caught fire and eventually sank off the coast of Santa Cruz Island, California, United States. The boat was anchored overnight at Platts Harbor, a small undeveloped bay on the island's north shore, with 33 passengers and 1 crew member asleep below decks when a fire broke out shortly after 3 a.m. Five crew members, whose sleeping quarters were on the top deck, survived while everyone else on board died. The crew members were forced by the fire to jump overboard but not before placing an initial mayday call to the Coast Guard and attempting to alert the passengers. The crew retrieved the Conception's skiff and motored to a nearby boat where a second radio dispatch was made. The rescue and recovery operations were coordinated by the United States Coast Guard.
The Chicago Police Board voted on October 17, 2019 to dismiss Chicago Police (CPD) Officer Robert Rialmo who fatally shot Quintonio LeGrier and neighbor Bettie Jones on December 26, 2015 while answering a 911 domestic violence call at the LeGrier residence in Chicago. The dismissal capped a "chaotic finish to a high-profile trial" where a judge first announced that the jury found Rialmo unjustified in his shooting of LeGrier, but erased the verdict promptly, after declaring that the jury found Rialmo feared for his life when he shot LeGrier.
On March 29, 2021, Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old Latino American boy, was shot and killed by Chicago Police Department (CPD) officer Eric Stillman in the Little Village neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago at 2:38am local time.
The Alpine Motel Apartments fire occurred in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, on December 21, 2019. The three-story building, constructed in 1972, had failed several fire inspections and received numerous code enforcement complaints in the years prior to the fire. Some residents did not have working heaters and were using their kitchen stoves for warmth, which led to the fire. It killed six residents and injured 13 others. It is the deadliest fire to occur in Las Vegas city limits. As a result, the city increased its inspections of older apartment buildings.
In the early morning hours of 14 October 2021, at 02:54 NST (UTC+8), a fire broke out in a 13-storey building at Fubei Road in Yancheng District, Kaohsiung, a city in southwestern Taiwan. At least 46 people were killed, and 41 others were injured. The fire was extinguished after about four and a half hours. The cause of the fire is under investigation, although piles of debris left around the building may have complicated rescue efforts and helped fuel the fire.
On the morning of January 5, 2022, a fire tore through a row house converted into apartments in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Twelve people died, nine of them children, and two others were injured. Five additional people escaped from the first floor unit with minor injuries. The fire happened just four days before the 2022 Bronx apartment fire, also in the Northeastern United States.
On the morning of January 9, 2022, a high-rise fire killed seventeen people, including eight children, at the Twin Parks North West, Site 4, high-rise apartment building in the Bronx, New York City, United States. Forty-four people were injured, and thirty-two with life-threatening injuries were sent to five different borough hospitals. Fifteen were in critical condition the day after the fire.
On 24 November 2022, a fire broke out in a residential high-rise apartment building in a Uyghur-majority neighborhood in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, PRC. Local authorities reported ten people, all Uyghurs, were dead and an additional nine were injured, though some raised concerns of underreporting. Journalists raised questions of whether Beijing's strict enforcement of the zero-COVID policy prevented residents from leaving the building or interfered with the efforts of firefighters. PRC authorities have denied these claims. The fire has been called a trigger of protests in several cities across China and in several other countries targeting the PRC government's zero-COVID policy, but in several instances also called for an end to Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s one-party rule and for general secretary Xi Jinping to step down.