CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -
Firefighters battling a "heavy fire" at an apartment building found an 3-month-old girl dead in a bedroom Wednesday night on the West Side.
The fire started about 5:05 p.m. at a two-story apartment building in the 3100 block of West Franklin Boulevard, Fire Media Affairs spokeswoman Meg Alhleim said. The fire raged in the back of the building in a bedroom on the first floor and then spread to all four apartments.
Trapped inside, 3-month-old Miracle Hooks. Her grandmother, aunt and two siblings were also inside, the two kids in the bathtub when Linda Lewis said she smelled smoke around 5pm. The apartment got real warm she said and so her daughter went to investigate.
"So, she went to my other daughter's bedroom and she opened the door and everything was just burning," explained the baby's grandmother, Linda Lewis. "Couldn't see nothing but flames and she said a baby was in there."
Lewis's hair got burned when she tried to rescue the baby.
"I tried to rush through the fire, but it was so hot it started burning my arm," Lewis continued. "I just came on out. Got the other kids out the front door and called 911."
Firefighters arrived about two minutes later and found "heavy heat and heavy fire" in the rear of the building, Alhleim said. Firefighters found the infant dead in a back bedroom in the first floor apartment.
"They made an aggressive attack," Langford said. "They got into the back as fast as they could, but it was too late."
Investigators found smoke detectors on the first and second floors, but they were not working, according to the Chicago Fire Department. Linda Lewis said she had complained about faulty electrical outlets for years, but couldn't get the landlord to fix them or install smoke detectors. The fire department will pass out smoke detectors around the area Thursday morning, she said.
"We faced a lot of very heavy fire," Langford said. "Enough to melt the smoke detectors off the wall."
Eighteen adults and 12 children were displaced by the blaze, according to officials.
Investigators say the fire was caused by a space heater in the bedroom.
The baby's mother was too upset to talk and family members struggled to cope.
Regina Lewis, the victim's aunt says "there's no words to describe. She was three months. She wasn't here but three months."
The Cook County Medical Examiner's office has been notified of a fatality from the fire, but is not releasing further information as of Wednesday evening, a spokesman said.
The Chicago Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
