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Lombard battles two house fires at once

The fire department in Lombard dealt with two house fires practically at once Sunday afternoon and extinguished both without anyone getting hurt, authorities said.

The fires were reported at 3:03 and 3:33 p.m. at two houses roughly a mile apart, Battalion Chief Ray Kickert said.

The first one, a basement fire on the 200 block of North Stewart Avenue toward the eastern side of Lombard, drew firefighters from both stations to the scene.

First-arriving crews saw smoke and flames coming from a rear door leading to the basement where the fire began, Kickert said. It took them about 15 minutes to put out the flames.

But while Lombard firefighters remained on the Stewart scene, a call came in for the second house fire on the 200 block of North Broadview Avenue on the village's west side.

Stewart said firefighters from other nearby departments led the response to the Broadview fire, which started in the kitchen. It, too, was extinguished in about 15 minutes.

"It's kind of unusual for us to have something like that," Kickert said about the dual fire scenario. "That's why we have the mutual aid in place for departments like this to help each other out."

Residents of both houses had gotten outside safely by the time firefighters arrived, and Kickert said no one was injured in Sunday's blazes. Both houses, however, were deemed uninhabitable.

The department is investigating the cause of both fires.

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