Officials looking for cause of Antioch fire

Firefighters are trying to determine the cause of a blaze that left an Antioch family homeless.

Antioch Fire Department Lt. Chris Leinhardt said the two people living in the home in the 26300 block of West Prospect Avenue that caught fire Monday evening are staying with family members after it was deemed uninhabitable.

“We are still trying to determine the cause of the fire,” Leinhardt said. “But, at this point, it does not seem suspicious in nature.”

No humans were injured in the fire that roared through the home's crawl space at 5:12 p.m. and onto the first floor, Leinhardt said. Two ferrets and a cat were killed in the fire, he said.

Antioch Fire Chief John Nixon said one of the residents called 911 after noticing the basement on fire.

The first firefighters on the scene found heavy fire showing from the crawl space that had spread to a deck on one side of the two-story wood house, Nixon said.

It took firefighters from seven area departments 45 minutes to bring the blaze under control, he said.

Leinhardt said the blaze caused “significant damage,” and refuted an earlier report that claimed there was $50,000 in damage.

Fire departments from Fox Lake, Round Lake, Lake Villa, Richmond, Trevor, Wis., and Salem, Wis., assisted in fighting the fire.