Firefighters: Elgin blaze in former car wash may have been caused by resident

A mattress and some clothes caught fire Monday inside a closed car in Elgin, and firefighters believe someone might have been living there.

Firefighters responded at 11:50 a.m. to the former Kar Kare Car Wash, 1465 Main Lane, after getting a call that heavy black smoke was coming from the back of the building.

No one was in the building and the fire was extinguished in about 15 minutes.

Fire Chief Dave Schmidt said the fire affected one of the car wash bays, which also contained car tires, beer cans and "odds and ends."

"It was either storage or someone was living there," he said. "There was a cornucopia of things."

The damage was estimated at about $5,000; the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

The car wash, which has been closed for three or four years, will be condemned - meaning nobody can enter the facility and it cannot be used - unless a remaining mattress is removed by Wednesday, said Vince Cuchetto, code enforcement manager for the city.

The city has intervened in the past because the building contained debris, but never anything of this magnitude, he said.