Laundry room fire damages Naperville townhouse

The laundry room of a second-story townhouse in Naperville caught fire Thursday evening, displacing two residents and causing an estimated $80,000 damage, authorities said Friday.

A townhouse resident in the 2500 block of Oneida Lane called 911 about 5:10 p.m. to report smoke beginning to fill the six-unit building, authorities said.

The first firefighters arriving at 5:16 p.m. saw smoke and found the townhouses had been evacuated. Entering the building on the northwest side of town, they found the fire in a laundry room and extinguished it relatively quickly. Firefighters said they stayed on scene for another hour to vent smoke and assess damage.

Bureau Chief Mark Thurow of the Naperville Fire Department said heat and fire damage was contained to the laundry room and a hallway of the second-story unit where the fire started. The rest of that unit suffered moderate smoke damage.

Firefighters removed the windows and utilities had to be cut off, so Thurow said the unit was deemed uninhabitable, displacing two people.

The townhouse below the one hit by fire suffered water damage and another unit had a broken window, Thurow said, but the remaining five units in the building remain habitable.

No injuries were reported.