'Get out of the house! There's a fire!' Neighbors tell how they rescued 4 people in Elk Grove

Neighbors say they rescued four people from a house fire Wednesday evening in Elk Grove Village, including an elderly man who lives at the home.

The blaze began shortly after 5 p.m. at a house on the 500 block of Crest Avenue, near the intersection of Ridge Avenue and Landmeier Road. The village said in a Facebook post about 9 p.m. the fire had been extinguished.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation Wednesday, and three people were taken to the hospital for observation, according to the village. There were no life-threatening injuries, officials said.

Neighbors said they saw flames first bursting out of a garage attached to the home. The fire appeared to cause vehicle tires to explode outside, they said.

Brett Tanner said he was mowing the lawn a block down the street when he saw the flames and went to help.

"I tried to get over to the house in time to see if I could find a hose where I could contain it myself," Tanner said. "But it was a fast-moving fire, so then I had to just barge in the house and told everybody to get out."

Jeanine McEnroe, who live across the street, said she came home and noticed "a strange smell" after she began opening windows. She began walking around her house to try to find the source, and then she heard an explosion, she said.

She noticed her neighbor, Tanner, running toward the house, and her husband, Jim, soon noticed the fire himself.

"Jim walked toward the window and was like, Holy cow!'" Jeanine said. He ran toward the home while Jeanine called 911.

"Jim and Brett ran through the front door and started yelling," she said. "They just took off and ran in."

"We were yelling, 'Get out of the house! There's a fire! Get out of the house! There's a fire!'" Jim McEnroe said.

After they got inside, they noticed a man lying on a bed and worked to get him in his wheelchair, Jim McEnroe said. The man's son came down and asked, "What's going on?" They told him about the fire in the garage.

The man's nurse and a teenage girl appeared, and Tanner and McEnroe helped get them out of the house, too. When they all attempted to exit through a side door, smoke from the fire billowed into the home, McEnroe said.

"Our only way out was through the front door," he said. Everyone escaped.

A picture and video made by Jeanine McEnroe showed flames starting in or around the vehicle in the driveway in front of the garage and spreading to the attached house's top floor, with smoke all around. The house and garage were extensively damaged.

"The flames and the amount of smoke was unbelievable," she said.