Second extra-alarm fire hits West Side for in as many days as heat wave holds

For the second straight day, Chicago firefighters had to battle an extra-alarm fire on the city’s West Side as a heat wave lingered over the city and much of the Midwest, though officials said no one was injured in the blaze.

The latest fire occurred just after 6 p.m. in a two-story brick building Wednesday afternoon at 2810 W. Grand Ave. in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, Chicago Fire Department officials said in a post on social media.

First District Fire Chief Jim McDonough said everyone who worked in the businesses at the site had been evacuated from the building by the time firefighters arrived at the scene.

Despite the alarm rising to a 3-11, triggering one of the highest department responses for manpower, the blaze was controlled by the early evening as tower trucks poured water into the flaming structure.

One day earlier slightly over a mile away, a 4-11 alarm erupted at a wooden pallet company in the city’s West Town neighborhood, covering the neighborhood in dark smoke and keeping firefighters at the scene overnight, according to McDonough.

McDonough said back-to-back extra-alarm fires were common enough that they did not immediately raise concerns. The Chicago Office of Fire Investigation was probing the cause of the blaze.