2 die in NWSide fire blamed on smoking materials
Twelve hours after a fire killed Carol and Robert Szalacha in their Old Irving Park home, aman silently stepped to the edge of the couple’s front lawn.
The grass was beaten down and muddy, telltale signs of the 80 or so Chicago Fire Department personnel who responded to the blaze at 4216 N. Kildare Ave. Thursday night.
The man knelt to ground and placed two red roses on the lawn before turning and walking away.
For Carol Szalacha, 78, flowers were serious business.
For more than 20 years, she was a steady figure in the Irving Park Garden Club, serving as the group’s president from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2008 to 2009.
She was especially fond of her hostas.
“I’ve got at least 25 or 30 different kinds,” she said in the garden club’s
April newsletter. “I love their versatility and their coloring.”
Their home, built in the early 1890s, had been in the family since 1948, according to the Irving Park Historical Society. By Friday morning, it was a husk of its former self.
CFD officials said Friday that “careless use of smoking materials” was likely the cause of the blaze.
A neighbor called 911 to report the fire about 9:20 p.m. and, within minutes, the fire had torn through much of the house, according toCFD spokesman Larry Langford.
The fire started on the first floor
and was likely accelerated by an oxygen tank that was nearby, Langford said. The heatwas so intense itmelted the siding on the home directly north of the Szalachas’.
Autopsies performed by the Cook
County medical examiner’s office Friday found Carol Szalacha died of burns as well as smoke and soot inhalation. Her husband, 85-yearold Robert Szalacha, died of carbon monoxide toxicity and burns.
Dozens of passersby stopped Friday to look at the heavily damaged home as relatives spoke with a few firefighters still at the scene. They declined to speak with reporters.
One neighbor, who declined to give her name, said the Szalachas had lived in the home for most of their lives. Every year, the neighbor said, the garden club would organize a walk in the neighborhood to show off residents’ floral displays.
“This would always be the end of the tour, over here, to see her master garden,” the neighbor said.
CFD Deputy District Chief Brian McKermitt said Thursday night that crews “encountered heavy fire on the first floor” after receiving reports the couple was trapped. While inside, the blaze “started intensifying,” and the firefighters retreated outside.
Once the fire was brought under control, a searchwas conducted, and the bodies were discovered, McKermitt said.