Top News

CBS 2's Derrick Blakely, Pamela Jones, Kris Hambermehl and Jay Levine and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
HARVEY, Ill. (CBS) ― Firefighters in south suburban Harvey spent hours Thursday afternoon and evening trying to extinguish an extra-alarm blaze that was fed by high winds.

CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports that the fire broke out at an industrial park at 156th Street and Lathrop Avenue in Harvey. Flying embers from the blaze forced the evacuation of scores of workers at neighboring businesses.

People in the area have also been forced to wear masks because of the thick black smoke that spewed through the area.

By any measure, the fire was massive. Seventy-eight fire departments were called in to help battle the blaze. It wasn't clear what started the blaze, but high winds kept it going strong.

Witnesses believed the fire might have started because of a ruptured gas line. Witness Benny Centraciihio said, "It was just like a thud and I turned around and looked up. There was just smoke everywhere."

"Flames started right in the corner of the building up about a foot and a half within five minutes, flames were 100 feet in the air," Centraciihio said.

Whipped by strong wind gusts from the south, the massive blaze quickly consumed four industrial buildings, challenging firefighters trying to cope with conditions.

The fire spread to six buildings in all, and then on to the town's tow yard.

As hundreds of firefighters from more than 80 south and southwest suburban departments rushed in, several dozen workers in the area rushed out of builldings which were soon filled with flames.

"The smoke was so thick we couldn't see in front of our faces, and the shop was full of the black debris that's burnin'," said business owner Barbara Brown.

At one point, the fire actually jumped to usually busy Halsted Street. With so many firefighters using so much water, pressure became a big problem.

"They were using it quicker than the system could handle remember you've got six aerial trucks, pumping water and that why we had to bring in other trucks," Harvey spokesperson Sandra Alvarado said.

It began around 11:30 a.m. at the abandoned Allied Tube and Conduit plant.

Robert Dukes works at nearby Pearl Paints and was one of the first to call 9-1-1.

"It looked like they had it under control for a second, but once the roof caught fire; the entire roof just kept going," he said.

The fire spread north, destroying the adjacent Kraft Paper building and then crossing 155th Street, and engulfing the Niagara LaSalle Corp. facility. Firefighters had to truck in water, but a bigger foe was the wind.

Harvey Fire Chief Jason Bell said, "The wind, the wind is a major obstacle. It's blowing hard and it's hard to defend the wind."

At least 25 workers were evacuated from industrial buildings and even south of the fire, the LB Steel building suffered damage when windows were blown out.

LB Steel employee Michael Powers said, "They were bursting form the intense heat of the building. Had there been no wind, or a wind out of the north, that would have been us."

Nearby freight train tracks also caught fire.

Metra's Electric Line trains run on tracks near the fire and officials were keeping an eye on the situation, but trains were still running and there were no major delays reported.

The nearby Voss Equipment forklift company was also evacuated due to the fire. The 100,000-square-foot building contains propane and other flammable liquids.

Voss Equipment President Peter Voss Jr. said embers from the blaze fell on the site as employees moved their stock of forklifts to safety. Others used fire extinguishers to try to put out the small fires.

Wind carried hot embers from the blaze so far away that several several new fires ignited about a half mile away in an empty lot containing the remains of a demolished building. One woman who works at Brown Automotive in neighboring Phoenix, more than half a mile away, was burned by a large chunk of flying embers.

The thick smoke also forced officials to shut down some streets. Sixteen-year-old Jasmin Williams couldn't get home Thursday afternoon because of the smoke. "The bus driver told me he couldn't get through," she said.

Most of the fire was out by 5 p.m., but crews would remain on the scene to contain any hot spots.

Two Burnham firefighters were taken to Ingalls Hospital in Harvey for smoke inhalation. There were no other reports of injuries

When the smoke finally cleared, hours after the battle against the blaze began, all that was left were the skeletal remains of brick buildings, a hundred years old, which once housed a World War II munitions plant, but more recently had fallen on hard times. Only a few were occupied when the fire broke out.

Thursday night crews were still working to douse the hot spots that remained in the debris, inside the burned-out shells of buildings, even on utility poles.

The town was actually fortunate in some ways; the direction of the wind blew the fire toward vacant land to the north, rather than the homes stretching endlessly in all other directions.

About 1,100 Harvey residents were left without power because of power lines that were broken by flying debris. Power was not restored as of 10 p.m. Thursday.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)