Several agencies have been setting fires for training purposes in a deserted Bensenville neighborhood pegged for O’Hare International Airport expansion, but a raging blaze turned out to be the real thing early Wednesday.
Bensenville Fire Department Batallion Chief Larry Karp said the incident occurred in a vacant four-unit townhouse in the 100 block of Hamilton Street, part of a roughly 1-mile fenced area where residents no longer live. The homes are targeted for removal.
Agencies including the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been using the deserted townhouses and single-family homes for training.
Bensenville firefighters were summoned to extinguish Wednesday’s blaze at one of the training homes in the O’Hare acquisition zone at 4:45 a.m. Karp said eight suburban departments helped Bensenville control the fire by about 5:50 a.m.
"It was just a rekindle of the fire they had before," Karp said.
Karp said firefighters used an access road to reach the vacant home near Irving Park Road on the airport’s southwest border. He said there were no injuries.
Last week, ATF and other agencies started six fires in the structures using different accelerants each time. After the fires burned for set periods, the blazes were extinguished and investigators entered the homes to determine the causes.
