Niles house fire sends two victims to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital

A house fire Friday morning in the 8200 block of Caldwell Avenue in Niles began in the home’s family room sent a mother and her teenage daughter to the hospital, authorities said.

The Niles Fire Department arrived at the scene at 8:49 a.m., said Niles Fire Chief Marty Feld. The mother and daughter had been sleeping and were  woken by the home’s smoke alarm sounding. Feld said the daughter was able to leave the house immediately, but the mother attempted to put out the fire with a pail of water, which created steam and heat that was potentially dangerous and could have caused inhalation injuries, Feld said.

Paramedics took them to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

The brick home was structurally sound but uninhabitable immediately after the fire because of the smoke and heat damage.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

The department received assistance from the Park Ridge Fire Department, Morton Grove Fire Department, Skokie Fire Department, Des Plaines Fire Department and the North Maine Fire Protection District.