Fire rages in Chicago high-rise

Fire rages in Chicago high-rise Rescuers searching for people trapped by blaze Monday, December 6, 2004 Posted: 11:03 PM EST (0403 GMT) Fire burns on the 29th floor of a 43-story building in Chicago's financial district Monday. CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- A five-alarm fire raged in a 45-story building in Chicago's downtown Loop district Monday night, trapping people inside and prompting firefighters to launch a massive fire-and-rescue operation. Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said 18 people were taken to area hospitals, including two firefighters who were seriously injured. There were no immediate reports of deaths. "The fire continues to burn. We are continuing search-and-rescue operations, going through the building right now," Langford told reporters in a late-night briefing. He said crews were first sent to floors from which they had received 911 calls, he said. Authorities said the fire started around 6:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. ET) on the 29th floor of the LaSalle National Bank building. The cause of the blaze was not known Monday night. Jim Rubens, who was working on the 36th floor, said fire crews reached his group and told them to exit down a stairwell in the smoke-filled building. "All the floors are filled with smoke," Rubens told local reporters, his face and mustache smeared with soot. "The smoke was coming in from the vents." He said he went down the stairwell with 12 people, with everyone trying to stay as low as possible covering their mouths: "At one point, it was almost impossible to breathe, and they just kept screaming, 'Keep going, keep going.' And everybody kept going." He said some of his friends remained on the 35th floor. The fire appeared to be contained to the 29th floor of the largely concrete structure, spreading horizontally across that floor but not to the floors above or below it. Video from the scene showed bright orange flames raging through at least 11 windows, which were blown out and belching smoke. Bank employee Paul Sawyer said workers on the lower floors were told to leave about 10 minutes after the first alarms went off. Tom Lia of the city's fire sprinkler advisory board told CNN affiliate WLS that the building was not outfitted with fire sprinklers. The building is equipped with a pump system to allow firefighters to get enough water to upper floors to fight fires, he said. Dozens of police, fire and other emergency crews were at the scene, cordoning off the streets around the building. Some emergency personnel could be seen checking rooms in the lower floors for people who might still be inside. The 45-story art deco building was completed in 1934, and houses bank and law offices. It was built on the site of one of the world's first skyscrapers, the Home Insurance Building, which was destroyed so the LaSalle building could be built. The fire comes a little more than a year after a blaze on the 12th floor of the Cook County administration building, which killed six people who had been trapped in a stairwell. An independent report found numerous problems contributed to the deaths, including a lack of automatic sprinklers and ineffective search-and-rescue operations by Chicago firefighters. City officials put several measures in place after that fire, including setting up a rapid-ascent team to deal with high-rise blazes.>