Fire tears through 6 homes in Chicago Heights

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, Ill. - A fire spread to six homes in Chicago Heights on Wednesday morning as crews reportedly struggled to locate a water source to put out the blaze.

Six homes, three of which were unoccupied, caught fire before midnight near 15th Street and Lowe Avenue.

Firefighters had difficulty finding water to extinguish the blaze. It took 10 minutes for crews to locate a hydrant one block away.

"We [were] literally watching this house on fire and the fire department said, ‘We don’t have no water,'" said Jaron Boyd, a nearby resident who witnessed the scene.

Some residents told FOX 32 they believed the delayed response happened due to construction in the area.

"We literally all [watched] the fire spread from the abandoned house to the houses where people [were] actually living in for almost like an hour," Boyd said.

Nine people were displaced from the fires.

"All people were evacuated. There were no injuries to either any residents or any of the firefighters," Chicago Heights Fire Chief Wendell Thomas said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.