One Person Dead, Two Injured in Illinois Explosion

One person died and another person was taken to the hospital with severe burns Friday after a home exploded in the 900 block of Killarney Pass Drive in Mundelein, according to Fire Chief Tim Sashko.

Sashko said fire investigators were interviewing a third person who had also survived the blast. He did not immediately have information on the ages or genders of the three people involved.

According to the Lake County Coroner, the person who died was a younger adult man. An autopsy was scheduled first thing Monday morning.

The man who was hospitalized is being treated at Advocate Condell and is in serious condition, according to spokesperson Christine Vicik.

Fire officials responded to the home at 918 Killarney Pass Drive, in the Loch Lomond subdivision, around 11:30 a.m. after 30 residents called about a possible explosion. The blast originated from the garage behind the house, Sashko said, but fire officials did not yet know what happened.

“We’ll probably be here all afternoon investigating the cause,” said Mundelein Deputy Fire Marshal Mark Gaunky.

Gaunky said he did not know whether anyone had been trapped inside the home.

“By the time we arrived the building was too far gone for us to get in there,” he said.

As the building fell to pieces Friday afternoon, firefighters struggled to reach the inner areas that were still ablaze. Several trucks and cars from North Shore Gas were on scene, as well as 12 fire departments comprising 89 firefighters. Midlothian Road near Fremont Library was also shut down to all traffic.

A sign outside the home lists it for sale by Realty Metrix. According to the Lake County Assessor’s office, the 1,175-square-foot home was built in 1965 and has a 441-square-foot garage.

Deputy Police Chief Don Hansen said no criminal charges have been filed at this point, and no one was being held in custody.

“We still don’t know what happened, so we’re not ruling anything out at this point,” he said.

When the explosion happened, the two homes on either side of the house were also damaged. The paint was seared off the side of one home, while small objects appeared to have gone through the windows of the other. Neighbors reported hearing two loud noises and seeing smoke and flames.

Melanie Lahey, who lives on Killarney Pass Drive, said the explosion was the loudest thing she had ever heard.

“There was a huge, huge boom that made our doors shake in their frames. Then there was another boom,” Lahey said. “Honestly, I thought we were getting bombed. My husband grabbed me and the kids and we huddled in our bedroom.”

Although authorities have not identified the residents of the home that exploded, Lahey said two men in their early 20s live there, and that their father sometimes stays there.

Randy Sheehan said he lives about three blocks from the fire and heard two explosions, a few seconds apart.

“The wife and I jumped off the couch and went outside. We thought something had hit the house,” he said. “It was just huge. The whole house shook, the ground shook, everything.”

Other neighbors also were outside, looking to see what had happened, Sheehan said.

“You could see two white plumes from the explosion, and then you saw the black smoke come up,” Sheehan said.

About a half-mile away from the explosion, Lori Rendall of Mundelein said she also thought something had hit her home.

“I heard a loud boom and the windows kind of rattled, and I just stopped for a minute,” she said.

“I am always hyper-aware and empathetic of these situations because I lost everything in a house fire,” Rendall said. “It’s heartbreaking to know somebody’s family right now is really struggling.”