The wife of a Chicago firefighter has died days after a fire broke out in the family’s Montclare home, killing their 7-year-old son and seriously injuring their two other children.
Summer Day-Stewart, 36, died about 7:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Her son, Ezra Steward, 7, was pronounced dead a day earlier.
Day-Stewart’s other son, 2, and daughter, 7, have been unconscious since the fire broke out and remain in “extremely critical condition,” Chicago fire officials said Thursday. Day-Stewart and the children all suffered smoke inhalation.
The fire started about 9 p.m. Tuesday in the kitchen of the family’s home in the 2500 block of North Rutherford Avenue.
Walter Stewart, a firefighter-EMT with nearly three years experience, was working on Truck 55 at 6030 N. Avondale Ave. in Old Norwood Park when the fire broke out at his family’s home, according to fire officials and a spokesman for Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2.
Stewart’s truck was not assigned to the fire, but a call came over the intercom for the battalion chief there, who was assigned to the fire as a supervisor, they said.
Stewart, recognizing the fire was at his home, hopped in the SUV with the battalion chief and was driven to his home, where he performed CPR on his wife, according to fire department spokesman Larry Langford.
Officials have not provided updates on the conditions of the two surviving children.
The firefighters union is collecting donations for Stewart’s family at: classy.org/give/473700.
