Article: Fire marshal's top task: Get the facts on a blaze

Fire broke out early one recent morning in a frame six-flat in the shadow of the abandoned South Works of the U.S. Steel Corp. on the South Side. The site is on its way to becoming another vacant lot in a neighborhood that surely doesn't need another one.

The building's front half is caved in. Massive blackened timbers - flooring from the top stories - lean against one another, grim totems to the destructive power of fire. Walls and flooring are warped from the water used to extinguish the blaze. Firefighters punched out the windows for ventilation, and a breeze wafts through the building, cutting the pervasive smoky odor.

Everything that's left is in disarray. On the first floor, in the ...

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