Ill. Officer Alerts Sleeping Residents to House Fire

A Waukegan police officer out on patrol who noticed smoke coming from a house early Friday morning helped wake the house's five occupants and get them out, police said.

The fire on an enclosed porch of a house on the 800 block of Cummings Avenue was reported by the officer about 1:10 a.m. The officer and his partner alerted the residents to the blaze before the fire department arrived to extinguish it.

The cause of fire may have been an unattended cigarette, authorities said. The home also did not have any smoke detectors.

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