A Couple, Two Dogs and a Bird Were Unscathed in an Afternoon Dryer Fire in Orland Hills

Lura Zurek was on her way out the door to a hair appointment Monday afternoon when her smoke alarm went off, signaling her to a fire in the laundry room of her home  in Orland Hills.

Firefighters remained on the scene at 16791 Hobart Avenue at 4:19 p.m., but first got a call for the dryer blaze at 3:36 p.m., just after Zurek successfully moved her two lab mixes and her bird to safety.

"I was just going in there to shut the dryer off," said the 60-year-old, while standing beside her husband, Tom, on the sidewalk outside the home. "I heard the smoke alarm, but thought it just needed new batteries. It sure didn't. I went in, looked under the dryer and saw an orange glow."

The smell of melting plastic and burnt electrical wires filled the air as crews from the carried the appliance out of the home's front door at 3:42 p.m.

"We pulled one hose line and got the fire out pretty quickly," Fire Chief Raymond Kay said, at the scene.

Firefighters are still investigating the exact cause of the fire, he said, but unfortunate circumstances sometimes present an ideal opportunity to remind people about regular maintenance for their appliances.

"You should always clean that lint trap out before you use your dryer," Kay said. "And there's also a dryer vent pipe you can run a brush through—you should do that once a year. We're not sure if either of those contributed to this fire, but it's a good thing to let people know."

Tom Zurek said the couple always turns their dryer off before they leave the house.

"And it's a good thing, too," he said, adding that he was grateful the situation wasn't worse.

Lura said she was drying wet towels at the time.

"Maybe it would have taken a bit longer to burn through those wet towels," she said. "But firefighters got here so fast, we didn't have to find out."