Phone Boxes Catch Fire on 175th Street, Leave Businesses Without Service

Two outdoor telephone boxes along 175th Street caught fire yesterday morning, leaving multiple businesses without service.

According to Lt. Bill Wright of , an electrical shortage started a fire at a vacant building on the corner of 175th Street and Halsted back fed into the phone system. The power surge made its way to the two outdoor phone boxes and overloaded the circuits before erupting into flames, Wright said.

Flossmoor resident Steve Burke, an employee of iFranchise Group at 905 West 175th St. in Homewood, said staff members became aware of the problem after the CEO was unable to place an outgoing call. 

"Ours was ... the first (phone box) to go," Burke said. "(At) about 10 a.m."

According to Burke, firefighters and AT&T technicians were already on the scene when they noticed the problem.

"We saw the phone box reignite as well," Burke said.

A second box between Ashland and Halsted on 175th Street met the same fate, according to Burke. 

According to Wright, the vacant building fire and two phone box fires were all extinguished by the Fire Department. The damage, however, left all commercial buildings in the area without phone service.

AT&T Spokesperson Alexa Kaufman is optimistic about how quickly the phone boxes can be repaired.

"Bottom line, we had some equipment that was damaged," Kaufman said. "We've got folks on site ... and we certainly hope to be up and running again tomorrow. (We) apologize for any inconvenience."

In the meantime, Burke said they're improvising. His duties for the day involved installing a store-bought phone system that runs off of the company's computer network.

"We have a set of cordless phones plugged into it," Burke said. "(It is) a little hard to run a business on one phone line, but (it is) better than none."