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• Fatal Niles nursing home fire linked to smoking materials in closet, officials say  

Smoking materials smoldering in a bedroom closet may have sparked a fire in a Niles nursing home that killed two residents and injured two others, officials said Thursday. . . .

A 53-year-old man who shared the room was in a smoking lounge on the main floor of the nursing home, Davis said.

Although Borkowski said the cause of the fire has yet to determined, Davis said investigators were looking at the possibility that careless use of smoking materials was to blame. . . .

Many nursing home facilities are becoming smoke-free or creating smoking lounges because of safety issues, said Kathy Swanson, a supervisory ombudsman for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, which covers nursing homes in suburban Cook County, including Hampton Plaza.

"A lot of facilities will take control of smoking materials so if you want to smoke, you come to the nurse's station, you get your cigarette and now that we see you have your cigarette we can watch that you make it down to the smoking room," Swanson said.

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