Major Emergency Commercial Fire Erupts in Predawn Hours
A pre-dawn fire erupted in LA’s Fashion District on the morning of November 3, 2005 causing over 100 LAFD firefighters to mount an aggressive attack to prevent the fire from spreading into neighboring businesses.
A call was received at 2:10 am stating a dumpster in the rear of 771 E Pico Bl was well involved and beginning to encroach upon the building. Units arrived to find heavy smoke coming from 2 units in a 1 story row of commercial occupancies. Companies began a swift offensive attack of the fire, with firefighters on the roof stating heavy fire coming from all cut ventilation holes. As conditions began to deteriorate, the IC (Incident Commander) pulled all companies off the roof and out of the building to being fighting the blaze defensively (outside the structure).
Firefighters continued to fight the sizable commercial blaze in a defensive posture, utilizing ladder-pipe operations as well as large diameter hand lines (master streams). It took 1 hour 38 minutes for firefighters to completely extinguish the blaze and declare a knockdown. Though intense flames caused structural compromise throughout the involved commercial structures, firefighters kept the fire confined in the units of origin with no extension into neighboring businesses. No injuries were reported. The fire cause is under active investigation by LAFD Arson and Counter-Terrorism Section (ACTS)
