A wind-driven fire broke out in a 25 – story Westside residential building Wednesday morning, triggering a large response from city firefighters and injuring eight people, including a 3-month-old baby.
The blaze, which erupted on the 6th floor at the Barrington Plaza apartments in the 20131021 block Wilshire Boulevard, was reported shortly after 8: am by fire crews who were in the area at another fire earlier in the morning. At least 300 firefighters responded to help battle the blaze and evacuate residents inside the building. An adult and a 3-month-old baby were taken to a hospital in critical condition. Six others were treated for smoke inhalation, officials said.
Fire officials initially reported that some people had jumped from the building to escape the flames. However, authorities later clarified that two people contemplated jumping but were rescued by fire officials. One man was seen clinging to the ledge of a building before a fire ladder was hoisted up to him.
Firefighters took an unconventional approach to battling the flames, hosing it from the outside before allowing firefighters to fight the flames from within the building. As some crews focused on the fire inside, others were tasked with evacuations. Television video showed residents, some in bathrobes, on the roof of the building with a fire helicopter overhead lifting them to safety. Officials said it was the first time the fire helicopter had been used in rescue efforts.
“This was a Herculean effort by the members of the Los Angeles Fire Department,” said Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas. “It takes a lot of coordination and our resources did a good job.”
After an intense hour-long battle made more challenging by strong mph winds in the area, firefighters were able to knock down the flames shortly before am
Firefighters will likely remain on the scene until Thursday to assist potential victims. They are currently going door to door to find residents still inside the building and will determine if a full evacuation is needed. Arson investigators were combing through the building trying to determine how the fire started, Terrazas said.
“We have some information I can’t share with you right now, but it is suspicious right now,” Terrazas said.
John Tavakoli was outside when the floor where his grandmother lives burst into flames. As firefighters rushed to evacuate her and her neighbors from the inferno, his initial horror settled into smoldering rage – another fire like this one had burned here a few years ago, but little had changed. Like others, he blamed the revolving door of short term renters for unsafe conditions in the building.
“A lot of people Airbnb here, they just party,” he said. “They party all night – they’re up until 2 am on a Tuesday.”
Meanwhile, he said, safety issues went unaddressed.
“Our rent goes up, utilities go up, but one elevator’s always broken,” he said.
Resident Gavyn Straus stood barefoot on the sidewalk outside the building, Holding a towel around his American flag bathing suit as he watched a Sheriff’s helicopter hoisting stranded neighbors off the roof. He was in the pool swimming laps when the fire broke out, and noticed the smoke when he turned his head for a breath. Right away, he lept out if the pool and dashed up to alert neighbors on the high floor where he lives.
The smoke “was like a black wall” on the 7th floor, he said. Higher up he started banging on doors telling neighbors to get out. Twins Kristina and Kimberly Pagano, recent UCLA grads, were asleep in their apartment a few floors below when the fire broke out. They woke up to the sound of fire trucks. Moments later, the building alarm went off and they rushed outside.
Both immediately thought of the cigarette that was believed to have sparked a fire here in 2013. The building still allows residents to smoke in their units on designated floors, which the sisters had toured before moving in. Like others, they said the building hosts a revolving door of short-term visitors.
“We always see people with luggage,” Kristina said.
“It’s like a hotel,” Kimberly agreed.
As the fire was raging, video footage from the scene showed heavy flames burning inside the building and thick black smoke pouring out from balconies and windows.
Mackenzie Williams, 30 , said she was driving to work at Pure Barre – a fitness studio at Wilshire Boulevard and Granville Avenue – about 9 am when she “saw one fire truck pass by me, then I saw two, then I saw 20, then I saw about 20, so I definitely knew something was going on. ”
Williams said she“ saw a bunch of smoke coming out of the building ”and what appeared to be a helicopter airlifting people from the roof.
“I just hope everyone is OK over there,” she said.
A fire that erupted on the 20 th floor of the same apartment building in displaced up to 300 residents and injured two people. It also prompted concerns about a lack of sprinkler systems in some buildings in Los Angeles.
At the time, L.A. fire officials said the Barrington Plaza building was not equipped with a sprinkler system. Because it was built nearly 60 years ago, it does not fall under state regulations later adopted that forced buildings taller than 75 feet to include such fire-suppression systems unless granted an exemption.
Hogan said Wednesday the building was not equipped with sprinklers.
The Times reported in 2014 that of the city’s roughly 728 residential high-rises don’t have sprinkler systems installed. There was a push after the 2014 fire to get more of those buildings retrofitted with sprinklers.
In 2014, a group of tenants in the high-rise sued the building’s corporate owner for negligence.
According to residents, several fire alarms failed to sound in Barrington Plaza as a fire in October 2019 spread inside an apartment on the 21 th floor. A door to the roof was locked and the stairwells filled with choking smoke, tenants said.
“The conditions at the supposedly high-end apartment building were atrocious,” attorney Mark Geragos said at the time.
Resident Ivo Gerscovich’s 2-year-old daughter and father-in-law were found passed out in a smoke-filled stairwell above the th floor during the previous fire.
“It’s a deathtrap,” Gerscovich said at the time. “It’s totally insane and indefensible.”
Times staff writer Matt Stiles contributed to this report
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