Two residents who were sleeping in an 11th-floor apartment told KNX Newsradio they heard what sounded like a pair of explosions that woke them up. Terrazas said he was "extremely pleased" with the success of the "unconventional tactics" used to battle the fire. A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department helicopter crew also assisted in the operation, according to the sheriff's department.Īt one point, firefighters who scrambled up the stairs of the burning building crawled on their hands and knees through smoke-filled corridors and apartments, while crews outside the building set up hose lines to being dousing the fire from the exterior. We trained on this many times over the course of the year."Ī total of 15 people were hoisted from the roof, LAFD officials said. It's a valuable resource for our helicopters to not only do rooftop evacuations, but we also use these same helicopters for brush fire water-dropping capability. "We have rarely done rooftop evacuations for medical purposes - rarely," he said. "We have some information I can't share with you right now, but it is suspicious right now," he said shortly after the fire was knocked down.Īt the height of the fire, LAFD helicopter crews were hoisting people from the roof of the burning building, something Terrazas called a seldom-used option. LAFD Chief Ralph Terrazas did not discuss a possible cause of the fire, but called it "suspicious." Fire officials earlier described one of the patients as "grave." Of the eight, six were taken to hospitals. Erik Scott said two adults suffered critical injuries and a 3-month-old child suffered injuries described only as non-critical.
Hogan said most of the eight injuries were due to smoke inhalation. Fire crews used a ladder to rescue the man clinging to the building. No one jumped."Īn air mattress was deployed at the base of the building as a precaution. "We got on our public address system and let them know to stay there," Hogan said. Video from the scene showed one man clinging to the exterior of the building. Hogan said nobody actually jumped, but arriving fire crews found two people who were contemplating a leap. Flames and heavy smoke could be seen pouring out of the building, and there were early reports of people jumping from balconies in an attempt to escape the blaze.
LAFD Deputy Chief Armando Hogan said firefighters who were mopping up the earlier fire spotted the flames in the nearby Barrington Plaza building. The fire erupted about two hours after an apparently unrelated blaze broke out in a commercial building roughly three blocks away, and investigators were working to determine if the two fires were connected.
The flames also affected the sixth, eighth and ninth floors of the building. The fire began on the building's seventh floor, which is the sixth "residential" floor above the building's lobby, said Brian Humphrey of the LAFD. and were extinguished at 9:56 a.m., according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The flames were reported in the Barrington Plaza Apartments at 11740 W. A "suspicious" fire erupted on the seventh floor of a 25-story apartment building in West Los Angeles Wednesday, prompting at least two residents to contemplate leaping from balconies and leaving eight people injured, including a 3-month-old infant.
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