Flames erupted on the rooftop of a building famous for housing the offices of one of the world's largest porn studios, Vivid Entertainment in the Cahuenga Pass.
Vivid Entertainment
Hot stuff, indeed: Luckily, no one was hurt in the making of this blaze.
The fire at 3599 Cahuenga Boulevard near Universal City was reported at 7:16 p.m., Cecil Manresa of the L.A. Fire Department told the Weekly:
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See our many updates, including at total containment, at the bottom.
Courtesy Sara Samie for LA Weekly
A brush fire broke out in the Sepulveda Pass this afternoon, sending up a smoke visible from around L.A. and the Westside.
ABC Eyewitness News estimated that more than 20 acres had gone up in smoke. The station also said Sepulveda Boulevard was shut down near the brusher. According to a statement from the L.A. Fire Department ...
Last time the L.A. City Fire Department relied on its own staff to keep track of emergency response times and other crucial data, here's what happened:
Flickr Chief Cummings and Mayor V are leading the LAFD on a legacy of incompetency.
Firefighters, office workers, dispatchers, etc. -- working on a dinosauric computer system -- hastily lumped calls that took six minutes into the "five minutes or less" column and didn't bother to categorize them as "emergency" or "non-emergency," among other slips.
This led Fire Chief Brian Cummings and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to completely humiliate themselves...
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Three horses and one goat died in a stable fire in the unincorporated Athens area of South Los Angeles last night, according to the L.A. Fire Department.
What were horse stables doing in such an urban area (right around the corner from the Rio Gentlemen's Club)? It's not clear. We found a Google Maps photo (after the jump) of some dilapidated looking buildings in the neighborhood: Looks like a place for city hillbillies.
Anyway, the blaze was reported ...
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Update, 8:45 a.m.: The fire has been extinguished, but firefighters remain on scene to douse "hot spots." And to help ease the traffic nightmare, one eastbound and one westbound lane have been opened along the shut-down portion of PCH.
@jsnowdon via Twitter "Not a good way to start the morning. Fire at Beau Rivage restaurant PCH. Hope I make it home!"
A fire reported at the two-story BeauRivage Restaurant along Pacific Coast Highway this morning has likely gutted the iconic beachside eatery.
Inspector Brian Riley with the L.A. County Fire Department says fire trucks arrived on scene at 6:18 a.m. And by 7:30 a.m., when we spoke with him, Riley said crews were...
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Updated at the bottom with information that explosions were heard as the fire erupted. First posted at 5:26 p.m.
@danilolee After the fire.
Fire erupted in a multi-story building near Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica today.
The blaze was confirmed to the Weekly by a Santa Monica fire official, but she did not have time to give details.
A Twitter user named Kiara says ...
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Never have we seen two L.A. city departments stage a fight so brazenly hostile in the public square.
L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich just got told.
In a new seven-page letter from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's office (embedded below), mayoral counsel Brian Currey claims the latter is holding the public "hostage" by advising the L.A. Fire Department to withhold certain information from the media.
And the mayor apparently wants this fight to be public...
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This week, L.A. Fire Department Chief Brian Cummings dropped some disconcerting news: His previous assessment that the LAFD had been meeting the national standard for emergency response times was maybe not so accurate.
LA Daily News Just a sec, y'all.
In fact, he said, firefighters are only arriving to the scene within 5 minutes about 60 percent of the time. (Then he enacted a media blackout on the details of all new injury-related incidents, and tried to blame it on the City Attorney. It's almost like he wants bad press.)
Since the LAFD itself is being so damn cagey...
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[Update: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who hand-picked Cummings and has been lovingly tugging at the chief's puppet strings ever since, totally humiliated his political plaything this afternoon by demanding -- via passive-aggressive "open letter" -- that the LAFD go back to its old method of full disclosure. More, after the jump. Originally posted at 12 p.m.]
LinkedIn If he keeps this up, Chief Cummings will be the new Sheriff Baca in no time.
Although Firegate just erupted in the public square this week, local firefighters have been watching the downward spiral of their Los Angeles City Fire Department with every whack to its budget.
joinlafd.org False advertising?
An anonymous blog called LAFDDeployment.com was created in summer 2011. It encouraged firefighters to...
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Update: "LA.'s top free-speech attorney says LAFD Chief Brian Cummings' media blackout is illegal and self-serving. And the department scrambles to make sense of its own rules.
Flickr Chief Cummings with the mayor.
It was terrifying enough when L.A. Fire Department Chief Brian L. Cummings recently admitted to lying about his department's emergency response times to L.A. City Hall, leading to more dangerous cuts for LAFD.
But the worst possible thing he could do, now that taxpayers have learned that their firefighters are only meeting the national response-time standard 60 percent of the time, is cram the concerning data in a file cabinet and swallow the key.
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Just as Los Angeles was breathing a sigh of relief this afternoon that the rainstorm had finally passed, some terrible driver had to go and shear off a fire hydrant in the Rose Hills.
Carlos Morales via Twitter "Someone hit a Fire Hydrant in Rose [Hills]"
That's all it took for an epic, 10-storyish geyser...
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A studio complex where the Beatles, Elvis and the Beach Boys recorded went up in flames tonight, according to the L.A. Fire Department and reports.
The blaze at 1041 N. Orange Avenue in Hollywood (a.k.a. 1041 Production Studios) was reported about 7 p.m. and was put out in 18 minutes, according to the LAFD's Matt Spence.
He said it took 72 firefighters ...
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L.A. City Controller candidate Cary Brazeman, ladies and gentlemen -- kickin' off the campaign season with a bang!LA Daily News Unrelated conspiracy theory: The sinkholes strike back.
While current City Controller Wendy Greuel plays catchup with KCET and irons her zillion bad suits, a fresh-faced citywatcher who hopes to move into her office come 2013 hasn't wasted any time in pumping out his first audit.
He calls it a "citizens audit"...
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Almost exactly one year ago, Los Angeles was stricken by the death of veteran firefighter Glenn Allen. While fighting a midnight mansion fire in the Hollywood Hills, the roof collapsed under 61-year-old Allen's feet -- enough to kill the local hero, just one day before he would have become a grandfather.
A huge procession was held downtown in memory of L.A. firefighter Glenn Allen.
But now his mourners may have a reason to get angry:
Gerhard Albert Becker, the 48-year-old German-born architect who designed the house and oversaw its construction (as well as lived in it), is being charged with involuntary manslaughter...
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A midnight fire on the grounds of the Los Angeles California Temple -- the gargantuan Mormon structure that can be seen from all over the city -- has given the Los Angeles Fire Department's arson investigators their highest-profile job since the Hollywood car-fire debacle.
Is someone trying to burn L.A.'s majestic mormon temple?
Awesomely, the department has a "house of worship task force," and they're on the scene this morning to investigate the origins of the blaze, an LAFD spokesman tells Patch. (As is "the standard response for any fire at a religious site.") It began at about 1 a.m. and was extinguished a half-hour later.
The Westwood temple is the second largest...
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The suspect who ignited as many as 53 arson fires over New Year's weekend used Duraflame-type slow-burning fireplace logs to set the blazes, a knowledgeable source inside the Los Angeles Fire Department tells LA Weekly.
CBS / OnScene TV Burkhart.
Investigators believe the fire-starter placed the logs on top of the front tires of vehicles, below their fenders, where they would smolder, spark up the flammable rubber and eventually torch the engine bays, which are filled with such accelerants as oil and gas.
It's not clear when the suspect allegedly lit the logs: before placing them or after. But the use of such logs would solve one problem for a suspected arsonist:
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We've all heard the warnings: No matter how it pains you to say goodbye to the holidays for a long, loveless January, do not leave your Christmas tree up as a symbol of denial. L.A. County and City officials go to great lengths, each year, to make the disposal process as painless as possible, offering dump spots and various ways of recycling your tree.
John McCoy/Daily News Don't let this happen to you.
But there will always be those of us who, whether out of sheer laziness or lingering nostalgia...
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Last year Vancouver saw a series of as many as a dozen of unsolved arson fires, mostly involving garages, recycling bins, fences, rubbish, landscaping and at least one vacant home and one car.
Gauri Ma
It turns out that Harry Burkhart, the man suspected in a 53-fire spree in Los Angeles, lived in that West Coast city in recent years.
Did he do it?
Updated at the bottom with Burkhart's huge bail amount and a new court date. First posted at 3:27 p.m.
@GigiGraciette Results of Monday morning arson fire in WeHo.
The man who authorities say terrorized L.A. with a three-day series of arson fires has formally been charged for causing most of the spree.
Harry Burkhart, the 24-year-old with apparent German citizenship, was hit this afternoon with "28 counts of arson of property and nine counts of arson of an inhabited structure," said District Attorney Steve Cooley.
Burkhart was scheduled ...
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