Santa Monica Fire Blazes Near Third Street Promenade

Categories: Fires

@danilolee santa monica fire.JPG
@danilolee
After the fire.
Updated at the bottom with information that explosions were heard as the fire erupted. First posted at 5:26 p.m.

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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L.A. Fire Response Times: Mayor Rips Into City Attorney, Demands Release of Public Info

Categories: Fires

carmen trutanich fire response times.jpg
L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich just got told.
Never have we seen two L.A. city departments stage a fight so brazenly hostile in the public square.

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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Map of LAFD Response Times: How Slow Is Emergency Service in Your Neighborhood?

Categories: Fires

la fire truck.jpeg
LA Daily News
Just a sec, y'all.
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.

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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LAFD Chief Brian Cummings' Media Blackout Is Illegal and Self-Serving, Says LA.'s Top Free-Speech Attorney

Categories: Fires, Law, Media

brian cummings.jpg
LinkedIn
If he keeps this up, Chief Cummings will be the new Sheriff Baca in no time.
[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.]

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L.A. Firefighters Reveal Devastating Effects of Budget Cuts on Anonymous Blog

Categories: Fires

firefighters response times.jpg
joinlafd.org
False advertising?
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.

An anonymous blog called LAFDDeployment.com was created in summer 2011. It encouraged firefighters to...

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L.A. Fire Department's Public-Information Blackout: Is Withholding Response Times, Addresses Even Legal?

mayor with fire chief.jpg
Flickr
Chief Cummings with the mayor.
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.

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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PHOTO: Car Shears Fire Hydrant, Unleashes Epic Geyser on Northeast L.A.

Categories: Fires

geyser fire hydrant.jpg
Carlos Morales via Twitter
"Someone hit a Fire Hydrant in Rose [Hills]"
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.

That's all it took for an epic, 10-storyish geyser...

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1041 Studios Fire Damages Hollywood Venue Where Beatles, Elvis, Beach Boys Recorded

Categories: Fires

1041 studios google.JPG
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. Fire Department's Emergency Response Times Increased After Budget Cuts: Audit

Categories: Fires

la fire truck.jpeg
LA Daily News
Unrelated conspiracy theory: The sinkholes strike back.
L.A. City Controller candidate Cary Brazeman, ladies and gentlemen -- kickin' off the campaign season with a bang!

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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Gerhard Becker, German Architect, Charged With Manslaughter After His Hollywood Mansion Collapses on L.A. Firefighter

Categories: Fires

glenn allen manslaughter.jpg
A huge procession was held downtown in memory of L.A. firefighter Glenn Allen.
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.

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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Mormon Temple Fire in Westwood Sparks 'House of Worship' Arson Investigation

Categories: Fires, Religion

mormon temple.jpeg
Is someone trying to burn L.A.'s majestic mormon temple?
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.

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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Harry Burkhart: Duraflame-Type Fireplace Logs Used to Spark Alleged, 53-Fire Spree, Source Says

Categories: Fires

Thumbnail image for burkhart video capture cbs on scene tv ap.JPG
CBS / OnScene TV
Burkhart.
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.

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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This Is What Happens to Your Mansion When You Keep Your Christmas Tree Too Long

Categories: Fires

sherman oaks christmas tree fire.jpg
John McCoy/Daily News
Don't let this happen to you.
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.

But there will always be those of us who, whether out of sheer laziness or lingering nostalgia...

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Harry Burkhart: Vancouver Fires in 2011 Examined For Possible Links to L.A. Arson Suspect

Categories: Fires

fire gauri ma.JPG
Gauri Ma
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.

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?

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Harry Burkhart's Alleged L.A. Arson Spree Brings Formal Charges: 37 Counts of Setting Fires

Categories: Fires

alfred fire @gigigraciette.JPG
@GigiGraciette
Results of Monday morning arson fire in WeHo.
Updated at the bottom with Burkhart's huge bail amount and a new court date. First posted at 3:27 p.m.

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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Harry Burkhart, L.A. Arson Fires Suspect From Germany, Says 'I Hate America'

Categories: Fires

cbs2 arson suspect.JPG
CBS2
Burkhart.
See our report about Burkhart's mother being linked to an erotic massage business here. First posted at 7:59 p.m. Monday

The man who terrorized L.A. for three nights with a series of 53 arson fires turned out to be a 24-year-old from Germany identified as Harry Burkhart, at least according to authorities.

"I hate America" were the words he reportedly uttered after he was pulled out of his car during a traffic stop at Sunset Boulevard near Fairfax Avenue shortly after 3 this morning following another outbreak of fires in nearby West Hollywood.

Burkhart was booked into jail at 1:48 p.m. and held in lieu of $250,000, according to the L.A. County Sheriff's Department's inmate information database.

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L.A. Arson Fires: Suspect Under Arrest, LAFD Says

Categories: Fires

arson suspect lapd.JPG
LAPD
Updated at the bottom with an official arrest (the third since Thursday). Fire officials now count 53 blazes in the arson spree. First posted at 2:48 a.m. Monday.

The L.A. arson fires have sated the city's everlasting expectation for the criminally bizarre, but so far there's no Michael Connelly ending to this 53 55 50-blaze spree.

In fact it appears that the firebug might have struck again overnight as the Los Angeles Fire Department reported a "suspicious" blaze at 1:13 a.m. in the 1700 block of North Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Yep, it was another vehicle-in-a-carport fire that the department seemed to quash before it got ugly. And then there were more fires in Sherman Oaks.

This as the LAPD released video of a person of interest:

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Jim Morrison's 'Love Street' House Catches Fire in Hollywood Arson Spree: Balcony That Inspired the Song Burns

Categories: Fires

jim morrison love street house.jpeg
homeaway.com.au
The canyon home that inspired "Love Street."
The hills of Hollywood and West Hollywood came under attack last night: A mysterious arsonist (or team of arsonists) started 19 car fires in the wealthy area, some of which spread to nearby homes.

Luckily, no residents have been reported hurt thus far. However, one firefighter was sent to the hospital in the wee hours this morning with (non-life-threatening) injuries after fighting a blaze at 8021 Rothdell Trail, says Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Erik Scott.

Fans of L.A. rock legend Jim Morrison, frontman for the Doors, might recognize that address:

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Hollywood Fires Sparked Along Sunset Boulevard at Least Four Times: Suspect Samuel Arrington Arrested

Categories: Fires

beavis fire.JPG
MTV
Beavis.
Cops say a man went on an arson spree along and around Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood early today.

He allegedly set at least four fires before he was nabbed by a good Samaritan and held for police, authorities said.

It all appeared to start ...

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Mike Vitar, 'Sandlot' Star Turned Los Angeles Firefighter, Adored by Internet

Categories: Celebrities, Fires

mike vitar tumblr 35.jpg
Tumblr
Benny done growed up.
It's hard to hate a man in uniform. Especially when he gets caught by news cameras casually saving a kitten from smoke inhalation, emerging from a car explosion unscathed, etc.

Add a starring role in the cult childhood flick of a generation, and you've got Internet gold.

"Happy birthday to Los Angeles firefighter Mike Vitar aka Benny 'The Jet' Rodriguez from the super-awesome film The Sandlot" ...

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