Massive fire in downtown LA

Liveleak.com, ^ | Dec-8-2014 | unknown

[Patriot777]

Massive blaze in downtown LA: 250 firefighters, 2 major freeways closed

A massive fire in downtown Los Angeles early Monday destroyed an apartment tower under construction, damaged two other buildings and left two major freeways closed.

The California Highway Patrol said the 110 Freeway is closed between the 10 and 101, and that the 101 southbound is closed at Alvarado Street.

More than 250 firefighters are battling the blaze at an apartment tower under construction 909 W. Temple St., Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman David Ortiz said.

The LAFD said two other buildings along Figueroa Street were also damaged by the fire. A building at 331 N. Figueroa St. suffered "external damage from radiant heat" while fire damaged several floors of an office tower at 221 N. Figueroa St.

“It’s huge," he said.

The fire started in a building that was slated to be a 7-story residential structure with commercial space on the lower level, but Ortiz said he did not believe anyone was living or working there when the fire broke out.

[Patriot777]

Officials in California have also stated that this fire is basically a wake-up call toward what would happen if a major earthquake struck in Los Angeles, as they had serious trouble containing this fire. My take on this is, if there was a major quake there, there would be no way to contain the fires, just like they couldn't during the terrible quake in San Francisco a long time ago. My father was both a civil engineer and a professional land surveyor, and lived in California for quite a few years; he said that if all the buildings and homes were built in the shape of pyramids, it would likely eliminate 80-90% of the destruction there, but we all know as far as underground gas and water lines, freeway overpasses and such, they will not survive the onslaught of a magnitude 7.0 or greater.

[Red Badger]

Wonder if this had anything to do with the various ‘protests’?...................

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I wonder...

[Patriot777]

Good question. With all that going on, and those crazy libertard Berkeleyites...

[boycott]

Your post made me think of this video:

Compliation of Gasline Explosions in Kaohsiung, Taiwan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXjjcyypHYM

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I will take some issue with this piece of alarm. I’m not suggesting that a major EQ that knocks down buildings would be any sort of fun party.

It’s now code that buildings have to have valves on their NG feeds that shut off in the event of a serious EQ.

Existing buildings have, or should be sheetrocked. They are not bare studs sticking in the air.

It don’t know but I don’t think this was a NG fire. This was either an instance of vandalism or arson (or both) committed on a building mostly framed but with no sheetrock/fireproofing nor sprinklers (obviously) in place.

As an incomplete building, this had no fire alarms, no smoke detectors. That there were no security guards watching the site, essentially a city block full of standing-up kindling, for the crappy $6-7K/month that might have cost is a foolish economy on the part of the builder, IMHO. Unless he wanted it to go poof.

[SMARTY]

I would be surprised if it WASN’T

[dynoman]

What would be the cause of that?? Wow!

[17th Miss Regt]

The fire investigators are looking seriously at arson for this case. No proof yet, but it does not look like an accident to them.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

There is no question that there can be no more fire-vulnerable moment in a construction project of this sort than you have bare wood framing, no sheetrock, no alarms. A full block of kindling, dry wood.

But the fire dep’t is across the freaking street! For this thing to completely envelop in fire, IMO it had to be accel’ed w/flam liquid at several locations. This wasn’t a homeless guy cooking some sausages or stripping off some copper wire.

[siamesecats]

Didn’t this happen yesterday???

[17th Miss Regt]

I also noted a report of two other fires in downtown area at about the same time. Serial arsonist?

Putting on a tin foil cap, could the developer have learned about something that would torpedo the completion of the project and then decided to collect insurance?

[pfflier]

I smell ELF (Earth Liberation Front) all over this.

They were suspected of arson in a very similar San Diego fire which was also an apartment complex under construction. This happened in 2003:

http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/domestic-extremism-terrorism/c/radical-environmentalist.html

[17th Miss Regt]

Yep. The smoke from the fire was still dispersing over the area in the late afternoon.

[Red Badger]

If it was ELF, just think of all that CO2 and other ‘poisonous’ gases that this fire ‘liberated’ because of their actions....................

[Red Badger]

What would be the cause of that?? Wow!

Sum Ting Wong & Ho Lee Fuk...................

[A CA Guy]

One Freeper wrote of trash cans on fire around that area where they also live, so I would say YES!

[editor-surveyor]

>> “ but we all know as far as underground gas and water lines, freeway overpasses and such, they will not survive the onslaught of a magnitude 7.0 or greater.” <<

.
The old Bay Bridge easily survived such a quake in 1989, so they tore it down and built one that they are now confident will fail.

Water and gas trunk lines can be equipped with valves that will automatically isolate ruptured sections. It is routinely done in 3rd world countries, but not anywhere here as far as I know.

Finally, this fire was definitely sabotage; only a complete fool could fail to recognize that.

.

[editor-surveyor]

Some union or enviro-nazi thugs obviously wanted it to go poof!
.

[deport]

Massive Fire thread from yesterday

Photos at this article