In the early hours of Tuesday, a vacant commercial building in the Westlake district erupted in flames, prompting a response from the Los Angeles Fire Department. The one-story building, formerly a private school located at 1350 W Shatto St, was fully involved when fire crews arrived on the scene at approximately 2:24 a.m., as reported in a LAFD alert. The structure had been the site of a previous fire, necessitating a defensive firefighting strategy from the responding teams.
"Defensive firefighting operations at a vacant and boarded one-story commercial building, a former private school, the scene of a previous fire, that is now fully involved with fire," was the preliminary status shared by LAFD spokesman Brian Humphrey in the initial alert. Firefighters from multiple stations, including FS 11 and Batt 11 in the Central Bureau, responded to the greater alarm structure fire, according to the official statement.
Despite the intensity of the blaze, the LAFD were able to achieve a knockdown of the fire in a relatively short period of time. A subsequent alert detailed that the coordinated efforts of 49 firefighters culminated in extinguishing the flames by 2:57 AM, just 33 minutes after their arrival. The knockdown was confirmed with official acknowledgment that "A well coordinated defensive firefight by 49 LAFD Firefighters, took just 33 minutes to extinguish heavy fire within a vacant and boarded one-story commercial building - a former private school, that was the scene of a previous blaze."
