A multi-vehicle rollover crash with entrapment shut down lanes on the southbound 405 Freeway approaching Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys early Sunday, sending five people to local hospitals. First-arriving Los Angeles Fire Department units found a tangle of vehicles, at least one of which had rolled and trapped an occupant, according to the department's own account of the incident.
The Los Angeles Fire Department reported the traffic-related auto rollover, designated incident number 1359 and tied to a matching CHP incident number, in a post from its LAFD 🔥 account early Sunday. The alert, attributed to Jennifer Middleton per the LAFD notice, said the crash occurred on the southbound 405 approaching Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys and warned drivers to expect slowdowns and possible diversions in the area. Five patients were being transported to local hospitals, the department said, though the cause of the crash remained undetermined as of the report.
A Sprawling Response From Valley Bureau Crews
The response drew a heavy roster of Los Angeles Fire Department Valley Bureau resources assigned under Battalion 10, including engines, trucks, rescue ambulances and medical units — a deployment scale reflecting the multi-patient, entrapment nature of the crash. The incident was formally assigned to Fire Station 39, and it fell within Council District 6. Station 39, located at 14615 Oxnard Street in Van Nuys, serves as a major emergency hub for the district and is historically nicknamed “The Big House, Hub of the Valley” for its extensive apparatus and central Valley location, according to the LAFD Foundation.
This is not the first time crews have had to cut people free from wreckage along this stretch of freeway. In October 2025, LAFD firefighters responded to a multi-vehicle crash requiring patient extrication on the 405 near Victory Boulevard after slick road conditions contributed to the collision, per Newsflare. Multi-vehicle collisions with entrapment require specialized extrication tools operated by LAFD truck companies, underscoring why the department dispatched multiple truck and rescue ambulance units to Sunday's scene.
Why This Stretch of the 405 Keeps Making Headlines
The interchange where the rollover happened is no stranger to serious crashes. California Highway Patrol crash data compiled by L&F Brown identifies the Interstate 405 and Victory Boulevard interchange as a high-crash area, recording more than 50 collisions and dozens of injuries in recent monitoring periods. Caltrans operational evaluations have found that average vehicle speeds in general-purpose lanes on the northbound 405 near Victory Boulevard frequently drop below 30 mph during peak afternoon commute hours, a speed differential between HOV and general lanes that tends to create stop-and-go friction and sudden slowdowns.
Traffic volume alone makes any incident here consequential. Los Angeles Department of City Planning data shows Interstate 405 near Victory Boulevard carries an average daily traffic volume of approximately 236,000 vehicles, making it one of the busiest stretches of freeway in the region. That congestion is compounded by an active $143.7 million Caltrans Sepulveda Pass Pavement Rehabilitation Project spanning 10.2 miles of the 405 from Victory Boulevard to Mulholland Drive, with nightly lane reductions and ramp closures continuing through the corridor as construction runs from summer 2025 through winter 2027, according to Caltrans and reporting from MyNewsLA.
What California's Updated Move Over Law Requires
California Vehicle Code Section 21809, updated under Assembly Bill 390 in January 2026, requires motorists to move over a lane or slow down when approaching any stationary vehicle displaying emergency lights, hazard lights, or warning markers. The 2026 update expanded the state's Move Over law beyond emergency vehicles to cover any disabled roadside vehicle, a change with direct relevance to freeway rescue scenes like Sunday's, where LAFD crews worked alongside stopped and damaged vehicles amid live traffic.
Los Angeles County records more than 58,000 injury and fatal traffic crashes annually, according to Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System metrics from the California Highway Patrol. Sunday's rollover adds to a string of serious incidents on this particular Van Nuys freeway segment; Hoodline previously reported on a fatal I-405 pileup near Van Nuys in 2023 and a separate rollover in which a dump truck plunged off the freeway near Victory Boulevard that same year. No information on injury severity or the cause of Sunday's crash had been released beyond the LAFD's initial report.
