Fervent honking started simply earlier than 4 a.m. from drivers passing alongside Santa Fe Avenue in Huntington Park who witnessed one of many metropolis’s two fireplace stations burning.
Neighbors residing close by banged on the door of the two-story workplace and dormitory because the adjoining storage was engulfed in flames.
They had been attempting to alert sleeping firefighters to a blaze in their very own constructing.
Finally, crews from Huntington Park’s Hearth Station No. 164 descended from their second-story residing quarters, some in shorts, others in T-shirts and flip-flops, based on Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn.
However, they grabbed as a lot gear as potential and even fought the blaze with backyard hoses. Support additionally got here from Los Angeles County firefighters from different stations, who helped douse the hearth that destroyed a good quantity of the station.
County Supervisor Janice Hahn, proper, toured the scene on Wednesday morning.
(Courtesy of Janice Hahn’s workplace)
Afterward, the L.A. County Hearth Division categorized the blaze as a two-alarm fireplace that was knocked down at 5:17 a.m.
There have been no accidents or hospitalizations, fireplace personnel famous. The reason for the hearth has but to be decided and might be investigated by an outdoor company, probably Cal Hearth, stated Kenichi Haskett, a Los Angeles County Hearth spokesperson.
Hahn toured the torched amenities together with Huntington Park metropolis leaders later that morning and posted images that confirmed a burned-out sports activities utility automobile and a fireplace engine.
There have been additionally charred helmets, protecting clothes and radio tools.
“I wished these firefighters, to start with, to know that I help them [and] the county helps them,” she stated on social media.
Hahn stated she additionally visited to see the “devastation” for herself.
“I wished the chief of the hearth division to know that the county will present all of the sources we have to ensure that we are able to rebuild, exchange and ensure that these communities are nonetheless lined,” Hahn stated.
Earlier than the station was put out of fee, Haskett, stated the division tried to maintain response occasions to about two to a few minutes.
He confirmed that some fireplace personnel had been being relocated to Vernon and surrounding communities however couldn’t give an actual timeline for a return to the station.
“It might be honest to say roughly six months to a yr to be 100% operational,” he stated.
The station’s destruction leaves just one functioning fireplace station for town of over 50,000.
Haskett stated 33 fireplace personnel are assigned to Station No. 164, with three shifts of 11 members every, together with paramedics, firefighters, fireplace truck operators and a battalion chief.
Huntington Park Mayor Karina Macias toured the world with Hahn, town’s vice mayor and the director of planning.
Macias stated the station had been in service since 1962 and was identified locally as “The Huge Home 164.”
“Station 164 is a pillar locally and it’s unlucky to see the hearth injury, however I’m content material that no person was harm,” Macias stated.
