On Monday, May 15, 2006 at 7:07 p.m., 24 companies of Los Angeles firefighters, three LAFD rescue ambulances, one heavy rescue, one arson unit, one urban search and rescue unit, one hazardous materials squad, one LAFD helicopter, two EMS battalion captains, six battalion chief officer command teams and one division chief officer command team, under the direction of Assistant Chief Roderick Garcia responded to a Major Emergency Structure Fire at 21700 Oxnard Street in the Warner Center area of Woodland Hills.
The first company arriving in response to an automatic fire alarm activation, discovered forty persons calmly self-evacuating a 20-story sealed high rise office building.
As the half-dozen first responding firefighters quickly secured the lobby and adjacent fire control room, they noted smoke alarm activation on five upper levels of the building, verbal indication of fire on the 17th floor, and at least one building occupant reported missing and believed to be stranded in an elevator.
This information, relayed to firefighters/dispatchers at LAFD’s operations control dispatch section, brought the well-coordinated response of an additional 149 Los Angeles Fire Department personnel on the ground and in the air.
In accordance with LAFD’s high rise incident command system, firefighters established firm control of key building systems, including a recall of elevators to the lobby level of the 17-year-old building, as firefighters, carrying as much as 100 pounds of equipment each, commenced a steady climb up more than 40 flights of stairs to do battle with fire in the upper reaches of the third-tallest building in Warner Center.
With detailed knowledge of the structure gained during fire prevention and annual fire department high-rise drills proudly hosted by building management, firefighters made strong headway to the 17th floor, where they found fire in an electrical room and smoke charging the 17th through 20th floors as well as machine rooms above.
As an LAFD helicopter cross-staffed with an airborne engine company circled overhead, fire attack and support teams established staging on the floor below the fire, optimizing a strategic assault that confined the fire to the electrical room and fully abolished flames in little more than an hour.
There were no injuries related to the fire.
Subsequent to firefighting operations, firefighters systematically searched the buildings many elevators and associated systems to discover a woman trapped in a ‘blind’ segment of a split-bank elevator that served only floors 12 and above from the lobby. Finding the one elevator car stuck at the ‘fourth floor’ level of the sealed shaft, firefighters established verbal contact with the woman, who was uninjured and not exposed to smoke.
After redundantly securing the elevator, firefighters used power tools to breach the elevator shaft wall from a fifth floor storage room, and then used a 12-foot fire department ladder within the shaft to access the woman.
Following a cursory evaluation of her condition and affirming her capabilities, she was gently assisted in climbing the ladder, and exited safely to decline further treatment or transportation.
Battalion Chief James Gaffney, ‘B’ Platoon Commander of LAFD’s Battalion 17, was quick to compliment building staff for their prompt and efficient actions prior to and following the fire department’s arrival. The 29-year LAFD veteran offered special praise for the building engineer and electrician, who offered technical expertise and insight that helped mitigate the emergency and strengthen firefighter’s efforts at severely minimizing collateral damage from smoke and water.
Damage to the building was limited to $330,000 ($30,000 structural & $300,000 contents damage - mostly from smoke). The cause of the fire was determined to be electrical in nature. The specific reason for the elevator becoming inoperative was not determined by firefighters, but may have been related to the fire.