On Thursday, April 13, 2006 at 8:41 p.m., 18 companies of Los Angeles firefighters, five LAFD rescue ambulances, one heavy rescue, one arson unit, two urban search and rescue units, one hazardous materials team, two EMS battalion captains, six battalion chief officer command teams, one division chief officer command team and two companies of Los Angeles County firefighters, all under the direction of Assistant Chief Michael Fulmis responded to a major emergency structure fire at 4856 East Valley Boulevard in the Hillside Village/University Hills area near South El Sereno.
Firefighters arrived quickly to discover heavy fire showing from a vacant 100' x 100' one story masonry commercial building. While firefighters deployed handlines, flames suddenly shot though the roof of the unoccupied building, the scene of a fire within the past two weeks. As the untenable structure quickly exhibited signs of physical compromise, a command decision was confidently made to usedefensive tactics with master streams to bring the flames under control.
Within 16 minutes of the first 9-1-1 call, the building began to fail, as portions of the roof collapsed into and further fed the fire. The well-coordinated effort of more than 130 Firefighters confined the fire to the structure and extinguished the flames in just 64 minutes. There were no injuries. Monetary loss was not immediately established. The cause of the fire remains under active investigation.