and Caroline Anderson
Portions of Manhattan Beach Boulevard were evacuated and blocked off on Tuesday night after a fire started in the office and storage space behind the stores Trendy Sunglasses and Heavenly Couture and flames reached a second-story apartment building next door.
The Manhattan Beach Fire Department received a call at 9:21 p.m. of a fire at the corner of Highland Ave. and Center Place — the alleyway opposite Manhattan Beach Blvd.
Michael McFadden, a manager at the Kettle, was one of the first to notice smoke billowing from the alley. Within minutes, he said, the alley was completely filled with smoke.
“By the time I got down there you could not see down that alley. It was insane,” he said.
When the fire trucks arrived minutes later, flames climbed above the back of the commercial building, reaching the upstairs apartments at 225 Manhattan Beach Blvd.
“It was going pretty hot. It was coming out of the roof and into the apartments,” said Manhattan Beach Fire Department Captain Jim Muth. “But we were able to knock it down.”
Crews set up on either side of the building. A fire crew from Redondo Beach cut holes in the roof with a chainsaw to ventilate  while others tamped the flames with multiple hoses.
“It was an extended firefight,” said Manhattan Beach Fire Department Captain Tyler Wade. “It was a good, coordinated effort. We had units from L.A. County, El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach.”
The apartments and next door restaurant Simmzy’s were evacuated before the fire department arrived. There were believed to be no injuries.
Tony D’Errico, a city councilmember whose stores Bella Beach Kids and Bella Beach are next to Trendy Sunglasses and were affected by the blaze, went down to the site after his daughter, who lives downtown, alerted him.
“The firefighters did an amazing job,” said D’Errico. “They probably saved the entire block. That could’ve been a fire that went from Starbucks to Wells Fargo.”
