Grand Prize Writing: The Christmas tree murder fire
Honorable mention : “Block Party” by Bill Akstens by Mike Squires Around midnight, in mid-December, back in the early ‘90s, we received a “voice-page alarm” of a structure fire at 10302 Doty Avenue, cross streets 104th and Century Boulevard. Engines 3, 4, Truck 1 and Unit 11 responded. I was the captain at Fire Station #4 in the city of Inglewood, located at 107th and Crenshaw Boulevard, a perilous part of town. The fire was my “First in District.” We would be the first to arrive at the scene. We all leaped out of our beds as the lights in the stationhouse came on and we slid into our turnout pants and boots. It’s only a one story firehouse so there was no pole to slide down. The overhead engine room door rolled up and Engine 4, along with Rescue 4, rolled out. We had three men on the engine and two on the rescue unit. As we turned onto 104th Street we could see the loom up, a yellow and orange header of smoke glowing over the buildings near the Hollywood Park Racetrack. I announced over the radio, “To all incoming units, we have a worker,” meaning a working fire in progress. As we turned onto Doty Avenue, about a half block down on the right hand side of the street, was a two…
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