Downtown Manhattan Beach fire under investigation [VIDEO]
Video by Ken Pagliaro
Firefighters are investigating the cause of a blaze that quickly engulfed a downtown business Saturday and damaged two others in the same building Saturday night.
The fire broke out shortly before 9:40 p.m. at the dental office of Steven Guidone, 1104 N. Highland Ave. Manhattan Beach firefighters responded in less than four minutes to flames spewing from the office and black smoke billowing throughout the two-story building.
By the time they arrived, a nearby palm tree, a parking meter and a light pole also had caught fire. A newspaper stand had nearly melted. Glass scattered on the sidewalk from a blown-out a window indicated the fire rapidly heated up, said MBFD Battalion Chief John Weber.
The building was vacant at the time, and no one was injured.
“The cause of the fire is under investigation and undetermined,” Weber said. “One possibility is that there were a lot of things that could burn in there — chairs, drywall, decorative items, carpet, wood, paper files. The other thing that could have caused it to happen so fast would be if there was an accelerant. Right now, we don’t know what made the fire grow so big so fast. If it was accidental, that’s one thing. If not, the investigation will take another turn.”
Ken Pagliaro was eating at Simmzy’s Pub when his girlfriend pointed out the blaze during dinner.
“As soon as I looked, the flames already had to be about 15 to 20 feet high, licking the second story windows,” said Pagliaro, who ran to the building and started filming the fire.
“I saw a couple people who parked in front of the building struggling to get their cars out of there before they were damaged,” he recalled.
Weber said the fire started in the front reception and lobby areas of the dental office and traveled up through ceiling joists between the first and second floors. Heavy smoke reached Koffee Kart restaurant on the building’s first floor, causing damage “all the way down to the carpet,” Weber said. The ceiling above The Massage Spot day spa was also burned.
Twelve MBFD firefighters, including Interim Fire Chief Ken Shuck, quickly put out the main part of the fire with a large hose through a front window, Weber said. Black smoke extending into other parts of the building prompted fire officials to call in additional support from the El Segundo, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Torrance and Los Angeles County fire departments.
The MBFD immediately began investigating to pinpoint the fire’s origin, with the support of a fire investigation dog brought in from the Los Angeles Fire Department.
“It’s trained to pick up odors — in this case, accelerants – gas, propane, turpentine, anything. I don’t mean it’s arson. I don’t mean it wasn’t an accident. It just helps us identify what happened.”
Weber said that the investigation will likely take a week.
Damages from fire, heat, smoke and water to the building are estimated to be $1 million, said Weber, who also noted that roughly $8 million worth of the building was saved. The dental office and two other businesses were damaged so badly that firefighters “red tagged” them. As of Monday, the rest of building was “yellow-tagged” and scheduled to be operational once debris is cleared.
“That tells you the whole building doesn’t have to be condemned,” Weber said.
Though Koffee Kart owner George Loren began immediately clearing debris, he said he expects to be closed for two to three weeks to gut the restaurant’s interior and remove smoke odor.
“There was no fire damage, but firefighters said the smoke was so thick they couldn’t see their hands in front of them,” said Loren, who happily noted that large paddler artwork on display was not damaged. He said that firefighters pulled down the ceiling and flooded the restaurant with water to prevent the fire from spreading to the attic.
Keith Robinson, Easy Reader cartoonist and owner of Intellivision Productions – which occupies a space almost directly above the dental office – said that though his office sustained some smoke and ceiling damage, he was grateful that a 30-year archive of irreplaceable video game collectible items was not damaged. Robinson is scheduled to show several of the pieces at next year’s “The Art of Video Games” exhibit at the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C.
“I thought, ‘Oh great. There goes the Smithsonian exhibit,’” Robinson recalled. “We’re lucky we’re so close to the fire department. Had it been a couple more minutes, it would have been our office too.”
Weber said that the structure sustained additional damage since it was built before current building codes that require fire barriers in ceiling spaces.
“Had it been built since those codes were put into place, the other two businesses wouldn’t have been affected,” Weber said. “But we still like to consider this a save. Had we not gotten there when we did, it could have been a lot worse. It had the potential to make another parking lot at that spot.”
The building’s owner Ken Ziegler said Monday that the building had excessive smoke damage and that all of its 10 tenants are displaced. He had not yet received an estimate on the damages from his insurance company.
“We hope it wasn’t someone doing it intentionally,” Ziegler said. “It started in the front of the office. Really, there wasn’t anything in there I can picture that explains how that got started.”