City officials ignored neighbors' warnings in Chinatown. Then fire erupts at abandoned construction site

Neighbors say their fears came true after a fire in a large apartment building in the Chinatown neighborhood early Friday left six people injured, including two firefighters, and temporarily displaced dozens of families.

At 3:43 a.m. Friday, the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a fire that started at a construction site on Bunker Hill Avenue and that then jumped to a nearby three-story apartment building, according to a news alert .

More than 130 firefighters went to the scene, extinguishing the fire in an hour and a half. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

An estimated 70 people have been displaced from the apartment building while the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety evaluates the residence to determine which units are safe to reoccupy.

Six people were injured by the fire, including a 90-year-old man who was transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition. A woman, 55, was taken to a hospital with a non-life-threatening burn injury. Two others were assessed for injuries but declined transportation to the hospital.

One firefighter was taken to an occupational health facility for an injury, and another was treated at the scene for possible heat exhaustion.

The unfinished building at the construction site had been abandoned since the end of 2022, according to nearby resident Katie Antonsson, who used to work for the Los Angeles Times as an audience analyst. The following year, neighbors started reaching out to Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez's office to voice concerns about half a dozen squatters living there, Antonsson said.

This year there have been four small fires at the construction site, Antonsson said.

In July, the Los Angeles Police Department told her that because she isn't the property owner, she has no say over who can and cannot be on the property, so they could not assist her. Instead, she said, the department recommended she file a report with the city Building and Safety Department.

Antonsson filed a report two months ago, and hasn't gotten a response.

The Building and Safety Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We knew this was going to happen, and now we have multiple neighbors in the hospitals, dozens of neighbors displaced because these developers just let this property sit and fester," Antonsson said.

Fire officials have not said whether there were signs of an encampment.

Hernandez told The Times that this type of situation — half-built buildings that become nuisances — is an issue that's affecting the entire city.

"My heart breaks for the situation there because this happened at four in the morning, and families having to gather all their items from their home, it's just terrible," she said.

The council member said tight budgets at the city departments that respond to these issues hinder their ability to effectively manage reported cases.

"There's a really big gap in being able to do enforcement on these types of buildings and developments," Hernandez said. "There's also a lack of policy that would allow us to have a deep engagement and authority over these types of [abatement issues]."

Hernandez said the fire has highlighted a larger issue of being able to hold developers and property owners accountable because they're "responsible for securing their buildings and lots."

"If they haven't acquired the finances to develop a project, perhaps they shouldn't dive into building a project and leaving it half built in the middle of one of the densest neighborhoods in our district," she said.

Her office also said in a statement that members of Hernandez's staff have been at the site, providing supplies and assistance to affected residents. It added that it is working with the Department of Recreation and Parks to establish the Alpine Recreation Center as a temporary evacuation site "while we identify and activate locations as emergency shelter sites."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .