Two homes burn on St. Andrews Pl.
A blaze erupted at an abandoned home at 509 N. St. Andrews Pl., burning that house as well as the house next door at 513 N. St. Andrews Pl. The incident killed two dogs, pets of the family living at the latter home, on the afternoon of March 8.
BURNED SHELL of a home at 513 N. St. Andrews Place.
According to reports from ABC Channel 7 news, it took 100 firefighters about an hour to gain control of the destructive fire. The house where the fire began had been abandoned for at least two years.
According to Los Angeles Police Department Senior Lead Officer Danny Chavez, “It’s horrible what happened there. It’s a situation that I didn’t take lightly. I was very aware of it,” he said. An arson investigation is ongoing.
However, claims reported in various news sources state that LAPD didn’t do enough to prevent the blaze from starting in the first place. According to Chavez, “From the city’s perspective, we did what we needed to do.” This included getting a trespass order, which yielded the arrest of four individuals about a month ago. The property was chained and locked with a city lock, which only allows LAPD access to sweep the property in accordance with the trespass order. The City Attorney’s office was involved. Chavez had many conversations with the property owner, a developer waiting for private funding, encouraging him to board up the property, but ultimately boarding up the property is the owner’s decision. He did have the owner turn power off to the property. The developer also owns the adjacent vacant lot at 505 N. St. Andrews Pl.
About a month ago, Chavez reported to LA311 that extension cords were being illegally run directly to the light pole near the property, which is illegal and dangerous.
Category: Real Estate
