Fashion district fire prompts arson investigation

An arson investigation is underway after an early-morning fire burned through a tailor shop in the downtown fashion district Saturday, authorities said.

Firefighters responded to K1 Fashion at 1409 Santee Street at 2:35 a.m. to find the single-story building engulfed in flames, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The fire had begun to burn through the roof, officials said, and firefighters forced their way into the building using rotary saws.

As firefighters worked to stop the blaze, a civilian vehicle ran over a supply hose line, causing it to rupture, the fire department said.

It took 80 firefighters 50 minutes to extinguish the fire, officials said. Though most of the fire was contained to one unit in the row of commercial buildings, some adjacent buildings sustained “limited smoke and water damage,” said Katherine Main, a spokeswoman for the department.

There were no injuries, she said.

Arson investigators who used specially trained dogs and took samples in the damaged building determined the cause of the fire to be “suspicious,” Main said. The case remains under investigation, she said.

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