Milmada Drive home under renovation completely destroyed by fire, officials report
A house on La Cañada’s Milmada Drive, purchased less than one month ago and reportedly undergoing remodeling, was ravaged by a fire that broke out early Wednesday and had completely consumed the structure by the time it was doused.
Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Robert Bauer said he was in Altadena when the call came in at around 6:15 a.m. By the time he’d made it to the location, the home was consumed by flames. No one was inside the property at the time.
“When we arrived on scene the fire had already burned through the roof. There was smoke and fire showing,” he said. “It had been burning for some time before that.”
Los Angeles County firefighters from La Cañada’s Fire Station No. 82 quickly contained the fire and had it completely knocked out in about 45 minutes, Bauer said, but they were too late to save the home’s interior.
“It’s at a point where bulldozing might be the best thing,” he added.
Nearby, the home’s new owner and her contractor stood watching as firefighters continued to douse the inside of the residence in an effort to prevent hot spots from rekindling. A yellow placard on the front of the house, in addition to a work truck in the driveway and a portable bathroom out front, indicated the property was under construction.
Jae Lee, owner of JL Design & Construction Service, Inc., said his client had purchased the property nearly one month ago and had hired him to do some interior renovations. He received a call at around 6 a.m. Wednesday from the client’s son, who lives across the street from the house, informing him of the fire.
“I got here at around 7 o’ clock and by then it was done,” Lee said of the fire. “We were remodeling the house — we had removed the kitchen and were starting to gut it out. Now it’s probably [going to be] a new building.”
Bauer said the cause of the fire and its point of origination are still unknown and will be investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s arson investigation team.
“There’s nothing that stood out as an obvious cause,” he said.
A west-facing wall adjacent to a neighboring home remained almost completely intact, preventing the fire from spreading next door, the captain reported.
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