Sprinklers Squirt Out Fire in L.A.’s 2nd-Tallest Tower

Soggy is better than scorched.

That was the consensus among firefighters and office workers after a potentially disastrous fire broke out early Monday in the city’s second-tallest building but was quickly extinguished by an automatic sprinkler system.

There was minor water damage to six floors of the 54-story Wells Fargo Tower. Nobody, however, was complaining, particularly in light of the blaze May 4 that gutted four floors of another downtown high-rise, the nearby First Interstate Bank tower, where sprinklers were being installed but were not yet working.

“The sprinklers were wonderful. Without them, this building might have gone up,” said Linda Smothers, office supervisor of the accounting firm Deloitte Haskins & Sells, in whose 28th-floor offices the fire began Monday morning.

Authorities agreed that a catastrophe had been averted.

“It’s clear that sprinkler systems can control and extinguish small fires before they grow into large, uncontrolled fires,” said Jim Wells, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.

He and others were unable to place an immediate dollar value on the damage from Monday’s blaze.

Barbara Casey, a spokeswoman for the Wells Fargo Tower, said workmen had been refinishing a wooden parquet floor in a vacant office on the 28th floor and had left out a container of highly flammable solvent before leaving over the weekend. Draped over the container was a rag that caught fire, apparently by spontaneous combustion.

At 3:58 a.m., smoke from the fire set off ceiling sprinklers throughout the 28th floor and on two floors below, according to officials. Some of the water seeped down through lower floors, ultimately reaching the 23rd level.

Prompted by an alarm, building security personnel checked the 28th floor, confirmed that there was a fire and, five minutes after the sprinklers came on, called the Fire Department, officials said.

Wells said nine units and more than 30 firefighters responded to the tower at 333 S. Grand Ave. but found that the sprinklers already had done their job. Fire damage was restricted to the office in which it began.

Firefighters shut off the sprinklers, which were installed as the Wells Fargo Tower neared completion in 1982, and spread plastic tarpaulins over areas where water continued to drain.

Smothers said that while a few of the accounting firm’s 600 local employees had to be relocated from damp desks and dripping ceilings, business began as usual Monday. Daily operations also were unaffected at Kidder, Peabody & Co., a stockbrokerage that occupies the two floors below the four floors that are occupied by the accounting firm.

Authorities have speculated that a similar sprinkler system might have prevented the extensive damage that occurred in May when fire raced through four floors of the 62-story First Interstate Bank building, the city’s tallest. One person was killed and 40 were injured.

The City Council subsequently passed an ordinance requiring that sprinklers, rooftop ventilation holes and fire doors on elevator vestibules be installed in buildings that are taller than 75 feet.

Records show that of the 20 tallest office buildings in Los Angeles County, nine have sprinkler systems.