Local News in Brief : Firefighters Contain High-Rise Blaze
A fire on the fifth floor of a mid-Wilshire high-rise building Tuesday was contained to a corner office and was controlled in 15 minutes, Los Angeles fire officials said.
The blaze in the 33-story Mutual Benefit Life Plaza at 5900 Wilshire Blvd. was reported shortly after 9 p.m.
No serious injuries were reported, but firefighters were making a room by room search of the building late Tuesday.
About 80 firefighters, a rescue squad and two helicopters were dispatched to the building, across the boulevard from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the La Brea Tar Pits.
No immediate estimate of damage was available, and the cause of the blaze was under investigation, authorities said.
“I heard some loud thumping on the floor and within a few minutes the room filled with smoke,” said Roger Peltier, vice president of operations for Type Inc., a typesetting firm located on the fourth floor. “The alarms were pushed, but they never went off. And there are no sprinklers.” Peltier said he called to a woman who was cleaning the next office and they took a rear stairway to safety with about a dozen other people who were in the building.
Only the parking garage was equipped with sprinklers, fire officials said.
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