2,000 Flee Fire at County Art Museum

As many as 2,000 people were evacuated when fire broke out Wednesday afternoon in the basement of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, but the blaze was rapidly contained and a preliminary inspection suggested that no artwork was damaged, museum and fire officials said.

About 75 firefighters answered the call, but what undoubtedly made their task easier was the quick response by two firefighters who happened to be working as fire marshals at the eastern entrance of the May Co. department store across the street.

Kicking in doors that fire officials described as “cherry red” from 2,000-degree heat, Capt. George Demott and Inspector Daryl Arbuthnott grabbed a fire hose and held the flames at bay for 10 minutes until help arrived.

No cause has yet been determined for the fire, which erupted at 12:56 p.m. in the basement of the Robert O. Anderson Building, a 2-year-old structure that houses contemporary art and is showing 145 paintings, sculptures and assemblages by American artists of Latino descent.

Officials said firefighters were able to force the smoke out of the four-story building before it could wreak any damage.

Smell of Smoke

“We isolated the smoke and we directed it up and out of the building through the stair shaft,” Fire Chief Larry Schneider said. “There is no damage in the galleries at all, just the smell of smoke.”

Ron Bratton, deputy director of the museum, said members of the conservation staff inspected the galleries and pronounced the artwork unharmed. “We’ve notified other museums that have paintings on loan here as well as insurers and told them we have no damage,” he said.

But fire officials later said the museum was putting together a team of three staff members to perform a closer inspection of the artwork.

Dressed in their special duty uniform of white shirts and slacks, Demott and Arbuthnott dashed over to the museum when they spotted people hurriedly exiting the facility.

“Those guys were fearless. They went right at it,” said Charles W. Masters, a museum maintenance worker.

Assistant Fire Chief James Young said the men “did an excellent job, possibly preventing the fire from spreading further.”

Refusing to be singled out as a hero, Demott said: “Any fireman who would have been near would have been glad to go in and knock down the fire.”

Demott, whose shirt was stained from the smoke and water, was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for observation and treatment for minor burns.

Although officials said the galleries were undamaged, early reports indicated that smoke had penetrated all four floors, raising ominous possibilities for the artwork. Fire Department spokesman Gary Svider initially said there was “extensive smoke damage on all four floors.”

1985 Blaze

A 1985 fire at the Huntington Library’s art gallery in San Marino did so much damage that the museum was closed for a year. Thick smoke coated the paintings and their frames and deposited an oily film on sculpture and decorative objects. It took 500 volunteer hours just to clean the picture frames, museum officials said.

But the county museum was apparently more fortunate. “It looks like the fire doors worked the way they were supposed to, so it appears very little smoke escaped,” said Young of the Fire Department. “All the heavy smoke was contained in the stairwell.”

Although an arson team was investigating the cause of the blaze, “right now we have no reason to believe it’s anything more than an accidental fire,” Young said.

Among the 1,500 to 2,000 people evacuated from the building when the fire broke out were 400 employees. They returned to work about 3 p.m. when all the museum facilities, except the Anderson building, were reopened.

On display through Sunday at the Anderson building is a touring show, “Hispanic Art in the United States,” featuring a variety of styles, from folk art to the classically inspired sculpture of Robert Graham.

Staff writer Terry Pristin contributed to this article.