Fire Causes $6 Million in Damage, Destroys 2 Firms

A fire raced through a North Hollywood commercial building Friday causing nearly $6 million in damages and destroying two businesses, the Los Angeles Fire Department reported.

No one was hurt, although six employees of an adult video company fled the building when the fire was discovered, officials said. The cause of the fire was being investigated but officials said it appeared to be accidental.

“The building is a total loss,” Battalion Chief Don Dahlstein said. “They’ve got the walls, but that’s about it.”

The fire was reported at 4:14 a.m. in the single-story commercial complex in the 7400 block of Fulton Avenue, said Greg Acevedo, a Fire Department spokesman.

The building, formerly an air-conditioning company’s warehouse, housed two separate companies: Gold Crest Ltd., a warehouse for a company that makes awards and corporate promotional equipment, and Video Network Group, which fire officials said copied, packaged and distributed adult videos.

About 130 firefighters controlled the fire in about an hour. Although the outside walls of the about 20,000-square-foot building remained standing, officials said the interior was gutted by the fire, which also burned through the roof.

A night crew of six employees fled from the video company when the fire was discovered, but by then much of the Gold Crest warehouse was already burning, Dahlstein said. The building was already engulfed, and fire was shooting through the roof by the time firefighters arrived, he said.

Dahlstein said damage inside the building hampered efforts to determine what caused the fire. He said fire officials believe the fire started in the Gold Crest warehouse, and several electrical appliances were removed from the debris to be studied for signs of malfunction.

“We are looking at several different things,” Dahlstein said. “But it doesn’t look suspicious.”

Fire officials estimated the damage to the building at $4 million, and the loss of contents was believed to be more than $1.75 million.

Henry Goldman, owner of Gold Crest, said his warehouse was a total loss.

“Our disaster is the timeliness of it,” Goldman said. “All the year-end corporate award programs hit right now. We had all our orders being processed. But it’s all lost.”

Dahlstein said more than $1-million worth of videotapes and equipment were destroyed at Video Network Group.

Through most of the day Friday, video company employees attempted to salvage videotapes from the debris. In front of the building, several people were opening charred cases and cleaning undamaged tapes. But it was a slow process, and not much was saved, officials said.

“They’ll only be able to salvage maybe 1% of their stock,” Dahlstein said.