Firefighters’ Efforts Highly Appraised : Blaze: Antique shop owners on Melrose Avenue credit crews’ extra effort with saving valuable items from an early morning outbreak.

An early morning blaze that swept through Los Angeles’ prestigious antique row on Melrose Avenue on Friday damaged six shops, but quick action by firefighters was credited with saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in valuable furniture and art.

Firefighters were summoned to the 8400 block of Melrose at 5:37 a.m. after a nearby resident reported seeing sparks and a small blaze. The fire, apparently started by an electrical malfunction, had already burned through a common roof connecting four shops when firefighters arrived.

The firefighters quickly scrambled to bring some of the merchandise outside, out of the way of fire hoses. They gathered other items in the center of the stores and covered them with tarpaulins to try to minimize water and smoke damage.

Grateful store owners later credited the firefighters with saving many items.

“They were wonderful, really,” Ghassan Abraham, owner of the heavily damaged antique store Impero, said of the firefighters. “I appreciate what they did.”

Standing outside his smoldering shop after the fire was out, Abraham watched as the firefighters gingerly removed some of his antiques from under the tarps. Around him on the street were works of art and pieces of furniture ranging from slightly damaged to intact, their price tags fluttering in the light breeze.

By the time the blaze was declared extinguished at 6:16 a.m., two other antique shops--Tracey & Co. and Harris & Hutt--also had suffered damage, as had the Blue Whale Liquor Mart and Deli and a vacant store.

The fire crews also had to squelch a separate, smaller fire that started several doors down at the office of the Cachet antique store. Battalion Chief Michael Bowers said the second blaze appeared to have been started by the same electrical malfunction that caused the larger fire.

Later in the day, the fire officials assessed the damage to the row of structures at $100,000 and estimated that $150,000 worth of antiques were lost, according to spokesman Pat Marek.

Shop owners and insurance adjusters at the scene, however, estimated that many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of objects had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair, even though a major disaster appeared to have been averted.

Abraham, who moved his shop from Paris to Melrose Avenue less than a year ago, said it would take him some time to assess the damage.

“Many of these paintings I have are worth $50,000,” Abraham said. While some were saved, he said, a whole storeroom full of objects appeared to have been irreparably damaged by smoke and water.

Samantha Harris, an owner of Harris & Hutt, estimated that she may have lost “half a million” dollars worth of goods in the blaze. With many antiques, she said, “once they are wet they are ruined, basically.”

The shop owners described their group of stores at the corner of Melrose Avenue and Melrose Place as one of the nation’s most important antique shopping areas.

“This is the top of the line in the antique business in the country,” said Pierre Bolduc, owner of La Maison Francaise Antiques. “When you are on Melrose Place, you have arrived.”

Several firefighters at the scene said it is standard procedure for them to set aside some personnel to save valuables while others battle the fire. In this case though, they said, it was apparent immediately that extra efforts would be necessary.

Early in the firefighting effort, Battalion Chief Bowers told his men to break the front windows of the stores and drag as much as they could outside onto the street. “I’m no antiques guy,” he said, “but it looked like there was some expensive stuff.

“In a Goodwill store,” he added, “we probably wouldn’t have done this.”