2 LAPD Officers Dash Into Burning House to Save 20

Two Los Angeles police officers rushed into a burning three-story house early Sunday and saved about 20 homeless people who were sleeping in the abandoned Victorian-style structure.

Rampart Division Officers Craig McLaren and Greg Staats were driving on Hoover Street about 1 a.m. when they “saw a big cloud of smoke (and) flames coming from the roof” of the residence west of downtown, Staats said.

The officers notified the Fire Department, then rushed up to the home and kicked in the door. Many of the transients were asleep and the officers roused them by yelling and pounding on inside doors, Staats said.

“They thought it was a drug raid and some came out with their hands up,” Staats said, explaining that the abandoned home at 1173 Hoover Street is known as a hangout for transients and drug users.

The sleepy transients, including a pregnant woman, began straggling out of the building as the officers tried to reach the second level. But intense heat and smoke kept them back, officials said.

“The roof was caving in on them,” said Police Lt. Ben Gering, referring to reports from firefighters at the scene. “Hot timbers were coming down.”

McLaren and Staats ran outside and began hurling rocks at windows to awaken the people who were sleeping upstairs. More transients fled from the upper floors seconds before the roof collapsed.

Flames were raging through the house, but Staats said he and his partner were not thinking about the danger to their lives.

“I said to my partner, ‘We’ve got to get them out,’ ” he recalled. “It’s something that’s just spontaneous; something you can never train for.”

About 40 firefighters extinguished the flames in 27 minutes. The upper floors of the home were heavily damaged, but officials did not make a dollar estimate because the building had been damaged by a fire earlier this year, Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said.

Police and fire officials could not interview the homeless people occupying the house because they fled, Gering said. No one was believed injured.

Cause of the blaze was under investigation, fire officials said.

After routine checkups for smoke inhalation at a local hospital, Staats and McLaren were back on duty Sunday afternoon.