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An early morning fire at a piñata and party supply factory in Downtown's Wholesale District has left one LAFD firefighter injured. The blaze, ultimately deemed a Greater Alarm Structure Fire, was reported at around 1:25 a.m. Sunday at the two-story building at 1171 East 10th Street.
The fire was reported by security guards, who spotted the flames from outside. They heard a man crying for help, according to KTLA, who was not inside the building, but stuck on the premises behind a large fence. "The security guards were able to help the man to safety by stacking a pallet up against the fence before firefighters arrived on the scene."
Firefighter and Paramedic spokesman Erik Scott explains via an e-mail release:
Firefighters arrived to find a large outside fire exposing the rear of two buildings, a tall warehouse connected by a division wall to a one-story building separated into an approximate half dozen, 50' x 100' individual stores containing party supplies.
Firefighters cut their way through multiple rolling steel doors into the warehouse in order to confront the blaze, while others attacked the fire from the roof. The fire was put out in just over an hour, with the work of 110 firefighters. "One Firefighter assigned to a Truck Company suffered back injury and was transported to a local hospital in fair condition," notes the LAFD.
The amount of damage has yet to be calculated, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
