At 8:34 p.m. on Jan. 9, the Beverly Hills Fire Department (BHFD) received a call for a structure fire at 708 N. Beverly Drive. When BHFD arrived on the scene, a fully involved first and second floor fire was blazing, engulfing the 8,888 square foot home. In total, approximately 40 firefighters responded from both the BHFD and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. According to BHFD Chief Greg Barton, the official knock down time was 2:23 a.m. the next morning. While there were no fatalities or injuries, the 1931 Spanish style house burned to the ground. The structure was vacant at the time, under construction for renovations. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
“So, this was a very difficult fire to fight simply because we were on a defensive mode,” Barton told the Courier. “Early on in the firefight, there was a collapse of two corners of the structure. And at that point, because there was no life hazard inside, and the walls kept coming down, we didn’t put the firefighters in there. As the walls were falling in, they were falling into the basement. That put a whole lot of fuel load in there with a lot of void spaces that made it difficult for us to get hose lines in to extinguish the fire. We went to a defensive fire attack where we basically attack the fire from the outside so that we weren’t endangering any firefighters.”
