Residents salvage what they can after blaze at Lomita apartment building
After flames ripped through an apartment complex overnight in Lomita,
destroying half of the units and displacing several residents,
the president of the owner’s association says they plan on rebuilding.
The blaze was first reported by the Los Angeles County Fire Department at 6:50 p.m. Saturday.
It was initially called a second alarm fire before it was upgraded to a third.
Authorities said it was a kitchen fire in one of the units that ignited much of the building in the 2100 block of Palos Verdes Drive North,
the heat so intense that a portion of the condo building’s second floor collapsed.
“It’s horrible, like what happened? How is it from here to the very end? It torched the whole thing,”
neighbor Rose Pskus told KTLA’s Carlos Saucedo. “It’s just crazy.”
Pskus, who lives across the street, was looking for her elderly neighbor who lives in the building.
Out of the 25 units in the apartment complex, half of them were destroyed in the massive inferno.
It took 150 firefighters to knock the flames out, but there were continued flareups overnight.