When Andy Liang went out to check on the smoke coming from his apartment building on the morning of September 13, he noticed a small fire burning at the abandoned construction site next door on Bunker Hill Avenue.
Liang turned around and went back to the second-floor apartment he shared with his parents. His apartment faced a construction site, but this was not the first fire to happen next door.
“I thought it was nothing serious until it started spreading,” Liang said.
The fire reached a neighboring three-story apartment building, injuring six people and displacing 50 individual tenants and families. Liang, who called 911 as the fire grew, woke up his parents and escaped when the flames threatened his unit.
After a fire broke out at a construction site on New Depot Street on September 13, the fire spread to nearby homes and displaced residents.
(Wilson)
The construction site has been an ongoing issue for the neighborhood, attracting squatters and forcing first responders to extinguish several small fires there after it was abandoned in late 2022.
Wilson, who declined to give his last name due to privacy concerns, said he moved into a unit on New Depot Street with a friend and her three children about three months ago. Immediately, he said, he saw encroachers near the construction site. Every night when he tried to sleep, he would hear people moving around or making noise.
“I felt like it wasn’t safe,” the 60-year-old man said. An immigrant from China, he has lived in Los Angeles for 40 years.
Wilson said the owner of his building called the police several times about the squatters, but nothing was ever done. About a month ago, Wilson said, he saw the fire department battling a small fire at a construction site and talked to a firefighter. They told him they had been there “several times”.
Neighbors at Bunker Hill Avenue and New Depot Street told The Times that they had previously told Council Member Eunice Hernandez’s office, the city Department of Buildings and Safety and the Los Angeles Police Department about their concerns about the construction site.
Tenants said officials told them the city could not act on their complaints about campers because the tenants did not own the construction site, so they did not have the right to say who could or could not be on the property.
The morning of the fire, Wilson said, her roommate thought she heard rain. But when he looked outside, there were flames everywhere.
Wilson said, after running out to safety with his friend and her children, he remembers thinking the fire would not reach his building. But then saw that the flames were blown away by the gust of wind.
After a fire broke out at a construction site on New Depot Street on September 13, the fire spread to nearby homes and displaced residents.
(Wilson)
Daisy Maa and other staff members at around 8 in the morning Chinatown Service Center They arrived to find 50 tenants, most of them seniors, standing or sitting across the street in front of the burned buildings, shocked and some in tears.
Recognizing that many of the individuals and families whose homes were engulfed in flames were clients of their health center, staff there stepped in to translate for their clients and other tenants, whose first language is Cantonese. , said Ma, chief government and community relations officer. non profitable. This helped residents communicate with the Red Cross, city officials, and others, who helped victims get food, clothing, medicine, and a place to sleep.
Many units were red-tagged and could not be re-entered by tenants, Ma said, so the nonprofit worked with firefighters to get residents’ medications, canes and walkers back, as well. Received new copies with state and federal representatives. Their social security number and naturalization certificate.
Many displaced residents spent the night after the fire at the Alpine Recreation Center, which was jointly opened by the Red Cross and the city’s emergency management department. The group then split up, with some staying temporarily at the Best Western Plus Dragon Gate Inn or the Royal Pagoda Motel.
Three displaced tenants who needed specific medical care – for example, routine catheter cleaning – were temporarily placed in a rehabilitation center where they could receive 24-hour medical care.
Ma said it has been difficult for fire victims to be separated from each other and away from their communities. Emotions ran high with the arrival of the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar.
This festival is a time to gather with family, share food, and wish for luck or prosperity. This year, the festival was celebrated four days after the fire; The Chinatown Service Center and the Red Cross coordinated with the Best Western to use the hotel’s meeting space to host a dinner that day for the entire group of fire victims.
Liang said his parents are staying at the Best Western and will be moved to the Royal Pagoda Motel at the end of the month.
“They’re holding on,” he said, especially his father, who was recovering from colon-cancer surgery two days before the fire.
A week after the fire, Liang returned to UC Santa Barbara for his sophomore year with some financial aid provided by the First Chinese Baptist Church and a computer recovered from his burned unit.
He calls his parents daily to know their condition.
Wilson is staying at his friend’s house in Temple City. His Chevrolet coupe, which he had purchased only a year earlier, burst into flames. His insurance company is willing to cover a portion of the car’s cost, but Wilson still must pay the remaining $10,000 on his car loan.
His passport, as well as the tools he uses for his job as an assistant, were inside the car and were destroyed.
