May Co Annex Site of 2nd Fire in Five Days

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Broadway was filled with fire apparatus today as the Los Angeles Fire Department was called to a blaze in the May Co. Annex for the second time in just five days.

On Wednesday, the department quickly extinguished a blaze in a 9th floor space on the building's Hill street side. This time firefighters were called to a fire on the building's Broadway side, in a 6th floor space.

While flames were again put out quickly, residents of the next-door Eastern Columbia are likely a little unsettled to see LAFD back in the neighborhood so quickly.

The close-together fires should raise concerns about the safety of what goes on in the upper floors of under-utilized buildings Downtown. Pedestrians on Broadway can look up and see cardboard boxes packed ceiling-high in some windows, while other buildings feature potentially fire-hazardous uses such as jewelry manufacturing.

As usual, Downtown residents should be eternally grateful for LAFD and the overwhelming response the department shows to potentially dangerous events such as this. Easily three dozen pieces of fire equipment responded to this fire, filling the block between 8th and 9th and leaving nearly a dozen pieces on Broadway north of 8th.