Despite a swift response and rescue by Los Angeles Fire Department Firefighters, and an exhaustive resuscitation effort by a team of veteran LAFD Firefighter/Paramedics, a man pulled from his burning apartment in South Los Angeles Wednesday afternoon, died at the scene.

The fire was reported at 2:21 PM on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 at 317 West 76th Street in the Florence neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles, with firefighters arriving quickly to find fire visible from one upstairs unit at the rear of a 3,820 square-foot, 2 story, 5 unit garden-style apartment building.

Thirty-five firefighters under the command of Battalion Chief Peter Hsiao skilfully confined the fire within the apartment of origin, extinguishing the flames in just 13 minutes.

In their search of the still smoke charged dwelling, firefighters discovered an unresponsive adult male, and quickly carried him from the apartment and downstairs to a waiting team of LAFD Firefighter/Paramedics, who initiated advanced life support measures on the pulseless and non-breathing man, described by neighbors as the resident of the burning apartment.

In accordance with prehospital care protocol, an all-encompassing effort to revive the man continued unabated for more than twenty minutes inside the ambulance, until medical control physicians concurred telephonically that he was beyond medical help, and determined dead at the scene.

No other injuries were reported. 

Though the involved apartment was equipped with one or more smoke alarms sounding on LAFD arrival, the 57 year-old building was not equipped with optional fire sprinklers.

A positive identification of the dead man, as well as the cause, time and manner of his death will be determined by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner. 

Monetary loss from the fire is estimated at $25,000 ($20,000 structure & $5,000 contents), with LAFD responders preventing any direct fire damage to adjacent apartments.

The cause of the fire remains under active investigation. 

Dispatched LAFD Units: E57  RA257  E233  E33  T33  RA33  E264  T64  E46  BC13  BC11  RA857  PH1  AR1  EM13  CM32