Firefighters Douse Two-Story Blaze in Santa Monica Pico District

Reporting by Rodger and June Caldwell. On Site Photo by June Caldwell.

Monday, June 18, 2007: A large fire broke out at a Santa Monica business located at 1928 14th St, just south of 14th and Pico around 7 pm. Two local youths in Santa Monica, grade school students Tyler Walker and Ryan Chamberlain helped save the day, as they were among the first to spot the smoke. They were playing in the neighborhood and noticed that the sky was filling with dark clouds. “We thought it was going to rain!” Ryan told us. But instead they were shocked to see that a building was on fire on 14th near Pico. They looked for a phone to call the police, and a lady nearby called the Fire Dept from her cell phone.

The building was Imperial Media Service, a DVD and CD duplicator business. A client of Imperial Media Service watched the firefighters on the job shaking his head, and told us he thinks his DVD masters were in the building for a PBS series about to go to DVD, Adventures with Boco. “I have been on the phone for an hour trying to reach the owner to find out if the masters are in there…if they are, the project is up in smoke - literally!”

In true ‘only in LA’ fashion, a nearby onlooker said, “Excuse me, but if you reach the owner, can you give him my card?” He was Tony Chismar. I asked for a card to check out too…it says he does “Fire and Water – Cleanup & Restoration”!

The Imperial Tape Co. recently renamed Imperial Media Service was started in 1982 in a small apartment. Through innovation and hard work the owner Howard Ganz grew the business into the largest CD duplicator in Southern California with a long list of corporate clients. His inventory appeared to have gone up in smoke at the time of this writing. The building apparently contained large quantities of discs and cases as well as large quantities of video tape.

The fire required help from LAFD in addition to two or more Santa Monica fire stations as they battled the blaze from multiple locations along 14th St. and in the alley behind the blaze thick, black smoke billowed into the air. The firefighters spraying the fire from the high vantage point of their ladder trucks were periodically engulfed in smoke as they poured water on it from four different hydrants. Over 90 firefighters were reported to be on the scene. One fireman was reported injured, no details were yet released. Fighting the fire was made more difficult by the collapsing of the roof and later the 2nd floor so firemen had to withdraw from inside to fight the blaze. The cause was not disclosed definitively, but speculation was that the plastic in the building contributed and it was likely an electrical fire.

Onlookers standing between headstones in Woodlawn Cemetery - across the street from the fire - watching the progress, created an eerie scene. But all were cheering the firefighters on, and the blaze was put out within a couple of hours.

For more pictures of the event, see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jooonbg/sets/72157600397566039.