LOS ANGELES _ A fire broke out in a 25-story Los Angeles residential building Wednesday morning, injuring eight people _ including a 3-month-old baby _ and triggering a large response from city firefighters.
The blaze was reported by fire crews in the area shortly after 8:30 a.m. at the Barrington Plaza apartments in the Sawtelle neighborhood. Fire officials initially reported that some residents had jumped from the building to escape the flames. However, authorities later clarified that two people contemplated jumping but were rescued by fire officials. One man was seen clinging to the ledge of a building before a fire ladder was hoisted up to him.
Authorities knocked down the fire shortly before 10 a.m. Crews were continuing to search each floor for additional victims, said LAFD Deputy Chief Armando Hogan.
Television video showed residents, some in bathrobes, on the roof of the building with a fire helicopter overhead lifting them to safety. Officials said it was the first time the fire helicopter had been used in rescue efforts.
Video showed heavy flames inside the building and thick black smoke pouring from at least one balcony and several windows.
Mackenzie Williams, 25, said she was driving to work at Pure Barre _ a fitness studio at Wilshire Boulevard and Granville Avenue _ about 9 a.m. when she "saw one fire truck pass by me, then I saw two, then I saw 10, then I saw about 20, so I definitely knew something was going on."
Williams said she "saw a bunch of smoke coming out of the building" and what appeared to be a helicopter airlifting people from the roof.
"I just hope everyone is OK over there," she said.
A fire that erupted on the 11th floor of the same apartment building in 2013 displaced up to 150 residents and injured two people.
At the time, L.A. fire officials said the Barrington Plaza building was not equipped with a sprinkler system. Because it was built nearly 60 years ago, it does not fall under state regulations later adopted that forced buildings taller than 75 feet to include such fire-suppression systems unless granted an exemption.
Hogan said Wednesday the building was not equipped with sprinklers.
The Los Angeles Times reported in 2014 that 71 of the city's roughly 200 residential high-rises don't have sprinkler systems installed. There was a push after the 2013 fire to get more of those buildings retrofitted with sprinklers.
In 2014, a group of tenants in the high-rise sued the building's corporate owner for negligence.
According to residents, several fire alarms failed to sound in Barrington Plaza as a fire in October 2013 spread inside an apartment on the 11th floor. A door to the roof was locked and the stairwells filled with choking smoke, tenants said.
"The conditions at the supposedly high-end apartment building were atrocious," attorney Mark Geragos said at the time.
Resident Ivo Gerscovich's 2-year-old daughter and father-in-law were found passed out in a smoke-filled stairwell above the 20th floor during the previous fire.
"It's a deathtrap," Gerscovich said at the time. "It's totally insane and indefensible."
