Blaze brings heavy damage to vacant home.
By Sam Catanzaro
It took 101 firefighters and 147 minutes to extinguish a fire that broke out in a $13.7 million vacant home in Brentwood early this morning.
The fire was reported to the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) West Bureau at 3:58 a.m., on the 300 block of N. Rockingham Avenue in a 7,552 square foot one-story home, a few doors down from where football player O.J. Simpson lived when his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered in 1994.
According to LAFD Spokesperson Brian Humphrey in a statement, the “stubborn flames…heavily damaged” the one-story home that used to be home to Los Angeles Police Commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum and his wife, Betty Warner-Sheinbaum, daughter of Warner Bros. Studios co-founder Harry Warner. Sheinbaum died in 2016 and his wife died a year after. The home was sold earlier this year.
The house was vacant when firefighters arrived and there have been no civilian injuries reported. A little more than an hour into the fight, however, a crew member was treated for exertion and several other firefighters were treated on the scene for injuries as well.
“several firefighters were examined [and] treated on scene for extreme exertion during the intense and prolonged firefight,” Humphrey said. “None required hospital care.”
The monetary loss from the fire is still being calculated and the cause of the fire remains under active investigation.
Earlier this morning motorists were urged to avoid Sunset Boulevard and Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood due to congestion and delays, Humphrey said.
