Fire Burned Through a Chinatown Building's Roof. Crews Fought It From Outside.

LAFD reported no injuries and said the cause of the fire in the 100-by-200-foot commercial building is still undetermined.

When the first fire companies reached the 1000 block of North Main Street in Chinatown on Thursday evening, heavy fire was already coming through the roof of a one-story commercial building, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

By the time LAFD sent out its 7:46 p.m. alert, the incident commander had switched every company to defensive firefighting, which means working the fire from outside the building. Knockdown came at 8:40 p.m., and the department reported no injuries at that point.

LAFD's alerts give the incident time as 6:59 p.m. The first alert, at 7:07 p.m., said a fire burning outside had spread into the commercial building. It also said more companies had been called in and LAPD had been notified. The list of responding units grew from 15 call signs on that first alert to 46 on the last one.

The building was big. In its knockdown notice, LAFD described it as 100 feet by 200 feet, mostly one story with a two-story section attached. The department said it took about 100 minutes from the 911 call to put the fire out.

LAFD's alerts call the place only a commercial building. They don't say what business was inside or who owned it.

That same notice said "Arson has been requested," and that heavy equipment had been called in to help crews with overhaul. Asking for arson investigators isn't a finding. The department lists the cause as undetermined.

While the fire was burning, people on the city's subreddit were posting about a possible explosion near Chinatown. That's a big part of why the fire spread around town so fast. None of LAFD's three alerts about the fire mentions an explosion.

For now, the official account is the one the department posted Thursday night. LAFD's first alert at 7:07 p.m. called the cause undetermined. By the last notice, more than 90 minutes later, the building had been knocked down, the investigators had been requested, and the cause was still undetermined.

Source: lafd.org, retrieved October 9, 2026. Other sources: lafd.org (2), lafd.org (3).