Fire in Filipinotown

425 N. Lake Street stands in Historic Filipinotown, close to Echo Park.

It's a handsome Craftsman home dating to 1910. Unfortunately, it's now sporting fire damage and holes in the roof.

The house's converted attic caught on fire in the wee hours of yesterday morning. Firefighters had to add ventilation holes to allow smoke and heat to escape.

LAFD put out the fire in 25 minutes without any reported injuries, but wouldn't it be better if empty houses WEREN'T catching on fire all the damn time in the first place?

LAFD is investigating, but as with many chronically vacant homes, there's a good chance it's squatters.

"Scout" lives in the area and knows this block of Lake Street well. This is what Scout told me:

I believe all tenants were told years in advance the original owners would be selling and over time they all moved and found other housing. The one [adjoining] bungalow tenant was the last person to move out, more than a year ago. The entire property went on the market, was bought by a developer and for some time had a demo permit up.

(Ed. note: Here's the listing from 2023. Multiple demolition permits were issued between February 9 and April 4, 2024.)

That demo permit disappeared, and it's been sitting vacant for quite a while. Squatters moved in over the last 6-8 months, so a fire was a matter of time. I'd see fences and gates open, trash piling up, then eventually the doors or windows were either broken or opened. [Yesterday morning] I...saw the fire trucks and immediately knew what had happened.

As far as I know they are "investigating" the cause, but I think it's pretty safe to say it was squatters that started the fire...at least that's my opinion and assumption.

(Ed note: In cases like this, it often IS squatters who cause fires.)

The developers had clearly been ordered to secure the property - plywood had temporarily been installed to board up the property, and the red notice was posted. That lasted a few weeks and soon, windows and doors were open and plywood removed. Squatters had returned. There was never a security fence installed. I imagine the 4:30 am fire was terrifying for both the apartment building tenants to the left and the Craftsman house owner to the right and I'm sure they complained about the squatters, though I don't have any proof of that.

Scout is correct: There is a code violation for the empty building being left open, dated June 6.

When researching the property, I noticed something very odd: while the original listing went up over a year ago, the sale was just completed a few weeks ago on May 15, 2024. The screenshot below is from Trulia, but multiple other sources corroborated the date.

I don't even know where to begin with that. And I'm getting pretty damn tired of having to report on all these empty homes going up in flames.

425 N. Lake Street, Historic Filipinotown.