Fires Los Angeles

Hazardous-materials workers and Cal State Los Angeles employees are still investigating and cleaning up after a fire that damaged two floors of the campus' physical science building. The fire, which was reported about 7 p.m. Sunday, damaged a chemistry lab and two adjoining rooms on the seventh floor as well as rooms on the building's eighth floor.

A building inspection sweep prompted by the death of a veteran firefighter found that 18 out of 25 businesses in a South Los Angeles commercial district failed to meet fire safety and building codes, according to a report released Thursday. Los Angeles Fire Capt. Joseph C. Dupee died March 8 after the roof caved in on him during a fire in a commercial building on Western Avenue near 60th Street. An investigation found fire and building code violations in the structure.

Two men suffered burns, one over 60% of his body, when their house caught fire Sunday evening, a city Fire Department spokesman said. The fire in the 24300 block of Hartland Street was reported about 6:30 p.m. and took 30 firefighters nearly 20 minutes to extinguish, said Bob Collis, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. A 56-year-old man inside the house suffered first-, second- and third-degree burns over almost two-thirds of his body, including his back, arms and legs, Collis said.

An electrical fire at a plating plant caused $500,000 damage late Thursday, according to city fire officials. Faulty wiring under a vat of chromic acid, which is used to clean metal before it is plated, started the fire that spread rapidly through the plant, according to Assistant Fire Chief Rick Mehling. When firefighters arrived, heavy smoke was billowing from the plant at 1829 N. Keystone St. and flames were spiking through the roof, Mehling said. The fire was extinguished in 35 minutes.

As Reiner Bey left his son's Newhall home Sunday night after working on the swimming pool, he told him, "We'll have a good long talk when I get back from Minnesota." But Tuesday morning, Reiner Bey and his wife, Guadalupe, 43, of North Hills, took off from Van Nuys Airport in their single-engine plane on their way to seek prostate cancer treatment for him at a clinic in Rochester, Minn.

They went to bed as two innocent children but awoke as the city's latest crime victims. Rafi and Chaya Moshe were asleep when somebody hurled a Molotov cocktail through the second-story window of their Woodman Avenue apartment, engulfing it in flames. The firebomb not only frightened Rafi, 10, and Chaya, 9, awake, it also seriously burned them. Who would do such a thing to two helpless children? That's the tough question.

A North Hills couple died early Tuesday when their single-engine plane crashed into a two-story home whose residents escaped injury by using an emergency ladder they had placed on their balcony just two days earlier. The plane's full fuel tank ignited a fireball that roared through the roof of the home and set the foggy morning aglow, witnesses said. The force of the blast shattered neighbors' windows 50 feet away and hurled flaming debris as far as 100 yards.

Seven people were left homeless when an early morning blaze destroyed their home in the 600 block of North Cresthaven Drive on Monday, fire officials said. The residents, two adults and five children, were unhurt and referred to the American Red Cross for emergency shelter, said Jim Wells, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Fire Department. It took 30 firefighters 20 minutes to extinguish the fire at the two-story dwelling, which was caused by an electrical problem in the garage, Wells said.

Rags, paint and solvents ignited a fire at a Ventura Boulevard restaurant Monday night, causing $150,000 in damage, authorities said. No injuries were reported. The blaze broke out at 11:15 p.m. in a storage closet at the Bucco di Beppo restaurant, a new Italian eatery that was set to open March 5 in an existing building near Encino Avenue, said Bob Collis, a Fire Department spokesman. About 60 firefighters from a dozen companies brought the flames under control within half an hour, Collis said.

Two bodies found by firefighters inside a burning van have been identified, police said. Guadalupe Gurrola, 40, and his son Andres, 15, of Compton, were the victims, police said Tuesday. Gurrola's 12-year-old daughter, Diana, said she cannot understand why anyone would kill her father and brother. "They didn't do nothing to nobody," she said, holding back tears. Firefighters found the bodies inside a van parked along 104th Street beneath a Harbor Freeway overpass at 4 p.m.