Workers Escape Smoky Blaze in Hollywood Tower

Firefighters battled a “major emergency” blaze Wednesday night in a high-rise office building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, where several office and maintenance workers scrambled to the roof and others were trapped inside for a time.

One person who apparently ran from the building suffered “very serious cuts” from falling glass, fire officials said, and at least four others, including two men and and two children, were treated at area hospitals for smoke inhalation.

The fire was contained to one office at the southeast corner of the ninth floor of the 15-story Cahuenga Sunset Building.

It was by no means a raging inferno, but because the ventilation system was involved, heavy smoke was reported throughout the structure at 6430 W. Sunset Blvd., fire officials said.

Family in Office

Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Broadcasting Corp. on the ninth floor, said his family was still in his office as firefighters battled the blaze.

“I heard an alarm, opened the door and saw a lot of fire and smoke,” he said. “I groped my way to a stairwell to get a fire extinguisher. I tried to get back to the office, but the stairwell door stayed closed.”

Rodriguez said his wife, Norma; sons, Duvan, 6, and Jorge, 8, and two employees were still in the building as firefighters rappelled down from the roof, breaking windows to vent the heavy smoke.

Everyone in the office was later safely led from the building. A friend of the family said the boys were in danger of being overcome by smoke. But another employee was able to break an office window with a leather briefcase, allowing in air.

Bill Thomas, of radio station KIQQ, was working on the 11th floor when he and another station employee smelled smoke.

“There were no alarms, no sprinklers,” he said. “We couldn’t breathe; we couldn’t see. There was smoke in the stairwell down three or four floors. How dare they not have sprinklers? We couldn’t breathe. We might not have made it.”

The building was constructed in the mid-1960s before sprinkler laws went into effect in the mid-1970s.

Windows Popping

In a ground-floor restaurant, the Jolly Roger, customers and employees raced outside when they heard windows popping out.

“We heard the windows bursting out and there are a lot of flames,” said restaurant manager J.R. White. “A lot of windows have shattered. It’s like confetti falling around the bottom of the building. It’s a good thing most people had gone home by now.”

Fire officials said much of the broken glass could be attributed to firefighters’ breaking windows in the building for ventilation.

The alarm was sounded at 9:24 p.m. and the fire was reported under control 36 minutes later. Four battalions, made up of 25 firefighters each, responded, Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said. The cause of the fire was under investigation.

Some occupants of the building said they first saw flames in the ninth floor offices of Bonneville Productions, a satellite television firm. Tenants also said that asbestos removal work was under way in the building.

Firefighters were unable to land a helicopter on the building’s roof because the structure is not strong enough to support the aircraft, officials said. But a helicopter hovered over the roof, allowing half a dozen firefighters to rappel down and calm the eight people who had made their way to the roof.

Firefighters were able to pressurize the building’s stairwells and lead the stranded people, some of them wearing department breathing apparatus, to safety.

Firefighters battled the blaze by working their way up floor by floor, attaching their hoses to the building’s water supply.

Tenants include the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; Cable News Network; Paramount Pictures; Actors Equity Assn.; radio stations KJOI and KIQQ; Mark Goodson Productions; The Price is Right, and the Wilhelmina modeling agency.

The fire was not comparable to the devastating May 4 fire at the 62-story First Interstate Bank building in downtown Los Angeles, which claimed one life and injured at least 30 others when flames ravaged several floors.

Fire spokesman Jim Wells said firefighters were able to contain the fire quickly due to experience gained in battling the First Interstate blaze and the July 19 Union Bank Tower fire.

“We got there quickly and got it under control quickly,” Wells said. “Experience is absolutely the best tool in fighting these kinds of fires.”

Times staff writers Nieson Himmel and Edward J. Boyer contributed to this article.