A boy has been detained in connection with a large blaze which exploded at a housing project under construction for low-income veterans in East Los Angeles early Wednesday morning. The greater-alarm fire broke out at a five-story building located at Rowan Avenue and 1st Street at around 1 a.m., the L.A. County Fire Department reports.
Footage from the scene captured scaffolding collapsing while firefighters fought the flames. No firefighters were injured.
“We have had some of that scaffolding collapse, luckily no one’s been injured in that,” said Inspector Sean Ferguson with the L.A. County Fire Department. “We’ve been fortunate, a lot of that scaffolding has collapsed inward onto the building itself.” Arson investigators with LACFD and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department later detained a male juvenile in connection with the fire and consider him a person of interest, the fire department reported.