No injuries reported in Gayley Avenue fire

Many Westwood residents awoke to the smell of smoke Monday
morning when an old fraternity house caught fire.

The fire was at 611 Gayley Ave., an uninhabited building owned
by the Zeta Psi fraternity. No injuries were reported.

“The Los Angeles city arson investigators determined it
was probably set by warming or cooking fire by people that were
inhabiting the building illegally,” UCLA Fire Marshall Dana
Johnson said.

This fire was the second one in the past two months, and the
cause for the first was deemed the same, he said.

The fire was called in at 6:35 a.m. and was quickly controlled,
“contained to the kitchen, a room behind the kitchen and the
attic in the rear of the building,” Johnson said.

Gayley Avenue was closed off for about three hours while the
fire crew extinguished the fire and investigated its cause. The
street was lined with several fire trucks and dozens of
firefighters.

Johnson said the large response was due to the battalion
chief’s familiarity with the exposure problem of the building
from the last fire.

The building is surrounding by multi-story buildings close in
proximity.

While there was no forced evacuation, Phi Kappa Psi, the
fraternity house to the south of the building, has 30 students
living in the house and they chose to evacuate, said Phi Kappa Psi
Vice President Mani Davari.

“There was a lot of smoke,” Davari said. “It
wasn’t as large as the first fire ““ the first one, you
could actually see flames coming out of the windows.”

Because of an offshore breeze, the smell of smoke was widely
dispersed, causing complaints for areas as far as 200 Medical Plaza
on Westwood Boulevard, Johnson said.

Gayley Avenue was closed off to through traffic at Strathmore
Drive, and several fire trucks and dozens of firefighters lined the
street.

“We’ve called the cops many times about transients
coming into the Zeta Psi property,” Davari said.

Zeta Psi wrote to the Daily Bruin in October 2005, saying they
were planning to demolish the current house last fall and complete
reconstruction as early as fall of 2006.

But the old house is still standing, boarded and abandoned.

The police have told Phi Psi that they cannot make arrests for
trespassers without the express request of the owners of the
property, Davari said.

“We’re contacting the owner of the property, and
they are in the process in designing the new house,” Johnson
said. “They’re trying to get a demolition done before
the new building is approved.”

The Los Angeles Fire Department will probably contact the
building owners to expedite the demolition process, he said.

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