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.