Brush Fire on 134 Freeway 'Knocked Down' (UPDATE)

A fire that burned through half an acre of grass Friday on the 134 freeway near the intersection to the northbound 2 freeway in Eagle Rock has been “knocked down but not contained,” according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Fifteen firefighters put out the fire, which began at 2:37 p.m., in 53 minutes, Matt Spence, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department said, explaining the difference between a fire that has been contained and one that might still be dangerous.

A fire is contained, said Spence, when firefighters get their “hose lines around the entire fire and we’re not running the risk of it spreading any further.”

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

At the scene of another fire that erupted some 90 minutes earlier in Eagle Rock Friday—in a two-story single unit apartment complex at 2242 W Las Colinas Ave.—flames that appeared to have escaped through a ventilation vent of an attic had left black marks on the building’s exterior wall. (See photos.)

Stairs leading to the apartment where the fire started were covered with water and the smell of smoke hung in the stairway.

A metallic screen door leading to the apartment was locked, but an empty apartment adjacent to it had its door forced open—evidently by firefighters who extinguished the flames in the building in 21 minutes after the fire was reported at 1:13 p.m.

The cause of the fire, a block west of Eagle Rock Boulevard, near restaurant, is under investigation. It was the third fire in Eagle Rock in two days—on Thursday, a blaze swept through another half-acre of grass on Marwood Avenue, not far from the northbound 2 freeway, destroying a storage shed.