Suspect
in massive Los Angeles arson fire seen in video: L.A. Times
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[March 31, 2015]
(Reuters) - A suspect who sparked a
massive arson fire last year that gutted a multi-story apartment complex
under construction in Los Angeles was captured on surveillance tape
reviewed by authorities, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday.
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The video showed the suspect parking a car on the 110 Freeway
before walking into the building with "cans of fuel," the paper
said, based on a recording of a community meeting last week
addressed by Los Angeles Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Ruda.
The suspect "torched that building up from the freeway side and then
escaped," Ruda told the roughly two dozen people at Echo Park's
neighborhood council meeting, the Times reported.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Fire department representatives could not be immediately reached for
comment. But department spokesman Peter Sanders told the Times in an
email, "To protect the integrity of the investigation, I can neither
confirm nor deny what Chief Ruda said last week."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Mar/31/images/ads/current/cca_laptop-sda021709.png) Inspectors have interviewed more than 100 people about the blaze,
which caused damages of up to $30 million when it engulfed the
scaffolding of a seven-story luxury apartment complex.
The conflagration erupted in the early morning hours of Dec. 8 and
quickly destroyed the construction site. Firefighters located next
door opened the doors of the fire station to find the entire block
engulfed in flames.
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The intense heat ignited three floors of an adjacent office
high-rise, blowing out its windows and those of two more. No one was
injured.
Investigators said in January they had discovered accelerant in the
building's ruins, evidence that the fire was arson.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Clarence
Fernandez)
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