On the 4th of May, 1988, Los Angeles Fire Department crews responded to what became the most devastating high-rise fire in LA history. The 62-story First Interstate Bank, then the tallest structure in the United States west of Chicago, had a fire on the 12th floor and it was rapidly spreading upwards.

As it so happens, a $3.5 million automatic sprinkler system was being installed in the building when the smoke detectors started going off at around 10:30 in the evening. Thinking it was a false alarm, security deactivated them, only to have them go off repeatedly. It wasn’t until outsiders called 911 that the dispatch was given, with the first arriving Battalion Chief reporting that the “entire east side and there-fourths of the south side of the 12th floor [was] fully involved with fire”.

Task Force 15 returning to staging. Image from the USFA.

Given that the sprinkler system was being installed, the standpipe system had been temporarily shut off, preventing water flow alarms from activating.

Time	Event
2222	Building’s two fire pumps are shut down in order to facilitate the installation of sprinklers on the 58th floor.
2230	Smoke detectors activated on the 12th floor and reset by security.
2232	3 detectors activated on the 12th floor and reset by security.
2234	4 detectors activated on the 12th floor and reset by security.
2236	Multiple detectors are activated from the 12th to the 30th floor. A maintenance employee takes the elevator to investigate, but is overwhelmed in the ensuing fire.
2237	3 separate 911 calls report a fire in the First Interstate building’s upper floors.
2238	Initial companies dispatched.
2240	Arrival of first in companies. Observes “entire east side and there-fourths of the south side of the 12th floor fully involved with fire”. 15 additional companies requested.
2249	Incident Command requests doubling of assignment from 21 companies to 42.
2310	Initial attack commences with 2-inch handlines using the standpipe system.
2320	Fire/sprinkler system fully restored with support from 3 fire department pumps.
0130	15th floor fully involved and starting to expose the 16th floor.
0219	Fire declared “knocked down”.

Approximately 50 occupants were in the building and above the fire floors: five were rescued from the rooftop via helicopter, those on the 12th floor made it to the stairwells, and the remaining were identified and rescued after the fire was controlled. A maintenance man perished, having been dispatched to the fire floor by security unaware that a fire was occurring - he was found in the elevator.

Operations
A total of 4 helicopters were used in the scene and played pivotal roles in the rescue and identification of individuals. The initial response to the scene was six: this was upgraded to twenty-one, then to forty two: at that point the 383 firefighters on scene made up nearly half of the entire on-duty force in Los Angeles that evening. The total response was

• 64 fire companies
• 17 private ambulances
• 10 city rescue ambulances
• 4 helicopters
• 53 command officers

It took nearly 4 hours to knock down, and by the time it was, 4 floors were completely destroyed.

Battalion Chief Alan T. Schroeder was assigned the duty of Communications Officer and stayed on the 10th floor to facilitate radio communications between the ground crew and operations.

One of the biggest challenges the battalion chiefs and officers had was communication: given the dangers of falling shards of glass and the high-rise building structure, officers deployed ‘runners’ to communicate to the crews heading upwards through the stairwells, and at one point also employed other personnel to standby at windows where line-of-sight radio communication was effective.

14 firefighters were injured. The cause of the fire was predicted to be electrical in nature, but no definitive source was identified. Estimated losses were approximated between $50 and $200 million, but the structure remained intact and exists today as the Aon Center.

Things That Could’ve Made it Go Wrong
As with any incident, there were many things that could’ve lead to a much different, more disastrous outcome.

• Failure of security: smoke detector activations were initially ignored, leading to the death of an individual sent to investigate their case
• Impaired sprinkler system: the unfortunate coincidence of a fire during a sprinkler installation prevented a possible reduction in fire spread
• Radio overload: at around midnight, officers temporarily lost control over the situation due to increased and overloaded radio traffic between the Incident Commander, Operations and the Divisions Commander.
• Deployment of air operations: the noise and turbulence caused by the helicopters was deemed to have a “negative effect on firefighting operations, staging, and fire ground communications”.
• Dangerous conditions: glass shards falling from the fire floors made operations at the ground considerably difficult, including entry into the building. Fortunately a pedestrian tunnel beneath Hope Street allowed for easy and safe entry and exit.

Key Success Points
What made fighting this high-rise fire so successful was a combination of a variety of factors:

• Rapid response: nearly 200 personnel were dispatched and on their way to the scene within five minutes of arrival of the first crews
• Deployment of air operations: the helicopters provided vital rescue for trapped individuals.
• Coordinated incident command structure: each officer arriving on scene was delegated a particular task, from Planning, Operations, Logistics, to Staging and Air Operations.
• The fire was on the 12th floor, which allowed firefighters faster access and less fatigue in climbing to it, as opposed to say an incident on the 40th floor.

Photo courtesy of kevinhobel, bcmacsac1, The New York Board of Underwriters, echo_29, lafire.com and the United States Fire Administration.

Resources
LAFire.com: Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Archive (link)
LAFD Executive Summary (link)
USFA: U.S. Fire Administration/Technical Report Series USFA-TR-022. Interstate Bank Building Fire (pdf)

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