What appears to be a high-rise fire near 5th and Bixel streets in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday night caught the attention of a group of young people, who captured the disaster unfolding before them to share on social media. I started recording right away.
The video was livestreamed on Citizen, a public safety mobile app, and then posted to X’s Citizen app social media accounts. Video shows smoke and an orange glow rising from the roof of the building. The video reads, “#BreakingNews Fire in a downtown high-rise building. Flames and smoke are coming from the top floor of the building. Please avoid the area.”
Video captured by the Citizen App shows a burning building, and the Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed it was a movie shoot and not an actual fire. (citizen app)
“I can smell it,” a woman in the group can be heard saying. “I can smell the paper burning inside…it smells like burning paper.”
“This is crazy,” says the young man who recorded it.
However, the group soon learned that the fire was not a true disaster. It was a Hollywood hoax, a fake fire created for a movie shoot.
In fact, the building at 1201 W. 5th St. is part of Los Angeles Center Studios, a 20-acre studio campus with event venues, six 18,000-square-foot soundstages, and more, according to its website. .
The fake fire was so believable that the Los Angeles Fire Department published the information on social media, asking residents not to call to report it.
“We were told it was a movie set and there was no danger,” fire department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said.
The department wrote on social media site X:
“We would like to thank the concerned citizens who called us to confirm that there is a fire on the roof of 1201 W 5th in Bixel.” [downtown L.A.] This is not real – it’s part of a movie or TV shoot. We will be active until 3am, so please share!
Stewart said it was easy to think it was a real fire because the cameraman was on the roof of the building and couldn’t see it.
A group of young people who had videotaped the hoax fire continued to observe the building that night and began to speculate that perhaps the fire was not real. The smoke was white, the fire was not spreading, and no crackling could be heard from the fire.
Commentators watching the livestream noted that the fire was part of a movie set and entered their responses into the Citizen app.
“Guys, this is not a real fire,” a viewer wrote, which was read aloud by the young man who was recording. “It’s Hollywood magic.”
The group who videotaped the scene looked confused, laughed at the situation, and expressed relief that they were not in the video.
“Whatever. They don’t see our faces,” says one of the women.
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