What appeared 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 quickly began recording the disaster unfolding before them to share. on social networks.
The video was streamed live on Citizen, a public safety mobile app, which was then posted to the Citizen app's social media account on X. The video shows smoke billowing from the top of the building and an orange glow. The video was published under the title “#Breaking News Fire in downtown skyscraper. Flames and smoke billow from the upper floors of the structure. “Avoid the area.”
Video captured on the Citizen app shows a building on fire that the Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed as a movie shoot and not a real fire. (Citizen Application)
“You can smell it,” a woman in the group is heard saying. “You can smell the burning paper inside… I smell like burning paper.”
“This is crazy,” says the young man recording.
But the fire was not a true disaster, as the group soon learned. It was a Hollywood fantasy, a fake fire created for the filming of a movie.
In fact, the building at 1201 W. 5th St. belongs to Los Angeles Center Studios, a 20-acre studio campus that includes event venues and six 18,000-square-foot sound stages, among other amenities, according to its website.
The fake fire was so believable that the Los Angeles Fire Department had to spread it on social media, urging residents not to call them to report it.
“We were letting them know it was a movie set and there was no danger,” said fire department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart.
On social media site X, the department wrote:
“We appreciate concerned citizens calling, but the visible fire on the roof of 1201 W 5th by Bixel in [downtown L.A.] It's not real, it's part of a movie or television shoot. It is planned to be active until 3 am. Share the word!”
Stewart said it was easy to think it was a real fire because the camera crews were on top of the building and not visible.
As the group of young people who videotaped the fabricated fire continued to observe the building that night, they began to deduce that the fire may not have been real. The smoke was white, the fire did not spread, and the crackling and explosions that fires produce could not be heard.
Commenters who watched the livestream wrote responses on the Citizen app, noting that the fire was part of a movie set.
“It's not a real fire, folks,” one viewer wrote, which the young man recording read aloud. “It's the magic of Hollywood.”
The group that videotaped the scene, embarrassed, laughs at the situation, expressing relief at not being identified in the video.
“Whatever. They don't see our faces,” says one of the women.
