LA County Fire Station 8 Listed as Vulnerable to Collapse in Major Earthquake

Fire Station 8, located at 7643 Santa Monica Blvd., in West Hollywood, has been listed as a Los Angeles County-owned concrete structure that has been deemed vulnerable to collapse in a major earthquake. The building also meets the established criteria for retrofitting according to a list released by LA County, which recently singled out 33 structures considered to be non-ductile concrete buildings that were built before 1978 and have multiple stories.

The buildings listed are not in imminent danger according to Michael Wilson, a spokesperson for the county’s Chief Executive Office. “The county is methodically working on approaches to complete the retrofits as expeditiously as possible,” he said.

Completed in 1953, Fire Stations 8 is described by the Los Angeles Conservancy as a “lovely example of Mid-Century Modern design, representing a huge increase in construction to keep up with the postwar population explosion and housing boom.”

Fire Station 8 has been operating for the past 70 years. The station is a simple three-story building with typical fire station necessities like double-height roll-up garage doors and space for both working and living, on-site. It boasts a clean Mid-Century Modern design clad in smooth stucco and roman brick, flush window bays that wrap around a corner, curved canopies over the garage and main entrance, and geometric punch-outs in the canopy over the third-floor balcony. Despite its three-story height, the building is modest in scale and has a strong horizontal feel so it melds very well with the low-scale streetscape around it and can sometimes go unnoticed.

LA Times reports that the Los Angeles County recently set out on a landmark effort to protect the types of vulnerable concrete buildings that collapsed in the earthquakes that rocked Turkey and Syria last month. As part of the push, the Board of Supervisors asked officials to craft new rules that would require “non-ductile” concrete buildings owned by the county, as well as any in unincorporated areas, to be retrofitted.

The full list released by The Times is below:

• Hall of Administration (500 W. Temple St., Los Angeles)
• Chief Medical Examiner Service (1104 N. Mission Road, Los Angeles)
• Chief Medical Examiner Administration/Investigation (1102 N. Mission Road, Los Angeles)
• Hall of Records (320 W. Temple St., Los Angeles)
• Fire Station 171 (141 W. Regent St., Inglewood)
• Fire Station 8 (7643 W. Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood)
• Historic General Hospital (1200 N. State St., Los Angeles)
• L.A. County-USC S. Mark Taper Foundation Family Advocacy, home of the Violence Intervention Program (1721 Griffin Ave., Los Angeles)
• County-USC Medical Center-Science Hall – Building 90, also known as the Santana House, home of the Violence Intervention Program (1733 Griffin Ave., Los Angeles)
• County-USC Outpatient Clinic (2010 Zonal Ave., Los Angeles)
• County-USC Medical Center Parking Structure (Lot 12) (2020 Zonal Ave., Los Angeles)
• County-USC Medical Center Interns & Residents Building (2020 Zonal Ave., Los Angeles)
• County-USC Medical Center-Pharmacy Building (1100 Mission Road, Los Angeles)
• MLK Leroy Weekes Medical Support Building – North (12021 Wilmington Ave., Willowbrook)
• MLK Service and Supply Building – South (12021 Wilmington Ave., Willowbrook)
• MLK Interns & Residents Building (12012 Compton Ave., Willowbrook
• Health Services Administration, the headquarters for the county departments of Health Services and Public Health (313 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles)
• Health Services Headquarter Lot 29 Parking Structure (346 N. Fremont Ave., Los Angeles)
• Hubert H. Humphrey Comprehensive Health Center (5850 S. Main St., Los Angeles)
• Claude Hudson Comprehensive Health Center (2829 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles)
• Central Public Health Center (241 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles)
• Hollywood/Wilshire Public Health Center (5205 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles)
• Department of Public Social Services’ Adams & Grand building (2615 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles)
• Department of Public Social Services’ Metro Special District Office (2707 S. Grand Ave, Los Angeles)
• Adams/Grand Complex Parking Garage (Lot 46) (318 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles)
• Alameda Street Garage (1055 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles)
• Internal Services Department Administrative Headquarters (1100 N. Eastern Ave., East Los Angeles)
• Compton Library (240 W. Compton Blvd., Compton)
• Huntington Park Library (6518 Miles Ave., Huntington Park)
• Montebello Library (1550 W. Beverly Blvd., Montebello)
• Eastlake Juvenile Court Parking Structure (1605 Eastlake Ave., Los Angeles)
• Ferguson Administrative Services Center (5555 Ferguson Drive, Commerce)
• Pitchess Detention Center East (29340 The Old Road, Castaic)