A massive fire broke out at a business in Montebello Thursday night, shutting down traffic and forcing the evacuation of a nearby apartment building.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The Verdugo Fire Department reports that the fire started around 7:20 p.m. and although it is now extinguished, streets on East Whittier Boulevard remain blocked.<\/p>\n
Video from witnesses showed a fireball bursting from the roof of the Montebello business, bringing the Whittier Boulevard area to a standstill as firefighters rushed to contain the blaze.<\/p>\n
Jorge Manzur, who owns Manzur Smog Check, said he rushed to the scene after hearing about the fire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody told me that there was a fire at my business. And I live three blocks away from here, so I come right away,\u201d Manzur said.<\/p>\n
Manzur tried to fight the fire himself with his own extinguisher, but quickly realized there was nothing he could do.<\/p>\n
“It was like a volcano. It was huge. The flames were huge. I never seen something like that before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Firefighters managed to get the flames under control by 9 p.m., and the cause of the fire is now under investigation.<\/p>\n
Manzur is left hoping his shop can be salvaged.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s 33 years of work. I think it\u2019s going to be a mess. I hope the insurance covers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Authorities continue to monitor the area and will provide updates as the investigation into the fire progresses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A massive fire broke out at a business in Montebello Thursday night, shutting down traffic and forcing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,56017],"class_list":{"0":"post-185935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-la","9":"tag-la-headlines","10":"tag-la-news","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","13":"tag-los-angeles-news","14":"tag-montebello"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}