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 media.
The video was livestreamed on Citizen, a public safety mobile app, which was then posted on 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 posted under the headline “#Breaking News Fire in Downtown High-Rise. Flames and smoke are billowing from the top floors of the structure. Avoid the area.”
“You can smell it,” a woman from the group can be heard saying. “You can smell, like, the paper burning inside… I smell burnt paper.”
“This is crazy,” the young man recording says.
But the fire was not a real disaster, the group soon learned. It was Hollywood make believe, a phony fire created for the filming of a movie.
In fact the building at 1201 W. 5th St. belongs to the 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 put out the word 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 spokesperson Margaret Stewart.
On the social media site X, the department wrote:
“We appreciate the concerned citizens calling but — the fire visible on the roof of 1201 W 5th by Bixel in [downtown L.A.] is not real – it is part of a movie/tv shoot. It is planned to be active until 3 a.m. Please share the word!”
Stewart said it was easy to think it was a real fire because camera crews were at the top of the building and not visible.
As the group of young people who videotaped the fabricated fire continued to watch the building that night they began to deduce that the fire was perhaps not real. The smoke was white, the fire was not spreading and they heard no crackling or popping sounds that fires make.
Commentators watching the livestream typed responses on the Citizen app, noting that the fire was part of a movie set.
“It’s not a real fire folks,” a viewer wrote which the young man recording read out loud. “It’s Hollywood magic.”
The group who videotaped the scene, embarrassed, laugh at the situation, expressing relief that they are not identified in the video.
“Whatever. They don’t see our faces,” one of the women says.