Ariel Hernandez said she watched with her mother and neighbors as the Mobil gas station, directly across the street from where they live, on the corner of York Boulevard and Figueroa Street, went up in flames early in the morning of Jan. 25.
Hernandez said it was a pretty uneventful night until she heard three booms.
“I was scared,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez said she has lived in the area for 10 years and just thought the sounds came from a loud car or motorcycle driving by, but when she and her mother, who lives with her, opened the blinds, they were terrified by what they saw.
“The moment I opened our blinds, it was like this wall of fire,” Hernandez said. “It looked like the entire station was just completely on fire.”
According to Hernandez, she then thought of her mom, a pastel painter, and how they needed to move all of her art away from the window in case the fire jumped across the street. Hernandez said that she was also worried about the people and businesses next to the gas station.
Hernandez said her neighbors across the hallway knocked on her door to see what was happening after hearing all of the noise.
Nicholas Prange, a Los Angeles Fire Department (LAPD) spokesperson, said a call came in to 911 reporting an auto fire at midnight. Prange said that the gas station attendant reported to firefighters that the driver pulled up and ran over to the window of the gas station kiosk.
“[The driver] said, ‘Hey, do you have a fire extinguisher?’ And then, apparently, the fire grew beyond what [the people at the gas station] could do,” Prange said.
According to Prange, 10 firefighters arrived at the gas station five minutes after they were dispatched. When firefighters arrived they found an RV engulfed in fire at the gas station, Prange said.
“The attendant had already activated the emergency shut-off switch, which is required by the fire code,” Prange said. “So there was no fuel, there was no hazardous materials situation or flammable liquids as part of the fire but it did damage the pumps and the gas station.”
According to Prange, at 12:18 a.m. the fire was put out, and what was left was a burnt shell of an RV along with significant damage to the gas station, including melted gas pumps and severe fire damage to the canopy covering the pumps and kiosk. Prange said that no injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is undetermined.
“It wasn’t until maybe after they had completely doused the fire that we were able to see… that it was actually an RV that caught fire,” Hernandez said.
Later on the day of the fire, an account that centers Highland Park events and news shared several videos of the fire in a post that now has over 100 comments and 3,000 likes. Rich Lorton, a Northeast LA resident shared his disbelief on the post with a comment.
“Man, that is such a perfect Mobile station to use in the neighborhood. Really bummed that is gone,” Lorton commented.
Hernandez similarly said that the gas station held meaning for the community.
Unfortunately, the destroyed RV has just been sitting under the canopy since it caught fire.
Contact Lyn Strober-Cohen at strobercohen@oxy.edu.
Correction Feb. 8, 2023, 5:04 p.m.: Updated to reflect that Hernandez did not say that the destroyed RV was still sitting under the canopy. The RV sitting under the canopy was something the reporter observed. A sentence was also cut which incorrectly attributed Hernandez as curious to see where the gas station went next.
