Firefighters extinguished a major fire that broke out Friday afternoon inside the walls of the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank.
Burbank firefighters responded to a first call they received at 1:38 p.m. By 2:08 p.m., the fire was out, Burke indicated.
At 1:56 p.m., a Twitter user who felt the explosion described it as a “big boom” after which “my power flickered.” By then multiple online images and videos captured dark smoke billowing over Burbank and Toluca Lake.
One eyewitness photo shows the historic Warner Bros. Water Tower wreathed in smoke. Video of the fire from inside the Warner Bros. lot during a studio tour shows smoke was near buildings, although fire officials say that no buildings were damaged, and there were no injuries.
A source identified as a “Warners insider” told the Hollywood Reporter that the fire was being considered an accident, and is not believed to have been a deliberate act.
Burbank Fire Department Battalion Chief Dave Burke told Deadline it was a transformer fire, though fire investigators have yet to release their definitive determination. In a push notification to users, Citizen App called it an electrical fire.
Warner Bros’ parent company Warner Bros. Discovery has yet to issue a statement on the fire, which occurs at the start of a heat wave expected to last throughout the Fourth of July weekend.
News of the fire comes shortly after a heat advisory took effect through Monday for the valleys around L.A. Elevated fire weather conditions will persist over the Fourth of July weekend, warns the National Weather Service.
Temperatures in the high desert and interior valleys are forecast to exceed 100 degrees.
