Man found dead in Hollywood Hills home engulfed by flames

Fire erupted inside a two-story home Wednesday in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood Hills West where firefighters later discovered a deceased elderly man, officials confirmed to KTLA.  

Crews with the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to reports of the blaze at 8551 W. Lookout Mountain Avenue at around 4:45 p.m. this afternoon.  

Neighbor Jim Moore spotted the smoke coming from the home and called 911 before rushing in with his own water hose.  

“By the time I got to the top of the stairs, the windows blew out,” he told KTLA’s Carlos Saucedo. “That whole entire section of the structure was engulfed.”  

The narrow streets and the location of the hillside home made access for firefighters a challenge.

“A lot of the difficulty stemmed from where the home is positioned on the hillside,” LAFD Battalion Chief Adam Knabe told KTLA. “It’s set back quite a way from the street, steep set of stairs behind the homes, so access was difficult to get a hose line in place.”  

Aerial footage of the firefight captured by Sky5 showed a heavy presence of firefighters on the narrow, hilly street as a crowd of neighbors and onlookers stood nearby.  

The homeowner, described only as an elderly man, was discovered inside his residence after crews knocked the blaze down, but it is unclear if the man died as a result of the fire or beforehand.  

Neighbors told KTLA that the homeowner, who lived alone, was in his 80s and in declining health. No one had seen him for at least a few days.  

“It really is sad,” Moore said. “He was a good man, a great neighbor. We didn’t really see a lot of him lately because he’s so elderly and I was a little concerned.”  

While the cause of the fire remains unknown at this time, arson investigators were on the scene, a required protocol when there’s a fatality.