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Last Week's Colossal Downtown Fire Was Set on Purpose

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It's official: the giant inferno that raged last week at the the Da Vinci apartment complex alongside the 110 was not an accident. "Investigators recovered sufficient evidence to eliminate all known potential accidental causes and determine the fire was intentionally set," a release from the LA Fire Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives says.

Federal and local investigators spent a week scouring "75,000 square feet of debris" at the site of the fire that totally destroyed part of the deeply unpopular complex last Monday. But even though the investigation of the scene ended Wednesday, says KPCC, no real details about the fire can be released because the authorities are still looking for the person or people who started it.

Initial estimates placed the damages to the Da Vinci at around $10 million, but now it's more like $20 or even $30 million, and that's not including the cost of repairing nearby buildings whose windows were shattered by the heat of the blaze. Developer Geoff Palmer, whose Renaissance Collection buildings are all built in this same fauxtalian style, has already said that he's intent on rebuilding the completely razed building. Meanwhile, an undamaged portion of the Da Vinci is still set to open next month.
· LAFD AND ATF DETERMINE DA VINCI APARTMENT COMPLEX FIRE CAUSE AS ARSON [LAFD]
· Terrible Fauxtalian Fortress Lost in Spectacular Downtown Fire [Curbed LA]
· Downtown's Giant Da Vinci Building Burned Because It Was Bad [Curbed LA]
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Da Vinci

909 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, CA