Four firefighters injured in the powerful explosion that gutted a smoke-shop supply store in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday have been released from the hospital, officials said.
That makes a total of seven firefighters, out of 11 initially hospitalized, who have been released since Saturday. One other firefighter was treated and released for a minor injury.
All were among the firefighters who raced to get away from the store — Smoke Tokes, located at 327 E. Boyd Street at the north edge of downtown’s Toy District — as the flames fueled by chemicals inside intensified and produced a blast that rocked the area.
Another four firefighters were still recovering at L.A. County-USC Medical Center. Capt. Erik Scott, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department, said the still-hospitalized firefighters were in serious condition, but were improving.
“They’re making progress,” he said Tuesday.
At least two who had been on ventilators after possibly breathing in gasses and super-heated air have now been taken off, Scott said.
The explosion Saturday — which produced a column of fire and a mushroom cloud of smoke that enveloped the group of firefighters on the roof of Smoke Tokes — instantly became one of the most serious incidents in LAFD history.
An investigation into what caused the initial fire is ongoing, Scott said. Firefighters and police have cordoned off a two-block area around the store, which sits near the border of several busy business and residential districts downtown.
A multi-agency team, including LAFD arson investigators, detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department and federal explosives experts, continue to pick through the rubble of the store to figure out what happened.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives activated a team of its agents on Monday to help with the investigation, a spokeswoman said. Scott said processing the scene could take days or several weeks.
Though law enforcement is involved in the investigation, police haven’t said whether they’ve found any evidence that criminal charges could be filed in the blast.
Before the explosion, the store on Boyd Street advertised itself as a wholesale business and distributor of herbal vaporizers, glass pipes and blunts.
LAFD officials initially identified the shop as possibly selling concentrated oils derived from marijuana. Underground labs producing those oils, which use butane in the extraction process, have been known to explode. But on its website, Smoke Tokes advertises tobacco products like vaporizers and marijuana products like bongs and wraps.
Industry experts said the butane present at Smoke Tokes could have been related to lighters they were selling. LAFD believes the butane stored there may have ignited during the fire.
Scott said investigators also found “small metal remnants” of little carbon dioxide canisters the store sold scattered around the area after the explosion.
Before the fire, the garage door of Smoke Tokes facing Boyd Street displayed a message saying the main entrance was located at 330 E. 3rd Street, just north of the store across an alley.
LAFD officials said they believed the same owners were operating at the 3rd Street location when a fire broke out there in September 2016. That earlier fire is being looked at again for the current investigation.
The current store in the 330 E. 3rd Street location is not operated by the owners of Smoke Tokes. A person who answered the phone at the current 3rd Street store said they were not associated with Smoke Tokes, then hung up.
The owners of Smoke Tokes were not immediately available for comment.
