Barrington Plaza fire: Resident claims fire may have started in apartment used as Airbnb rental

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A resident of a Brentwood-area high-rise says he thinks the fire may have started in an apartment rented as Airbnb.

Eric Kaya said the next apartment on the seventh floor of the 25-story Barrington Plaza did not have an actual key, but a coded key, and “random people come in and out.”

Los Angeles Fire Department officials, however, said it appears the fire, which is being suspiciously investigated, started on the sixth floor. Authorities also told the Los Angeles Times there is no indication that the fire started in a rental unit on Airbnb.

Thirteen people were injured in the blaze, including two firefighters, according to LAFD.

A fire broke out in the same building in October 2013 and eight people were injured in this fire, the LA Times reported.

Kaya said he, his wife and child were getting ready for the day around 8:30 a.m. when he could see black smoke, and possibly fire, coming from the next apartment.

He said he ran outside and repeatedly knocked on the door of the next apartment, but no one answered.

By the time he returned to his own apartment, smoke had enveloped him. He said he was having trouble breathing.

Kaya grabbed her shoes and some of her stuff and ran down the stairs after her family did the same.

He said he didn’t even have time to put on his shoes.

“I knew if I stayed in there I would be dead,” Kaya said.

He said there were no sprinklers inside his flat and he didn’t hear a fire alarm go off before he ran down the stairs.

Once outside, he saw the man who lived in the neighboring apartment getting ready to jump out the window, after the firefighters had prepared a tarp. But in the end, he too was rescued by firefighters on the 7th floor.

Kaya also saw that the windows in her house, as well as the adjoining apartment, were blacked out.

“It all went there, totally,” Kaya said of her apartment.

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