Electrical power might be hampered in seven to 10 units of the Hermosa Pavilion for a week or so, after a fire in an electrical vault touched off alarms and sent hints of smoke through the sprawling, enclosed shopping mall, prompting a brief evacuation, firefighters said.
Firefighters responded about 10:45 a.m. Tuesday and found thick black smoke coming from a locked door between a stairwell and the ground-floor vault, and used a rotary saw to cut the door’s locks and get inside the vault, Capt. Mike Garofano said.
Firefighters doused the small blaze with a dry chemical agent.
Meanwhile, the alarms prompted evacuation of the mall. The incident was over in about an hour and-a-half, Garofano said.
A commercial electrician would have to replace panels serving seven to 10 units in the mall, located on Pacific Coast Highway just north of Pier Avenue, he said. ER
