/u/AnokNomFaux,
Thanks for the inquiry. We apologize for not getting to your question sooner, but it was a bit busy in Venice overnight:
http://lafd.org/news/lafd-battles-blaze-venice-storage-facility-injuring-8-firefighters
That much said, it seems your inquiry was about 3AM today, so we took a look near Coldwater and Vanowen (with more than 1100 incidents citywide each day, it greatly helps!) at about that time.
There were no fires in or near that area overnight. With the slight overnight chill, there has been an increase in the use of home fireplaces. There is also the possibility of drift smoke from another fire - though there were none in the eastern San Fernando Valley.
FYI: We're still trying to get our new LAFD.ORG website functional enough to trigger LAFD ALERT messages on Reddit of significant Fire Department incidents (like we had prior to Sept 3). There is no remedy for the issues yet in sight. Until the problems are resolved, we welcome you to check the on-line log of our LAFD ALERT email list at:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/LAFD_ALERT
...whenever you wonder if there is something of significance in progress.
Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service,
Brian Humphrey Firefighter/Specialist Public Service Officer Los Angeles Fire Department
It says there were smoke alarms but whether they were working or not is unknown. If you have smoke alarms, check your batteries twice a year on the days we re-set our clocks for a time change. If you don’t have smoke alarms, the Red Cross LA has a “Sound the Alarm” program which provides and installs free smoke alarms (which I think have 10 yr batteries). To see if you’re eligible, here’s a link to the request form. https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=Ql1b3dPA0kq18WDts68ncfg5H-mhjKBItXzXjJRDD3RUMDhYMEdRSklGWEw5N0s3SzZFSkMyOFdTUSQlQCN0PWcu . As a new Red Cross LA Disaster Response Team member, a house fire like this with grave injuries or deaths is what I’m dreading responding to most.