Two potential witnesses sought in suspicious Los Angeles construction fire

By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Arson investigators are asking for the public's help in locating two potential witnesses seen on video footage captured near the scene of a suspicious Los Angeles construction fire that gutted an entire city block last week, fire officials said on Tuesday. Both men are being sought for questioning about what they may have observed before the fire erupted, and neither is considered a suspect or even a "person of interest," said Thomas Mangan, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). A national ATF team is leading the investigation, assisted by arson inspectors from the Los Angeles Fire Department. Department officials said last week the blaze, one of the largest structure fires in the city's recent history, was being treated as a "criminal fire," based on its large size and the speed and ferocity with which it burned. The fire erupted at about 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 8 and quickly destroyed a seven-story luxury apartment complex under construction near the junction of two freeways. Firefighters whose station is located next door to the scene opened their doors to find the entire block-long site engulfed in flames. The heat was so intense it ignited three floors of an adjacent office high-rise and blew out windows in that building and two others. No one was injured, but road closures in the area brought downtown morning traffic to a virtual gridlock. In one video clip taken by a freelance news camera crew just after the fire started, a man in a jacket and ball cap is seen strolling casually down the sidewalk along a chain-link fence bordering the blazing construction site. He appears to touch the fence as if to see how hot it is, and starts to try climbing over it, before two firefighters approach to pull him off the fence and escort him away. Mangan said the man subsequently wandered away without being interviewed by authorities. He said the firefighters who had grabbed him "had their hands full" at the time. A second unidentified man wearing a football jersey was caught on surveillance camera footage walking along the same street a short time before the fire began. City fire spokesman Jaime Moore said investigators want to ask both men, "'What did you see, what did you smell, what did you hear,' just to get an idea of what this environment was like before the fire started." (Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Eric Beech)