The first of 62 street signs bearing the names of Los Angeles Fire Department firefighters who died in the line of duty was installed Monday near Dodger Stadium.
The sign honoring Frank Hotchkin was installed at 1700 Stadium Way in front of the department’s training center that bears his name.
Hotchkin was killed on Sept. 27, 1980 when the roof collapsed during a fire at what was then the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center.
An electrical malfunction sparked a small fire in the attic of the center at about 9:30 a.m. Shortly after the fire started, a maintenance worker noticed smoke coming from an air vent, but he assumed that the building’s boilers were being tested.
The worker noticed heavier smoke at about 10:30 a.m., but didn’t call the fire department until 11:13 a.m., after he saw burning embers coming out of the air vents.
Responding crews didn’t realize that the fire had been burning in the attic for almost two hours, long enough to burn through 10 inches of wood sheeting underneath the tile shingles.
About a dozen ax-carrying firefighters climbed up to the roof of the center, to chop a hole to ventilate the building. Hotchkin was on the roof when he realized he would need a pike pole to punch a hole in the roof.
Hotchkin returned to the roof with the pole and was walking across the roof when it collapsed.
Hotchkin was 24 and was survived by his wife, June Marie, his high school sweetheart.
Hotchkin grew up in the Van Nuys area and graduated from Grant High School in 1974. He attended Los Angeles Valley College in preparation for fire service.
“Frank’s death is far more than a tragedy,” LAFD Capt. Russ Wenk told the Los Angeles Herald Examiner in a 1980 interview. Wenk was Hotchkin’s immediate superior at Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks. “He was one of those rare individuals who could do any job, any time. He just cared so much about people.”