Crews were battling a major emergency structure fire at a large, vacant and boarded up former restaurant in the Sun Valley area Wednesday evening.

The fire broke out around 8:30 p.m. at the former site of an Acapulco Mexican Restaurant at 8431 Sunland Blvd., near the Golden State (5) Freeway, and escalated from a greater alarm fire to a major emergency fire, said Brian Humphrey with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Firefighters were in a defensive operation for about 50 minutes, “with large hand-held and ladder-elevated high-volume hose streams,” but began to shift to an offensive mode about 9:45 p.m., Humphrey said.

Sunland Boulevard between Nettleton street and the freeway was shut down while crews battled the blaze in the 5,736 square-foot building, Humphrey said.

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