Illegal Fireworks Stacked 'In Every Room' Of LA Home Prompts Evacuations

LOS ANGELES, CA — A bomb squad was called in and nearby homes were evacuated after police serving a domestic violence arrest warrant found a huge cache of illegal fireworks in a South Los Angeles home Wednesday morning, according to police.

Officers served the warrant at about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday in the 100 block of East 85th Street, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

When officers entered the home, they found what was later determined to be $200,000 worth of fireworks, NBC Los Angeles reported.

"They get inside the house and they see the fireworks — every room in the house was stacked with fireworks," LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told ABC 7. "You don't know what's in the house next door to you, and it could be something that is very, very dangerous."

One person was arrested at the scene once the warrant was served and a bomb squad was called in to investigate the fireworks cache, an officer said.

Nearby homes were evacuated during the investigation, and the bomb squad hauled out boxes of what were described as non-commercial grade pyrotechnic devices, enough to fill more than three box trucks, ABC 7 reported.

People who were inside the home were detained pending an investigation.

“Just based on the quantity, because there’s boxes and boxes and boxes of the fireworks, this is a very dangerous situation in that if there’s a house fire or something that ignited those fireworks, that could be very dangerous for the occupants and the community members,” LAPD Deputy Chief Marc Reina said during a news conference, according to KTLA.

The fireworks find comes after a fire in a converted garage on May 9 led to the detonation of pyrotechnics that reportedly blew a man's body apart in the 2400 block of Ninth Avenue in the Jefferson Park area.

And in 2021, the LAPD bomb squad overloaded a containment vessel to destroy illegal fireworks confiscated from inside a residential garage in South LA. It resulted in an explosion that injured over dozen people, displaced at least 80 residents and caused extensive property damage, KTLA reported.

• See also: ​4 LAPD Bomb Squad Members Disciplined For 2021 Fireworks Explosion

City News Service contributed to this report.