An audio alarm activated by a smoke detector sounding at the Central Library. The library telephone operator called the fire department. Evacuation was complete in about eight minutes, as the library security directed employees and patrons in evacuation of the Central Library. In the seven and a half-hour blaze, it took three hundred firefighters to put it out. In this Los Angeles fire, what could have been one hundred and sixty million-dollar losses to a twenty-two million-dollar loss because of the Los Angeles City Fire Department limited the cost by extinguishing the fire. A phone Bank in space donated by Atlantic Richfield Co. to aid the salvage and restoration of the Central Library collection.
Extinguishing the blaze required sixty fire stations, nine rescue ambulances, two helicopters, forty command officers and support personals. In addition, there were six mutual air companies from Las Angeles were used to use vacant stations where it was needed until fire prevention personnel and six apparatuses that were set aside to relieve the six mutual aids. A complement of over three hundred and fifty fire fighters and paramedics, and assistance from about every element of the Department. Approximately forty five percent of the on duty fire department resources were committed to this fire. About seven hundred fire fighters took part in a seven and a half-hour battle against the flames. Forty six fire fighters, and or civilians were injured with no deaths Out of the department fifty members had injuries and were treated, twenty eight of them were transported to a hospital. The fire department didn't expect such a total loss in what they though would be a short extinguished fire. An approximate estimation of the loss of the structure was about two million dollars. It cost the city as much as twenty million dollars to restore and replace the books and other materials damaged or destroyed in the fire.