Great Western Litho, which prints packaging materials for the adult industry, suffered more than one million dollars in damage for a fire on Saturday that left one employee severely burned.
The fire began at approximately 10:45AM, and appears to have been caused when an electrical short caused a flammable cleaning liquid to ignite, according to Jim Wells of the Los Angeles Fire Department. Overhead sprinklers installed in the building were effective, and the fire was out by 11:07AM.
"We lost one of our presses, which can and will be replaced, and have an employee in critical condition at a local hospital, which is our greatest present concern," said Great Western Litho owner Michael Warner in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by the accident, but our commitment to serving our customers remains as strong as ever."
The injured employee was performing a routine cleaning of the printing press when the fire started while he was under the press. Other employees were able to pull him out of the fire and extinguish him, then he was rushed to a hospital where he was induced into a coma because of the severity of his burns. He is currently considered to be in critical condition, with second- and third-degree burns covering 70% of his body.
Warner reports that his business is "operating as usual", with two remaining presses still fully operational. Warner states that all work orders presently in-house will be delivered as scheduled, due to the scheduling of a third shift to offset the temporary loss in capacity.
"That press was our third press and it was in a separate building in a separate area, so that's why the fire was isolated to that area,", Great Western Litho general manager Denise Beilowitz told AVN.com, "Everything that had printed during the day on Friday had been already moved out of that location into the bindery, so we only lost some things from Friday night. Other than that everything else was okay."
