The largest of the fires broke out at a commercial building around 6:30 a.m. in the 6200 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Over 100 firefighters tackled the flames that engulfed the abandoned restaurant. At one point, the raging flames caused a portion of the building to collapse onto itself.
Commercial building partially collapses as crews battle massive fire in North Hollywood
Nobody was hurt, but authorities believe it was part of a series of at least 10 other small fires that were set off in the area within the span of an hour.
"There's been 10 in addition to this, a total of 11 that took place within a short time frame of about an hour within a small geographic area of about a half mile," said LAFD Capt. Erik Scott. "So obviously, it's very concerning to us. We had every single one of our arson investigators dumped and put out here to chase down leads and we worked very closely with LAPD."
Crews even had to bring extra help to battle the massive blaze.
"The robot is an unmanned piece of equipment that we purchased a few years ago that allows us to get a piece of equipment inside the building in dangerous positions that we normally wouldn't put personnel or firefighters," explained LAFD Dep. Chief Trevor Richmond.
It's unclear whether those responsible for the fire are homeless, but residents told Eyewitness News there is a large homeless population in the area and they're known to camp inside vacant properties that have burned.
"I'm going, 'Oh my god. We've got a big fire going,'" said Mike Meadows, who has lived in North Hollywood for more than 50 years. "I knew exactly where it was because there had been two or three fires here before."
Additional details about the detained individual were not available.
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