2 firefighters hospitalized after Beverly Hills apartment fire

Crews battled a fire tearing through an apartment building in Beverly Hills on Wednesday morning, aerial images showed.

At around 11:30 a.m., flames were clearly visible from the roof of a building located on the 200 block of South Rexford Drive. It's not yet clear how the fire started, but several fire engines were on scene to slow the spread.

The blaze didn't appear to spread to adjacent structures. However, the roof began to collapse, forcing firefighters to shift to a defensive strategy and use ladder hoses to douse it from above.

The city of Beverly Hills said it was knocked down by 12:45 p.m.

Two firefighters were taken to the hospital with minor burns and heat exhaustion. 

"They were wearing pounds and pounds of gear," city spokesperson Lauren Santillana said. "It's already triple digits. They're dealing with their gear and the fire. Heat exhaustion is very common."

Temperatures reached well over 100 degrees while crews extinguished the flames. 

"When people get heat stroke, that can be life-threatening," said Dr. Gabriel Campion with Dignity Health Northridge. "Sometimes we're able to get people through just IV fluids, but sometimes we have to put ice packs on them too and try to cool them off quite quickly."

The National Weather Service issued extreme heat warnings for much of Southern California, describing the temperatures and the humidity as "very dangerous" conditions.

"This extra humidity will make the temps feel much worse and will lessen the body's cooling abilities," the NWS says.