An heir to the prominent Rothschild family has died after a house fire broke out at the Laurel Canyon house.

William Rothschild’s body was found in the $1 million home in Los Angeles on Friday. The Rothschilds are a prominent Jewish family who emigrated from Germany and had long been staples in the banking world most notably during the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Rothschilds were once widely considered to have amassed the largest private fortune on Earth, according to the Los Angeles Times.

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Currently, the family is spread all over the world and maintains interests in financial services, energy, real estate and other sectors. It was stated that several of its prominent members have become high society and philanthropic fixtures in London, Paris and beyond.

The residence which burned down was described by a real estate listing service as an 825-square-foot, two-bedroom property worth about $1 million. According to the listing service, the home had little opulence. The Los Angeles Police Department reported that the house went up in flames around 5 pm and lasted 30 minutes to put out.

The LAPD reported that it took 45 different firefighters to put out the flames. Video of the inferno, which was shared by a neighbor who requested anonymity, showed the flames licking the front of the house. According to the neighbor, she saw huge flames and heard glass shattering.

Another neighbor, Dana Gladstone, said that he was home during the incident but didn’t see the flames. However, he said he heard a woman say, Oh my God, thats awful!

She was probably given the news that he passed, said Gladstone. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner will determine Rothschild’s cause of death on Tuesday. The cause of the fire is being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Fire Department.

Gladstone said Rothschild was in his late 70s and devoted to his dog, an Afghan hound.The guy was attached to his dog, said Gladstone. I knew him as Will. According to the outlet, the Los Angeles Fire Department said no other injuries were reported. But one neighbor said that Rothschilds dog hadnt been seen since the incident.

His neighbors also said that Rothschild allegedly maintained a vintage car collection and stored some of them in his house and others up the street at another property that was ornamented with busts of great thinkers including Raphael and Michelangelo.

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