Newsom, Bass declare emergency over Boyle Heights warehouse fire

Los Angeles and California officials have declared emergencies as firefighters battle a stubborn fire at a massive Boyle Heights cold-storage warehouse, where smoldering insulation, rooftop solar panels and 85 million pounds of thawing food have turned a building fire into a prolonged public health and environmental response.

The fire was first reported Wednesday afternoon at the 500,000-square-foot Lineage Big Bear facility at 1400 S. Los Palos Street, a frozen-food storage site. The Guardian reported that the solar-panel array covering the roof caught fire on June 17. Lineage, the tenant and operator, said it believes the fire began while contractors for the third-party owner of the solar array were conducting testing on the roof.

“The best way to describe this is like a giant cooler,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Jamie Moore said, describing corrugated steel walls filled with dense foam insulation and reinforced interior steel panels. “Imagine your refrigerator having a fire.”

Officials said the building used ammonia in its refrigeration system to keep food frozen. The Guardian reported that an ammonia line ruptured as firefighters tried to contain the rooftop blaze, forcing crews to pull back and fight from a safer distance. Lineage said its understanding from LAFD and the South Coast Air Quality Management District is that “there have been no measurable ammonia concentrations recorded in the community since the fire started,” and said it had pumped out the ammonia and transported it offsite.

Firefighters have used helicopter water drops and aerial ladder pipes pouring thousands of gallons of water per minute onto the building. Moore said crews also brought in contract helicopters able to drop about 3,000 gallons of water at a time, along with “blaze tamer gel,” a fire-retardant gel intended to help smother flames and encapsulate smoke.

By Saturday, Moore said crews had limited the fire to about half the building, but conditions remained dangerous. Aerial footage Sunday evening showed another flare-up on the roof, with a large plume of smoke rising as fire appeared to burn down an exterior wall and onto a lower roof.

Inside, officials said an estimated 85 million pounds of frozen food is beginning to thaw after the refrigeration system was shut down and ammonia was removed. Moore said initial reports suggested most of the product was bread and wheat, but crews later learned the facility also held chicken, beef, pork and fish.

“All that food is slowly beginning to rot. It’s no longer frozen. It’s warming up and it’s going to start to spoil,” Moore said. Firefighters are not entering the unstable building or manually removing products, officials said. Instead, they are trying to isolate unaffected areas and determine how to remove food before spoilage creates additional biohazard concerns.

No firefighters or civilians have been injured. Officials said no evacuation order or shelter-in-place order is currently in effect, though earlier shelter-in-place orders were issued and lifted. Moore urged smoke-sensitive residents to stay indoors if needed, saying, “There is nothing in the air that is so dangerous that we have to do evacuations or even shelter-in-place.”

Mayor Karen Bass said the city is focused on public safety and health. “We’re not concerned in terms of the fire spreading,” she said. “But we are concerned about the biohazard smoke.”

Bass declared a local emergency and asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to expedite state relief. Newsom later issued an emergency proclamation, saying California is mobilizing to support Los Angeles. State resources include 5.5 million N95 masks, commercial-grade air purifiers for evacuation centers, bottled water, emergency supplies, added air quality monitoring equipment and technical fire officials.

Smoke relief centers have opened at Pecan Recreation Center and City Terrace Park. South Coast air regulators extended a particle pollution advisory after sensors showed unhealthy PM2.5 levels following a reignition Friday night.

“This work is far from over,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Jon O’Brien said, citing “deep pockets of smoldering fire” buried under debris and solar panels. Officials warned the operation could continue for days or weeks.