Cleanup efforts are underway Thursday at the Boyle Heights cold-storage warehouse that burned for eight days after firefighters officially declared the massive blaze knocked down Wednesday evening.
Los Angeles Fire Department crews remain at the Lineage warehouse near Union Pacific Avenue and South La Puente Street as they transition into the overhaul phase, searching for hidden hot spots, extinguishing smoldering debris and assessing whether the heavily damaged building is safe enough for cleanup crews to enter.
While smoke has largely cleared from the neighborhood, residents are now contending with another unpleasant reminder of the fire.
“The overwhelming smell of smoke has now been replaced with an overwhelming smell of food going bad,” KTLA’s Annie Rose Ramos reported Thursday morning from the scene.
The next challenge is removing what officials estimate could be as much as 85 million pounds of perishable food stored inside the roughly 500,000-square-foot refrigerated warehouse.
“We’re talking about a 500,000-square-foot building, which is essentially a large refrigerator,” LAFD spokesperson Anthony Tubbs said. “If you were to lose power at home, the food in your refrigerator would begin to spoil. That’s definitely a consideration and concern for us here.”
Before that work can begin, firefighters must determine whether the structure is safe to enter. If it is not, officials said they will have to reevaluate how the food and debris can be removed.
The LAFD declared the fire knocked down at 5:58 p.m. Wednesday, meaning there are no active flames and no threat of the fire spreading. Even so, crews will continue monitoring the property for any remaining hot spots that could reignite the blaze while demolition of about half of the building is expected to move forward.
The fire erupted on June 17 at the cold-storage facility, prompting days of shelter-in-place orders, school disruptions and air quality concerns for surrounding communities. The South Coast Air Quality Management District allowed its particle pollution advisory to expire Wednesday as smoke conditions improved.
A nearby resident told KTLA he is relieved the fire has finally been extinguished but hopes families affected by the weeklong emergency receive compensation.
Another resident said the neighborhood now smells “like rotten meat,” adding that they would rather see housing built at the site than another warehouse.
Mayor Karen Bass said the unprecedented incident has exposed the need for the city to better understand similar facilities throughout Los Angeles. Speaking Wednesday evening, she called for an inventory of warehouses across the city after the prolonged firefighting effort disrupted nearby neighborhoods for more than a week.
According to Lineage, the fire may have started while a third-party contractor was servicing the facility’s rooftop solar panel system. The official cause remains under investigation.
Once firefighters complete their assessment and determine the site is safe, control of the property will be turned over to the building owner and tenants so demolition, debris removal and long-term recovery efforts can begin.
