The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ratified a local emergency and streamlined county resources on Tuesday, June 23, for residents in unincorporated East Los Angeles and nearby cities affected by breathing thick smoke from the warehouse fire in Boyle Heights burning for a seventh day, as reports of possible environmental damage surfaced along the area’s waterways.
Smoke rose anew from the smoldering Lineage cold-storage facility on Tuesday, again darkening the skies in the area. Fire crews continued to pour water on the fire inside the badly damaged hulk; they still hope to fully douse the frustrating week-old blaze by Friday.
First District Supervisor and Board Chair Hilda Solis said at the board meeting she’d heard runoff from firefighting efforts had reached the Los Angeles River, killing fish downstream. However, killing of fish could not be verified by officials at the Los Angeles City Fire Department, who were still checking on the situation Tuesday afternoon.
“We have containment booms at two locations on the L.A. River: one at the outfall of the storm drain system serving the area of the cold-storage facility (on fire), and the other at Willow Street in Long Beach,” said Kerjon Lee, spokesperson for L.A. County Public Works.
“They’re in place to prevent solid materials from traveling downstream while allowing water runoff to continue flowing. Public Works contracted with Ocean Blue for removal of fish,” he wrote in an email. “The results of testing take a couple of days, so we can’t say definitely at this point what caused the fish kill,” he added.
A person who works for Ocean Blue Environmental Services whose workers were seen cleaning the river of dead fish said he could not comment because his company was “working for the county.”
Meanwhile, two motions passed by the board will launch county environmental assessments, and also directs the County Counsel’s office to investigate the fire, including Lineage, the owner of the massive, 500,000-square-foot cold-storage warehouse at 1400 S. Los Palos St. on the border of the city of Los Angeles and East L.A. for possible enforcement actions and compensation for affected residents and businesses.
The same facility caught fire previously, in August 2024, Solis reported. Lineage had paid a fine to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency relating to a facility in Iowa, according to county documents.
The LACFD’s arson unit is conducting an active investigation of the cause of the Boyle Heights fire, Raabe said.
In the past week, the fire has sent plumes of thick smoke into the air after solar panels on the roof caught fire. The smoke, sometimes black, often white, sent particulate matter known as PM2.5 into the region, causing very unhealthful air in Boyle Heights and East L.A. and lesser concentrations of hazy smoke affecting cities from Los Angeles to Pasadena and south to Downey for the past week, where many residents stayed indoors and ran air conditioners.
“I declared a local emergency because the scale of this fire demands an all-hands-on-deck response and every available resource to protect residents, workers and first responders,” said Solis. Her declaration on Saturday, June 20 was verified by a 5-0 vote on Tuesday, along with a second motion to bring more resources to affected residents.
So far, Solis said her office provided 2,300 air purifiers to ELA residents and 10,000 N95 masks as well as 1,500 boxes of food to those affected by smoke and foul air quality. About 600 households in ELA were affected, the county reported.
Some residents in ELA and other cites nearby reported nausea, headaches and anxiety, said Fourth District Supervisor Janice Hahn. Solis said some who were examined by county medical officials had irregular heart beats and were suffering asthma attacks.
“The East Los Angeles community historically has faced environmental injustice,” Hahn said. “Now there’s this latest disaster when they can least afford it financially and health-wise.”
Hahn added in a statement that she wouldn’t be surprised if runoff from the fire killed fish in the L.A. River near Long Beach. “Whoever is found to be responsible for this fire must be held accountable for the impacts it’s had on our residents’ quality of life, on our wildlife, and on our environment.”
In late May, an oil spill from a ruptured oil pipe poured 25,000 gallons of crude oil into a the intersection of Eastern Avenue and Cesar Chavez Avenue in unincorporated ELA. Many businesses were shut down for days and lost revenue. The oil reached the L.A. River, badly coating more than 131 birds with oil and killing 27.
For years, the community sustained fumes and toxic releases from the now bankrupt Exide Technologies plant in Vernon.
However, there is some good news for the nearby residents and all of L.A. County.
The fire will be extinguished by week’s end, said Jon O’Brien, deputy chief of Los Angeles County Fire who said he was quoting LA City Fire Chief Jaime Moore. “That is the goal,” said Raabe of L.A. City Fire.
Raabe said the biggest challenge for firefighters on Tuesday was reaching the center of the building.
Putting out this fire became complex because of the structure of the 60-feet tall building that is insulated to keep food frozen and is made of walls of steel and thick foam. Raabe described it as a massive “Yeti cooler.” It also contains 85 million pounds of frozen food on storage racks 600 feet long that go nearly to the ceiling.
Air sensors measured improvements to PM2.5 levels in the air throughout the county recently. Near the fire, the Air Quality Index that had reached “Very Unhealthy levels” Monday evening had decreased to “Moderate” levels, three steps better, as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 23, only one step from “Good” air quality.
Also, monitors for air toxics, known as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) such as carbon monoxide, ammonia (used to keep temperatures freezing), hydrogen cyanide, sulfur dioxide and others, showed readings well below action levels, some appearing in minute parts per billion, reported Mario Tresierras, chief of the Health Hazardous Materials Division for the LACFD.
Barbara Ferrer, chief of the county’s Department of Public Health, said the SCAQMD monitors showed no VOCs in the air or only at negligible levels. “Therefore, there are no levels to date that were a cause for concern,” she said.
Reports of price gouging and fraudulent contractors have been logged by county officials.
“I’m hearing people who were selling air purifiers in our communities at three times the price,” said Solis.
Rafael Carbajal, director of the county Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, said he’s received calls from residents saying contractors are knocking on their doors and offering services, such as air conditioning. He advised them not to sign anything.
“Unfortunately, these vulnerable communities are being taken advantage of,” he said.
The emergency will stay in effect unless the board terminates it.
The board will receive a series of reports starting in a month. These will include updates on investigating Lineage. Also, the county will report bac on working with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Office of Emergency Services.
Said Solis: “We are contending with something I don’t think we’ve ever seen before of this magnitude.”