The flare-up of a fire at a cold-storage facility sent heavy plumes of dark smoke across the sky in Boyle Heights on Saturday morning.
“We woke up thinking that our house was on fire,” Monica Medina said.
She and others in her neighborhood near the facility had assumed the fire, which initially broke out Wednesday, was pretty much over.
Yet on Saturday afternoon, there was Medina, with her young son in tow, leaving a shelter set up at City Terrace, hauling a bag of dog food and a crate.
With school out for the summer and the smoke keeping the family inside, the boy was restless, so she brought him to the shelter. There they found food and games, allowing for a brief reprieve. And they got supplies, in case they would need to evacuate the home later with their dog.
They could smell the smoke inside their home, Medina recalled, even with all the windows closed.
“We did apply for air filters, but they said there’s probably going to be a big delay,” she said.
As Amelia Vallejo stood outside the shelter, looking toward her home and the Lineage cold-storage facility, the black smoke from the fire thickened. It was much darker than it had been in a photo Vallejo took on Saturday morning.
Vallejo and her husband and son came to City Terrace Park after the smoke was just too much to ignore. And the ongoing blaze has left them unable to return home because of health concerns.
“We live five blocks away from the fire,” she said. “We were sitting in the living room, and we saw the smoke coming directly at the window.”
That’s when the family decided they needed to leave and made their way to the shelter, where they were able to get asthma treatment and arrange for humidifiers to be brought to their home.
“It’s even worse (than before),” she said. “It’s not safe to go home at this point, especially (because) we have medical issues.”
Her family members experienced chest pain, itchy eyes and sore throats as the fire continued. But they were able to get treatment at the shelter, she said.
Vallejo pulled out her phone and checked a surveillance camera at her home, pointed in the direction of the fire, where pluming smoke was visible and the sound of a helicopter could be heard on the footage’s audio.
She worried about how long the fire, which has ebbed and flared up again over the past few days, will last.
“I can’t afford to go into a hotel, how many days? And I have a lot of people in my house,” she said. “It’s just horrible.”
Carlos Maceda came to the shelter to find out more about the fire, as he, too, was concerned about his health and that of his family.
When the fire first began, the warehouse where he works was evacuated due to initial concerns about chemicals. On Saturday, he wondered if those risks were over and how much more the fire would flare.
At the shelter, he also hoped to learn why the stubborn fire reignited.
Behind the park gymnasium serving as the shelter, many typical weekend activities continued on in City Terrace Park. Sounds of the happy birthday song and children splashing around carried through the air as children’s birthday parties went on, kids leaped and slid on play equipment and vendors under bright umbrellas sold chips, candy and toys.
Elsewhere, Glenn Rojas, co-owner of Sky’s the Limit Smokeshop on Olympic Boulevard, about a block from the fire, said, “It’s been pretty bad from the first day.”
But Rojas said it has not had much of an impact on his shop.
“Business overall has been a little bit slow, more than usual, but not extremely slow,” said Rojas who started the enterprise with his brother Steven four years ago.
“We noticed some other businesses that normally open haven’t been open,” he said. “I’ve been talking to other business owners, and we’ve been worried about the situation, worried about our health, as well.”
Rojas said they have not received any evacuation notices.
“We did get some alerts on our phone and on our electronic devices about the air quality, but I haven’t received any messages of evacuating, or you know, closing business, or anything like that,” he said.
Nearby at Sakura Hana, a Japanese restaurant on Olympic, business had slowed, according to manager Alberto Cruz, but he has not had to close, even as the smoke rolled down neighboring streets.
Cruz, who said Sakura Hana has only been open for five months, said they were feeding the firefighters.
“It’s a lot to do right now, 24 hours working and everything,” he said of the fire crews.