A fire that burned at a Boyle Heights warehouse for more than a week is nearly out, after crews were able to extinguish flames from the roof overnight, Los Angeles Fire Department officials said Wednesday.
Water-dropping helicopters are no longer needed to knock down flames from the roof of the nearly 500,000-square-foot cold storage facility used by Lineage, leaving crews to focus on the smoldering fire inside, LAFD Capt. Jacob Raabe said Wednesday morning.
“Those air tactics are no longer needed because all the fire has been extinguished from the roof,” said Raabe outside the facility.
Wednesday’s goal, Raabe said, is to put out what’s still burning inside the building. But firefighters will have to do that without going inside, he said.
The roof, Raabe said, rests on 600-tall, 50-foot-tall racks that hold 85 million pounds of food that burns and rots inside, posing a risk to anyone who might enter.
So instead, firefighters are blasting a constant stream of water into the belly of the shed, hoping to put out the flames.
“We still can’t send firefighters to this building and to be honest, we probably won’t send anyone to this building because there are no life threatening things right now,” said Raabe. “We were going to put the fire out and reassess as conditions changed. But this strategy is working and it is putting out the fire.”
Crews will fly drones around the building to check for hot spots and redirect their water jets accordingly, Raabe said.
While this isn’t the first fire Lineage has had in one of its cold storage facilities — which are house-sized ice houses with thick walls — it highlights the strategy for fighting these types of fires, Raabe said.
The facility has partnered with a Texas company to use their water tanks – mostly used to burn oil rigs – to bring to Southern California.
Crews also “scraped” the walls of the building to expose the interior and provide better access for firefighters, Raabe said.
“We are able to bridge this public-private partnership,” Raabe said. “That’s how we took the fire that has taken more than 60 days to put out in some places, we are on the eighth day now and it is about to be put out for the last time.”
In 2024, a fire at a Lineage cold storage facility in Finley, Wash., took eight weeks to put out. Some residents filed a lawsuit saying the company has a history of releasing hazardous chemicals and violating laws that should have forced it to implement stricter safety measures at the site. Lineage has said health and safety is a top priority and is strongly opposed to a lawsuit against its safety record.
Meanwhile, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has extended a particulate pollution advisory until 12:30 pm Wednesday, saying smoke from the fire continues to have a negative impact on the air. Impacts vary greatly by location and time and depend on fire activity, the agency said.
Regulatory monitors and sensors have measured pollution levels that have improved since noon Monday, with the air quality index in areas surrounding the fire decreasing from severe to moderate as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, the agency said. However, it said, air quality monitors do not count large particles of ash and debris, and people who see or smell smoke or ash should take steps to protect their health.
