Boyle Heights Warehouse Fire Spreads Smoke Across Los Angeles

A large warehouse fire in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles has been burning for five days, sending smoke across a wide area of the region. The fire started Wednesday afternoon at a cold-storage building used to store frozen food. Firefighters said they were making progress, but smoke and poor air quality continued to affect many nearby communities.

The warehouse is about 500,000 square feet in size — roughly the area of nine football fields. It holds around 85 million pounds of frozen food and is owned by Lineage Logistics, a company based in Michigan. A spokesperson said the fire likely started when workers testing solar panels on the roof caused something to go wrong.

Fighting this fire has been especially difficult because the building's walls are thick and insulated, much like the inside of a freezer. Those thick walls made it hard for firefighters to get water to the flames burning inside. Crews also had to carefully remove large amounts of ammonia, a chemical used to keep the building cold, which can be dangerous.

Things started to improve on Saturday night, when the fire reached parts of the outer walls. That allowed firefighters to break open the walls with heavy machines and shoot water directly at the flames inside. Before that, the only openings were small holes, which made it much harder to fight the fire where it was actually burning.

Captain Jacob Raabe of the Los Angeles Fire Department explained the challenge with earlier efforts. 'If we kept just putting water on the roof, it wasn't directly attacking the fire that was burning inside,' he said. On Sunday, crews continued using heavy machinery to pry open more sections of the walls.

The smoke caused serious air quality problems across the region. The South Coast Air Quality Management District extended a warning about poor air quality until midday on Monday. Officials said smoke could travel as far as Riverside and Orange Counties, depending on the wind.

In some areas, pollution from smoke particles reached 'very unhealthy' levels on Saturday night and Sunday. Health officials said the worst effects were expected north and east of the fire, including the San Gabriel Valley. Residents were told to stay indoors, close windows, and wear an N-95 or P-100 mask if they had to go outside.

Despite the poor air, big sporting events in the area went ahead as planned. The World Cup soccer match between Belgium and Iran was held at SoFi Stadium, and the Dodgers played the Orioles at Dodger Stadium. Both events continued on schedule.

City and state leaders worked to make sure firefighters had the resources they needed. Mayor Karen Bass declared a local emergency on Saturday to help the city get extra support faster. Governor Gavin Newsom also declared an emergency on Saturday night.

Captain Raabe said residents should begin to see conditions improve in the coming hours and days. 'It's obviously going to take time to get completely extinguished, but you will start to see a significant improvement as we make progress on putting this fire out,' he said. Firefighters remained on the scene, working to fully put out the blaze.