On Monday, firefighters continued to battle the blaze inside the cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights.
During a press conference late Monday afternoon, L.A. City Fire Chief Jaime Moore said crews are making progress.
“Fire activity has continued to decrease throughout the day,” he said. “Heavy equipment operators are systematically removing sections of the exterior walls, which is allowing our firefighters to direct water streams into previously inaccessible areas of the building and extinguish the remaining spots of fire and the pockets where those fires are. We will continue to make progress. Smoke conditions in the surrounding areas have improved significantly, and we expect that trend to continue as we advance forward.”
Chief Moore said he hopes to have the fire fully extinguished by the middle of this week.
“My goal, and I've spoken to Chief Ferrari, who's the incident commander on this incident, is to be able to turn this building back to Lineage and to the building owner by Friday,” he said. “I know it's very ambitious, considering what's happened in the past, but that's what my goal is, and that's what we're working towards.”
Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado praised firefighters but slammed authorities for failing to do enough for residents.
"When they're seeing the smoke and smelling the odors and finding ash and debris near their homes and businesses, we still do not have clear enough information about what burned and what may still be burning, and what is in the air and what is in the ash and what risks remain,” she said. “It is unclear about the toxic items, insulation, chemicals, and other hazardous materials that have been burning or polluting the air during this process, and that is unacceptable. Boyle Heights has beared a lot of the environmental burdens, and in this moment, they deserve the basic right to know what is in the air.”
She also criticized the operators of the warehouse, Lineage, saying there needs to be an independent investigation of the safety record of the company.
The fire began on June 17 at the Lineage cold storage facility on South Los Palos St. It reignited once again on June 19. On Saturday, L.A. Mayor Karen issued a state of emergency in Boyle Heights, while Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for L.A. County.
The smoke from the fire has been a massive concern for several residents. One man told Baird his family was able to get out.
“My family has been fortunate enough to be able to go somewhere else during these days, so there's a lot of families that are not that fortunate,” he said.
But one woman said she’s been with smoke “night and day.”
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