Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued two emergency
Smoke blanketed the city's east side for several days, evoking memories of last year's devastating wildfires.
The fire burned for eight days within a heavily insulated, approximately 491,000-square-foot cold storage structure, requiring around-the-clock firefighting operations by the Los Angeles Fire Department and mutual aid partners.
The incident resulted in a shelter-in-place order for neighboring residents and extended air-quality advisories from the South Coast Air Quality Management District affecting central Los Angeles County, the San Gabriel Valley, the East San Fernando Valley, and northwest San Bernardino County.
The fire, which ignited on June 17, burned for several days before being
While the shelter-in-place order has been lifted, an estimated 85 million pounds of frozen food product stored within the facility suffered spoilage from the loss of refrigeration and biohazard decomposition of all or substantially all of that product constitutes a public nuisance, according to the mayor's office.
Lineage, the company that owns the warehouse, expects roughly 5,000 truckloads of damaged food will be removed from the warehouse, according to a statement from the mayor's office. The executive order gives the company two months to complete the work, because mountains of rotting food from the now decimated warehouse is likely to attract pests.
The Los Angeles Fire Department incurred costs exceeding $5 million to taxpayers as of June 22, with direct and indirect city, county, and state costs continuing to accrue, according to the mayor's office.
The spoiling food, rodents, bugs, and vermin onsite and in the surrounding community, structural hazards, ammonia refrigerant materials, solar panel debris, and potential for contaminated stormwater runoff collectively may constitute an ongoing public nuisance and imminent health hazard, authorizing mandatory abatement timelines and immediate plan submission requirements, according to the mayor's office.
The executive orders "establish a centralized command structure to execute aggressive remediation timelines; surge city resources to support impacted residents, workers, and businesses; deploy mobile health screening and mental health stations in the community; pursue legal options for cost recovery; and strengthen environmental oversight of industrial facilities," Bass said.
"Those who know Boyle Heights know that this fire did not happen in a vacuum," Bass said. "Boyle Heights deserves transparency and accountability."
The executive orders will mobilize additional resources that impacted residents, workers, and business owners need, implement aggressive oversight over the remediation process and long-term environmental monitoring, and ensure this community gets the answers it deserves, she said.
"Boyle Heights residents deserve more than reassurances — they deserve information they can see, understand, and trust," said Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, D-Boyle Heights.
"Last week, I called for public-facing air quality information because families shouldn't have to rely on rumors, technical reports, or social media to know what's happening in their own neighborhood," Jurado said.
The executive orders are "an important step toward the transparency our community has been demanding, and I'll keep pushing until the information is updated regularly, available in multiple languages, paired with clear public health guidance, and backed by real accountability," she said.
On June 20, Bass issued a
The declarations mobilized resources and ensured the city has adequate support and capacity to respond.
The Los Angeles Fire Department was aided in efforts to extinguish the fire by Los Angeles County Fire Department, the Fire Departments of Beverly Hills, Culver City, and Orange, as well as Anaheim Fire and Rescue, the Ventura County Fire Department, and additional agencies. Officials said the emergency declaration aided that process.
