Los Angeles city and county leaders are jointly moving to declare a state of emergency over the fire that has gripped a cold storage facility in the Boyle Heights area for several days. With the blaze still smoldering, officials gathered for a joint briefing as the response shifted from fighting the flames to managing the hazards left behind.
The scale of the response was clear from those at the podium. The update brought together the city fire chief, Mayor Karen Bass, County Supervisor Hilda Solis, the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the county Office of Emergency Management, the county Department of Public Health and the Red Cross, with the city fire chief calling it a very unique fire and a unique challenge for both the city and the county.
Officials said that while the immediate hazardous material had been brought under control, a different danger was now coming to the fore. The ammonia that had been used as a refrigerant inside the plant was reported secured, but attention has turned to a looming biohazard from roughly 85 million pounds of frozen food that is now spoiling inside the crippled facility.
The structure itself helps explain why the fire has been so difficult to put out. The city fire chief described the 500,000 square foot commercial building as essentially a giant cooler, with corrugated steel outer walls packed with very dense foam and interior walls also lined with corrugated steel, comparing it to the kind of cold storage freezer used to chill blocks of stock.
That construction has turned the blaze into a slow, stubborn burn. Officials explained that the dense foam keeps smoldering as it burns, so crews have been carrying out continuous helicopter water drops since the fire began, not to extinguish it outright but simply to keep the building cooled down and prevent the situation from worsening.
As the briefing continued, officials offered reassurance about the immediate risk. The city fire chief said crews had cordoned off the blaze using aerial ladder pipes pouring between 1,500 and 2,000 gallons of water per minute, that the hazardous materials had already been mitigated, and that no firefighters had been hurt despite the dangers such fires usually pose. The next objective, he said, was to safely remove the still uninvolved food before it too began to spoil and add to the biohazard.
Mayor Bass struck a similar tone, saying the chief concern was the safety and health of residents rather than the fire spreading, and that there was no need for evacuations or for people to shelter in place. She did urge anyone sensitive to smoke, including the many residents heading out to watch FIFA World Cup matches, to be cautious and consider staying indoors, as city and county agencies, public health officials and the Red Cross pressed on with the days-long response.