Authorities are planning on turning the burned Lineage Logistics warehouse over to the company and its contractors on Monday as smell and air quality concerns persist.
Lineage Logistics is the tenant-operator of the site, located at 1400 South Los Palos Street in Boyle Heights, and the roof is leased to a third party who maintains the solar array on top of it. Lineage officials say they believe the fire started while the third party’s subcontractors were doing maintenance work on the panels; however, the Los Angeles Fire Department has not released an official cause.
The blaze tore through the 500,000-square-foot facility lined with incredibly large storage racks, burning roughly half of it across eight days. The process now will revolve around the roughly 85 million pounds of cold and frozen food that was being stored in the facility – all of which has spoiled.
In a statement issued on June 25, Lineage said they were ready to begin the cleanup as soon as the LAFD turned the building over to the owner and them as the tenant-operator. The industrial cleanup firm Signal Restoration Services has been hired by Lineage, according to the statement from late last week.
“Lineage is committed to the fastest cleanup that is possible without sacrificing health, safety, and regulatory compliance,” the June 25 statement reads.
LAFD officials had previously stated that they would cede control of the situation to Lineage and the warehouse owner on Saturday after finishing overhaul operations and releasing resources from the area.
Fire crews handing off the remediation efforts means a step is being taken in the right direction, but the road to complete recovery for the area is a long one, and residents are feeling the aftereffects of the industrial disaster that caused a State of Emergency declaration and a shelter-in-place order — and has led to a “putrid and lingering” smell of rotten food mixed with burned debris blanketing the area.
“The fire’s over with, thankfully, but unfortunately, we’re in a situation where we have to clean up a lot,” said Boyle Heights resident Carlos Montes.
