Idling trucks, sandbag piles and large metal trailers stationed around a massive cold storage facility that burned for days in Boyle Heights signaled that the work to clean up millions of pounds of spoiled food and burned debris had begun Friday morning.
The smells that have wafted through the neighborhood since June 17 — fire smoke and rotting meat — were much lighter than it had been for the last week. At the same time, the sounds of idling diesel work truck engines have replaced that of dozens of fire trucks that had been stationed there for days.
The work of mitigating the potential environmental fallout and addressing the creeping issue of how to handle the worsening smell of millions of pounds of spoiled food is now in the hands of the building’s private tenant.
On Friday morning, Los Angeles firefighters who had been trying to put out the fire, which had sent smoke across the county for miles in every direction, were readying to hand over cleanup to Lineage, the tenant of the charred building.
“The business owner, the tenants, the restoration company that they have on contract, they are the ones handling the cleanup at this point,” said Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Branden Silverman.
Lineage, in a statement, said it had already hired contractors to begin the work. An LAFD spokesperson said Saturday that emergency officials intend to hand over full control of the site to the property managers on Monday.
“Lineage is committed to the fastest cleanup that is possible without sacrificing health, safety, and regulatory compliance,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
Last week, the 500,000-square-foot insulated warehouse, located in an industrial park between the 5 Freeway and a Union Pacific railroad terminal, caught fire while work was reportedly being done to rooftop solar panels. The fire spread into the building, compromising its roof, keeping firefighters from going inside and quickly knocking down the flames.
Instead, crews were left to essentially disassemble parts of the structure, starting from the outside, until they could blast water onto the burning material and drown out the flames. LAFD declared the fire “knocked down” on Wednesday evening.
On Friday, there was no longer a stream of water shooting into the center of the warehouse.
Instead, large metal containers were stationed around the facility. Mobile light towers were stationed outside alongside waste management trucks, and large stacks of sandbags were piled up.
Metal grates and sandbags were being used to prevent debris from floating into storm drains.
Fire officials said these were part of ongoing efforts to mitigate some of the impacts clearing the site could have on the surrounding community and the environment. A plan for the growing smell of rotten food was also still being formulated, officials said.
“There are also other methods that could be employed — potentially a deodorizer, they could be applied on top of the debris to keep the smell down,” Silverman said. “They’re literally looking at every angle possible to minimize the impact on the community.”
Lineage, which operated the cold storage warehouse, hired Signal Restoration Services — a national cleanup and restoration company — to lead efforts at the Boyle Heights facility, the company said in a statement.
“We have already staged cleanup equipment onsite,” read the statement, which also urged the city to fast-track any permits necessary for cleanup.
There was already a flurry of work at the warehouse on Friday morning.
Workers from Ecology Control Industries and GrayMar Environmental Services were at the site cleaning up. Ecology was a part of the city’s cleanup effort last year after the Palisades fire, too.
Matthew Negrete, senior project manager for Ecology Control Industries, said the 20 or so workers were under the direction of GrayMar and working day and night shifts inside the warehouse.
“We have vacuum trucks there to remove the contaminated water,” Negrete said. He added it was unclear how long the work would have to go on.
“Sometimes contractors assume it can go for a couple of days. The next thing you know, we’re there for a couple of weeks,” Negrete said.
While material is being removed, crews are still looking out for smoldering areas where a fire could rekindle and take off again, officials said. By the afternoon, only a handful of LAFD crew members remained at the site, replaced by private firefighters who had taken over hosing down the building interior.
One LAFD crew is expected to remain behind in case a fire takes off, officials said.
Inside the building, several food packages, including many with Costco’s Kirkland Signature packaging, could be seen.
A spokesperson from Kirkland Signature did not immediately respond to a request for comment.