For eight brutal days, residents of Boyle Heights watched smoke billow from a burning warehouse and prayed the flames would spare their properties.
There was no escaping the black air pollution that choked the neighborhood then, and no reprieve now, even 5 weeks after the hearth was extinguished. The odor of burning plastic has been changed by one thing else: the pungent odor of rotting meals, and all the pieces that comes with it.
The inescapable stench – equal components bitter and cloying – has settled like a thick haze over the neighborhood, baked by the Southern California warmth.
Boyle Heights locals say the stink is making them bodily sick, and that swarms of flies and big rats have adopted the noxious odor into their neighborhood.
When it went up in flames in mid-June, the warehouse contained 88 million kilos of frozen meals, a few of which burned within the blaze and a few liquified. That quantity of waste would fill roughly 440,000 curbside trash bins. Lined up wheel-to-wheel, they might stretch greater than 200 miles, roughly the space between Washington, DC and New York Metropolis.
A crew cleans up after a large warehouse fireplace within the Boyle Heights neighborhood on Monday, June 29, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. – Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Instances/Getty Photographs
Now, cleanup crews are racing towards the clock to take away what the hearth left behind, together with waste so poisonous it must be sealed in hazmat containers. The Metropolis of Los Angeles has directed Lineage Logistics, the most important proprietor of cold-storage amenities on the planet and operator of the repository, to clear the waste by August 13 — a timeline one firm govt known as “very aggressive” at a city corridor final month.
When the wind shifts, the smells from the warehouse waft miles away, even weeks after the hearth was extinguished.
However in Boyle Heights, the putrid scent of fermented meals is a fetid fixed. It lingers within the air and coats the mouth. 90% of residents within the predominantly Latino neighborhood mentioned they observed fixed odors in a just lately launched county public well being survey.
In an effort to stymie the foul odor, a part of the ability is wrapped in plastic sheeting whereas massive followers spray odor-control mist across the warehouse. The meals waste is sprayed with bleach, deodorizer and water earlier than it is coated and hauled to a landfill in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles.
The near-tangible odor has infiltrated each nook of Alicia Naranjo’s residence, which is six homes down from the warehouse. At first, the odor permeated the bedrooms, bringing with it sleepless nights. Then got here anxiousness and hassle respiration, adopted by complications, congestion, coughing and throat ache, she mentioned in a raspy voice she attributes to the air pollution within the air.
“After which,” her sister Elsa Naranjo chimed in, “we obtained infested with rats.”
“You see them leaping round from the partitions,” she mentioned. “Exterior our home, in our property.”
Rat traps, black plastic containers with holes within the aspect, may be seen virtually each ten ft alongside the bottom, normally sitting beneath a dangling fly lure stuffed with darkish clusters of lifeless and drowning flies.
There’s one proper exterior Lisset Navarrete’s home, however she’s not satisfied they’re efficient for one principal cause: the rats she’s seen are larger than the traps laid for them.
Residents obtain free air purifiers and provides throughout a well being companies pop-up in Los Angeles. – Justin Sullivan/Getty Photographs
Navarrete mentioned her bodily signs started with stress on her chest that moved to her abdomen. She mentioned the rotting scent permeates a lot of every day life she loses her urge for food. Her mother-in-law additionally fell in poor health whereas ready in line at a close-by clinic, she mentioned.
“She simply began throwing up, feeling dizzy,” Navarrete mentioned, as she swatted a fly off her arm. “It is simply catching as much as us.”
Her household cannot activate the air-con with out it sucking within the odor, however on a 90-degree day, the aggressive Los Angeles solar solely serves to thicken the stench enveloping the neighborhood.
Lineage has helped to distribute virtually 600 air purifiers and over 650 air-con models to households within the fast neighborhood, a spokesperson advised CNN. The corporate has additionally supplied help for non permanent relocation, utility payments and pest-control provides.
“Group help efforts thus far complete greater than $3.3 million,” the spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.
The Metropolis of Los Angeles has additionally pitched in to reduction efforts, with Mayor Karen Bass declaring a state of emergency and sending cell well being care clinics to the neighborhood.
“No firm chooses to expertise a catastrophic fireplace. However each firm chooses the way it responds,” Bass mentioned in an open letter to shareholders. “Sadly, Lineage’s response has fallen quick.”
The odor of rotting meals follows Juan Canil like a second shadow. Even when he leaves his residence in Boyle Heights, it is ready for him at his auto store situated instantly throughout from the Lineage warehouse.
He described the identical signs because the others: complications, nausea, discomfort. However the stench can also be seeping into his pocketbook. The sturdy odor and remediation work has continued to stall enterprise for the auto store proprietor.
“Because the road is closed, I’ve misplaced a variety of work,” he mentioned. “Some huge cash.”
As of Thursday, over 4,200 complaints in regards to the odor have been reported to the air air pollution regulatory company, South Coast Air High quality Administration District. The company issued Lineage public nuisance violations for 25 days in a row.
The regulators despatched Lineage a letter final month, demanding further odor management measures. In its response, the corporate mentioned it had already applied a few of the measures and agreed to implement others however argued some AQMD calls for would add “a number of months” to cleanup and worsen the odors.
A Lineage spokesperson mentioned the corporate’s prime precedence is finishing the cleanup shortly and safely and it plans to rebuild the warehouse.
With a pivotal election looming this fall, Bass has turned up the stress on Lineage, directing metropolis businesses to dam the corporate’s plans.
“The applying is for a allow to restore the injury from the hearth, which was not brought on by the chilly storage operations on the facility. That is regular course within the restore course of and won’t impression or distract us from the necessary work of cleanup,” the Lineage spokesperson mentioned.
Chilly storage amenities are “essential infrastructure,” Lineage mentioned. “Communities across the area have relied on them for over 100 years.”
Boyle Heights just isn’t the primary time Lineage has confronted allegations of neighborhood hurt after a warehouse fireplace. Practically 1,000 miles north of Los Angeles, authorized motion has already been taken towards the corporate for its response to a special blaze.
A Lineage Logistics warehouse caught fireplace within the small city of Finley, Washington, in 2024. It burned for practically two months, greater than six occasions longer than in Boyle Heights. Lineage believes the California fireplace started when photo voltaic panel contractors had been engaged on the roof, whereas the Washington fireplace’s trigger is undetermined.
Finley residents sued Lineage on June 18 – sooner or later after the Los Angeles fireplace broke out – alleging the corporate reduce corners on security and didn’t act shortly sufficient after the catastrophic warehouse fireplace, permitting poisonous smoke and contamination to devastate the neighborhood.
An individual wears a face masks as a large warehouse fireplace at a chilly storage facility continues to burn and unfold smoke across the metropolis on June 20, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. – Mario Tama/Getty Photographs
“We’re sympathetic that the Kennewick neighborhood confronted a fireplace that was distinctive in some ways,” a Lineage spokesperson mentioned in an announcement. “Whereas we can not touch upon the specifics of ongoing litigation, we vigorously dispute the lawsuit’s characterization of our security report.”
The spokesperson added, “there was no indication Lineage was at fault for the hearth.”
Residents close to the Washington fireplace reported lots of the identical illnesses now being described in Boyle Heights, together with burning eyes, throat irritation, coughing, problem respiration, complications, nausea and dizziness – signs lawyer Will Sykes mentioned persist for a lot of of his shoppers right now, some two years after that fireside first broke out.
Lineage reported a $51 million internet achieve from the Washington fireplace from insurance coverage payouts, the corporate famous in a 2025 SEC submitting. The corporate’s webpage devoted to the hearth response has since been taken down.
As of Wednesday, Lineage has eliminated roughly 80% of the meals waste from the Boyle Heights warehouse. The corporate has mentioned the cleanup is advanced and requires persistence.
However for individuals residing across the warehouse, the priority isn’t just how lengthy the cleanup will take, however how far its results have already reached: into their properties, their routines and the air they breathe.
Throughout hours of public testimony Wednesday, dozens of Boyle Heights residents spoke about how the hearth has affected their lives in entrance of the South Coast AQMD listening to board, which authorized an abatement order Thursday requiring Lineage to conduct particular odor mitigation actions.
A protester reacts as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass delivers a speech throughout a gathering about restoration efforts from the eight-day fireplace at Lineage’s cold-storage warehouse in Boyle Heights on Thursday, July 9, 2026. – Etienne Laurent/Los Angeles Instances/Getty Photographs
The mayor urged the board to leverage its full enforcement authority to problem the order, together with most monetary fines towards Lineage.
“Large complications have impeded me from residing my every day regular life,” Carla Martinez, a neighborhood, testified. “It has prevented me from going to work, going to the grocery retailer for provides, and simply general every day actions. Being caught inside with no A/C on this warmth is insufferable, to not point out the price of having the air purifiers operating for a semblance of recent air.”
“If the complications and the warmth do not get you,” she continued, “It is the putrid odor…”
“…the odor of loss of life and decay that’ll get you.”
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