Residents report overpowering odors and rat activity as crews begin removing millions of pounds of spoiled food.
Nearly two weeks after firefighters extinguished a blaze that burned for eight days at a Boyle Heights cold storage warehouse, residents are confronting a new crisis: an overpowering stench that multiple neighbors have compared to a decomposing body, tripled emergency room visits in the surrounding area, and a rat infestation crews are still working to contain.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed ER visits near the site tripled while the warehouse burned. Chief Science Officer Dr. Nichole Quick said the spoiled and burned food is not expected to cause long-term health consequences for the general public, and that air monitoring has not detected bacteria, mold or other contaminants beyond what is typical after a structure fire. She acknowledged, however, that the odor itself can cause temporary eye, nose and throat irritation, along with nausea and headaches.
The Lineage Logistics facility at 1400 South Los Palos Street held an estimated 85 million pounds of frozen food when the fire knocked out refrigeration on June 17. Fire officials said in late June that only a dozen or so truckloads of spoiled food had been hauled out so far, against an estimated 5,000 truckloads needed to fully clear the site. Los Angeles Fire Capt. Branden Silverman called the 45-day removal deadline set by Mayor Karen Bass an optimistic target given the volume involved.
Residents living near the site describe an odor unlike anything they have experienced. A neighbor one block from the warehouse compared it to a decomposing body. Another told a television crew it smelled like a dead cat. One Boyle Heights resident, Estela Lopez, said she had reached her limit after two weeks of it. A worker at a coffee shop half a mile away said foot traffic had dried up because customers did not want to sit outside near the smell.
Rats have become a parallel problem. Boyle Heights resident Cecilia Cruz said she has seen rodents coming out of storm drains and getting run over in the street, and said her children have started coughing at night. In response, the nonprofit Breathe Southern California partnered with the Fuente Learning Center to distribute free air purifiers to affected families, handing out nearly 800 of a committed 3,000 units within two days. Organizer Jonathan Mercado said the goal is to reduce residents’ exposure while the cleanup continues outside their homes. Some residents, including Mariano Rangel, said they can no longer open their windows because of the smell.
Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles County on June 20 in response to the fire, directing state agencies to support the local response. Two resilience centers opened at the East Los Angeles Library and Costello Recreation Center to provide food, water and health services to affected residents, and St. John’s Community Health partnered with InnerCity Struggle to offer free lung examinations. Patients have reported eye irritation, headaches and shortness of breath, and at least one resident described suffering anxiety attacks and difficulty breathing at night since the fire began.
Mayor Bass signed two executive orders on June 29, establishing a centralized command structure to direct resources to residents, businesses and workers, deploying health screening and mental health stations, and directing the city attorney to pursue every available legal and regulatory avenue against the parties responsible for the fire. Bass said the city and county intend to pursue cost recovery for the 13-day incident and will not accept a recovery process that simply restores conditions to what they were before the fire. She has also called for a full environmental audit of how facilities like the Lineage warehouse came to operate in a residential-adjacent neighborhood, a decision City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said exposed longstanding environmental inequity in the community.
The Los Angeles Fire Department has not yet returned control of the building to Lineage, citing the continued risk of reignition from hotspots still smoldering inside. Crews have continued dousing the debris with water cannons because conditions inside remain too dangerous for firefighters to work on foot. Contaminated food, waste and debris have begun to be hauled to landfills in Ventura and Riverside counties, with trucking routes designed to avoid residential streets.
This marks the second major fire at the same warehouse in two years, following a 2024 incident that led local officials to describe the facility as a hazard waiting to happen. Lineage has hired Signal Restoration Services to lead pest control, disinfection and odor mitigation at the site, and has donated 2 million dollars to the California Community Foundation to support residents affected by the fire and its aftermath. The cause of the June 17 fire has not been officially confirmed, though investigators have pointed to rooftop solar panel work as the leading theory, a conclusion the solar contractor has disputed.
