Father’s Day celebrations at Dodger Stadium could have been put to an early end this Sunday as smoke from the still-burning Lineage Logistics warehouse fire floated into the stadium. The hazy, brown smoke eventually lifted before the first pitch was thrown and the game continued as scheduled.
The health threat from the toxic smoke, however, continues as wind patterns push the toxic smoke out of Boyle Heights and across various parts of L.A. County.
While driving through L.A. County on the I-10 freeway on Saturday, I personally saw, and smelled, the smoke from the fire floating in Rosemead all the way through Pomona, finally dissipating in Montclair in San Bernardino County.
The fire appears to have started when solar panels on the roof of the building caught fire on Wednesday afternoon, as reported by Boyle Heights Beat, with the flames eventually reaching an ammonia line.
On Saturday, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency response to the fire.
During a mid-afternoon news conference on Sunday, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore explained that much of what is burning now is “ordinary combustibles” and “regular byproducts,” as reported by CBS News.
While both the AirNow and the PurpleAir maps show high and unsafe AQI levels of particle pollution in Boyle Heights, as well as moderate quality in surrounding areas, neither appear to include data beyond the “fine particle pollution” found in smoke. A chemical spill that leads to irritants, etc., floating in the air would not register on the index.
We recommend reading this post by Alissa Walker on Torched for best practices to stay healthy if you’re in an area affected by smoke, and the smell, from the fire.
This isn’t the first time that the solar panels on the roof of the Lineage Logistics warehouse in Boyle Heights caught fire. A similar incident occurred two years ago.
This is a developing story.
