A fire at a 500,000-square-foot Los Angeles warehouse covered in solar panels has blanketed nearby communities with smoke for days, prompting residents to ask a simple question: What exactly are we breathing?
The frozen-food storage facility, operated by Michigan-based Lineage Logistics, has walls densely lined with insulation. According to firefighters, the insulation continued to smolder as the days went on, even after the initial flames subsided, making it more difficult to put the fire out.
Residents have questioned whether hazardous substances associated with industrial fires—including toxic metals such as lead, chromium, and arsenic—could have been carried into surrounding neighborhoods through the smoke.
South Coast Air Quality Management District, which is responsible for improving air quality for large areas of Los Angeles, told the Daily Signal there were no significant levels of any toxic metals.
“Mobile monitoring for ammonia, hydrogen fluoride, and toxic metals was performed on Wednesday and Thursday multiple times near the structure and in the adjacent neighborhood and no significant levels were observed.”
The South Coast Air Quality Management District also said the Environmental Protection Agency and the Los Angeles County Health Hazardous Materials Division are “currently on scene monitoring the perimeter of the building fire for air toxics.”
Questions remain about how the fire started.
Initial reports seemed to indicate that officials believed the fire was caused by the building’s wall insulation. But a statement released by the company suggests that testing of the facility’s solar panels may have caused the fire.
“We believe the fire started on the roof when the owner of the solar array, Altus Power, was doing tests. The solar array does not power the building directly but provides power into the city power grid.”
The fire eventually became so severe that officials issued shelter-in-place orders, and a state of emergency was declared by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Mayor Karen Bass declared a local emergency over the weekend due to the poor air quality.
In a statement online, Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights, shared her concerns for residents.
“Residents have lived through days of smoke, shelter-in-place orders, disruptions to daily life, and ongoing questions about what this means for their health and well-being,” she said.
The fire has also renewed scrutiny of the facility’s rooftop solar infrastructure. This is not the first time firefighters have responded to a blaze involving solar panels at the site.
In August 2024, a separate fire involving rooftop solar equipment broke out at the same facility. However, firefighters were able to extinguish it in less than an hour, with no injuries reported.
The latest fire has drawn widespread attention online, including from former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, who shared concerns about the impact on surrounding communities.
The fire has created an unusual contrast for a company that has made sustainability a central part of its public image. While residents worry about smoke and air quality, the facility itself had pledged in 2021 to eliminate its carbon footprint in coming decades.
“Lineage, LLC, the world’s largest and most innovative temperature-controlled industrial REIT and logistics solutions provider … announced it has signed onto The Climate Pledge and committed to be net-zero carbon across business operations by 2040—10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement,” the company said in a November 2021 press release.
