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Updated on: June 20, 2026 / 12:48 PM PDT
/ CBS LA
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Firefighters were facing renewed challenges Saturday at a large cold storage warehouse fire in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, where officials say conditions inside the structure remain highly complex.At a Saturday morning briefing, L.A. Fire Department officials described the facility as a 500,000-square-foot commercial building, which is used to store frozen foods."The best way to describe this is like a giant cooler," said L.A. Fire Chief Jamie Moore, who added that the structure was built with corrugated steel walls filled with dense foam insulation and reinforced interior steel panels. The building also used ammonia as part of its refrigeration system to maintain extremely low temperatures for frozen food storage.Moore said the nature of the materials inside has made the fire difficult to control, as the foam insulation continues to burn slowly once ignited. Crews have relied on continuous helicopter water drops since the start of the incident to keep the structure cooled and prevent further escalation. Officials have also used large aerial ladder pipes, directing thousands of gallons of water per minute onto the building to contain the blaze.85 million pounds of frozen food complicate firefighting effortsWith an estimated 85 million pounds of frozen food still inside the facility, firefighters say access is extremely limited due to zero visibility and unstable interior conditions. Officials stressed that crews are not entering the building or attempting to manually remove product. Instead, they are working to isolate unaffected areas while evaluating how to safely remove remaining goods before spoilage creates additional biohazard concerns."What we are trying to do now is to figure out the uninvolved area – how we can remove that food before it starts spoiling and becoming a biohazard concern," Moore added. Authorities said hazardous material risks have largely been mitigated, but the situation is now shifting toward potential biohazard issues as food inside the facility remains unrecovered. Officials emphasized that the priority is determining how to safely manage and remove the stored product while maintaining containment.
