Cleanup of rotting meat, scorched debris begins at Boyle Heights cold-storage warehouse

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Set us as preferred Idling trucks, sandbag piles, and large metal trailers stationed around a massive cold storage facility that burned for days in Boyle Heights signaled that the work to clean up millions of pounds of spoiled food and burned debris had begun Friday morning.The smells that have wafted through the neighborhood since June 17 — fire smoke and rotting meat — were much lighter than previous days.But the sounds of idling diesel work truck engines had replaced the dozens of fire trucks that had been stationed there for days.

The work of mitigating the potential environmental fallout and addressing the creeping issue of how to handle the worsening smell of millions of pounds of spoiled food is now in the hands of the building’s private tenant.On Friday morning, Los Angeles firefighters who had been trying to put out the fire, which had sent smoke across the county for miles in every direction, were readying to hand over cleanup work to Lineage , the tenant of the charred building.“The business owner, the tenants, the restoration company that they have on contract, they are the ones handling the cleanup at this point,” said Branden Silverman, captain of the Los Angeles Fire Department.Lineage, in a statement, said it had already hired contractors to begin the work.“Lineage is committed to the fastest cleanup that is possible without sacrificing health, safety, and regulatory compliance,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Last week, the 500,000-square-foot insulated warehouse, located in an industrial park between the 5 freeway and a Union Pacific railroad terminal, caught fire while work was reportedly being done to solar panels on the building‘s roof.The fire spread into the building, compromisingits roof, keeping firefighters from going inside and quickly knocking down the flames.Instead, ...