LA officials approve funding and penalties to aid Boyle Heights fire recovery

In response to the lingering smoke, ash, odor and pest problems from the Boyle Heights warehouse fire, Los Angeles officials rolled out a suite of actions. Councilmember Ysabel Jurado presented motions to allocate as much as $10 million for odor and pest remediation and to provide direct aid to residents, while also proposing steeper fines ranging from $25,000 to $1 million for future violations. The County Board of Supervisors approved a directive for the Department of Public Health to study higher penalties and to consider community health-safety plans for high-risk businesses.

The board also authorized use of the Countywide Business Interruption Fund to help small firms in unincorporated East LA and to explore a new fee on industrial facilities to sustain the fund. Legal avenues were suggested to recover taxpayer costs from Lineage, the cold-storage operator, and Altus Power, which was servicing rooftop solar panels when the fire erupted. Both jurisdictions urged Governor Gavin Newsom to deploy additional state resources, noting that the company’s cleanup progress has risen to roughly 80 % of the waste removed.