The Brief

Not long after the Palisades Fire broke out Jan. 7, firefighting aircraft began drawing bright red lines with fire retardant across the Santa Monica Mountains, in an effort to slow and contain the flames.

By the time the fire was out about three weeks later, the MD-87s, S-2Ts and mammoth DC-10s had performed more than 280 drops across 20 square miles, according to data from Cal Fire obtained via public records requests.

LAist partnered with researchers at USC to test samples of the fire retardant gathered from fire zones in the weeks after the Palisades, Eaton and Franklin fires where it remained on the ground.

Those tests found toxic heavy metals including lead, arsenic, cadmium and chromium, which can accumulate in the environment and pose risks to humans and wildlife, according to federal and state environmental agencies.

Fire authorities say retardant is a critical component of the firefighting arsenal.

(

Mario Tama

/

Getty Images

)

Tests USC conducted on LAist's behalf found the presence of heavy metals in unused retardant and in samples collected after the recent fires.

(

Allen J. Schaben

/

Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

)

A product called MVP-FX, a variant of Perimeter Solutions' Phos-Chek, was the primary aerial retardant dropped on the Eaton and Palisades fires, according to the company.

The presence of heavy metals in MVP-Fx has not been previously reported.

LAist shared the USC lab results with Perimeter Solutions. Jeff Emery, Perimeter’s president of global fire safety, said the company’s products, including Phos-Chek MVP-Fx, have passed extensive testing. He added that the amount of heavy metals found by LAist was far below limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency and “any concerning levels for human health and safety.”

The presence of heavy metals isn’t noted in safety documents publicly shared by Perimeter Solutions.

Aircraft often drop more retardant than water each year on fires in California. From 2006 to 2024, more than 194 million gallons of various types of fire retardant were dropped by aircraft, according to data from Cal Fire.

“We don’t check into every single thing that’s in there,” said Chris Jurasek, deputy chief of tactical operations at Cal Fire.

He said his agency relies on the U.S. Forest Service to test and verify the safety of the retardants it uses. The use of fire retardants is a “critical” component of the firefighting arsenal, according to both Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service.

Why we had to run our own tests

Late last year, LAist requested samples of MVP-Fx from Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and Perimeter Solutions, which manufactures the product, for the purpose of running an independent analysis for heavy metals. All declined.

“It’s not in our interest to share product with public or private agencies,” Jurasek said at the time. “You are not the first person to ask for us to give them fire retardant. It happens. It’s not something we do.”

Fire retardant coats laurel sumac in the Santa Monica Mountains after the Palisades Fire.

(

Jacob Margolis

/

LAist

)

A bag of laurel sumac covered in Phos-Chek, gathered in the Santa Monica Mountains. It was later taken to USC for testing.

(

Jacob Margolis

/

LAist

)

So over the next few months we gathered our own samples from the field.

After the Franklin, Eaton and Palisades fires were under control, I hiked to remote sites and collected vegetation, trash and dirt that had been caked with fire retardant. The samples were placed into baggies and taken to the Environmental Chemistry Laboratory at USC, where the fire retardant was tested for heavy metals.

Marella Schammel, a Ph.D. student, scraped dried red flakes into tubes filled with a diluted mixture of nitric acid and ran them through an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer.

Flakes of Phos-Chek were scraped into tubes along with diluted nitric acid for testing.

(

Jacob Margolis

/

LAist

)

Arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, manganese, nickel, lead, antimony, thallium, vanadium and zinc were all found in the samples.

Emery told LAist that any trace heavy metals found in testing were “naturally occurring.”

Phos-Chek MVP-Fx is primarily made of ammonium phosphates, which are derived from phosphate. That rock, when mined, can contain trace amounts of heavy metals.

“There are no heavy metals added to any of our formulations,” Emery said.

Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and Perimeter Solutions all dismissed the results of the testing — saying that the samples couldn’t be relied on because they were gathered in the field. That the potential for contamination by ash from burning structures and brush after the retardant was dropped from planes was too great.

Eventually, LAist obtained unused, unmixed MVP-Fx and verified the source and authenticity of the material.

What we found

Marella Schammel, a Ph.D. student at USC, prepares samples of Phos-Chek for testing.

(

Jacob Margolis

/

LAist

)

Samples of Phos-Chek loaded into an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry machine for testing.

(

Jacob Margolis

/

LAist

)

Like the materials collected in fire zones, this unused sample was sent to the USC lab.

Schammel processed the MVP-Fx and found the same heavy metals present as the field samples we gathered.

There were some differences. However, it’s unclear if those differences are due to contamination on the ground or if there’s a variance in the amount of heavy metals present in different batches of the product.

“I’m not too surprised,” said Daniel McCurry, professor of civil and environmental engineering, who oversaw the testing process. Last year he and Schammel analyzed another Phos-Chek variant — LC95 — and found heavy metals as well.

LC95 is one of several USDA approved retardants in use today and one of the variants manufactured by Perimeter Solutions. Cal Fire doesn't use the LC95 variant.

Those results — from tests sparked in part by questions I’d asked McCurry in 2019 about whether we should be concerned about what was in fire retardants — made me want to know more about what is in the fire retardants in use now.

In an effort to compare USC’s test results to the official safety testing required by the federal government, LAist reached out to both Perimeter Solutions and the U.S. Forest Service, an agency within the USDA, for detailed test results for MVP-Fx. Neither would provide them.

In a statement, the U.S. Forest Service said that retardants that qualify for use have to show “nondetectable or trace levels” of certain heavy metals. However, the test results are proprietary information protected by nondisclosure agreements.

'Let people know what they're dealing with'

LAist’s review of publicly available documentation related to MVP-Fx, including its safety data sheet — which is required to warn those who may come in contact with the product of potential risks — found no reference to the presence of heavy metals.

A firefighting aircraft drops fire retardant as the Palisades Fire burns amid a powerful windstorm in January.

(

Mario Tama

/

Getty Images

)

After reviewing LAist’s results and the company’s safety data sheet, Claudia Polsky, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law, said the company is likely in violation of multiple California laws and regulations including Cal OSHA standards, unfair competition law and Proposition 65.

“The Cal OSHA hazard communication standards require that a safety data sheet identify every hazardous ingredient in the product,” Polsky said. “Companies often resist disclosure requirements.

“To me this situation is disturbing if unsurprising.”

When asked about the safety data sheet, Emery said that the company works to “ensure compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements concerning our product.”

A firefighter stands amid vegetation covered in retardant in the hills of Mandeville Canyon in January.

(

Valerie Macon

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

Some who regularly work with Phos-Chek said that LAist’s findings were a surprise to them.

“ The heavy metal thing, I can tell you, was news to me,” said Joel Lane, air tactical group supervisor with the Orange County Fire Authority. He’s worked in the industry for decades and has come in contact with different variants of Phos-Chek, both during preparation and when it’s been dropped on him by aircraft.

Lane said that he’s never been told or read in official documentation that heavy metals could potentially be present in retardant, which he finds upsetting.

He said the lack of transparency is concerning, but that it wouldn’t be the first time.

Lane feels firefighters were left in the dark about the risk of PFAS — long-lasting chemicals used in firefighting foam and in the heavy gear firefighters wear — that have been tied to elevated rates of cancer, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Lane himself recently survived prostate cancer.

“ Be transparent, be open. Let people know what they're dealing with,” Lane said. It’s only then that they can make informed decisions about risks for themselves, he added.

LAist asked the U.S. Forest Service about potential risks to firefighters, to which they responded that “risk assessments of firefighter exposure to retardants do not indicate an increased risk for health effects,” pointing to a health assessment conducted by the agency, which includes MVP-Fx.

Although the assessment says risks are expected to be generally negligible, it doesn't explicitly mention heavy metal exposure. The U.S. Forest Service didn’t respond to whether heavy metal contamination was taken into consideration for the assessment.

What’s the risk to you?

Heavy metals can pose a serious health risk and have been tied to increased rates of cancer, as well as reproductive and developmental issues in humans.

That said, multiple health experts told LAist that the risk to members of the public exposed to the retardant when doing activities like hiking, is likely low, given the concentration of contaminants present in our samples.

“It should not be a reason for panic, but maybe it's a reason for caution,” said Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, professor and chair of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, who reviewed the results.

Retardant coats a playground at a Mandeville Canyon home after the Palisades Fire.

(

Valerie Macon

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

Fire retardant covers a pool and lounge chairs dropped from a firefighting aircraft.

(

Justin Sullivan

/

Getty Images

)

Sanjay Mohanty, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA, agreed, saying that the risk for people with limited exposure, such as homeowners or hikers, is “very low.”

If you or your pets are exposed, it’s a good idea to wash it off.

Environmental effects

Retardant is a particular concern if it gets into aquatic ecosystems.

(

Valerie Macon

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

Fire retardants can be particularly dangerous to aquatic ecosystems, according to a U.S. Forest Service environmental impact study published in 2011.

Once retardant enters waterways it can lead to elevated ammonia levels, which in turn can be toxic to salmon and trout. And there’s a possibility that an influx of nutrients from retardant can boost algal growth and create dead zones, killing off organisms there.

Because of these risks, the U.S. Forest Service prohibits the dropping of retardant within 300 feet of waterways, though it does happen. There have been more than 240 intrusions since 2012, according to another U.S. Forest Service environmental impact study from 2023.

However, even if the retardant doesn’t get dropped directly on waterways, it can get washed into them by rain. Heavy metals can settle in streams and ponds and potentially have devastating impacts on organisms there.

William Clements, a professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Colorado State University, homed in on the cadmium LAist found in the MVP-Fx.

“ If even a small fraction of that ends up in that stream, that is cause for concern,” he said.

If you or your pets are exposed to fire retardant, it's a good idea to wash it off.

(

David McNew

/

Getty Images North America

)

The heavy metal can get taken up by sponge-like algae, which is then eaten by aquatic insects such as mayflies and stoneflies, which can die when exposed to the cadmium. Exposure to the heavy metal can also inhibit their reproduction, growth and ability to emerge from streams, compromising a source of food for fish and birds, according to Clements.

“ The levels of metals will increase and will be bioconcentrated over time. Not now, but in a year, two years, maybe five years from now,” said Dmitri Deheyn, a marine toxicologist at the  Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“ People need to make the association that the impact is a lingering impact that will be diffused and diluted over time and space.”

In an effort to figure out how much heavy metal was spread throughout the San Gabriel and Santa Monica mountains during the Eaton and Palisades fires, LAist requested information on the total number of gallons of retardant dropped, from both the U.S. Forest Service and Cal Fire, via records requests. None were fulfilled.

If you’re in the firefighting world and have any samples of Phos-Chek or another type of fire retardant you’d like to share, please reach out.

Flies, rodents and other pests have been a persistent problem in Boyle Heights and nearby communities as millions of pounds of food rot in a nearby burned-out warehouse. It’s gotten bad enough that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is asking for action from the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

In a letter sent Tuesday to county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, Bass said she’s “concerned with County DPH’s pace in addressing this disaster” and the risks it posed to health and quality of life.

“Possibly the worst manifestation of these risks is the severe infestation of flies in Boyle Heights and neighboring communities,” Bass wrote.

LAist has asked the Department of Public Health for comment and will update this article when they respond.

The back-and-forth between jurisdictions

Bass wrote that the city of L.A., which does not have its own health department, is largely dependent on L.A. County for control of potentially disease-carrying vectors. The city has said elsewhere that its Sanitation Department did set about 250 rat traps in surrounding areas.

Bass’ letter says the county took its first steps to hold warehouse operator Lineage accountable for a fly infestation on July 17, ordering the company to remove flies and mosquitoes from the property.

“Although I appreciate that County DPH has taken this first step, the County’s report only directs Lineage to eliminate flies from Lineage’s own property,” Bass’ letter to Ferrer states.

Bass urged the county to compel Lineage to address pests at neighboring properties “with aggressive measures to eliminate the flies and any other vectors.”

As for L.A. County’s Department of Public Health, a spokesperson told LAist on July 17 that it had itself directed the city and Lineage to address the pest situation.

“Los Angeles County Department of Public Health requested that both Lineage Logistics and the City of Los Angeles develop and implement a vector/insect control plan,” the statement reads.

Lineage’s part

According to Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights on the L.A. City Council and met with Lineage representatives on Monday, an inspector contracted by the company confirmed that the rotting food at the warehouse is serving as a breeding ground for flies. The infestation won’t go away without addressing the root cause, Jurado reported the contractor as saying.

“Removing waste, adding odor-control equipment, and conducting a pest inspection are important,” Jurado said in a statement. “But residents are asking a more fundamental question: Are conditions actually improving? They deserve evidence, timelines and accountability — not just a list of activities.”

Lineage has not yet presented its pest control plan to the public.

A ticking clock

The first day of instruction for L.A. Unified schools is Aug. 12, three days before the city’s current deadline to clear the warehouse — a deadline Lineage does not appear to be on track to meet.

That’s led many teachers and parents to raise the alarm about smells and pests that may very well still be around when school starts. An LAUSD spokesperson told Boyle Heights Beat that it is prepared to temporarily relocate nearby schools, as they did with summer programs during the warehouse fire.

Lineage meets deadline at last minute

Meanwhile, Lineage also faced a deadline of Tuesday to present a plan to air quality officials on how to address smells of spoiled food, which have been reported from miles away. A South Coast Air Quality Management District spokesperson said that the agency received a response from Lineage at 5 p.m. and is evaluating it.

L.A.’s homeless services agency has not completed any internal audits in years — and one that was started two years ago is still incomplete because management is taking months to provide responses, officials said Monday.

The delayed audit has been looking into why the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, failed to spend $7 million in federal dollars it was granted to house and serve people in need. The roughly six-page audit report hasn’t been released because it’s missing LAHSA management responses that were requested over two months ago, officials said.

Internal audits are considered critically important to protecting taxpayer dollars at every level of government. L.A. County auditors, for example, issued about 100 reports in a recent fiscal year.

“ We haven’t gotten anything,” said Erum Shahnawaz, LAHSA’s chief internal auditor, referring to the lack of response from LAHSA management at a meeting of the agency’s audit committee on Monday.

“That’s the only thing that's holding us from issuing the final report,” Shahnawaz said of the underspending audit.

That audit is examining a repeat problem. A previous, external audit in January 2022 found LAHSA had left $3.5 million in federal grants on the table by not using them.

Shahnawaz flagged management’s delays to the LAHSA Commissioner Justin Szlasa, Szlasa said. He chairs the commission’s audit committee, and has repeatedly called out LAHSA executives’ delays in providing information about taxpayer spending over the past year.

“ I've been trying to intervene and use whatever I can to try to help provide support,” said Szlasa as he described his attempts to get the auditor the answers needed to complete the report.

Szlasa was appointed to the commission by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

 “It shouldn't take us two months to receive a…management response to an internal audit,” Szlasa said at Monday’s meeting. He said the industry standard for internal audits is eight or nine weeks from start to finish. That compares to the two years — and counting — for LAHSA’s federal underspend audit.

“We haven't had a single internal audit completed here in the last couple of years, which is nuts,” Szlasa added. He called for internal audits to happen much more frequently.

Long delays to LAHSA audits also are not new. In November 2024, the county issued a widely-seen audit that included findings that LAHSA was failing to complete internal audits.

Half of LAHSA’s governing commission is appointed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors. Bass is also the only elected official on the commission. She served on the audit committee for several months last fall. Records show she was absent for all of the meetings during that time.

Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy chief financial officer, said management’s responses to the audit on underspending haven’t been provided yet because LAHSA leadership did not have clearly defined roles for who is supposed to coordinate responses to internal audits.

“ We need to work on clarifying that role internally,” Lim said.

 “The last two months have been probably some of the most stress-filled two months that we've had at LAHSA,” said Paul Rubenstein, chief of staff to LAHSA CEO Gita O’Neil, pointing to mass layoffs.

Szlasa said there’s not that much in the audit for management to respond to.

“It's like, six pages or less,” he said.

Szlasa said  another option is to “just say we've asked management for responses and we're awaiting management response. We can publish the results.”

In response, Shahnawaz said that if management doesn't have an updated timeline for a response, then she’ll go ahead and issue the report without the response.

Once they floated that idea, Lim committed to providing the responses by next Tuesday.

LAHSA’s leadership has downsized the internal audit team — dropping from a staff of three to just one in the agency’s proposed budget up for approval Friday.

Delays in getting access to financial records

The delayed responses from management are not the only thing that’s been slowing down audits, Szlasa said at the meeting.

LAHSA policy, approved by its governing commission, says internal auditors are “ authorized to access all organizational records, personnel, and systems necessary for conducting audits,” he said.

But the auditor has faced challenges in actually getting that access, Szlasa said — including delays in being allowed to view LAHSA’s databases that show contracts and financial payments.

 ”We finally were granted access, but it wasn't, it wasn't easy, it wasn't immediate. It was slow,” Szlasa said.

Many failed outside audits

The delays on the internal audit come even after LAHSA failed multiple external audits in recent years, which have found the agency — overseen by city and county elected officials — has neglected to properly track billions of dollars in spending.

Largely in response to earlier audits, L.A. County supervisors pulled funding from LAHSA and are having the county instead oversee it directly. L.A.’s mayor and City Council have continued to have LAHSA manage the city’s homeless spending while the council delays plans to start studying a possible plan to transition away city tax dollars.

Signatures under scrutiny

LAHSA is also in the midst of a different internal audit — expected to finish in late August or early September — examining whether top officials followed requirements when signing contracts and letting others sign. It was launched in the wake of LAist reporting that found LAHSA’s then-CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum’s signature finalized a $2.1 million contract with her husband’s employer.

LAist also discovered Adams Kellum’s signature, as LAHSA’s CEO at the time, finalized a quarter-million-dollar contract between LAHSA and a longtime service provider she led up until two months earlier.

That contract was signed so soon after she left the service provider — St. Joseph Center — that the contract paperwork still listed her as one of St. Joseph Center’s points of contact and authorized signers.

She is currently under a state ethics investigation into whether her actions were an illegal conflict of interest.

When Bengara opened in Los Angeles' Arts District earlier this year, its owner and head chef had something special lined up in their kitchen arsenal.

It was genshiyaki, a rare traditional Japanese grilling method that dates back 1,500 years.

Chef and co-owner Tyler Burges had only encountered it once while traveling in Japan at a robatayaki spot in Fukuoka, a port city on the island of Kyushu.

Robatayaki, a style of slow, ember-cooked grilling rooted in Japan's rural coastal kitchens, usually centers on an open charcoal hearth. But the restaurant Burges visited had something even more noteworthy: a genshiyaki pit, a gentler, ambient method of cooking that uses radiant heat instead of direct flame.

Loving the unusually subtle, delicate flavor and texture it produced, he and head chef Phil Mireles decided to bring genshiyaki back to the U.S. and build their Arts District restaurant around it. The genshiyaki pit is a rare enough technique that Burges had to work with fabricator Phil Roxworthy for six months just to get the grill built to spec.

It's Burges' and Mireles' first L.A. project. The pair are also behind Smoke Door, their acclaimed Lake Tahoe restaurant, and Bengara brings a more casual, day-to-day take on the same fire-driven cooking.

All roads lead to the Arts District

Chef/owner Tyler Burges (left) and head chef Phil Mireles at Bengara.

(

Wonho Frank Lee

/

Courtesy Bengara

)

Burges and Mireles both got their start at San Francisco's Saison and Angler under chef Joshua Skenes — who's now just down the street in L.A. at LYNX with fellow alum Brandyn Tepper.

Burges traces Bengara's DNA back to two mentors: Ron Siegel, who introduced him to Japanese ingredients and technique in his mid-20s, and Skenes, who taught him to cook with live fire. It was Skenes, Burges said, who showed him that fire didn't have to mean char and bravado.

"The one thing I loved about wood-fire cooking is you get this subtle, sweet barbecue flavor when you cook correctly over embers, and you don't cook directly over the fire," Burges said. "Most places, when you think about grilling something, you think of char, bold flavors, masculine flavors. But Chef Josh — it's like a master art, getting really delicate, subtle flavor using that grill method."

The uni kiritampo, Bengara's take on a traditional Akita-prefecture rice skewer, finished with scallion.

(

Wono Frank Lee

/

Courtesy Bengara

)

What sets the food apart

Take their luscious miso cod. On a normal grill, the marinade's sugars would blacken before the fish cooked through. On the genshiyaki pit, the cod sits at a distance from the embers, cooking gently until the very end, when it's given one last pass directly over the coals — what Burges describes as a final "kiss" of heat before it hits the plate.

To fuel genshiyaki's slower, ambient style, ordinary charcoal or wood is replaced with binchotan, an ultra-dense, pure-carbon hardwood charcoal traditionally made in Japan, which burns hotter and cleaner.

The signature dish

A perfect example of how this cooking style comes together is the uni kiritampo, the Akita prefecture rice skewer, reimagined with uni and cooked via genshiyaki — born of an offhand kitchen conversation with one of the restaurant's Japanese chefs about regional dishes cooked over fire.

Once they realized genshiyaki was the dish's original, historic cooking method, the rest fell into place.

"It's like the most delicious thing," Burges said. "I don't know why it never made it over to the United States earlier."

Bengara's Arts District dining room pairs industrial bones with warm, low lighting and long communal tables.

(

Wonho Frank Lee

/

Courtesy Bengara

)

The chewy exterior, with just a hint of smoke, gives way to a creamy inside, like a caramelized custard, that’s topped with a decadent amount of uni, providing a semi-sweet finish — one memorable bite.

Tasting menu option

Bengara recently added a daily eight-course tasting menu ($98) that doubles as a greatest-hits tour of the kitchen — Toyosu carpaccio with chili coffee oil, pork belly "tacos" wrapped in mochi crepes, miso cod, Mary's half chicken, and handmade citrus soba, with optional wagyu and uni add-ons.

The price includes a beverage pairing, with a full non-alcoholic option alongside the boozy version. Walk-ins are welcome, and reservations can be booked via OpenTable.

Topline:

Why it matters: Museum officials said you will “likely experience high demand and long wait times in the queue" and thanked people for their patience.

LAist saw estimated wait times up to 6 hours, and it took a little more than 4.5 hours for this reporter to get through. On the bright side, there were still plenty of tickets left, including for the first day. Do not refresh the page or you may lose your spot.

The details: All tickets are timed entry. Tickets are $25 for adults and $21 for those 65 and older. Children, members, active-duty military, personal aides or attendants and EBT cardholders have free entry. Museum neighbors in the LM37 program will also be free, with that pass opening in August.

But how do I buy: Each person is limited to nine tickets, and you’ll have 20 minutes to check out once they’re added to your cart, according to the museum. You can find the link here.

What's next: The grand opening is Sept. 22.

Go deeper: How to secure Lucas Museum of Narrative Art tickets ahead of the fall opening