The Boyle Heights warehouse fire ruined their summer. Now students want a ‘normal’ school year

The Boyle Heights warehouse fire — and the stench of millions of pounds of rotting food that followed — spoiled summer break for neighborhood kids.

“ Summer's been like a worst nightmare because we couldn't be going outside,” said Noah, a 9-year-old student at Eastman Elementary. It’s one of eight schools serving thousands of students within a mile of the cold storage warehouse that burned in June.

The ongoing clean-up has also added a layer of anxiety and complication for parents at the start of the new school year.

Los Angeles Unified said in a statement Friday that the current plan is for students to return to their home campuses on Aug. 12, the first day of school. The district said staff conducted a “deep, thorough cleaning,” installed new air conditioning filters and air purifiers at affected campuses and that environmental testing is ongoing.

LAUSD superintendent Andrés Chait said in July that Boyle Heights summer school participation dropped after the relocation of four programs in response to the fire. The district declined to provide enrollment and attendance figures for the programs and instead instructed LAist to file a public records request for the information.

Marcela Chagoya is a special education history teacher at  Stevenson College and Career Prep, a middle school within a mile of the fire. She said some of her students relocated to temporary housing or moved in with extended family to escape the stench.

“ I always get excited every single year to see how much [students] grew over the summer,” Chagoya said. “But my concern really this time around is, are all my kiddos gonna come back?”

Some families LAist spoke with said they are ready to send their children back to school.

Ivett Dominguez’s son Diego will start second grade at Eastman next week after a summer spent inside watching TV and playing video games instead of going to baseball practice, swimming and playing at the park.

“I’m confident that it’ll be a good year for them, even if they’re not outside on the playground,” Dominguez said in Spanish.

[“ Confío que a lo mejor va a ser un buen año para ellos aunque no estén afuera del patio.”]

She said she feels like the school is safe, in part because of the new air purifiers.

But others, including Noah’s grandmother Brenda Wenger, said they haven’t decided whether to send children to class on the first day. Wenger said she attended one of the district’s recent webinars about the clean-up, but wants to see the campus for herself.

“ I'm gonna take my Clorox wipeys and I'm gonna look and see if it's been cleaned up or not,” Wenger said.

‘Mom, we’re going to die’

The fire began on June 17.

Dominguez, who lives about five blocks away, said when the air was thick with smoke her son Diego told her, “Ma, we’re going to burn. Ma, we’re going to die. We have to leave.”

[“ Ma, nos vamos a quemar. Ma, nos vamos a morir. Tenemos que irnos.”]

Dominguez said she reassured him that the firefighters would get the blaze under control. The L.A. Fire Department declared the fire "knocked down" a week later on June 24.

Ivette Dominguez and her son Diego live about five blocks from the Lineage warehouse. Dominguez said constantly running an air purifier has contributed to an electric bill that's more than tripled to about $170 per month.

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The warehouse stored approximately 88 million pounds of food. What didn’t burn decayed in the summer heat and attracted hordes of flies and rodents to the area. Lineage, the company that owns the warehouse, said it has removed about 63% of the food waste as of Aug. 3.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) has received more than 3,900 complaints about rotting meat and other food odors associated with the clean-up since July 12 and has cited the company 22 times for violating public nuisance rules.

Myrna Silva and her two children live one block from the warehouse. She said her daughter, who will soon start middle school, didn’t attend summer school or play in the park after the fire. Even walking their dog, nicknamed Don Goyo, has become challenging.

“As soon as they go out … they come running back in, because of the smell, because of the mosquitoes, because of the flies,” Silva said.

[“ Apenas salen … entran corriendo, porque el aroma, porque los zancudos, porque las moscas.”]

In recent days, the family has experienced stomach pains and diarrhea. Silva said she’s also concerned about how staying inside all summer has impacted her children’s mental health.

“Our kids will go to school frustrated,” Silva said. “They’re going to go into school stressed out. And what worries me is the reaction that all the children are going to have together. Some will adapt. Others won’t.”

[“ Nuestros hijos van frustrados a la escuela. Aan a entrar estresados a la escuela. Y lo preocupante es la reacción que van a tener todos los niños en conjunto. Algunos se van a acoplar. Otros no.”]

Silva said she’s more confident sending her son to Garfield High School because it’s farther from the site of the fire. But she worried about sending her daughter to Stevenson, which is within the 1-mile radius.

“I hope the district makes the best decisions so the kids are OK,” Silva said. “But I’m very worried about how a lot of children are going to react, because they’re under so much stress right now.”

[“Ojalá el distrito tome las mejores decisiones para que los niños estén bien. Pero me preocupa bastante el cómo van a reaccionar muchos niños, porque traen mucho estrés ahorita.”]

How is LAUSD cleaning and testing Boyle Heights schools? 

LAUSD classes start two days before L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’s deadline for Lineage to clean up the remaining food waste.

District leaders said in a July 29 webinar that their goal is for students to return to a school day that is “as normal as possible.” There will be at least two more webinars with information about schools near the warehouse before the first day of classes.

The district also has a family hotline at 213-443-1300.

“To date, no local, state, or federal agencies have issued specific guidelines or mandates directing the District's response to the Lineage fire,” a district spokesperson wrote in a statement to LAist in response to questions about campus cleaning and testing.

Instead, the district reviewed environmental monitoring data, consulted with UCLA and USC environmental health researchers and reflected on past post-fire practices.

The district’s response to the Lineage fire has included:

• Inspecting and replacing air-conditioning filters with those rated MERV-13, an indicator of the filter’s ability to trap small particles
• Deep cleaning, including by washing walls and furniture, waxing floors and pressure-washing outdoor areas and playground equipment
• Placing air purifiers with carbon charcoal filters in all classrooms

Carlos Torres, who leads the district’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said the district monitored air quality during and after the fire and facilitated the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s installation of additional air-monitoring equipment at Eastman Elementary and Stevenson Middle Schools.

“We have enough information to show that our schools are safe,” Torres said. Additional testing is ongoing and results will be posted on the district’s website before school starts, Torres said. The district has said laboratory results from air and surface samples will be published online in early August. Those results had not been posted as of Monday afternoon.

Several people, including members of the teacher’s union and area Board Member Rocío Rivas, have called on the district to also conduct soil testing.

Boyle Heights is one of several East and Southeast L.A. communities with persistently high levels of lead linked to the former Exide battery recycling facility.

A district spokesperson wrote in a statement to LAist that the district has conducted “extensive dust wipe samples.”

“Soil sampling is a more general type of sampling, whereas dust wipe sampling enables us to detect the presence of toxins that may be present following an industrial fire,” the statement read.

It’s unclear whether the dust wipe results are available for public review.

Gilberto Martinez, executive director of region operations, said principals will have the discretion to bring students inside during recess and mealtimes if foul odors arise.

“ I'm feeling kind of scared and nervous because... what if we're not going to be able to play outside,” said Aiden, Noah’s brother and fellow student at Eastman Elementary. “We’re just going to be trapped inside just learning?”

Myrna Silva and her daughter Getzetmany stand in front of InnerCity Struggle, a local nonprofit that's provided resources, including air purifiers, to residents living nearby the warehouse fire site.

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Jill Johnston, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at UC Irvine, said while unfortunate for students like Aiden, limiting outdoor activity when strong odors are present is the right call.

“There are bad smells, which are a nuisance. But there are also toxic chemicals that are in the air,” said Johnston, who has been working with Boyle Heights community groups to understand the effects of the fire. “Many of these are linked to nausea, to headaches, to adverse respiratory outcomes.”

Johnston said she was pleased to see that nearby schools are equipped with air purifiers that have carbon-based filters, which can remove odor-causing compounds from the air. Johnston said schools need to minimize how much outdoor air is getting inside for the filters to work well.

“The big test is: can kids go into the school and it be a refuge from all the odors that are outside?” Johnston said. “If so, then that's pretty effective.”