A fire that has burned at a Boyle Heights warehouse for more than a week is nearly out, after crews managed to extinguish flames on the roof overnight, Los Angeles Fire Department officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Water-dropping helicopters are no longer needed to knock down flames on the roof of the nearly 500,000-square-foot cold storage facility operated by Lineage, leaving crews to focus their attention on the smoldering fire inside, LAFD Capt. Jacob Raabe said Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose air tactics are no longer needed because all the fire has been put out on the roof,\u201d Raabe said outside the facility.<\/p>\n
The goal on Wednesday, Raabe said, is to extinguish what\u2019s left burning inside the building. But firefighters will have to do that without going inside, he said.<\/p>\n
The roof, Raabe said, is resting on the 600-foot long, 50-foot tall racks that hold the 85 million pounds of food that are burning and spoiling inside, posing a danger to anyone who\u2019d go in.<\/p>\n
So instead, firefighters are blasting a constant stream of water into the belly of the warehouse, hoping to drown out the flames.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still cannot send firefighters into this building and to be quite honest, we\u2019re probably never going to send anyone into this building because there\u2019s no life hazard right now,\u201d Raabe said. \u201cWere going to put out this fire from the exterior and reevaluate as conditions change. But this tactic is working and it\u2019s putting out the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crews will fly drones into the building to look for hot spots and then redirect their water cannons accordingly, Raabe said.<\/p>\n
Though this isn\u2019t the first fire that Lineage has experienced at one of its cold storage facilities \u2014 which are essentially warehouse-sized ice chests walled with thick insulation \u2014 it is highlighting a strategy for fighting these types of fires<\/a>, Raabe said.<\/p>\n The agency partnered with a company in Texas to use their water cannons \u2014 which are typically used on burning oil rigs \u2014 to bring them to Southern California.<\/p>\n Crews also \u201cpeeled\u201d back the building\u2019s walls to expose more of the interior and give better access to firefighters, Raabe said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re able to incorporate this public-private partnership,\u201d Raabe said. \u201cThat is how we have taken a fire that in other jurisdictions has taken over 60 days to put out, we\u2019re on day eight now and we\u2019re close to final extinguishment.\u201d<\/p>\n