California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles as firefighters continue to battle a stubborn warehouse blaze in the Boyle Heights neighborhood that has been burning since Wednesday. The fire started when the roof of a 500,000-square-foot cold storage facility caught fire. While flames were quickly extinguished, lingering hazards have made it difficult to fully extinguish the blaze, which has now entered its fifth day.

Officials have confined the fire to one side of the building, but smoke continues to drift into other parts of the county, causing air quality to dip into the “moderate” category. Residents have reported smelling “like chemicals and plastic,” and some have evacuated due to health concerns. An ammonia line ruptured during initial firefighting efforts, adding toxic fumes to the mix. The city and county have opened smoke relief centers and distributed over 5 million N95 masks, air purifiers, and bottled water.

Complicating matters further, the facility contains approximately 85 million pounds of frozen food - bread, poultry, pork, and beef - that will need to be removed once the fire is out, posing a significant biohazard challenge. Firefighters are using aerial water drops and foam to slowly contain the blaze, but visibility inside the building is near zero, making progress slow. Dodger Stadium, nearby, has been shrouded in an acrid haze, prompting concerns about whether games should proceed. Community organizations are handing out respirators, and officials are working around the clock to put the fire out completely.