Good morning. It’s Monday, June 22nd. As we saw over the weekend, winds are projected to blow smoke northwest from the Boyle Heights fire toward Downtown and the Hollywood Hills in the morning, before changing directions and pushing the smoke northeast into the San Gabriel Valley in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 70s, partly cloudy.
Confused, scared, and angry, Boyle Heights residents wait for the smoke to clear
An aerial view of the smoke plume from the fire at the Lineage cold storage facility in Boyle Heights on Saturday. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
As a stubborn warehouse fire continues to send dark clouds of smoke wafting across much of Los Angeles County, residents of Boyle Heights and the surrounding neighborhood are getting confusing instructions — and many are scared and furious.
“This situation is out of control,” said Diana Rodriguez, 32, who lives a few blocks from the burning warehouse. Rodriguez is six months pregnant and also has a 10-year-old at home and said she has been hunkered down at home in the heat wondering when things will get better.
Authorities have said the warehouse, which holds 85 million pounds of frozen food, poses a firefighting challenge because it contains corrugated steel and massive amounts of dense foam. They warned that smoke could continue to increase at times over the next few days as they try to attack the blaze.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights, said she knows her constituents are worried and weary. “This has been an exhausting and scary few days,” she said Sunday in an Instagram live post.
L.A. Material’s Antonia Cereijido talked to residents trapped in their houses and scared by the plume that sometimes blots out the sun.
THE WEEK AHEAD
MONDAY: Testimony is expected to continue this week in the trial of Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man who allegedly sparked the Lachman fire, which later reignited into the deadly Palisades fire.
TUESDAY: The 2026 NBA Draft will be held over two days, beginning Tuesday. The Los Angeles Clippers have the fifth pick, their highest since 2009.
WEDNESDAY: Mexico is playing the Czech Republic in the World Cup, so expect a lot of local watch parties. Casa México Los Ángeles at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes downtown will be hosting a big watch party (free with RSVP) and many local parks will also have public viewings.
THURSDAY: The USA will face off against Türkiye in the World Cup at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium. Union Station will open Thursday as an official World Cup fan zone for the next few days.
FRIDAY: The Getty Center will stay open late Friday night for World Cup viewing. The Music Center downtown will also be hosting a free dance party after their outdoor screening of the Spain vs. Uruguay game.
SATURDAY The Santa Monica Pier 360 Beach Festival will bring live music and beach/ocean sports to the pier this weekend.
SUNDAY: CicLAvia will be in South L.A. with a “Leimert Park meets Expo Park” route.
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READING MATERIAL
WITH OR WITHOUT YOU: The superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, Alberto Carvalho, resigned late Sunday; he had been on leave since February, when the FBI raided his home and district offices.
DON’T LET THE FUNDS GO DOWN ON ME: Over at LAist, a look at why L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto — in her final months on the job after finishing third in this month’s primary election — has been holding back $177 million in eviction defense funds from a local legal aid organization.
SMELLS LIKE GREENE SPIRIT: In LA Reported, former L.A. Times editorial board member Robert Greene delves into policy and history to explain why Los Angeles isn’t actually a “weak-mayor city” — but why it’s by design that our chief executive isn’t very strong, either.
TO FEE WITH YOU: Millions of mailboxes were spared this week when Uber and a group of trial attorneys reached a compromise to pull their dueling state ballot measures, after months of negative ads crictizing Uber for lax safety standards and trial lawyers for charging excess fees in cases against rideshare companies.
SAVE THE NEST FOR LAST: From the LA Daily News, an explosive debate in Big Bear: should the community cancel its annual Fourth of July fireworks show this year? Local businesses need fireworks tourism after a year of low snowfall, but environmentalists say the noise could prompt Jackie and Shadow, the Valley’s celebrity bald eagles, to flee their nest and abandon their new eaglets (who you can check in on via nest cam in the meantime).
RAW MATERIAL
For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, @Donovan finds a Tahoe-mage appropriate for yesterday’s holiday in #vanityplates.
AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: “A Dark Thing Inside the Day” by Linda Gregg.
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