New resources moving in to help with Boyle Heights fire after state of emergency declared

Air quality appears to be improving, but the impacts from the Boyle Heights warehouse fire are still being felt.

An air quality advisory will be in effect through at least 1:45 p.m. Monday.

Air quality appears to be improving Monday morning, but the impacts from the Boyle Heights warehouse fire are still being felt.

Shifting winds continue to affect the direction of the widespread smoke. Parts of the Inland Empire and Orange County were seeing significant impacts Monday morning.

As we head into the afternoon hours, onshore winds will pick up again. That means any areas downwind of the Boyle Heights fire will continue to deal with hazy conditions and smoke.

Several Los Angeles Unified School District schools will temporarily relocate to alternate sites on Monday amid air quality concerns in the immediate area surrounding the burning warehouse in Boyle Heights, officials said.

In an announcement on Sunday, the LAUSD said the moves are being enacted out of an abundance of caution.

Dena Elementary and the Dacotah Early Education Center will relocate to Sunrise Elementary, 2821 E. Seventh St., Los Angeles, 90023.

The Eastman Early Education Center will relocate to Humphreys Avenue Elementary School, 500 S. Humphreys Ave., Los Angeles, 90022.

Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School will relocate to Belvedere Middle School, 312 N. Record Ave., Los Angeles, 90063.

"At all surrounding sites, all activities will take place indoors to support the health and safety of students and staff," the school district said in a statement. "We will continued to closely monitor conditions and work with Los Angeles Unified Office of Environmental Health and Safety, Air Quality Management District (AQMD), and public safety partners. If you have questions, please contact the school."

Days after a fire erupted at a warehouse in Boyle Heights, the Los Angeles Fire Department changed its tactics as the stubborn blaze continued to burn.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, LAFD Chief Jaime Moore said: "I've really got some great news for everybody, we've made some incredible headway since our last press conference" on Saturday afternoon.

"We brought in some -- as I mentioned yesterday -- some water-dropping helicopters that were larger, 3,000 gallons," Moore said. "They were dropping a retardant on it. We did those flights and then we started to go back to our traditional methods -- and that was our use of our ladder pipes."

The ladder pipes deliver between 1,500 and 2,000 gallons of water on the burning surface of the structure.

LAFD Chief Jaime Moore explained how the Los Angeles Fire Department is using water cannons in the ongoing firefight at a warehouse in Boyle Heights.

"What we did change was this: We split this building in half and we've been concentrating on saving what we call Cooler 1," the fire chief said, noting that that dimensions of the massive structure are 1,000 feet by 500 feet. "Cooler 1 has not had any fire impinge in it, so it hasn't been fully involved, so we've been able to keep that cool and isolated."

Meanwhile, firefighters with excavators have now gone into the part of the building known as Cooler 2, where the main fire burned, and the LAFD's heavy-equipment operators have torn off the well-insulated walls.

The walls "have corrugated steel on the outside, we have corrugated steel on the inside, and inside is the foam," Moore explained.

At a news conference on Sunday afternoon, LAFD Chief Jaime Moore was asked if the ongoing fire at the massive cold-storage facility in Boyle Heights could lead to a food shortage at grocery stores and restaurants in Southern California.

Moore had previously said that 85 millions tons of food were inside the warehouse, most or all of which was expected to spoil due to the disastrous fire.

"They told me that there were about 70 semitrucks per day that pulled frozen food out of this facility," he said. "I'm not an expert in food and I'm definitely not an expert in the distribution of food, so I can't really speak to that. But I don't think we've seen an impact just yet."

At a news conference, LAFD Jaime Moore was asked if an ongoing fire at a massive cold-storage facility in Boyle Heights could lead to a food shortage at grocery stores and restaurants in Southern California.

Moore noted that Los Angeles is currently serving as one of the World Cup host cities, "and I don't think any of our bars, restaurants or supermarkets are running out of food just yet."