A fire involving solar panels broke out Wednesday afternoon at a cold storage facility in Boyle Heights, sending a thick black column of smoke over the 1400 block of South Los Palos Street and forcing firefighters to shift from offense to defense as the blaze intensified.
The fire began shortly before 2:30 p.m. at the commercial building, where Los Angeles Fire Department crews were first working in offensive mode. After the flames flared up in a major way, the department said all units were called off the roof and out of the interior, a sign the response had moved to a more cautious posture.
A shelter-in-place order was issued for the immediate area around the building as the fire grew more difficult to contain. The order put people nearby directly in the path of the emergency response, even as firefighters tried to keep the blaze from spreading beyond the facility.
The reason for the fire was not immediately known, and there was no word in the available information on whether anyone was injured. What was clear by Wednesday afternoon was that the incident had already moved beyond the first push to knock it down and into a broader defensive operation.
The incident remained developing, with officials expected to update the public as more information becomes available.
