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Lineage, the company that operates a massive cold-storage warehouse in Boyle Heights that recently burned down, said in a new lawsuit that the company that operated a solar array on the building’s roof is to blame for the fire.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, comes nearly three months after the fire blanketed neighborhoods with smoke, and just days after the company announced it had finished removing more than 89 million pounds of rotting food that kept Boyle Heights and nearby neighborhoods reeling from the stench.
In the complaint, the company claims Altus Power, which operated a network of solar panels on the warehouse roof, was responsible. The fire began on June 17 on the roof of the 500,000-square-foot building, reached the building interior, and burned for days.
“The Fire was the result of the negligent and reckless conduct of Altus and its contractor,” reads the complaint, which also names Pearce Services LLC, a contractor hired to perform work on the solar panels, as a defendant.
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A report detailing symptoms Boyle Heights residents around a burned-down warehouse confirms community members’ experiences, advocates say.
Los Palos Street Operating LLC, a subsidiary of Altus Power, responded to the filing Thursday, saying Lineage was attempting to deflect responsibility. Altus Power, the company said in the statement, would fight the allegations in court.
“Lineage’s statement is riddled with misinformation in a blatant attempt to deflect blame for their role in this matter, including any damage caused by the release of substances from the warehouse, not the solar panel,” a spokesperson for Los Palos Street Operating said in a statement. “We take safety extremely seriously and our strong safety record reflects our rigorous protocols and response procedures, in contrast to Lineage, whose track record is well documented. As tenant-operator that controlled the facility, Lineage is legally responsible for overseeing the site remediation, including cleanup, debris removal and remediation resources.”
Pearce Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After the fire, residents faced rats and swarms of flies that descended on the area as Lineage worked to remove the rotting food. A fetid stench remained in the neighborhood, and several residents reported feeling nausea and itchy throats and eyes for weeks after the fire.
Since then, Lineage has been a pariah in the community, with residents and city officials speaking out after the company filed for a permit to rebuild and missed the city’s 45-day deadline to remove the rotting waste. Some residents have called for the company to leave, and Mayor Karen Bass has said the company had “run out its welcome.”
But both in the lawsuit and in an interview with The Times on Wednesday, company leaders say the fire started with Altus and Pearce.
“From our perspective, Altus and Pearce are the solar experts,” Lineage Chief Executive Greg Lehmkuhl said in an interview. “They own the array, but because of clearly shoddy work from the beginning, there was a fire two years ago. And what maybe surprises us the most is just a total lack of commitment to safety, the lack of accountability for what happened here, and their lack of care for the community.”
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Lehmkuhl was referring to a fire previously reported at the facility in 2024 that caused significantly less damage. Company attorneys say that fire was also caused by Altus equipment.
“Altus and Pearce have refused to take any responsibility for starting the Fire, even though it clearly started at Altus’s solar array while Pearce employees were there working on the array at Altus’s direction,” the suit reads.
In a statement, Lehmkuhl said Lineage “stood alone” in the cleanup effort, and in providing support to nearby residents.
“The record is clear: this was a solar fire,” Lehmkuhl said. “Cold storage is not a risk to communities — it is an essential service that lowers food costs, expands food access and creates jobs.”
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The air quality regulator sent an enforcement team to inspect the site Saturday and confirmed food removal had been completed.
The suit also alleges that Lineage requested Altus and Pearce not re-energize the solar panels until the company could conduct certain safety checks.
“Altus and Pearce deliberately ignored Lineage’s request, prematurely re-energized the solar array, and negligently and recklessly caused this devastating Fire,” the suit reads.
The suit also alleges Altus and Pearce re-energized the panels even though they were aware that, since May, more than 200 “connector failures” had been detected in the array and that Pearce had allegedly used “jumper” connections to connect devices that were incompatible.
Lineage alleges that because of the fire, the company is now facing several lawsuits and its reputation has been damaged.
The company alleges total damages to Lineage will amount to more than $1 billion.
“Altus has sat back as blame for a fire they started wrongly focused on Lineage — knowing that the public narrative was misleading, perhaps thinking that they might escape blame,” the suit reads.
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Salvador Hernandez is a reporter on the Fast Break Desk, the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news team. Before joining the newsroom in 2022, he was a senior reporter for BuzzFeed News, where he covered criminal justice issues, the growing militia movement and breaking news. He also covered crime as a reporter at the Orange County Register. He is a Los Angeles native.
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Roger Vincent covers commercial real estate for the Los Angeles Times.
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