Urban fire response · 2026
Air-quality questions in Boyle Heights.
The June 2026 warehouse fire raised urgent questions about smoke, pollutant mixtures and nearby communities.
Bringing measurements to the field
Our team documented air-quality fieldwork in Boyle Heights in 2026. This work connects with the lab’s broader focus on pollutants released when structures and their contents burn.
In UCLA’s June 24 coverage, Yifang Zhu discussed the complexity of warehouse-fire smoke and the limits of routine particle measurements for understanding its chemical composition.
Read UCLA’s report →Understanding the mixture
The amount of particulate matter is one part of the story. Its chemical composition is another.
Field measurements and specialized analysis help researchers investigate questions that a single air-quality index cannot answer. The Boyle Heights event was a warehouse fire; it is presented here as related urban-fire work, distinct from our Eaton and Palisades wildfire studies.
From the field
