Fire damages solar array on a warehouse roof in Boyle Heights

What happened

On 14 August 2024, a fire damaged part of a large solar panel array on the roof of a commercial building in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Fire Department was sent to the 1400 block of South Los Palos Street at about 9:10 a.m., contained the fire to a portion of the array, and extinguished it in 48 minutes. No one was hurt. At the time the building was described as appearing to be a cold storage facility; later reporting identified it as a Lineage cold storage warehouse with a rooftop array operated by Altus Power. The cause was under investigation. A later, separate fire at the same site is not part of this entry.

Contributing factors

The cause of the August 2024 fire was not reported. Later accounts of that response say the size of the building and a split-level roof made aerial ladder pipes ineffective, so firefighters worked from the roof with extension ladders and hand lines. Lawsuit claims about connector failures and re-energising the array relate to a subsequent fire and are not established facts about this incident.

Lessons learned

1. Large split-level roofs can limit aerial streams, so fire plans for rooftop solar should cover safe roof access and hand-line tactics.
2. After a rooftop solar fire, keep the array isolated until damage to panels, wiring and the roof has been checked.
3. The building operator and the array operator should share what is known about the fire before any later work on the array.

More lessons on electrical protection and isolation, from every incident on the register.

Not yet known

• Cause of the fire
• Solar panel model and age
• Cost of the damage
• Downtime or lost output

This entry is updated when these are reported. Get an alert for the next one like it.

Source

theeastsiderla.com