FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: lppipress@luskin.ucla.edu
New UCLA Analysis Finds Boyle Heights Fire Smoke Advisory Zone Is Home to More Than 31,000 Workers, Most of Them Latino
The brief finds the Lineage Logistics fire is affecting Latino workers, small businesses, and surrounding communities already facing environmental, economic, and health burdens.
LOS ANGELES (June 25, 2026) — A new rapid-response analysis from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) finds that the smoke advisory zone established after the Lineage Logistics warehouse fire in Boyle Heights is home to tens of thousands of residents and workers, including at least 31,700 workers, roughly 8 in 10 of whom are Latino.
LPPI researchers examined the communities living and working within the smoke advisory zone, which includes much of Boyle Heights and portions of East Los Angeles – two neighborhoods that have long been characterized by high rates of poverty, limited access to health care, and disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards. Their analysis shows that the fire is not only a public safety and air quality emergency, but also a worker exposure, workplace disruption, and environmental justice issue.
The analysis also finds that many of the workers most directly affected by the fire may have limited financial cushion to absorb lost wages, health costs, or business interruptions.
Among the key findings:
- At least 31,700 workers live within the smoke advisory zone, and approximately 26,000 — about 81% — are Latino.
- Nearly 13,600 jobs are located inside the advisory zone, and two-thirds are held by Latino workers.
- Roughly half of resident workers in the smoke advisory zone earn $3,333 per month or less, below Los Angeles County’s very-low-income threshold for a single-person household.
- Over half of resident workers in the smoke advisory zone may have limited access to paid leave, health coverage, or remote work.
- Nearly 9 in 10 jobs in the smoke advisory zone are held by workers who commute into the area, meaning the fire’s impacts extend to thousands of households beyond Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles.
- Many workers living or working in the affected area are employed in sectors that often require in-person work, including health care, retail, food service, manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing.
“The smoke zone is also a worker zone,” said Arturo Vargas Bustamante, co-author and LPPI’s director of faculty research. “The impacts do not stop at the neighborhood boundary. Thousands of workers commute into Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles for jobs, which means this emergency reaches families across the region. An equitable response must account for both residents and workers.”
The brief is the first in a planned series examining the impacts of the Lineage Logistics fire. Future analyses will examine the broader geographic reach of the fire’s impacts, including communities outside the advisory zone that have experienced degraded air quality and related disruptions.
“The fire is adding another layer of harm to communities already affected by economic hardship, limited access to health care, and disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards,” said Julia Silver, co-author and a senior research analyst at LPPI. “There needs to be coordinated relief efforts that reach both residents and workers, including access to health care services, income support, multilingual emergency information, and resources for affected individuals.”
Read the full brief here.
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About UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute:
The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute is a non-partisan research institute that seeks to inform, engage, and empower Latinos through innovative research and policy analysis. LPPI aims to promote equitable and inclusive policies that address the needs of the Latino community and advance social justice. latino.ucla.edu.
