Major L.A. freeway closed by underground fire linked to possible homeless encampment
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- A stubborn fire ignited Monday evening in what appeared to be a homeless encampment in a tunnel under the 110 Freeway near the L.A. port complex.
- Fire crews filled the tunnel with 150,000 gallons of water Tuesday and are working to drain the area and assess damage.
- Northbound lanes out of the port remain closed. It’s unknown whether there were any victims trapped inside.
A “deep-seated, stubborn fire” ignited in what appeared to be a homeless encampment underneath a freeway route to the L.A. port complex, and the extent of damage it caused remained unclear Tuesday evening, fire officials said.
The fire was reported at 8:50 p.m. Monday burning deep inside a 150- to 200-foot tunnel near West Harry Bridges Boulevard, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The tunnel was packed with wood, mattresses and other items common to homeless encampments, officials said.
The fire caused disruptions on a key route that trucks use to access the Port of Los Angeles and San Pedro. Southbound 110 Freeway lanes in San Pedro were closed for hours Tuesday morning, while northbound lanes out of the port remained closed Tuesday night.
By Tuesday evening, fire crews had extinguished the blaze, filling up the entire tunnel with 150,000 gallons of water mixed with foam, LAFD Assistant Chief Carlos Calvillo said at a 6 p.m. news conference.
“Because the tunnel is filled with water, we’re not able to actually get the freeway open back up the way we want to,” he said.
Calvillo expressed hope that the northbound lanes could be reopened at some point Wednesday. He also added that, until crews can reenter the tunnel, they will not know if there are any victims inside.
Crews will remain on scene overnight and into Wednesday using vacuum trucks to drain the water out and reopen the tunnel, so engineers can reevaluate conditions and determine whether it is structurally safe.
“Our goal is, at the latest, to have the capability to evaluate the tunnel first thing in the morning,” Calvillo said. “There’s a lot of debris in there and really a kind of filthy mess debris, so we’ve got to work through that.”
Calvillo warned that this process would take time.
“We’re going to have to methodically work with our canines, robots, whatever we have to do to safely get in there, see if there’s anybody left in there, move the debris out,” he said.
Mayor Karen Bass’ office tied the fire to the city’s chronic homelessness issues.
“While the exact cause is still being investigated, this illustrates why Mayor Bass is determined to end street homelessness, which is often the cause of fires,” the office said in a statement. “We are grateful for the L.A. firefighters and first responders who have now confined the fire.”
The freeway was closed just as the 110 enters the Port of Los Angeles and San Pedro, but the closure was not causing major bottlenecks. The route is not in the center of L.A., so it’s unlikely to jam traffic in the same way the closure of the 10 Freeway in downtown L.A., also because of a fire, did in 2023.
Still, officials said they were at work to determine whether the blaze, which burned for hours, damaged the tunnel in a way that would make the road unsafe to reopen. There is also an investigation into what caused the fire.
Damage assessment crews will be looking for any delamination of materials and burning of metal components that could lead to structural weakness when heavy traffic passes above, Caltrans spokesperson Lauren Wonder said at the news conference.
“We’re hoping that’s not the case,” she said, reiterating that the goal is to reopen all lanes Wednesday.
Similar assessments were done in 2023 after a pallet fire scorched the underside of the 10 Freeway near downtown and in 2013 after a tanker carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline burned, turning the 5 Freeway’s two-lane connector tunnel to the 2 Freeway into a blast furnace.
The tunnel in Tuesday morning’s fire was once an access portal used by an oil refinery that has since closed, Wonder said.
Dark, heavy smoke was emanating from beneath the freeway around 8:30 a.m. while traffic was bumper to bumper. The smell of smoke permeated the air as about half a dozen fire trucks lined the freeway near the scene and firefighters walked along the freeway.
Officials with the Port of Los Angeles said drivers had been using the 710 Freeway and other routes to get around the closure.
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