# Journalist briefing & fact-check packet
### The June 17, 2026 Lineage cold-storage warehouse fire — Boyle Heights, Los Angeles

Prepared by **Sero · sero.uno** · A community transparency project · CC BY 4.0 · an independent, public-records investigation. Compiled June 25, 2026.
Everything below is drawn from primary public records; each item carries a confidence tag and a source,
and the underlying dataset and documents are provided so you can verify any figure yourself.

---

## How to read this (the discipline)
- **Confidence tags:** **[CONFIRMED]** = verified against a primary record; **[REPORTED]** = from credible secondary reporting/aggregators; **[ANALYSIS]** = our inference from facts, labeled as such; **[OPEN]** = not yet verified / watch item.
- **Lawful activity is not wrongdoing.** Campaign contributions, lobbying, hiring former staffers, and corporate ownership are lawful and disclosed by design. We note them as facts; we do **not** assert — and you should not infer — any quid pro quo, improper influence, or a causal link to the fire or to any official decision.
- **The fire's cause is under investigation.** We do not state it as fact anywhere.
- **Namesakes were rigorously excluded** (see the data section): "Lineage, Inc." ≠ "Lineage Cell Therapeutics" (a biotech) or "Lineage Real Estate"; "Forste" ≠ "Forster." Rank-and-file employee donations are reported only in aggregate.

## The story in five sentences
On June 17, 2026, a Lineage cold-storage warehouse at 1400 S. Los Palos St. in Boyle Heights caught fire and burned for about a week in a dense, high-pollution-burden community next to homes. The building held ~12,300 lbs of anhydrous ammonia and the fire involved its rooftop solar array; the same rooftop had already burned in a 2024 fire, and the public permit record shows no repair on file before it burned again (an absence of record, not proof none occurred). Officials said the smoke was safe but, as of this writing, have not released the underlying measurements — and the Fire Department has placed a **blanket "active-investigation" hold on all records**, with no expected release date. Meanwhile the company — controlled by its founders through Bay Grove (~72% after the IPO; a >50% voting block now) — has lobbied the City about the facility's rooftop energy systems since 2023 and, two days after the fire, registered a crisis-communications firm authorized to lobby city agencies including the Fire Department (lawful crisis PR; we note the timing and reach, not any influence). None of that is alleged to be unlawful; the public-interest questions are whether the 2024 hazard was ever fixed, what was in the air, and why the safety records are being withheld.

---

## CONFIRMED findings (each with a primary source)

**The fire & response**
- Fire began ~2:30 p.m. **June 17, 2026** at 1400 S. Los Palos St., Boyle Heights 90023; **knocked down ~6 p.m. June 24**, full-extinguishment targeted ~Fri June 26. **[CONFIRMED — LAFD/press]**
- Facility ≈ **479,152 sq ft** (LA County Assessor; news rounded to ~500,000); held ~**85M lbs** frozen food. **[CONFIRMED — Assessor]**
- Mayor Bass + Gov. Newsom emergency declarations (June 20); County Board ratified a joint City/County local emergency declaration. **[CONFIRMED]**
- **June 23 official actions:** Councilmember **Jurado** (CD-14) introduced a 3-motion City Council package (air-quality relief funding; expanded DASH transit; an investigation motion directing LAFD to report on cause, compliance history, and oversight) and called for an **independent** investigation + bilingual plain-language air results. Supervisor **Solis** (with Supervisor **Hahn**) passed a County motion directing work with city **and state** partners to investigate, pursue enforcement, and establish a claims process. **[CONFIRMED — City Clerk / County BOS / press]**

**The hazards**
- **~12,300 lbs of anhydrous ammonia** on site. **[CONFIRMED — EPA Risk Management Program]**
- The fire **compromised an interior ammonia line**; LAFD/AQMD reported **no measurable community ammonia**, and Lineage **removed the remaining ammonia offsite**. **[CONFIRMED — LAFD/AQMD/press]**
- LAFD **detected hydrogen fluoride** consistent with a **lithium-ion battery** (likely a battery-powered forklift) igniting. **[CONFIRMED — LAFD/press]**
- Cause: **under investigation.** Lineage's stated account is that it began during a third-party contractor's testing of the rooftop solar array. **[OPEN — do not state as fact]**

**The 2024 prior fire & the core accountability gap**
- A **2024 rooftop fire** occurred at the **same building**. **[CONFIRMED]**
- The public permit record shows **no permitted repair on file** between the 2024 and 2026 fires — i.e., whether the known hazard was inspected, repaired, and independently verified is the central unanswered question. **[ANALYSIS — absence of record is not proof; this is exactly what the withheld records would resolve]**

**The records fight (CPRA Request 26-11240)**
- Over three rounds, LAFD moved from deferring the request, to offering a **July 1, 2026** release date, to **retracting that date** and placing a **blanket "active-investigation" hold on all records** with **"no expected release date,"** then **closed** the request — with no record-by-record justification and no engagement with the separate right-to-know statute. **[CONFIRMED — the LAFD email exchange]**
- **Health & Safety Code §25509(b)** independently requires the CUPA (here, LAFD) to make the facility's hazardous-materials inventory available for public inspection — a duty that operates **outside** the Public Records Act, so an investigation does not suspend it. **[CONFIRMED — statute; verified against primary text]**

**Corporate ownership & control**
- **Lineage, Inc. (Nasdaq: LINE)** IPO'd **July 25, 2024** (widely reported as the largest U.S. IPO of 2024). **[CONFIRMED — SEC S-11 for the IPO/listing; the "largest" ranking is REPORTED]**
- **Bay Grove controls the company.** Its post-IPO 13G (event 9/30/2024) reported **~180.3M shares ≈ 71.7%**; by the 2026 proxy, affiliates hold **>50% of the voting power** ("controlled company"). The control persons are **Co-Executive Chairmen Adam Forste and Kevin Marchetti** (through BG Capital → BG Lineage Holdings); **Greg Lehmkuhl** is CEO. **[CONFIRMED — SC 13G 10/24/2024; 2026 DEF 14A]**
- The only other 5%+ holder is **Norges Bank** (5.05%, expressly passive); the big index managers (Vanguard largest) each hold **under 5%**. **[CONFIRMED — SC 13G 11/8/2024; 13F aggregators for the rest]**
- **The clean tie-in:** the controlling owners (Forste, Marchetti) are the **same individuals** whose personal political giving appears in our dataset — a documented identity, not an inference.

**Political & lobbying activity (lawful; disclosed)**
- **LA City lobbying about this facility since 2023** via **Veritas Public Affairs** — projects: a `<1 MW` fuel cell ("Big Bear," 2023–24), a **"Rapid Shutoff Device"** (2025, the rooftop-solar firefighter-safety mechanism), and **"Linear Generator Interconnection"** (2026); disclosed fees **$107,500**. **[CONFIRMED — LA City Ethics]**
- **Two days after the fire**, Lineage registered a second city lobbying firm — **M Strategic Communications** — for a **"FIRE IMPACT"** crisis-comms engagement (filed June 19, 2026), authorized to lobby the **Mayor's Office, City Attorney, City Council, Building & Safety, and LAFD.** One M Strategic principal, **Shannon Murphy**, is a former Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (2008–11). **[CONFIRMED — LA City Ethics; bio]** *(This is a ~15-year-old staff tie and lawful crisis PR; we draw no inference of influence — it's notable only because of which agencies it touches and the timing.)*
- **Federal lobbying** via Ann Warner LLC + Monument Advocacy — **$710,000**, on rail/agriculture/trade/tax, with **no chemical-safety/RMP activity** (the federal program lapsed in mid-2025). **[CONFIRMED — U.S. Senate LDA]**

**Industry-rules angle (association-level, not the company's own filings)**
- Trade groups Lineage helps lead (**GCCA, IIAR**) opposed the 2024 EPA RMP "Safer Communities" rule and backed the 2026 rollback; IIAR asked to exempt ammonia refrigeration from RMP/PSM entirely. **[CONFIRMED — regulations.gov / reginfo.gov]** *Caveat: the fire's ignition is a fire-code/electrical matter, not an RMP matter; strengthening the RMP rule would not, by itself, have prevented the panels igniting.* **[ANALYSIS]**

---

## The money, reconciled (the disclosure dataset)
Item-level, de-duplicated, namesake-screened. Canonical totals (see `CANONICAL_TOTALS.md` / `methodology.html`):
- **Company / entity money: $848,441** (federal lobbying $710,000 + city lobbying $107,500 + CA state org gifts $30,941).
- **Principals' personal political giving: $534,295** (federal $433,195 — Marchetti $308,712, Forste $123,983, Lehmkuhl $500 net; CA state $98,000; LA City $3,100).
- **Attributable total: $1,382,736** — and **$1,542,193** all-in with the separate employee-aggregate lens ($159,456).
- **Excluded: ~$10.2M across ~42,700 rows** as namesakes/different individuals (the "Forster" clan, Lineage Cell Therapeutics, etc.). *We excluded roughly seven times what we kept — and the exclusions are published, so the screening is auditable.*
- **No CA state lobbying registration; no LA County contributions.** **[CONFIRMED — Cal-Access bulk DB; LA County NetFile]**
- The **$2M California Community Foundation** gift (June 2026) is **corporate disaster-relief philanthropy**, not a campaign contribution; CCF is the Mayor's routine disaster-relief conduit. It is a **behested-payment WATCH item** — not yet in any filing. **[OPEN]**

## What is ANALYSIS, not fact (read this before publishing)
- The "no permitted repair on file after 2024" point is an **absence-of-record inference**, not proof a repair didn't happen — it's the question the withheld records would answer.
- The lobbying/ownership/donation facts **do not** establish influence over any outcome; they are context and leads to verify.
- The industry-rules opposition is at the **trade-association** level; Lineage's own name is not on the comment letters.

## Open threads / watch items
- The fire-cause determination; any lawsuits filed; AQMD's monitoring data; the County's 30- and 90-day report-backs; M Strategic's Q2-2026 lobbying activity report; Lineage's next SEC 10-Q (Boyle Heights insurance/loss disclosure); the $2M behested-payment filing.

## Key named entities (what's confirmed)
- **Operator:** Lineage, Inc. / Lineage Logistics (Nasdaq: LINE), Novi, MI. **Controlling owner:** Bay Grove (Forste, Marchetti). **CEO:** Greg Lehmkuhl.
- **Building owner / array owner / contractor:** reported as Chill Build LA I LLC (building), Los Palos Street Operating LLC / Altus (rooftop array), Pearce/CBRE (contractor) — **[REPORTED; confirm against the deed/permits before publishing names]**.
- **Officials:** Mayor Karen Bass; LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis (1st District) with Supervisor Janice Hahn; Councilmember Ysabel Jurado (CD-14). *(Note for transparency: our dataset contains a 2012 federal contribution from Bay Grove's Adam Forste to Janice Hahn's then-congressional campaign — unrelated to the current county motion; we flag it only so it isn't "discovered" later, and we draw no connection.)*

## How to verify it yourself (the data room)
- **`Lineage_Disclosure_Dataset.xlsx`** — one tab per source + a normalized "all money flows" tab; filter by confidence = match and sum.
- **`methodology.html` / `CANONICAL_TOTALS.md`** — the match rules, de-dup logic, confidence tags, and the excluded-namesakes accounting.
- **`db/disclosure.sqlite`** + the per-source CSVs + **`documents/`** (downloaded LA Ethics + LDA filing PDFs with a manifest) — in the `lineage_disclosure` data folder.
- **Primary databases:** EDGAR (CIK 0001868159); U.S. Senate LDA; LA City Ethics; Cal-Access; EPA RMP/ECHO; OSHA IMIS; regulations.gov.

## Deeper corpus files (sources behind each section)
`LIVING_MASTER.md` (the spine) · `Public_Fact_Sheet.md` · `Ownership_and_Shareholders.md` · `Political_Activity_and_Ties.md` · `Lobbying_and_Safety_Measures.md` · `Fire_Code_Gap_Analysis.md` · `Health_Evidence_Review.md` · `Civil_Claims_Framework.md` · the CPRA files (`..._LAFD_Response_and_Reply.md`, `..._Writ_and_Escalation_Plan.md`, `..._County_Jurado_Referral_Note.md`) · `00_INDEX.md` (full index).

---

*Independent public-records work, compiled June 25, 2026. General information, not legal advice. Lawful activity is not alleged to be wrongdoing; the fire's cause is under investigation; figures are reconciled to the published dataset. Where a live source updates, the dataset is refreshed and this packet follows.*
