Immigrant Day Laborers Trained On Safely Cleaning Up After LA Fires

Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, March 5, 2025…

• The Los Angeles neighborhoods of Altadena and the Palisades are still a mess from the January fires. And some of the people out there struggling to clean it up are immigrant day laborers. They are dealing with toxic ash that can have lead and chemicals in it. What’s the best way to do that safely? One organization is training them. 
• Former Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley has lost her bid to get her job back, with the City Council voting 13-2 to deny her reinstatement.

Immigrant Day Laborers Learn How To Do Risky Fire Cleanup

On a weekday evening at the Pasadena Community Job Center, Jesse Carrillo helps a man pull on a full-body plastic jumpsuit, followed by a respirator mask. Carrillo is teaching a class of 20 immigrant day laborers how to use personal protective gear before entering a home to clean ash and soot.

“We want to make sure that when we walk into a customer’s house, we’re safe,” Carrillo lectures. “There’s a lot of hazards.”

As workers clear burn sites and clean smoke-damaged homes, they could be exposed to ash and soot that contains asbestos, lead, and hazardous chemicals. To determine the exact danger, each work site would need to be tested, but as a general rule, anyone within 500 feet of a burned structure could be exposed to dangerous ash, according to a February warning issued by the LA County Department of Public Health.

That’s why the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) is using its operation at the Pasadena Community Job Center to teach the workers it supports how to stay safe. In January, they brought an instructor in to take 175 workers through OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) certification to work on disaster sites.

Now, through a partnership with the local nonprofit Fire Poppy Project, NDLON is training workers on home remediation — the process of cleaning a smoke-damaged house or apartment to make it habitable. The curriculum includes the importance of wearing protective gear even when the exact risk level is unknown.

Former Fire Chief Loses City Council Appeal To Get Her Job Back

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday denied an appeal by Kristin Crowley to reinstate her as the city’s fire chief.

After a lengthy and at times heated discussion, the panel voted, 13-2, to deny the appeal. The two council members who supported reinstating the former chief were Monica Rodriguez and Traci Park. Park’s district includes Pacific Palisades, the area within the city where the fires that ignited in early January were most devastating and deadly.

Crowley needed votes from 10 of 15 council members to overturn Mayor Karen Bass’ decision to fire her.

At the hearing, the former LAFD chief disputed many of Bass’ stated reasons for her firing. Crowley talked about her actions on Jan. 7, the day the Palisades Fire began, comments she made publicly at that time about department needs and budgetary problems, and her thoughts about an after-action report expected after the fires were contained.