A California battery factory has burned. Residents fell ill and anxious.

The vast agricultural land just off the coasts of Monterey Bay in California are generally calm during the winter, when there are no cultures to choose.

This winter, another type of immobility has set up. First, the fears of immigration raids paralyzed the communities of immigrants that make up agricultural workforce. And now anxiety has spread over what some in the region believe they are a sprawling and silent environmental disaster.

Last month, a battery storage plant ignited and burned for days, which caused the evacuation of more than 1,000 residents and closed local schools. The factory, located in Mosse Landing, a community not formed in a company in the county of Monterey, is the largest installation in the world which uses lithium-ion batteries to store energy. Residents felt sick, and many of them fear that fire has polluted air, soil and water with toxins.

“Now you don’t see anyone walking outside because it’s terrifying, everything that happens,” said Esmeralda Ortiz, who had to evacuate from her house to Mosse Landing after the factory started burning on January 16 .

She noticed a strange metallic odor when she and her two young children fled. She said that she then took her children to the doctor after complaining about headache and sore throat, symptoms that she also had. Finally, her children felt better, but Ms. Ortiz said that she was worried about the potential long -term health effects and if the strawberry fields where she and her husband plan to work during the harvest were contaminated.

No house was damaged in the fire, which took place at more than 300 miles north of the devastating palisades and Eaton fires in the Los Angeles region. For weeks, residents, civil servants, researchers and environmental and public health experts have tried to understand the extent of the damage, but so far, there have been few answers. What was unleashed by smoke plumes of thousands of burning lithium-ion batteries? And where did he go?