Gov. Gavin Newsom says L.A. I-10 freeway to reopen as early as Tuesday

Nov. 17 (UPI) -- A portion of Interstate 10, a critical thoroughfare near downtown Los Angeles, which was damaged by a massive fire last weekend could be reopened as early as Tuesday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom praised the work of construction workers to get the freeway fully up and running again, noting they have been working around the clock so that traffic can return more quickly than the original timeline of several weeks.

"One thing we can guarantee you is we will be open, five lanes in both directions, at the latest, Tuesday of next week," Newsom said in a news conference on Thursday.

"With the extraordinary work of the men and women you see behind me, the carpenters, laborers, teamsters, the cement masons, 32 carpenters on site in the last 24 hours ... they got ahead two days on the debris removal allowed moving more quickly to retrofit the structure you see behind me."

A large fire broke out under the freeway early Saturday and burned through the day Sunday at a small storage yard directly underneath the freeway.

The fire burned so hot over the weekend that it melted steel guardrails, concerning public officials about the freeway's integrity, leading to its shutdown.

The fire spread over what authorities described as the equivalent of six football fields before it was extinguished, said officials. They added that about 16 people living underneath the highway were evacuated to shelters.

Officials have said about 300,000 commuters use that stretch of Interstate 10 daily.