The Brief

When the Station Fire roared through the Angeles National Forest in 2009, Colleen and Jason Warnesky could see it from the front porch of their Altadena, Calif., home. Eleven years later, the family witnessed the Bobcat Fire from the same spot as it became one of the largest fires in Los Angeles County history.

Their house remained standing after both close calls. So when the Eaton Fire struck more than 3 miles away in January 2025, they were certain they'd again remain unscathed.

"We couldn't imagine how it would get from all the way over there to our house," Colleen Warnesky told NPR, as she pointed to the lush mountains on a recent Sunday afternoon.

Fifteen months later, the couple is pacing around the fenced-in dirt lot that was once the site of their 1,400 sq. foot home. So far the land has been cleared of all toxins, and they're waiting on the city to approve drainage permits before construction workers can start pouring the foundation

The Warneskys are among the dozens of families in the immediate neighborhood who have opted to rebuild with manufactured homes. They were swayed by a local program launched by city-LAB UCLA, a center founded by the University of California, Los Angeles' Architecture and Urban Design Department, which included a showcase of six prefab housing options and a guide to help navigate the process and secure financing.

The spate of wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods fueled by man-made climate change that have plagued vast swaths of the country in recent years is changing the housing industry. That's because people like the Warneskys, who are seeking to rebuild in disaster-prone regions, are searching for greater peace of mind. As a result, they're turning away from stick-builds and embracing prefabricated homes that are made using materials that are fire-resistant and can withstand extreme weather, and that are now considered standard, and are often more affordable.

Manufacturers are meeting that demand with innovative and safer alternatives. Many companies are designing prefab houses that can withstand category 5 hurricane winds — up to 250 mph — earthquakes, hail storms, massive snowfall and fire. Depending on customizable preferences, prices can vary from below $100 per square foot to over $500 per square foot, excluding land. But even those prices often fall under traditional on-site building costs in many parts of the country.

"We're working with Honomobo, which is one modular company out of Canada. And then the people across the way are working with another company called Bevy House. And then there's a whole set of three families on Harriet that are working with a third modular company," Warnesky said, pointing out various vacant or half-built lots in the neighborhood.

"It was a combination of factors," Warnesky said, explaining why they have opted to forgo a traditional build. After losing everything, and the stress of dealing with the seemingly endless insurance paperwork, they had decision fatigue. The idea of picking something out of a catalog that would arrive fully built seemed like a lifesaver.

"But a big part of it was also safety," Warnesky clarified. She added, "I think that we both felt early on, if there was a way to make it so that we had less to worry about if another fire happened in the future," we'd go with that.

For their own house, which will largely consist of glass, steel and concrete, the Warneskys said they bought a package that is specifically designed for a wildland urban interface environment, known as WUI. These are areas where real estate developments and infrastructure butt up against wildland vegetation.

Jason Warnesky described some of the features of the old, post-WWII-built home. It was modest but comfortable. It had a redwood deck that spanned a big section of the backyard, he said.

"I would suspect that was probably one of the first things that went up on our house," he said.

"We won't do that again," his wife added.

The building prefab business

The Manufactured Housing Institute reports that as of 2024, nearly 21 million people in the U.S. live in manufactured or mobile homes. And manufactured homes made up more than 9% of new home starts in the same year. Meanwhile, consumer prices have remained largely unchanged over the past three years, making them increasingly attractive to first-time buyers.

The same study noted that three U.S.-based companies account for about 83% of the nation's market share. Most of those sales are happening in states with nearly annual flooding, hurricane or wildfire disasters — Texas, Florida and California.

Given the escalating climate risks across the country, Harrison Langley, CEO of MDLR Brands, believes that traditional on-site building is unsustainable. His company has built single-family prefabricated homes, apartment buildings and commercial structures in the Bahamas following 2019's Hurricane Dorian and in California, Tennessee and North Carolina.

"The building materials space is run by dinosaurs," he told NPR. "The way we've been building for the last 100 years really hasn't changed. But the materials have gotten less strong. A two-by-four is no longer two-by-four. It's smaller."

The company offers manufactured kit homes as well as custom-designed projects that are built using composite structural insulated panels. Each one has a 30-minute fire rating, meaning "you could hide behind this wall without the heat coming through for 30 minutes," he explained, adding that the panels can be hardened even further by using a cement board on top of the panels. "That could give you about an hour to get out of a building," Langley added.

Another bonus is that the panels are also more elastic than a wooden frame, making the houses better capable of withstanding earthquakes. And, he said, because the panels have an exterior fiberglass layer, they can stand up to category 5 hurricane winds. (Third-party certifiers test it by shooting a two-by-four traveling at 170 mph, Langley explained.)

According to Langley, America has been on the cusp of embracing modular and prefabricated homes for some time. But, he believes, the growing ubiquity of accessory dwelling units is serving as "proof of concept" for potential clients. "People are used to seeing them now," he said.

Beyond a boxy modular style

For some people, the reluctance to embrace a modular or manufactured build has less to do with costs and more to do with style. Or a perceived absence of it.

Across the street from Colleen and Jason Warnesky are Linda and Liam Mennis. They also lost their 1940s 1,600 sq. ft. home in the Eaton Fire. Initially, they were thinking of going with a traditional stick-build home, but after a discussion with their architect, they learned they could design a customized manufactured home.

"We couldn't do a cookie-cutter house," Mennis told NPR. "We didn't want to pick something from a catalog that would look exactly like somebody else's house."

A home designed by California-based Bevy House. This, nearly 8,000 square foot Malibu project is a partial rebuild, as a large portion of the home was lost in the 2018 Woolsey Fire. It was one of the first homes to receive occupancy post fire.

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Bevy House

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They're now working with Bevy House, whose tag line is, "The conventional home building process is broken. We're the solution." Instead of boxy structures, they take personalized architectural plans and figure out how to make them modular so they can be fabricated at their facilities and put together on site. A majority of the company's builds are installed in California, and they've worked with several fire victims.

Following the destructive 2018 Woolsey Fire in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, they built one of the first homes to receive occupancy post-fire, according to their website. It's a Spanish revival, five-bedroom, seven-bathroom, nearly 8,000-square-foot spread that features custom reclaimed beams. The project was a partial rebuild, as a large portion of the original home was lost in the fire. 

For Mennis and his wife, it was a streamlined process. After finalizing a design plan, he said, Bevy House "makes sure they can break it up into modules" in a 3-D rendering system, and they get started on production.

Prefab's past

The idea of creating aesthetically pleasing and affordable modular homes on a mass scale is not a new one. Seventy-seven years ago, famed architects and furniture designers Ray and Charles Eames, came up with a modernist blueprint for a system composed of inexpensive and off-the-shelf materials from industrial and commercial catalogs that could be easily assembled. Their own iconic home and studio space, Case Study No. 8 house, served as a model of what could be done.

Eames Office has partnered with Spanish office furniture brand, Kettal, to produce a universal modular system that will eventually include the option to build a customized home. The Eames Pavilion was unveiled last week at the Triennale di Milano.

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Salva Lopez

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Courtesy of Kettal

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Eames Demetrios, director of the Eames Office and chairman of the Eames Foundation, has revived his grandparents' dream. Together with Spanish office furniture brand Kettal, Eames Office rolled out the Eames Pavilion system last week at the Triennale di Milano exhibition in Italy. It is a modular, pre-fabricated kit that uses aluminum frames with interchangeable glass, wood, and composite panels. The initial product is only for a single room that can serve as an office or studio space. But by 2027, Demetrios said, it will expand to allow for customizable configurations of single or multi-level dwellings.

"What is wonderful about it is it isn't a copy of the Eames House," Demetrios told NPR. "It's not a facsimile. But it certainly has the spirit of it. And when you look closely, you realize that it's something that is different, which is really trying to create a system out of it."

The kits will be on the pricier side of prefabricated homes, but Demetrios said they intend to keep costs below $500 per square foot. Clients will also have options to swap out materials that may suit the building site better, he added. Because it is a modular system, Demetrios explained, "as innovations happen it is possible to include those in a more dynamic way."

He added: "I'm predicting in about five years we'll have houses that people will almost not be able to tell are from the same system. And I think that that's part of the power of it. And that's part of the opportunity of it."
Copyright 2026 NPR

The newest Air Force One jet, gifted to President Donald Trump from the Qatari government, arrived ahead of schedule Friday to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

On Friday afternoon, Trump toured the luxury Boeing 747 plane that initially stirred controversy. The plane was one of the biggest foreign gifts ever received by the U.S. government and raised legal and ethical questions after Qatar offered to replace the presidential jet last year. Trump said last May he'd be "stupid" not to accept the offer. Industry groups originally said the plane could be worth approximately $400 million.

Trump also spoke standing in front of the plane, thanking the Emir of Qatar.

The president praised the workmanship of the plane, describing it as the "world's most luxurious plane." He also called it the "largest Air Force One ever built," adding, "It flies further and faster than any Air Force One."

"This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody's ever seen before, probably even almost outside of an airplane," Trump said. "Nobody's ever seen anything like this, and in only 10 months, a timeframe no one thought possible."

The exterior of the jet is no longer light blue, silver and white — a fixture since the Kennedy administration. Trump unveiled the new red, white and blue color scheme.

"It was time for a change. … Everything was designed good. It was my taste," Trump said, saying that he approved the new color scheme, which reflects the American flag.

The VC-25B Bridge aircraft will now undertake its commissioning flights, what the Air Force calls a "final exam" for the plane. The plane was modified after serving the Qatari Head of State.

"Once these flights are successfully completed, the aircraft is officially 'commissioned' into the active executive airlift fleet and becomes available for presidential missions," an Air Force press release said.

The aircraft from Qatar will "serve as a bridge until the [long-term] VC-25B is delivered," according to earlier communications from the Air Force. The plane was delivered well before expectations. The Air Force originally estimated the plane would be delivered in 2028 but said by modifying requirements it could deliver the first aircraft in 2027. The modifications "were carefully crafted to prioritize mission over aesthetics, leaving much of the previous head of state interior layout minimally changed," the Air Force said.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach praised the delivery.

"Many thought it could not be done, but the United States Air Force was able to execute and provide a secure, reliable airborne command post on an accelerated timeline," he said.

Vice President JD Vance has delayed his trip to Switzerland to negotiate the terms of a peace agreement with Iran on Friday.

It's unclear exactly why the talks were called off at the last minute, with hundreds of journalists already waiting in the alpine city of Lucerne.

But the delay raises questions over the sturdiness of the memorandum of understanding to end the war, signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

It came as Israel continued to heavily bombard Lebanon, despite the agreement promising to end all military operations, including in Lebanon.

Lebanese media said at least 18 were killed in overnight strikes, and Israel said four of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in southern Lebanon.

Here are more details about the agreement and challenges they face in this latest effort to end the conflict:

US lifts naval blockade

There was immediate progress after the preliminary agreement to end the three-and-half month conflict that has killed thousands of people across the Middle East, rocked the global economy and pushed millions more into poverty around the world, according to the United Nations.

The United States lifted its naval blockade on Iran.

The short memorandum of understanding also promises to end military operations on all fronts and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway through which much of the world's oil, gas and fertilizer must pass to reach global markets.

The agreement prompted President Trump to celebrate on Truth Social writing: "Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!"

But there are still many potential pitfalls. Even before the agreement was signed, Trump made its fragility clear: "It's a memorandum of understanding," he said at the G7 summit in France. "If I don't like it, if they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head."

The document doesn't solve the underlying reason for why the United States and Israel went to war with Iran. It creates a 60-day window — extendable by mutual agreement — for the two sides to resolve the enmity that goes back many decades.

Israel remains defiant against the deal

The preliminary agreement promises to end all military operations, including in Lebanon. Israel has invaded and taken large swaths of southern Lebanon in an offensive it says is targeting the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah, which has killed more than 3,800 people, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has made clear that Iran considers Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon essential. "Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end," Araghchi said.

Israel wasn't involved in the negotiations with Iran — though Trump said at a press conference this week that he had sent Israel a copy of the document before he signed it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained defiant, saying his troops will remain in southern Lebanon for as long as Israel's security requires it.

The conflict in Lebanon is causing an extraordinarily open rift between Trump and Netanyahu. "He's a very difficult guy," Trump said of the Israeli prime minister recently said to The New York Times.

On Thursday, Israel's military released a new map ⁠showing an expanded area of southern Lebanon occupied by its troops, which it describes as a buffer zone.

"Trump's agreement does not bind us," Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, wrote on social media on Monday. "We are not partners to this agreement that does not ensure our security."

Vice President Vance hit back at critics in the Israeli government, warning at a press conference that "Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time."

Trump signed the deal to avoid 'economic catastrophe'

The agreement promises "the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts" — including in Lebanon, where Israel has continued its offensive. Iran and the United States also promise "not to initiate" any further war or operation against each other. Not long after Trump signed the memorandum, U.S. Central Command said Thursday it had ended its naval blockade of ships to and from Iranian ports, as promised in the agreement.

Iranian state media reported the country's national security council will suspend tolls paid by ships for 60 days, per the deal, but that ships must still request Iran's permission — through a newly established Persian Gulf Strait Authority, before passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which was once considered an international waterway.

Increased ship traffic through the strait will come as a relief to Trump, whose approval ratings have been sliding as Americans see soaring gasoline prices and spiking inflation. Last month Trump insisted he doesn't think about Americans' financial situation in his approach to Iran.

But this week he acknowledged at a news conference that he had signed this agreement because he "didn't want to see an economic catastrophe."

The memorandum gives major concessions to Iran

Trump has repeatedly called the Iran nuclear deal — formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — presided over by President Barack Obama in 2015 the "worst deal ever," and Trump abandoned the agreement in his first term in office. But the framework agreement signed this week hands major financial concessions to Iran that could ultimately go much further than the Obama-era arrangement.

The document says the U.S. will work with regional partners to create a fund of "at least $300 billion" for Iran's reconstruction and economic development. Vice President Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would invest that amount.

It also promises that the U.S. will unfreeze Iranian funds and assets that amount potentially to tens of billions of dollars. Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN Iran wants to see the release of $24 billion.

These commitments do depend on further negotiations. But the Trump administration also plans to issue sanction waivers to allow Iran to immediately sell its oil. The waiver concedes a major point of potential leverage at the start of these 60-day talks.

And the interim deal also opens the door to ending all U.S. and international sanctions on Iran. Iran has been under a plethora of U.S. sanctions since the 1979 Revolution. The penalties have kept Iran cut off from the global economy, preventing it, for example, from accessing the international banking sector. This new pledge goes far beyond the JCPOA deal, which removed some sanctions in exchange for Iran reducing its stockpile of uranium.

The negotiation over Iran's nuclear program

President Trump has boasted he will achieve a much "better" agreement than the JCPOA. The substantive talks on this are yet to begin, but so far, the commitment Iran has made in the memorandum that it "shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons" is the same promise it has made for years, including in the 2015 nuclear accord.

The details of Iran's nuclear program are complex and technical. The JCPOA was negotiated over years by the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China, with nuclear physicists and non-proliferation experts, and ran to 159 pages. Trump's framework was negotiated bilaterally by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — a property developer and the president's son-in-law. An Iranian diplomat who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly told NPR they believed the last round of talks with the Trump administration did not progress because "the Americans at the table did not understand the subject."

The U.S. had been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program before abruptly launching the bombing campaign with Israel on Tehran that began this war on Feb. 28. For this latest round of talks, Witkoff and Kushner visited the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tenn., earlier this month for consultations with a team of technical experts that could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Has Iran come out of the war stronger?

Trump began the conflict promising to set conditions for regime change in Iran. "I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand," he told Iranians in a televised address on Feb. 28. "When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take."

It was a nightmare scenario for the Iranian regime, to face down the bombardment from two of the world's most powerful militaries. The war killed more than 3,300 Iranians, according to state media, including top leaders, and pounded the country's infrastructure and armed forces. But the regime's survival, and its ability to target U.S. assets in the region and control the Strait of Hormuz, empowered Iran.

The country has learned "that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works," Bill Cassidy, Republican senator from Louisiana, said in a blistering attack on the Trump administration. He called the offensive against Iran "the worst foreign policy blunder in decades."

Iran's response forced the Trump administration to set aside the goal of regime change to focus on seeking a way to reopen the vital strait.

"The only 'achievement' of the ceasefire is the likely reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — which was open before the war started. And we will apparently pay Iran to do so," Antony Blinken, who was secretary of state under former President Joe Biden, posted on X.

Trump has countered critics by saying on social media that anyone who thinks he hasn't "been tough enough on Iran," when the stock market is high and oil prices are falling, is either jealous, bad or stupid. And Vance called on critics to "have a little bit of faith in the president of the United States."

But in a hard accounting of the war, the facts are undeniable: Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz gave it the leverage to secure from Trump concessions that unlock vast sums of money — even more, potentially, than under Obama.

And regarding Iran's nuclear program, the Iranians so far appear not to have offered Trump any more concessions than they did at the Geneva talks two days before the U.S. and Israel launched their offensive in February.

Now new negotiations are set to begin, and the Iranians will be coming to the table having shown Trump, and the world, the power they can wield over the global economy.

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has witnessed more than a century of American history, in all its heartbreak and majesty. Crowds have gathered around it in protest and in praise, to denounce American wars and hear great voices sing and speak.

Today, it's the center of a slimy controversy.

President Donald Trump said in April he found the water in the reflecting pool "filthy" and "disgusting." He authorized a no-bid contract to resurface the basin of the 2,000-foot long pool and paint it "American flag blue" in time for July 4th celebrations.

"I have a guy who's unbelievable at doing swimming pools," the president crowed, before the National Park Service gave out no-bid contracts for sealing and upgrades.

After weeks of renovation, the project has cost taxpayers more than $14 million and … the reflecting pool looks green. And I mean green. Like the Chicago River on St. Patrick's Day. But that river is dyed green for a day. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is green because of algae.

Look, algae happens. It's clouded the reflecting pool since it was first filled in 1923. Algae blooms flourish when sunlight falls on warm, sluggish water — like you'd find in a shallow, still pool absorbing the glare and swelter of a Washington, D.C., summer.

But a University of Virginia satellite analysis commissioned by the Washington Post saw more algae in the Reflecting Pool this month than at any other time in the past five years.

The Interior Department says workers have deployed "a state-of-the-art ozone nanobubbler filtration system" to banish the algae.

"President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who has fixed the reflecting pool for good," spokesperson Kate Martin said in a statement this week, "unlike the failed and extremely costly attempt by Obama and Biden."

That's a reference to a major project during President Barack Obama's first term to stop the pool from sinking and add a filtration system.

In these deeply divisive and partisan times, it's good to remind ourselves that many issues aren't just Republican red or Democratic blue. The Reflecting Pool algae doesn't care about our party lines. It's green, and it's not going anywhere.

Two smoke relief centers are now open for residents impacted by the Boyle Heights warehouse fire.

The centers in Boyle Heights and East L.A. offer resources such as masks, food, water, temporary shelter, pet assistance and information from public health and air quality officials. They’re open 24 hours a day until further notice.

The city’s Department of Recreation and Parks and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office opened the Pecan Recreation Center as a smoke relief center Friday. A second center opened Saturday at City Terrace Park through the office of L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis. 

Here’s where they’re located: 

The fire broke out Wednesday, prompting an hours-long shelter-in-place order due to hazardous materials, including ammonia.

On Friday, a wind-driven flare-up at the site of the fire sent plumes of smoke over the city, hours after a second shelter-in-place order was lifted. Residents in the immediate area reported seeing ash on their homes and cars. On Saturday, many across Los Angeles County — from Pasadena to the West Adams neighborhood — also reported smelling smoke and experiencing poor air quality.

Two smoke relief centers are now open for residents impacted by the Boyle Heights warehouse fire.

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Courtesy City Terrace resident

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Jurado and her team were in the residential neighborhood near the fire site Friday, distributing air purifiers and masks. She said community groups, including Proyecto Pastoral, Running Mamis and Centro CSO, also went door to door distributing masks. 

Residents can contact Jurado’s office at Boyle Heights City Hall to request air purifiers and masks or to make donations at (323) 526-9332.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass spoke outside the building Friday evening, praising firefighters’ efforts. She added that people in the area could expect to continue to see smoke, and she urged people and their pets to stay inside as much as possible. She asked people to wear masks when they needed to go outside.

“We know that this is concerning. This is inconvenient, but we are doing everything we can to end this as soon as possible,” she said. “And we want everyone to be safe in the meantime.”

Read more:

• What materials burned in the fire and what to know about air quality
• How to keep yourself safe from the dismal air quality driven by fires

The post Smoke relief shelters open for residents impacted by Boyle Heights warehouse fire appeared first on LA Local.