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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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

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.