The Brief

When the fires in Los Angeles broke out, fire captain Shane Lawlor was quickly dispatched to the Palisades. He has been at work ever since.

On his first day, Lawlor was on his team's fireline for 20 hours straight with no breaks for food or sleep. He's still working the fireline and has been sleeping on-site or at his station in Santa Monica when he's not on duty.

Back at his home in Carlsbad, Calif., Lawlor's son, Cian Lawlor, is a fifth-grader and budding journalist at Magnolia Elementary School. The 11-year-old has a new podcasting kit that his family got him for Christmas.

Earlier this week, NPR asked Cian to interview his dad over Zoom. It was the first rest day since the fires began for Lawlor, who took the call from his post at the Santa Monica Fire Department Station 2. Cian was at their home in Carlsbad. This was also the first time the father and son had connected in a week.

"I'm glad he gets to do this and help people in need," Cian says about his dad's job. "He puts out his heart for the greater good."

This interview was prepared and conducted by Cian, with help from Magnolia Elementary's broadcasting club, MagTV's director, Andrew Luria. The photos were taken by Cian's friend and fellow Magnolia student journalist, Eivan Wheyland. NPR sat in on their conversation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Cian Lawlor, 11,is a budding journalist and member of his school's broadcasting club, MagTV. He came up with his own questions for this interview.

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Cian Lawlor: What goes through your mind when you're fighting fires such as this one? Were you scared?

Shane Lawlor: Scared? Not so much. But definitely, you have to take care of yourself. You have to understand your surroundings. It is so fast-moving, and there's so much going on that hearing important radio traffic that could be very important is very difficult. Making sure that you know when you are in the wrong place and you've got to get out of there is very, very important.

Cian: How did this fire compare in its size and damage to the other fires you have fought?

Lawlor: There have been big fires in California in the past that I've been on, but nothing like this for pretty much everyone.

I used to live in Santa Monica before, so I do know a lot of the neighborhoods that have been affected, and those neighborhoods are all gone. They're not even there anymore.

In terms of the size of the fire, I haven't seen anything bigger in my career. I don't think very many people have. And in terms of the scope of the damage, it has been obviously just utterly devastating.

Cian: What were the winds like and how did they affect the fire and the job you were doing?

Lawlor: The wind makes you think that you are doing a good job on one side of a nice house, but then you go around the corner and the wind has caused the fire to start on the other side of the house. So you are kind of wasting your time and you need to redirect. So it just makes it very challenging.

The biggest effect on me was what we call embercasting. And that's just small, tiny little bits of embers that blow off a tree or a building when they're burning, and they kind of whip around you. They can come up behind you. They're all over, and when they're blowing it makes it very difficult to do your job.

Those embers are what start other fires. So you're constantly protecting yourself from those hot embers in that wind and you're constantly chasing the new fires that they're starting. So that makes it very, very difficult.

Cian: When you look at the destruction and all the homes lost in the fires, what is your reaction?

Lawlor: It starts with a sense of disappointment that you couldn't have saved a lot or more of these homes. And then it moves on to sympathy for the folks who have lost those homes.

And then you also kind of get a sense of appreciation for the fact that we still have a home to go to. We have to appreciate what we have, because there's plenty of families who don't have a home or anything like that anymore.

Cian: Tell me something that happened that made you really proud.

Lawlor: I'm very proud of the crews that were around me. They really did everything in their capabilities to save each and every home. They were working so hard all day and all night. No food, no anything for hours and hours, no sleep just to try and save whatever they could. That's a big sense of pride.

Cian: What is the morale like at the department now?

Lawlor: There's definitely fatigue, physical fatigue, and there's definitely mental fatigue from it. But we're doing OK. Everyone is very appreciative of all the support we've been shown. There is so much food and so many well-wishers coming to our fire stations that it really gives us a boost every day to keep going, knowing that we're hopefully making just a little difference in someone's life.

Cian: Are you still currently fighting fire? What does your job look like on a daily basis now?

Lawlor: Yes, I am. I'm currently assigned to the Palisades Fire. We started on 12-hour shifts, and now we're working full 24-hour shifts. So you're talking to me on my rest day. It's as much a physical rest as it is a mental break. And then I will be reporting back for my 24-hour shift at 6 a.m. tomorrow, and I'll be there for another 24 hours. So we are still directly engaged on the fire line, which is literally the very edge of the fire, where if the fire is going to kick up again, that's where it will start.

You have people who hike in and they use tools to put in hoseline along the entire perimeter of this fire. And if anything comes up, now there's a hoseline in place and they can fight it. Does that answer your question, buddy?

Cian sits for a portrait at his home in Carlsbad, Calif. His friend and fellow Magnolia student journalist, Eivan Wheyland, took the photo.

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Cian: Got it. Do you have any questions for me?

Lawlor: What would you want to tell a 10-year-old boy whose home is now gone or has been affected by the fire?

Cian: I would tell them, I'm glad you're safe. Look on the bright side. Everything's going to be OK. How can we help you with your needs?

Special thanks to Cian's mom, Jaleh Lawlor, Magnolia Elementary School's broadcasting club, MagTV, and the club's director, Andrew Luria.

MagTV is a 2024 fourth-grade winner in the NPR Student Podcast Challenge, which you can learn more about here.

The Los Angeles Public Library system is known for more than just books. You can check out tools and computers. And it even has a recording studio.

But did you know it has its own map collection?

They’ve got fire insurance maps spanning Los Angeles; old maps detailing curiosities like an alligator farm or an ostrich farm in L.A. County; copies of the Ord Survey, the first formal land survey of the city from 1849.

A recent donation has added thousands of maps from the region and all over the world to the collection.

Stacks of maps from the Central Library's map collection.

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The mapping link

The new addition came from the collection of Bill Hunt, the founder of the now defunct Santa Barbara-based map distributor Map Link.

Hunt is also an avid collector and traveler. His collection, consisting of hundreds of boxes of well preserved and carefully catalogued maps, took up an entire storage space in Ventura.

Hunt got in touch with the Los Angeles Public Library in November to offload some of his collection. The library brought them in starting in January.

Stacks of boxes containing a lot of Bill Hunt's donation of maps to the Los Angeles Public Library.

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A treasure trove

Not since 2012 has the Los Angeles Public Library landed on such a sizable collection. Then, they were from collector John Feathers, who had thousands of maps filling his Mount Washington Home.

“It was said that John Feathers’ collection doubled our map collection,” LAPL’s map librarian Peter Hauge said. “I would say this Map Link donation probably boosted us again by another 30 or 40%. It is absolutely massive.”

Hauge said Hunt’s collection is much more organized, which should make cataloging it all a lot easier.

What’s in the boxes?

Many of the new maps will be housed in the  history and genealogy department of the Central Library, located on lower level four. There they’ll be accessible to all Angelenos, no library card required for viewing.

Flat map drawers where a lot of the Los Angeles Public Library legacy collection is kept.

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Hauge said the donation, global in scope, helps to fill out the library’s own collection. For example, the library now has 12 new maps from different time periods and regions of Senegal, building on its much smaller, previous collection.

“That was really the most exciting part of it,” Hauge said. “The quality and the scope of the maps I think is what made it so much more important and valuable.”

The donations span pretty much every country in the world and just about every type of map you can think of.

“ This collection has folded maps, travel maps, street guides from the entire United States, just about every county, from every state in the country,” Hauge said.

A Legacy of Maps

Many of the new maps are already available for the public to access. However, Hauge said it'll take at least a year before the entire trove is added to the collection, and even longer for them to be properly cataloged and indexed.

These maps are lenses to the world and the past. Hauge said people come to the map library for all sorts of reasons. Some are writers looking to accurately describe what the transportation system was like in Los Angeles. Others are residents looking for the history of their neighborhoods and how they developed.

Whatever it is, the library probably has a map that can help you out.

Crowds packed into the Pike Outlets in downtown Long Beach on Thursday evening for the free motocross and car show that marks the beginning of Grand Prix weekend every year: Thunder Thursday.

Stunt motorcyclist rides in the air for the Thunder Thursday event by The Pike Outlets, Long Beach on April 16, 2026.

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Already, the area has transformed into 1.97 miles of track that, on Sunday, will belong to the world’s best IndyCar racers as about 200,000 fans watch them during the 51st annual Grand Prix.

Marcus Ericsson driving the purple and black indy car races against Rinus Veekay driving blue and white car race on Shoreline Drive, Long Beach on April 16, 2026

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On Thursday night, families, fans and revelers got a taste of the high-energy fun with motocross stunt shows, exhibition races, classic car displays and pit crew competitions.

Audiences took their phones to record the final race for the Thunder Thursday event on Shoreline Drive by The Pike Outlets, in Long Beach, April 16, 2026 Photo by Justin Enriquez

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Lifesize cutouts of Deputy Ringo Starr next to the defunct bathroom, Freddy Krueger standing over the entrance, delicate china guarded by the Incredible Hulk‚ and 150 tons of books and magazines.

It is moving day at Planet Books, the 4,000-square-foot warehouse of used tomes, toys, life-size posters and delicate antiquities, and all of it must leave.

Store owner James Rappaport and manager Argyl Houser have spent the first half of the month packing, consolidating and bidding goodbye to the warehouse they have worked in since 2020. They must have it all out by the end of the month.

Around them, boxes line the narrow aisles, taped tight and labeled by genre. Some glass cases are emptied of their knick-knacks, some walls naked of their posters. Public radio, KJazz 88.1, remains on as usual, though Rappaport said the queue has been nonstop rock and blues.

“We had like three solid days of Eric Clapton,” he said with a smile.

It’s a swift change from months ago, when the two were told they needed to vacate by the end of April, risking either closure or confining their goods to storage as they struggled to find a new home.

“I couldn’t find anything within a thirty-mile radius that was under two dollars [per square foot],” Rappaport said.

Approaching the store’s 30th anniversary, the two are set to celebrate in a new location, a former furniture store turned sound studio at 1819 Redondo Ave. — the second time the bookstore has moved since it opened in 1998.

The new place is larger — by about 600 square feet — and twice the cost to rent. It’ll also be a year-long sublease before they can lease it on their own. But it’s a needed move, one that offers the opportunity to organize, consolidate and rebuild their vision of a bookstore that the two have talked about for years but never had the momentum to act on.

“It’s a huge amount of work, but it’s also an opportunity to make the store just the way we wanted … an opportunity to really make the store shine,” Houser said.

The two plan to downsize a tenth of their stock through donations to nearby schools, shelters and prisons. They’re giving away half of their hardcover mysteries, at least half of their small paperbacks and looking to downsize their knick-knacks. Rappaport is also selling his treasured vinyl collection.

“It’s been in the back for years, and I’ve finally decided I’ve got to start selling my things, getting too old to save everything,” Rappaport said.

The new store, they envision, will have art books in the front; specialty vintage will rest in the back left and leatherbound classics will have the windowed area to the right. Their rarest tomes, currently spread across five locations in the store, will be consolidated and put in a glass display.

They want better seating and wider aisles, envisioning a trendy establishment where customers can sit at tables and couches and sip cappuccinos or listen to live music — preferably jazz or blues — and enjoy poetry readings or book signings.

It’s a bittersweet move and a goodbye to a long chapter of the bookstore’s history. But with change comes the relief of certainty, a fresh start and finally, two new toilets that actually work.

On the steep, brush-covered slopes of the Arroyo Seco, home to the Rose Bowl, a new kind of wildfire defense has arrived — on cloven hooves.

Starting this morning, more than 600 goats are being deployed across roughly 100 acres to help kick off Earth Day celebrations in the city.

Over the next six to eight weeks, they’ll reduce fire risk by munching through invasive vegetation like mustard that can quickly turn into dangerous fuel.

The pilot program, led by One Arroyo Foundation with city backing, combines an ancient technique with urgency around climate change, which the Eaton Fire that devastated parts of Pasadena bordering Altadena has only heightened.

“It’s become more evident that we need to do everything that we can to make sure that we’re adding wildfire resiliency to the way we manage this place,” said Daniel Rossman, executive director of the foundation.

The Arroyo sits within a high-severity fire zone, according to state maps, and acts as a natural corridor for wind, meaning a fire could spread rapidly if conditions align, Rossman said.

The G.O.A.T.'s

Pasadena is the latest Southern California city where goats are eating the fuel load, joining Arcadia, Glendale and Santa Clarita.

Unlike traditional brush clearance methods, which often rely on gas-powered equipment, goats offer a low-emissions alternative.

“You don’t need fossil fuels to run goats,” Rossman said. “They run on their own fuel, which is the brush that they eat.”

The grazers also shine where humans and machinery struggle on the Arroyo’s steep, uneven terrain.

“The goats can go to places that are very difficult for humans to get to with heavy equipment,” Rossman said. “Also, as they go up those hills, they're not degrading them as an adult [human] would by stepping on them with just two feet.”

Other cities like Arcadia have also hired goats to graze on fuel loads.

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While on assignment, the animals owned by Capra Environmental Services, Corp., will graze day and night in the Arroyo, watched over by a herding dog and a herder who will live in a trailer on-site.

“The goats do not have a strong labor union,” Rossman said, tongue firmly in cheek. “They work 24 hours a day. But on the other hand, they take naps whenever they feel like it.”

One Arroyo is covering the roughly $85,000 cost and has launched a “Goat Fund Me” campaign to invite public support. The nonprofit will be posting about the goats' whereabouts on its Instagram so locals can come watch the animals at work.

Just be aware that there will be temporary electric fencing set up to keep the goats from wandering into nearby homes and businesses. And don’t try to pet the goats.

“These goats are generally grumpy,” Rossman said. The animals that can stand humans will be at a petting zoo in Saturday’s Earth Day event by the Rose Bowl's Aquatic Center.

A test run

The hope is that the goat grazers will demonstrate success so that city officials may adopt the effort long-term.

How to know if it’s working?

Rossman said the first test is to see how well goats clear the invasive species and make room for the native plants.

“We want to get to that sweet spot where they chew things down and that then allows these perennial natives that stay green year-round to come back and compete,” Rossman said.

The timing of the goat deployment close to the last of the winter rains was intentional. Rossman said rain spurs rapid plant growth, especially invasive species that then dry out and turn into “flash fuels” by summer.

Removing that growth before peak fire season, he said, is key to protecting an “environmental treasure” that even more locals have turned to since the Eaton Fire.

“Many people who maybe used to hike Eaton Canyon are coming to the Arroyo and enjoying this place to connect with nature and to connect with themselves and restore,” Rossman said.