Cato Hernández
scours through tons of archives to understand how our region became the way it is today.
Published January 8, 2025 5:17 PM
Will Rogers’ former ranch house has been destroyed
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Courtesy California State Parks
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Topline:
Fires are wreaking havoc on Los Angeles County, scorching an unknown number of homes, community hubs and historic sites. Here’s a rundown of cherished places that have burned down.
What’s gone so far? Among the destroyed places are: Altadena Hardware and the nearby Bunny Museum; Malibu’s Reel Inn; Altadena’s Al Taqwa mosque and the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.
What about historic sites? The state parks department confirmed Will Rogers’ historic ranch house burned down Tuesday night, along with the Topanga Ranch motel. There are likely other losses we’ll learn about in the coming days.
How you can help: With developments happening so quickly, it can be hard to keep track of what’s gone. That’s why we need your help. Let us know about places you’ve seen lost in the fires that mattered to you through this short form.
More than 15,000 places have been destroyed, according to L.A. County officials. Along with the thousands of homes, places of worship and stores have also burned down.
Through statements from public officials, owners, coverage from our media partners, and verifiable posts on social media, we've been able to put together an initial list of what's been lost.
For iconic restaurants, view our list here. For historic and cultural sites of importance, the L.A. Conservancy is also tracking losses between the Palisades and Eaton Fires, such as destroyed schools and iconic estates. As of Jan 22, they'd listed more than 50 sites.
The McNally House
The Andrew McNally House, a historical landmark, burns during the Eaton Fire
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Robyn Beck
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AFP via Getty Images
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Altadena's historic McNally House burned. It was the home of Andrew McNally, a co-founder of the Rand McNally map publishing company, who built it in 1887. The home was designed with a late Victorian, Queen Anne-style and was part of the National Register of Historic Places.
Altadena Hardware
A firefighter extinguishes the remains of an Altadena hardware store destroyed in the Eaton fire
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Robyn Beck
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AFP via Getty Images
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The much-loved hardware store and plant nursery has been part of the Altadena community for more than 80 years. On Jan. 8, images showed the business and adjacent stores, which included a bike shop and restaurant, burned down to its facade. It’s part of a string of fiery destruction around Lake Avenue that includes pizza joint Side Pie, according to LAist host Antonia Cereijido, who drove around the area.
Altadena Community Church
Altadena Community Church in May 2024.
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Courtesy 2025 Google Maps data
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The Altadena Community Church lies in ruin from the Eaton Fire.
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Frederic J. Brown
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AFP via Getty Images
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The progressive church is another staple that’s been around for more than eight decades. LAist producer Libby Rainey went to see it and said the building is destroyed. The damage comes as other faith leaders in Altadena, at Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, shared on Facebook that their church building was lost.
Altadena Senior Center
Fires engulfed the senior center, “burning it to the ground” according to our partners at CBS Los Angeles. The center opened in 1982 to care for older people in Altadena, La Crescenta, and East Pasadena unincorporated areas.
The Altadena Senior Center is burning to the ground. Firefighters say the fire hydrants up here are dry and they have to keep driving elsewhere to refill their tanks and come back up to continue the fire fight. The famous Christmas Tree Lane also on fire. #EatonFire#Altadenapic.twitter.com/nrxIvqoKFg
The iconic and quirky museum in Altadena burned to the ground, owners said on Instagram. The Bunny Museum housed around 46,000 bunny objects — like rabbit antiques, cookie jars and even bunnies from Rose Parade floats. It opened in 1998 and held the Guinness World Record for largest collection of rabbit-related items.
Masjid Al Taqwa
Masjid Al-Taqwa in May 2024.
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Courtesy 2025 Google Maps data
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What remains of Masjid Al Taqwa, the first mosque in the Altadena-Pasadena area.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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Early on during the Eaton Fire, videos circulated online showing the first mosque in the Altadena-Pasadena area, Masjid Al-Taqwa, and surrounding businesses destroyed. The building served the local Muslim community for 30 years and was recently renovated, according to the mosque’s website. You can learn more about how its leaders are planning to rebuild here.
Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center
The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center in May 2024.
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Courtesy 2025 Google Maps data
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The Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center burns during the Eaton fire
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Josh Edelson
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AFP via Getty Images
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The entire campus of the Jewish synagogue has been lost, Rabbi Jill Gold Wright confirmed to LAist. All Torah scrolls from the sanctuary, chapel, and classrooms were removed. The Temple is another community staple that was around for more than 80 years.
The beloved 35-seat micro-theater is gone. Its owners posted a video to Instagram showing the building engulfed in flames, saying they’re “at a total loss for words.” The strip-mall location boasted comedy shows, clown events, live theater and more.
Topanga Ranch Motel
Top and bottom right: The fire aftermath of the historic Topanga Ranch Motel on Jan. 8, 2025. Bottom left: The Topanga Ranch Motel before the Palisades Fire.
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Courtesy California State Parks
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The California parks department confirmed that parts of Topanga State Park have been destroyed, including the historic motel once owned by William Randolph Hearst. The bungalow-style building had 30 rooms that were used by PCH construction workers. The parks department had plans to restore it.
Will Rogers’ ranch house
Top left: Living room inside Will Rogers’ ranch house. Top right: Living room after the fire on Jan. 8, 2025. Left middle: Exterior of ranch home. Bottom row: Exterior of the stables before and after the fire.
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Courtesy California State Parks
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The state department also said Will Rogers’ historic ranch house and other buildings in the park were destroyed. Personnel were able to evacuate the horses and remove some cultural and historical artifacts from the park. Rogers owned about 359 acres in what is now known as Pacific Palisades, including land he developed into a cowboy-style ranch in the 1920s.
Do you have a question about the wildfires or fire recovery?
Check out LAist.com/FireFAQs to see if your question has already been answered. If not, submit your questions here, and we’ll do our best to get you an answer.
Erin Stone
covers climate and environmental issues in Southern California.
Published August 25, 2026 4:58 PM
The EPA says cleanup at this South Gate lot could take a few months for the soil and a year or longer for the groundwater.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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Topline:
Cleanup is just beginning for a contaminated industrial site in South Gate, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who are leading the effort.
Why it matters: The small, southeast L.A. cityhas three Superfund sites, areas designated by the federal government as highly contaminated with hazardous waste.
The backstory: The site, known as the Southern Avenue Industrial Area, housed a screw manufacturing business for 30 years, then a carpet adhesive plant. Both businesses are now defunct and the site was designated by the federal government as a Superfund site in 2012.
What's next: EPA officials estimate soil cleanup will take about two months. Groundwater cleanup planning will start in 2027 and could take a year or more.
Read on ... to learn about the other contaminated sites in South Gate.
Cleanup is just beginning for a contaminated industrial site in South Gate, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who are leading the effort.
The small southeast L.A. city was built on industry — in the early 20th century it boomed with auto, chemical and other manufacturers.
That legacy also left it with three Superfund sites, areas designated by the federal government as highly contaminated with hazardous waste.
The three sites are all clustered on a large lot framed by Southern and Rayo avenues. A residential neighborhood is nearby.
“This site is less than 50 yards away from a home, so we want to make sure that we clean it to a point where we can feel confident,” said South Gate Mayor Joshua Barron.
South Gate is home to about 90,000 people, the majority of whom are Latino. The median household income is about $74,500 and the state has identified the city and surrounding communities to be disproportionately burdened by pollution and its health effects.
This site, dubbed the Southern Avenue Industrial Area, housed a screw manufacturing business for 30 years, then a carpet adhesive plant. Both businesses are now defunct and the site was designated by the federal government as a Superfund site in 2012.
The pollution at this property was compounded by pollution from companies next door.
One of the two adjacent Superfund sites was used by Cooper Drum Co., a steel drum recycling plant. A group of Cooper Drum’s former customers, including chemical manufacturers and oil companies, are paying for part of that cleanup. The other site, previously operated by an aircraft rivet and conveyor belt manufacturer, is still in the analysis and planning stages.
Why does it take so long to clean up a Superfund site?
First, a site has to get officially listed. Then the EPA has to analyze the property to understand exactly what and where contamination occurred. Identifying who is responsible for pollution can take time, result in lawsuits, or not be resolved at all. If the responsible party is defunct or can’t pay for the cleanup, then taxpayers have to foot the bill.
EPA experts need to then analyze the site and develop a cleanup plan, and funding needs to be secured. The cleanup can take years, even decades. The federal government has been slowly working through a backlog of sites, identifying those of highest importance through the National Priorities List, of which there are 97 in California. Learn more about the Superfund process here.
At the Southern Avenue site where the EPA broke ground Tuesday, analyses commissioned by the agency found widespread lead and other toxic contamination in the soil, as well as a plume of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen, in the groundwater.
Officials say the plume has not affected the deeper aquifer South Gate and other southeast L.A. cities rely on for drinking water.
EPA project manager Kelia Liang explains the cleanup effort in South Gate on Tuesday.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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“ The water is safe to drink,” said Mike Montgomery, superfund director for the EPA. “What we're trying to do is prevent it from becoming impacted.”
EPA officials estimate soil cleanup will take about two months. Groundwater cleanup planning will start in 2027 and could take a year or more. The whole effort is estimated to cost between $45 million and $60 million, primarily through federal dollars.
Lucas Brady Woods
covers the weather and disasters, among other climate and science topics.
Published August 25, 2026 3:50 PM
Flooding was an issue in Seal Beach in September 1997, a year when Southern California experienced one of its most damaging El Niño events.
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Don Bartletti
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
Forecasters predict that this year’s El Niño could be the strongest on record. LAist wants to help answer your questions about it.
The background: Scientists say an El Niño climate pattern has already formed in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Warming ocean temperatures are on track to exceed even the historic El Niño of 1997.
Why it matters: In Southern California, El Niño is expected to come with a lot of rain and high sea levels, as well as the resulting flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion.
Read on … to find the form where you can submit your questions about El Niño.
The summer heat may be sweltering at the moment in Southern California, but predictions about this winter’s El Niño show it could be the strongest on record.
So the LAist newsroom wants to know: What questions do you have? (You can submit below.)
We can tell you now that El Niño is a climate pattern that happens roughly every two to seven years, and is one of the most powerful drivers of the Earth’s weather.
During an El Niño event, the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America warms to above normal temperatures. The warm ocean adds moisture and heat to the atmosphere, influencing atmospheric circulation, temperatures and precipitation on a massive scale.
El Niño typically results in mild weather in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern part of the country.
In Southern California, we could start to see the effects of El Niño in the late fall or early winter. Generally, those effects include significant rain and high sea levels and the consequences that come with them, such as flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion.
Forecasters say there is a more than 90% chance of a powerful El Niño event this year, and a 70% chance that it’s record-setting.
That said, uncertainty remains around how exactly this winter’s El Niño will play out here.
So as you gear up for an El Niño winter, ask us your questions and we’ll do our best to get answers in the months ahead.
Keep up with LAist.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
Jill Replogle
covers public corruption, debates over our voting system, culture war battles — and more.
Published August 25, 2026 2:41 PM
The GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove.
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Jill Replogle
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LAist
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Topline:
The company behind the Garden Grove hazardous waste scare earlier this year is planning to resume full operations in late September, subject to an independently monitored, court-approved safety plan. The company employs 500 people at its Garden Grove facility.
The details: GKN Aerospace said in a news release that it had permanently decommissioned the tank that set off the hazmat scare in May and forced some 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate. Removal of the tank is pending review and approval from state regulatory agencies, according to an emailed response from Salma Elshakre, a spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup.
Read more ... for more informationon the controversy.
The company behind the Garden Grove hazardous waste scare earlier this year is planning to resume full operations in late September, subject to an independently monitored, court-approved safety plan.
GKN Aerospace employs 500 people at its Garden Grove facility.
What happened?
GKN Aerospace said in a news release that it had permanently decommissioned the tank that set off the hazmat scare in May and forced some 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate.
Removal of the tank is pending review and approval from state regulatory agencies, according to an emailed response from Salma Elshakre, a spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup.
All of the toxic chemical, methyl methacrylate (also known as MMA), has been removed from nearby tanks as well, Elshakre said.
What about the compensation fund?
This week, the company also announced a forthcoming $100 million compensation fund for affected residents and businesses. GKN expects to release details on how to apply in the coming months.
What's next?
At least 39 lawsuits have been filed against the company in conjunction with the hazmat incident, according to a GKN webpage set up to track the fallout. The company pledged to explain the legal effect of participating in the compensation fund before it is launched.
What's the community reaction?
Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said in a statement that the city “welcome[s] this progress and will continue to expect GKN to address the broader effects on our community.”
A coalition of community groups called GKN Out of Garden Grove Coalition wants the city to shut down the GKN plant completely. The coalition plans to release a report documenting the company’s alleged history of hazardous waste failures at a news conference Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at 11300 Stanford Ave. in Garden Grove.
President Trump walks past Secretary of State Marco Rubio as he arrives for a roundtable on the American mining industry on Aug. 7 at the State Department in Washington.
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Julia Demaree Nikhinson
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AP
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Topline:
The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.
What visas could be revoked: Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents. B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.
Why now: Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.
Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.
“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.
He declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”
The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.
Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.
In a social media post on Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the United States and then apply for asylum.
“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.
B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the United States and would be affected by the revocations.
Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.
In the past 18 months, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East.
The administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, a practice the administration claims is used by foreign pregnant women to come to the United States to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship. Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.
The State Department documents obtained by the AP suggest screening of current B1 and B2 visa holders began after the State Department received information about asylum requests from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
