The Brief

A year ago today, an historic World War II blimp hangar caught fire in Tustin, setting off a public health emergency as toxic debris from the fire fell over surrounding neighborhoods. Life has mostly resumed to normal around the former military base where the hangar’s skeleton, and its surviving twin, sit. But cleanup of the toxic remains — which contained asbestos and lead — is ongoing.

What happened

The fire broke out in the early hours of Nov. 7, 2023. More than 100 firefighters and two water-dropping helicopters initially responded to the blaze. They found no working hydrant near the smoking hangar, according to documents obtained by LAist earlier this year.

Ultimately, firefighters decided the risk that the structure would collapse was too great, and they let the fire burn out. It took 24 days.

Why it mattered

The massive hangar — 17 stories high and covering an area larger than five football fields — contained a large amount of asbestos, a popular building material at the time now known to cause cancer and lung disease. Public health officials detected asbestos in fallout from the hangar fire at least three miles northeast of the hangar.

People reported fire debris as far as 10 miles from the hangar site, according to a map created by LAist using a city database obtained through a records request. In all, LAist identified 1,382 addresses where either a resident reported debris from the hangar fire or a city contractor inspected a property for fire debris.

The fire also majorly disrupted life for many nearby residents. Some temporarily moved out of the area to avoid exposure to potentially toxic air, or while their homes were being cleaned of fire debris. Nearby schools were closed for weeks and parents had to shuttle their kids to alternative school sites.

This map is based on data acquired through public records requested from the city of Tustin. An LAist analysis found that suspected ash or debris from the fire was reported by members of the public or city contractors at nearly 1,400 locations and up to 10 miles away.

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Maloy Moore

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How do you clean that up?

Hazardous waste crews spent months combing neighborhoods, cleaning up the debris from sidewalks, patios and yards. Months after the fire burnt out, some neighbors were still reluctant to take walks outside. One neighbor interviewed by LAist moved to Texas because of her concern that asbestos debris is still lingering in the community.

Tustin residents living near the hangar site may again see cleanup crews in their neighborhood in the coming weeks. They'll mostly be checking for remaining debris that might be lodged in rain gutters, Tustin Mayor Austin Lumbard told LAist. This final (hopefully) stage of community cleanup is required by environmental officials, Lumbard explained, and will be funded by an additional $15 million from the Navy.

The hangar status, one year later

The cause of the fire that torched the hangar is still under investigation, according to a spokesperson for the Orange County Fire Authority. They said the length of time to investigate was not unusual for such a complex fire.

The U.S. Navy is four months into an expected year-long cleanup effort at the hangar site. The toxic remains have to be packaged and sealed in a negative pressure tent and then transported offsite to a hazardous waste facility.

In August, workers finished deconstructing the massive hangar doors — the steel was recycled; the damaged wood, tainted with lead paint, was hauled off as hazardous waste, according to the Navy’s project website.

Air monitoring continues around the hangar site and in the surrounding community during the cleanup.

The city of Tustin reported in October that the hangar fire and aftermath had cost it $86.8 million as of late summer. The Navy has promised to reimburse the city up to $103.3 million for its emergency response to the fire, according to their latest agreement. That's intended to cover the upcoming community cleaning phase.

Los Angeles is on the hook if there are cost overruns for the 2028 Olympics, but that was not the case the last time the city hosted the Games.

In 1984, city officials pressured the International Olympic Committee into making an exception to its rule requiring that host cities foot the bill if the Games were unsuccessful. That fierce public battle guaranteed L.A. wouldn't pay to bring the Olympics to town.

The IOC faced a crisis in the run-up to 1984. Los Angeles was the only bidder to host the Games. The cost of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal exploded from an initial estimate of $120 million to $1.6 billion, leaving the city with debt that took 30 years to pay off. Montreal's mayor had promised his constituents that running a deficit was impossible.

"This essentially scared everybody away except for Los Angeles," said Rich Perelman, who led press operations for the 1984 Olympic Games. "Because of that deficit nobody wanted to bid."

Tehran had considered entering the fray to host the Olympics, but it pulled out due to political turmoil that would soon spark the 1979 Iranian Revolution. That left L.A. as the sole option for 1984.

A "tax revolt" in California

Then-mayor Tom Bradley and other L.A. officials wanted the Games to come to Los Angeles, but they couldn't afford to put city money on the line.

As L.A. was vying to host the Olympics, Californians were in a tax revolt that led voters to pass Prop 13, limiting property taxes. The public made it clear that it also didn't want tax dollars paying for the Olympic Games.

A 1977 survey of 1,200 Angelenos found that 70% supported bringing the Games to L.A. in 1984, according to an official report from the 1984 Olympic organizers. Only 35% remained supportive if the bid required city or county money.

"There has been so much bombastic rhetoric, all negative, about the Games, all predicting huge deficits, all voicing pessimism and gloom," Bradley says in a Sports Illustrated article in 1978, blaming Prop 13 and the media. "The atmosphere has been poisoned."

Making a deal

Public sentiment meant that L.A. officials had no choice but to broker a deal that did not include public monies backing the Games.

This presented a challenge to the IOC, because past Olympic Games had relied on government funds and a public backstop in the case of financial losses. It was the city of Montreal, not the International Olympic Committee, that took the fall when the cost of the 1976 Games ballooned.

The 1976 Games in Montreal left the city $1 billion in debt – a price tag that took 30 years to pay off.

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The IOC intended to require this of Los Angeles as well, but L.A. had more leverage than past host cities.

"The IOC has usually dictated its will to the host city, and its will has been followed," a New York Times article reported at the time. "But Los Angeles is attempting to use the advantage that goes with being the only runner in a race."

Tensions between the two sides continued to rise. One city councilmember was quoted in the press saying that the IOC could host the Olympics in Timbuktu if it didn't want to agree to the city's terms. Mayor Bradley threatened to pull out of the Games entirely.

Eventually, the IOC gave in. It pretty much had no other option.

In the fall of 1978, the two sides inked a contract that put a local private organizing committee, not the city of Los Angeles, in charge of the Games. The local committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee became the financial guarantors instead of L.A.

"The mayor, whose political fortunes have become closely identified with the OIympics, flashed a big smile, clapped his hands over his head and, in a high-pitched voice, said 'Yeah-hhh!," L.A. Times reporter Kenneth Reich wrote in October of 1978.

One month later, Angelenos overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure blocking public funds from being used on the Olympics unless they were reimbursed.

This sealed the fate of the 1984 Games. Los Angeles would have its cake and eat it too.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley holds the official Olympic Antwerp flag during the closing ceremony for the XXIII Olympic Summer Games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

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A privately organized – and financed – Olympics

The deal between the IOC and the city of Los Angeles meant that for the first time, a private entity was responsible for staging the Olympic Games. That effort was led by businessman Peter Ueberroth, who took the helm in 1979 and needed a lot of money, fast.

The local Olympic committee controlled the lucrative television rights for the Games, and Ueberroth had broadcasters put down a refundable deposit to be considered. Five companies wrote checks for $750,000 each, according to Ueberroth's memoir. The organizers promptly put all that cash in a bank account earning interest, and used that interest to run day-to-day operations.

ABC eventually scored the T.V. deal and paid $225 million for it. Some of that had to be paid to the IOC eventually, but most of it went to the organizing committee. The local organizers used the interest from those funds to keep doing business. After 1984, the I.O.C. learned its lesson – now the international committee is the one that controls television rights.

Ueberroth and his team also changed the way Olympics sponsorships were brokered. In years past, hundreds of sponsors had kicked in small amounts to play a part in the Olympic Games. He shifted the strategy, instead having corporations bid against each other to be the sole sponsor of different parts of the Games.

Here's one example: When Kodak failed to offer at least $4 million to be the official film for the Olympics, Ueberroth gave Fuji Film 72 hours to sign on instead. Fuji locked in its place with an offer of $7 million.

"These checks started rolling in from sponsors," said librarian Michael Salmon, who works in the 1984 Olympic archive. "Bills were being paid and salaries were being paid."

In the end, the organizing committee made a killing – more than $230 million in profit. It also created a new model for financing the Olympics through huge corporate partnerships that continues today.

Renata Simril, the president of LA84 Foundation, the legacy organization founded with some of those profits, told LAist that that corporate legacy proved a new model for the Olympics could be successful.

"But I do think in some ways it has commercialized the Olympic Games to a degree that hurts my heart," she said. "We have to work harder to see the underlying value of the Olympic Games."

2028 v. 1984

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach (center) poses for pictures with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo (left) and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti during the 131st IOC session in Lima in 2017.

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Los Angeles faced different circumstances when it bid to host the Olympics this time around. There was competition.

Budapest, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Paris, and Rome all wanted to stage the 2024 Olympics. Then-Mayor Eric Garcetti said a bid would be “dead on arrival” without a guarantee that the city would financially back the Games.

In 2017, the IOC gave the 2024 Olympics to Paris and 2028 to Los Angeles. To secure its third time hosting the Games, L.A. agreed to what it vehemently opposed in 1984. It became the financial guarantor for the Olympic Games.

A protest of New York’s Museum of Modern Art — over a 1984 exhibition that included only 13 women among a group of 169 artists — was a bit of a blip at the time.

The bigger impact was that the protestors would go on to found a long-running activist collective called the “Guerrilla Girls,” that would become known around the world for its outspoken calls for equity for women and people of color in the art world.

Now the anonymous group, who don gorilla masks and assume names of women artists of the past to maintain their anonymity, has its own exhibition at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, called “How to Be a Guerrilla Girl.” 

Though that doesn’t mean the collective is sparing the Getty when it comes to calling out how museums perpetuate inequity through their acquisitions and exhibitions.

How the “Guerrilla Girls” got the art world’s attention

Using straightforward language, glaring statistics and humor and disseminating their messaging through protest signs, flyers, letters and postcards, eye-catching billboards and numerous media appearances, the Guerrilla Girls gained worldwide attention.

Guerrilla Girls posters on display at the "How to Be a Guerrilla Girl" exhibition at the Getty Center.

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The gorilla masks (and sometimes gloves too) didn’t hurt either. The use of the disguises grew out of one members’ confusion between the words “guerrilla” and “gorilla,” and became an essential part of the group’s collective public identity.

What’s on display in “How to Be a Guerrilla Girl”

The “How to Be a Guerrilla Girl” exhibition draws from the first 15 years of the Guerrilla Girls’ archives, which the Getty acquired in 2008, to show the stages of development — from lists and drafts to final products — of the various methods the collective has used to spread their calls for change.

"The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist" is one of the Guerrilla Girls' most well known works. Early drafts of it are included in the "How to Be a Guerrilla Girl" exhibition.

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Some of the group’s best known works are posters that read “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met[ropolitan] Museum [of Art]?” and another titled “The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist,” which lists things like “Having an escape from the art world in your [four freelance] jobs” and “Not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius.”

Zanna Gilbert, one of the exhibition’s lead curators, says that while there have been many other Guerrilla Girls exhibitions, what makes this one unique is how it shows the behind the scenes work and thought processes that led up to these final products.

 “We have a lot of their brainstorming notes so you can really see the process of how they did their activism,” Gilbert says. “So we see it as a kind of toolkit for other people to learn from them.”

Not sparing the Getty from criticism

The exhibition also includes excerpts from the group’s media appearances through the years (like this one on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2016) and an interactive digital display titled “What about Getty?” that reveals stats on how the Getty Museum and Research Institute measure up when it comes to the inclusion of women in collections and exhibitions over the years.

One example: “In the Getty Museum’s painting collection: 81.15% are by men, 18.03% are by anonymous, and less than 1% are by women (0.82%).”

“Institutional reflection is a strategy often used by the Guerrilla Girls when they're invited to do a project at an institution,” Kristin Juarez, also a lead curator of the exhibition, explains. “That if you're inviting the Guerrilla Girls to kind of bring what they do to your institution, you should also be open to reflecting on the work that they're doing.”

A portion of the new Guerrilla Girls work in the "How to Be a Guerrilla Girl" exhibition.

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The Getty also commissioned a new work from the Guerrilla Girls, which features their takes on the content of some of the paintings and sculptures in the Getty Collections, using cartoon speech bubbles to add commentary from the imagined perspectives of the women depicted in them.

The relevance of the Guerrilla Girls today

“ We think that this is an interesting moment, 40 years later, [when] some of the work still feels like it was made today,” Juarez says.

Taken together as a whole, she hopes the exhibition offers viewers a sense of “what it means to form a group and use your voice together.”

What to know before you go

The “How to Be a Guerrilla Girl” exhibition is open at the Getty Center now through April 12, 2026 and is presented in both English and Spanish.

Admission to the museum is free but requires a reservation. Parking is $25 ($15 after 3pm, $10 after 6pm, and free after 6pm on Saturdays). Metro bus 761 stops at the Getty Center entrance.

The Trump administration on Thursday released its plan to open up federal waters off the coast of California to oil drilling, taking a momentous step that state leaders and environmentalists had long expected.

The Interior Department’s proposal, which sets up a direct confrontation with Sacramento on energy and climate change, would also allow drilling in federal waters off the coast of Alaska and the Southeastern U.S. It would rip up a ban on new offshore drilling in most of these places that President Joe Biden signed a few weeks before he left office.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order repealing that ban on his first day in office in January, and last month, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled Biden had overstepped his authority.

Administration officials argued that the move to open federal waters to new oil and gas leases will help restore energy security and protect American jobs.

“By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a press release.

Gov. Gavin Newsom previously said the plan would be “dead on arrival” and promised attendees at an international climate conference last week that California would immediately sue.

On Thursday, his office quickly blasted the proposal as “idiotic” and “reckless.” He added that it “endangers our coastal economy and communities and hurts the well-being of Californians.”

Companies have drilled very little oil off the coast of California since the 1969 Union Oil platform blowout spilled 4.2 million barrels of crude into the waters 6 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, catalyzing an environmental movement.

Newsom’s press release included a photo of a bird covered in crude oil, with a caption that said, “If Trump gets his way, coming to a beach near you soon!”

Numerous California lawmakers, including Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Jared Huffman, hastily convened a media call to push back on the plan.

Padilla called it “another outrageous announcement” from an “out of control administration.”

Rep. Jimmy Panetta compared the proposal to Trump’s controversial renovation of the White House.

“The California coastline is not the East Wing of the White House,” he said.

The Democratic lawmakers are supporting legislation that would prohibit new oil and gas leases off the West Coast.

The public will have a 60-day window to comment on the plan when it appears in the Federal Register on Monday.

Orange County isn't where you'd expect to find your next great bagel. But that's exactly what's happening in Irvine and Costa Mesa, where bakeries are proving that the future of bagels isn't about replicating New York — it's about reinventing it with California's best ingredients.

Three shops have quietly been reinvigorating an old formula, taking inspiration from traditional East Coast-style bagel shops while using farm-sourced ingredients to create something unlike anything else in Southern California (or the country).

Read on and enjoy these maximalist offerings.

RISE Bagels (Irvine)

The One Fish from RISE Bagels in Irvine, featuring a bright, silky lox bagel layered with sweet yellow tomatoes, pickled onions, and plenty of dill.

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Chef John Park's bagel philosophy stemmed from his desire for something lighter than traditional, heavy New York bagels. Park and his team opened RISE Bagels earlier this month in an upscale Irvine business park, tucked away like an oasis among pristine high-rise buildings.

Park aims for bagels with a crispy crust and more air pockets. These aren't special sourdough or crazy fermentation projects — just a focus on achieving lighter crust and crumb.

RISE offers signature open-face options like the One Fish ($20), featuring smoked salmon with citrus notes (orange, lime, lemon, dill, coriander, fennel, black pepper), a balanced sweet-salty ratio, and pickled onions with yuzu kosho, a fermented paste containing chili peppers, yuzu peel and salt. The Two Fish ($23) adds dashi-marinated salmon roe for a touch of sweetness and smokiness.

Closed sandwich options include Get Jjigae With It ($18), with beef bulgogi, kimchi jjigae, scrambled eggs, American cheese, sesame leaf, soy-pickled radish, cucumber, and ssam jang schmear made from fermented soybeans and chili paste. The Jersey Boy features Taylor ham, soft scrambled egg, American cheese, ketchup, and Tokyo Negi schmear — a Japanese long onion spread sourced from Girl and Dough farm in San Diego.

On my recent visit, the One Fish delivered a level of freshness that nearly knocked me off my feet — a touch of salty brine as if it had just been harvested from nearby San Clemente beaches. The Jersey Boy brought me back to land with sweet, gooey flavors from soft scrambled egg, melty American cheese, and ketchup, with just the right amount of salty notes in between.

Boil &  Bake (Costa Mesa)

Boil & Bake in Costa Mesa features fresh figs over cream cheese with a heavy drizzle of hot honey and a scatter of sesame seeds on their black and white sesame bagel.

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Carlos Perez's bagel education began at 8, working under his father, also named Carlos, when the family took over Shirley’s Bagels, an Orange County staple. But the son of Guatemalan immigrants wanted to move beyond Restaurant Depot products and machine-made dough. After working his way from dishwasher to manager at local restaurants, he felt ready to open his own place. He connected with Chef Luke Bramm, who'd trained in fine dining kitchens and specialized in curing meats, through a mutual chef friend. Together, they opened Boil & Bake in Costa Mesa, developing a three-day sourdough process and strict farm-sourcing philosophy, seasonally editing the menu — removing items entirely when local ingredients aren't available.

The menu splits between open-face bagels and sandwiches, emphasizing California ingredients and house-made products. The O.G. features Guatemalan-style longaniza sausage with cilantro aji crema (a nod to Perez's heritage), while The Dodger pairs Native Cure smoked salmon with pickled onions instead of traditional capers. The Fully Loaded Lox ($20) goes maximalist with house-cured fish, cucumber, radish, and sprouts. The M.F. takes a more inventive route with maple-fennel sausage and sweet-onion Aleppo aioli. Valdivia Farms heirloom tomatoes and La Bahn Ranch eggs appear throughout, reinforcing the local-sourcing philosophy. Most items range from $14 to $17.

On my visit, I ordered a black-and-white sesame bagel topped with black figs and hot honey, that day's special. Quartered black figs with their deep purple-red flesh glistened under a drizzle of hot honey. It feels more California farmers market than traditional East Coast bagel shop, with fresh-tasting, light flavors that work well together.

Deli Seoul Bagels (Costa Mesa)

A beautifully chaotic egg, tofu, and cheese combination — runny, melty, and nestled inside an egg bagel, made with Irene's chili mayo from Deli Seoul.

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Also in Costa Mesa is Deli Seoul, a mother-and-son operation run by Jun and Irene Wang. Irene opened Deli Seoul in 2008 in a busy shopping center off Harbor Boulevard as a traditional bagel shop. Jun joined later after leaving the tech industry. It was only in the last year that the family decided to lean into their Korean heritage in bagel form.

The breakfast menu operates on a build-your-own model: customers start with a bagel or bread ($7.50 base, $9.85 with protein), then add cheese and protein. Korean options set it apart: Seoul steak with a sweet sauce, spicy pork, sweet-glazed Spam and marinated organic tofu sit alongside traditional bacon and sausage. Specialty bagels include coconut, pineapple, and Asiago. Sauces range from standard mayo to Irene's Korean chili mayo and chipotle mayo. It's customization that appeals to both traditionalists and adventurous eaters.

Jun Wang and his mother Irene pose together in the kitchen area of Deli Seoul in Costa Mesa.

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By my third stop that day, I was experiencing a bit of bagel burnout, despite my love for them. So I ordered something different: a bagel sandwich with scrambled egg and marinated tofu, with Irene's Korean chili mayo on an egg bagel. The combination was surprisingly light and flavorful, perfectly summing up what Deli Seoul offers — a delightfully diverse array of flavors from an approachable perspective that still represents what's happening with bagels in Orange County.