The Brief

Fireworks on the Fourth of July bring a uniquely abrasive spirit of festivity to Southern California — along with terrible air pollution. Nearly every year, the region experiences its most hazardous air quality on July 4 and 5, even in areas that don’t put on their own pyrotechnics shows.

So what exactly lingers in the air after all those oohs and ahhs? What are we breathing?

As with most things that explode, fireworks emit a lot of particulate matter — a mixture of tiny particles suspended in the air.

With fireworks, the ingredients of that particulate matter are metals that produce blasts or colors, said Scott Epstein, air quality assessment manager at the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

“ Some of those metals are actually toxic to breathe,” he added.

The AQMD, which monitors and regulates pollution in Southern California, lists the metals that can help create different colors: strontium (pinks, oranges and purples); magnesium (silvers); barium (greens).

Some illegal fireworks also contain lead.

“The range of unknowns of what's in there is something people should think about when they make their choices,” said Will Barrett, senior director for nationwide clean air advocacy with the American Lung Association.

But beyond the possibility that the pollution could be toxic, fireworks release high levels of fine particle pollution in the air. In fact, Epstein said the amount of pollution is “ nearly the highest that we see all year.”

This fine particle pollution, which you may have heard about in terms such as “PM 2.5” or “PM 10,” which indicates the size of the particle, can get deep into the lung and cause health issues.

“ Usually anything 2.5 microns or less is what gets really deep into the lungs,” said Dr. Isabel Pedraza, associate professor of medicine at Cedars-Sinai hospital in L.A.

Ingesting these particles can cause dangerous inflammation in the lungs and blood vessels.

This often causes symptoms you can feel immediately, such as decreased lung capacity, coughing and worsening asthma. But it can also increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes and arrhythmias.

Pedraza runs a clinic that primarily treats patients with asthma and COPD. She said the pollution from fireworks exacerbates symptoms of lung disease.

“ After fireworks is always a bit of a busy time,” she said.

She also explained that children will feel the effects more acutely. They tend to have a higher respiratory rate, so they may be breathing in more pollutants. But also: “ They're smaller, and so it takes less concentration to have an effect,” Pedraza said.

How to protect yourself as much as possible

So what to do?

Lower your exposure, every expert said.

Specifically, Epstein highlighted “ staying inside, keeping your windows and doors closed, running an air purifier or your HVAC fan,” to help keep your indoor space clear of pollution.

The pollution often lingers the night of the Fourth, especially if winds aren’t dispersing the pollution.

“ It just sits around, gets trapped by our mountains, gets trapped in kind of the lowest levels of the atmosphere,” Epstein said.

Backyard fireworks may also increase emissions closer to the ground where you’re breathing.

Depending on the wind, areas farther from original sites of the fireworks can be affected as well.

“This stuff can be carried in the air, sometimes miles away, depending on what the wind speed is,” Pedraza said.

This can be a risk not only to those with preexisting health conditions, but also to elderly people, children or outdoor workers.

If you have to be outside, an N95 mask may offer some, though not complete, protection, experts said.

If not fireworks, what?

There are alternatives. Several Southern California cities are putting on drone shows for reasons that include varying from air pollution and fire safety concerns.

But even experts on pollution and lung health differed on how to weigh health risks against the sense of camaraderie and awe inspired by rockets’ red glare on Independence Day.

“ I'm originally from Boston,” Pedraza said, “and they have one of the best fireworks displays every year that I've ever seen.”

Barrett also acknowledged the unique sense of celebration that fireworks can bring, but highlighted the possibility that drones and lasers could replace that.

“That can give you the really amazing family moments, the holiday moments where fireworks have been used — and do it without the heavy dose of pollution,” he said.

Regardless, fireworks celebrations will be happening across Southern California. At the very least, you can be aware of the air pollution from maps produced by AQMD and others.

Epstein warned, though, that backyard or illegal fireworks may create “localized hotspots” of pollution. A neighborhood surrounding that area may have higher concentrations of pollution that may not be captured by a region-wide map.

Long Beach is hoping to help keep older residents from falling into homelessness with a new program that offers them limited rental subsidies of $400 to $500 a month.

The money, available through the Older Adult Shallow Subsidy program, is meant to temporarily reduce the burden of rent while people pursue long-term solutions, like affordable housing.

The program is for households that include at least one older adult, defined as anyone age 62 or older, or age 55 or older with a disability.

To qualify, applicants must:

• live in non-subsidized rental housing in Long Beach
• be experiencing severe rent burden (spending 70% or more of income on rent)
• demonstrate the ability to pay rent consistently with shallow subsidy assistance
• have a household income at or below 50% of the Area Median Income (That’s $58,300 for a household of one, up to $110,000 for a household of eight.)

Eligible renters may receive up to $12,000 over two years, with additional support available in extenuating circumstances.

If deemed eligible, participants will also receive light-touch case management, which includes quarterly check-ins and connection to supportive services.

How to apply

Applications are available in English, Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog here. They will remain open until all subsidy slots are filled. You can also apply in person Monday through Thursday at the Multi-Service Center or Mondays and Wednesdays at the Long Beach Senior Center.

The program will prioritize households whose existing rental assistance or housing subsidy has expired or is scheduled to expire within the next 60 days. Those include households that received vouchers, were in the rapid rehousing program, homelessness prevention program or other rental assistance programs where financial support is ending.

Other factors that could lead to an application being prioritized include urgency of eviction risk, disabling conditions, fixed-income status and prior experiences of homelessness.

The program is funded with $1.8 million from a mix of state funding secured by Sen. Lena Gonzalez, the Los Angeles County Measure A sales tax and state grant funding.

Why older adults?

Even as Long Beach has increased spending on homelessness outreach and housing services, it hasn’t been able to keep pace with the number of people falling into homelessness.

This year, 12.4% of people tallied in the annual homeless count reported they were newly homeless, up from 10.9% last year.

This year’s count also found an increase in the number of residents over 55 who were experiencing homelessness (1,096 this year compared to 1,023 last year).

“Older adults living on fixed incomes are increasingly vulnerable to housing instability as rents continue to rise across the region,” Mayor Rex Richardson said in a statement.

Other options for rental subsidies

The program is part of Upstream LB, a three-pronged city initiative announced last year aimed at preventing housing instability.

In April, the city launched its first Renter Aid Program to provide short-term rental assistance for about 250 households.

Thus far, city officials say the Renter Aid program has received more than 3,500 applications and about 50 households have been enrolled.

A separate program targeting Long Beach residents ages 18-25 who are at high risk of homelessness was originally scheduled to launch in July but hasn’t yet started. It aims to help about 50 people in its first year with a budget of $750,000.

The post Long Beach starts offering rental subsidies to older adults. Here’s how to apply. appeared first on LA Local.

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Why it matters: Owner Barbara Burrell has spent three decades building Sky's into a paragon of Black ownership on a stretch that's lost several other Black-owned institutions in recent years, including Roscoe's House of Chicken 'N Waffles' Pico location in 2023 and My 2 Cents last summer. Burrell cited rising rent and utility costs, diminished foot traffic and competition from ghost kitchens, per reporting from the L.A. Times and Eater L.A.

Food writer Bill Esparza called Sky's "the pinnacle of the Black taco in Los Angeles." He told LAist the lasting influence of Sky's, which helped define a genre, will now be felt in a new wave of Black-owned taco vendors and pop-ups.

"It's like we're losing the Caesar's Restaurant of the Black taco scene," he said, comparing it to the Tijuana restaurant credited with inventing the Caesar salad.

Why now: The business will remain family-run, according to Eater L.A., with Burrell's son and daughter-in-law continuing to lead operations as the focus shifts to catering.

The backstory: Burrell opened Sky's in 1992, building her own "Mexican with a splash of soul" approach — tacos dressed with cheese, lettuce and sour cream over seasoned meats — into a defining thread in Black Angeleno food culture. That approach would later be echoed at spots like Worldwide Tacos and Taco Mell.

Esparza said that type of cuisine represents a connection between Black and Mexican styles of cooking dating back to the Hot Tamale Trail of the Mississippi Delta, where tamale-making took hold in Black Southern communities generations before migrating west. Nearby, Stevie's Creole Cafe and CJ's Cafe remain open, anchoring what's left of Mid-City's Black-owned restaurant row.

The fast-moving Dove Fire near a Yosemite gateway town jolted California out of a relatively quiet fire summer, forcing road closures and the evacuations of hundreds of homes.

Former U.S. Forest Service firefighter John Buckley wasn’t surprised to see the fire taking off last Sunday. Driving through the area in the Central Sierra foothills earlier that day, he remembers telling his wife those fuels looked ready to burn.

“We drive back, and they're burning over at the city of Sonora,” said Buckley, now the executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center. “The fuels are now quite primed for burning, and they're only going to get drier.”

Firefighters have gained the upper hand against the 226-acre blaze, which Cal Fire suspects was set by a reckless 30-year-old man. But high temperatures are looming — and new research puts numbers to the intuitive follow-on: with heat, comes fire.

It’s far too early in California’s fire year to make any conclusions or predictions. But with fires devouring millions of acres in the Western U.S., Canada, and Europe, California stands out for what has been, so far, a below-average summer.

To date, roughly 4,030 wildfires have burned a little over 208,000 acres in the state — down from a five-year average of nearly 5,300 fires burning more than 300,000 acres at this point, according to Cal Fire data.

Still, Cal Fire Battalion Chief David Acuña says he avoids the word ‘quiet.’

“There is a superstition that when you use words like ‘quiet, slow, bored’ in the fire station, that just means that you're about to get hit with an amazingly busy shift,” he said.

California has benefited from lucky weather conditions so far, despite a low snowpack and blistering March, according to John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced.

That’s about to change. “Now, of course,” he said, “we have a heat wave on our doorstep.”

National Weather Service offices across the state are warning of soaring temperatures starting later this week. The Los Angeles/Oxnard office said conditions will shift to “dangerously hot” by Friday.

That combination — heat waves and fire activity — is a common feature of western wildfires, Abatzoglou’s team found in a recent study published in the journal Science Advances and led by scientist Dmitri Kalashnikov. 

The paper found that just under half of the burned area in warm-season months from 2001 to 2024 occurred during or in the wake of a heatwave, particularly in forests.

Heatwaves, defined as at least three days in a row with temperatures soaring past the 90th percentile, make up 15% or less of the warm season. But climate change is fueling an increase.

Abatzoglou pointed to a few reasons for the link. Heatwaves create chronic conditions that lead to drier, more flammable fuels. They also mean hotter nights, which previous research found increases nighttime fire intensity, shuttering a critical window for fire suppression. The researchers found that heatwaves can also prime conditions for lightning, which has sparked some of California’s biggest blazes.

“And then it’s off to the races in terms of fire activity,” Abatzoglou said.

The paper’s findings don’t mean all heatwaves will bring an uptick in fire activity, he added. That still requires ignitions in the right place, at the right time.

Acuña cautioned Californians against creating those sparks. That means mowing before 10 a.m. on hot days or skipping the yard work during a red flag warning. It also means securing tow chains so they don’t drag and spark against the road, and not parking hot cars on dry grass.

California sought and received federal funding assistance related to the Dove Fire within hours. But a separate, monthslong fight between Sacramento and Washington continues over slower-moving wildfire recovery funds — including hundreds of millions in aid tied to last year's L.A. fires that Gov. Gavin Newsom said in May FEMA was still sitting on.

As for predictions for the season ahead, Acuña likes to make them about as much as he likes the word ‘quiet.’

“It depends on what the weather brings us,” he said. “If it brings us hot, windy, red flag warning conditions, then that could certainly be a problem. If it brings us rain, well, that brings us a totally different concern. We are ready to respond.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

A SoCal land trust has officially purchased nearly 63 acres of land near Big Bear’s famous bald eagle nest for permanent preservation.

Friends of Big Bear Valley and the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust successfully raised more than $10 million in less than six months through thousands of small donations and one big check, the groups announced last week. A surge in donations came amid public interest in the fate of Jackie, who continues to recuperate after getting into an altercation with other eagles.

There are several signs that the eagle receiving care is Jackie, but we’ve cautioned that we can’t be 100% certain it’s her since Jackie isn’t banded. However, Friends of Big Bear Valley believes it to be the famed raptor, which is why you’ll see us refer to the rescued eagle as Jackie in this story.

The land, tucked away along the north shore of Big Bear Lake, was supposed to be turned into a housing project called Moon Camp — at least until now.

The tree-lined acres will remain largely untouched for the rare plants and wildlife who live in the area, including Jackie and Shadow and the chicks they raise during nesting seasons, according to officials.

Jenny Voisard, Friends of Big Bear Valley spokesperson, told LAist the land is important for all wildlife as it’s an “ecological corridor” that connects the lake to the forest.

“The environment is getting increasingly fragmented and being able to preserve that does so much,” she said. “It helps the flying squirrels, it helps the 17 acres of rare and endemic plants that exist nowhere else in the world. It gives a passageway for wildlife.”

How we got here

The “Save Moon Camp” fundraiser was a historic effort for Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the popular YouTube livestream of Jackie and Shadow’s nest.

Fans from around the world sent more than 25,000 small donations, including California elementary school classes who raised money for the eagles and a $20,000 gift that arrived with a handwritten letter of support. Those donations made up about half of the total fundraising goal.

“The kids especially — they get it,” she said, adding that they’ve been moved to tears by notes from parents and teachers. “And they have just been amazing.”

The other roughly $5.5 million came from Anna and Greg Brockman, the latter of which is the president and co-founder of OpenAI. Anna Brockman is a huge fan of the eagle livestream and loves watching Jackie and Shadow, according to Voisard.

“We are so appreciative of the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust and everyone who came together to preserve this incredible ecosystem, the life it will help sustain, and the forest that will be protected for generations to come,” Anna Brockman said in a statement last week.

Preserving the land has been decades in the making. Sandy Steers, the late executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, pushed back against the proposed housing development for years, including in court and to county officials. Steers died the week before the fundraiser launched, which officials said was now being held in her honor.

What happens next?

The plan is no longer to have the acres be protected under the U.S. Forest Service, as Friends of Big Bear Valley initially hoped. Some fans shared concerns about the state of the agency under President Donald Trump. Specifically, Voisard said there was a recent change to the Endangered Species Act that could affect how habitats are protected.

“The Land Trust and Friends of Big Bear Valley didn't feel that it made sense to transfer the land over to the USFS at that point,” she said.

The acres will instead be protected by the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust for perpetuity. It’s no stranger to the preservation process, having helped conserve more than 15,000 acres of land since it was founded in 1995, according to the organization.

The proposed project site can be seen from the nest livestream.

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Friends of Big Bear Valley

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Access to the area around Jackie and Shadow's nest is restricted in Big Bear Valley on June 13, 2026.

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Makenna Cramer

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LAist

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According to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the Moon Camp site is the last undisturbed shoreline left on the lake, and preserving it helps protect Jackie and Shadow, as well as the more than 250 other bird species flying through the Big Bear area.

That could be especially important if, or when, Jackie is ready to return to the nest.

“She gets to come back and it won't be different, they won't be starting construction on anything,” she said. “Provided she gets to come back to Shadow and us.”