The Brief

Last week, a relic of military history in Orange County and an iconic structure to many local residents went up in flames.

"All of us who have lived in Orange County really in the past four generations...it's just been part of our landscape," historian and Orange County Historical Society President Chris Jepsen said of the World War II era wooden blimp hangar that caught fire early on the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 7.

"You see those hangars and you know you're home," Jepsen said during an interview this week with LAist's AirTalk, which airs daily on 89.3 FM.

A few days after the fire, Orange County declared a state of emergency after smoke and debris from the Tustin hangar fire tested positive for asbestos and other toxins. Schools continue to be closed in the area.

Bastions of coastal defense

Jepsen says the hangars were built in 1942 to house blimps that patrolled the U.S. coastline during World War II.

"The idea was they could keep an eye out for Japanese aircraft, or to some degree submarines coming toward our coast. These hangars, each one could house six large blimps inside it — fully inflated."

As the building burned, nearby residents, veterans and others with sentimental ties to the former Tustin air base flocked to the fenceline to get a final glimpse of the beloved hangars.

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Jae C. Hong

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At 17 stories high, more than 1,000 feet long, and 300 feet wide, the hangars were two of the largest wooden structures in the world when they were erected in 1942. They were built in a swift six months, as the country was eager to build up protection along its coasts. Jepsen says he's been inside the hangar that is now destroyed, and recalls being awe-struck at its scale.

"It's hard to wrap your brain around what you're seeing when you're in a place like that. It is so enormous."

Retired Marine Colonel Brian Delahaut was stationed at Tustin between 1983 and 1995. He told LAist's AirTalk, he remembers being awe-struck the first time he checked into the training squadron at the hangar.

"It was just absolutely incredible...when I checked in in the early 80s, the base was actually called...Marine Corps Air Station Tustin Lighter-than-Air (LTA). We all knew the buildings had been built...for the use of blimps, but the Marine Corps repurposed them and made them into helicopter hangars, so I don't think we appreciate what they were initially built for."

They’ve been mostly vacant since the base was decommissioned in 1999, sometimes serving as a shooting location for films and commercials. The hangars have been featured in television shows and films such as The X Files, Austin Powers, Pearl Harbor, and Star Trek.

The historic blimp hangar, at right, seen as it burned on Nov. 7, 2023.

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Jae C. Hong

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Orange County icons

AirTalk and LAist listeners also shared their memories of the hangars.

Listener Jeaniqua in San Diego says she grew up on base housing while her father served in as a helicopter crew chief in the Marines, and even recalls a ballet group she was part of holding a recital inside the hangar.

"It's really sad. We grew up in the shadow of [the hangars] so I have very distinctive and clear memories of the office spaces in there, and even just walking in. The offices were along the side and in the center it was that wide open space, and I remember....just looking up and it seemed like it went up forever."

Listener Tee in Irvine remembers living in an Irvine apartment at Jamboree and Alton and being able to see the hangars from her bedroom window there, and recalls her niece participating in the video for Michael Jackson's song "Hold My Hand" that was shot at the hangars.

"It's just strange that one hangar is now gone. I actually went over...and took pictures. It's unbelievable how basically it looks as if everything has caved in, except for the concrete structures on the end. It's just really sad...it's strange not to have those there because it is a part of the community."

What will be become of the burned hangar?

Local officials have not yet announced plans for what will happen to what remains of the structure, but Jepsen says he'd be surprised if anything is saved or reconstructed, given the condition it's in and some of the environmental concerns about asbestos exposure.

"These things were built in the 40s and some of the materials are cause for concern," said Jepsen.

At the moment, the South Hangar is awaiting environmental remediation before it's handed over from the Navy to the city of Tustin. Jepsen says while a lot of different forms of adaptive reuse have been discussed, there are no concrete plans at the moment.

A closer look at the damaged hull left behind.

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Listen to the conversation

The Japanese American National Museum announced today it will reopen in January after a two-year, $25 million overhaul of the country’s largest museum dedicated to the Japanese American experience.

The museum in L.A.’s Little Tokyo is reshaping its galleries and expanding its signature exhibition to include more perspectives and connections between Japanese American history and current debates over race, immigration and democracy.

The new exhibition at JANM features A.I.-assisted avatars of Japanese American survivors of incarceration.

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“We want to tell the story in a way that is more expansive and that other immigrants, communities can see their own story reflected,” said Ann Burroughs, the museum’s president and CEO.

That effort to tie history to the present comes as JANM itself has faced political pressure, with the museum losing federal funding amid Trump administration cuts.

From the outside, visitors returning to the museum, which has been closed since January 2024, will recognize its modern, minimalist exterior. Once they step through the doors, though, the experience will be vastly different.

The biggest change will be the installation of a 9,200-square-foot permanent exhibition occupying nearly all of the museum’s first floor — more than twice the space of the exhibition it replaces.

"Common Ground," which opened in 1999, covered Japanese American history from migration to the U.S. in the 1800s to the passage of a federal law — the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 — that formally apologized for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and provided $20,000 in reparations to surviving detainees.

The new exhibition, called "In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Forging Democracy," will include more recent history, such as Japanese American support for reparations for Black Americans and vocal opposition to the Islamophobia that swelled after 9/11. It will also cover the Japanese American response to ICE detention and incarceration of migrant children, drawing parallels to World War II camps.

Galleries have been reconfigured to include more recent history and more objects from the past, including kimonos owned by women from Japan, who immigrated to the U.S. in larger numbers starting in the turn of the 20th century.

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It will also bring lesser-known perspectives to familiar history through telling the story of incarceration from “women and mothers” and those incarcerated at Tule Lake, the camp in Northern California where Japanese Americans labeled as disloyal by the U.S. government were isolated during World War II.

“JANM hadn’t told that story before,” Burroughs said. “You can’t draw those parallels of what’s happening now if you don’t talk about the camps and if you don’t talk about Tule Lake.”

The new exhibition will also lean more heavily into audiovisual storytelling, using technology and archival media to make the history feel more immediate.

The interactive “StoryFiles” incorporate AI so visitors can pose questions to digital avatars of incarceration survivors like the actor George Takei.

Burroughs stressed that the museum is not using generative AI, but drawing upon hours and hours of interviews in which subjects answered hundreds of questions.

The new exhibition will also draw deeply from JANM’s extensive collection of Japanese American home movies, including footage dating to the 1930s, and give visitors a window into everyday life before World War II.

Some of JANM’s best-known objects will be included in the new exhibition, like barracks from the Heart Mountain incarceration camp in Wyoming and a model of Manzanar in California’s remote Owens Valley, the first of the camps to be built.

The museum is also emphasizing everyday culture, with displays ranging from kimonos brought by Japanese immigrant women at the turn of the 20th century to rice cookers, and the worldwide reach of Hello Kitty.

The Hirasaki National Resource Center has been relocated to the second floor and will showcase work from artists like Ruth Asawa and Isamu Noguchi.

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The larger new exhibition was created without growing the museum's footprint through reconfiguring the building. For example, the museum’s Aratani Central Hall will take on a new role as the museum’s main entrance, with visitors entering through its sweeping curved glass wall and moving directly into the exhibition galleries. But Burroughs said the redesign will not come at the expense of the hall’s longtime function as a community space available to local nonprofits.

Upstairs, visitors will find reconfigured spaces including a new reading room filled with works and furnishings by Ruth Asawa and Isamu Noguchi. Behind the scenes, JANM has upgraded decades-old building systems such as its HVAC and elevators.

The museum overhaul was funded as part of a much larger $135 million fundraising campaign, Burroughs said. The rest of the campaign supports JANM’s operations and long-term financial stability, including about $56 million in endowment and board-designated reserves.

"You know, life is never secure in the nonprofit world or in the museum world," Burroughs said. "We have to do a lot more to build up our endowments. We just will keep going."

Public health officials are urging people to be wary of flea-borne typhus after a recent outbreak of the illness.

The outbreak in late July was centered in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles. The L.A. County Department of Public Health said five people were hospitalized; all recovered.

The outbreak comes as typhus cases continue to tick up in L.A. County.

Cases have been increasing fairly steadily for more than a decade, but they nearly doubled over the last three years. The Public Health Department logged a record 220 cases in 2025, and officials say this year is on track to exceed that.

Public health officials say the increase is likely because human-animal interactions are also increasing. That could be due to human population expansions into areas with more animals, available food sources for wildlife in populated areas or more people owning pets.

The bacteria that causes typhus is transmitted from animals to humans through fleas.

Typhus can’t be passed from one human to another, and public health experts say the illness is completely treatable, especially if it’s caught early.

Outbreaks and how to prevent them

Most of the time, typhus cases are spread out across L.A. County. But sometimes, there’s a localized spread over a short period of time that turns into an outbreak.

Public health officials respond to a few of them in L.A. County each year.

Generally, outbreaks are triggered by high concentrations of host animals.

“Wherever these animals may be present or wherever they may be congregating, in those areas we can see an increase in the number of human infections,” said Dr. Aiman Halai with the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

The most common hosts for typhus are rats, opossums and free-roaming cats. When people or pets come in contact with host animals, they can pick up the infected fleas and bring them into homes, spreading them to other people and animals in the process.

Halai says a variety of factors can attract animals and lead to an outbreak, including overflowing dumpsters, overgrown vegetation or a well-meaning neighbor feeding local critters.

You can help prevent outbreaks by securing trash in bins, making sure food isn’t left outside, and ensuring pets are on up-to-date flea control medication. Cutting back overgrown vegetation and blocking off crawl spaces can eliminate places where animals can shelter in and around homes.

Halai also says it’s important not to feed wildlife.

Should you be worried?

Although public health experts are wary of the typhus uptick in L.A. County, the 220 cases recorded in 2025 in L.A. County are not overly concerning.

"That’s a very  low rate at the population level,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of infectious diseases at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

Typhus is an acute infection caused by bacteria known as Rickettsia typhi. Variations of the bacteria also cause other illnesses transmitted by fleas, ticks, lice and mites, including tick-borne Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Doctors can test for typhus fairly easily, and it is treatable with antibiotics. Symptoms are similar to the flu, and can include fever, headaches, muscle aches and nausea. It can also cause rashes in some cases.

Most infections are mild, but they can cause hospitalization and, in rare cases, can be fatal.

Klausner said the concern is that testing for typhus is not always routine.

“The most important thing is that when patients come in to their doctor — and they have fever, they may have a rash, they may have headache, may have muscle or joint aches — that the doctor's thinking about potentially flea-borne infectious diseases because the treatment can be different,” Klausner said.

The best treatment for typhus is the antibiotic doxycycline. If a patient with typhus gets another type of antibiotic like penicillin or amoxicillin, the treatment may not be as successful.

According to Klausner, when presented with flu-like symptoms, it’s also a good idea for patients to tell their doctors if they’ve been around animals, spent time in an encampment or even just gone on a hike.

Topline:

Why it matters: The small amphibian is found in the grasslands of Southern California and the Central Valley. But habitat loss, urban sprawl and longer droughts have been threatening the species’ population in recent decades.

What the protections do: Now that the Western spadefoot is a candidate for permanent protections, any development project planned for Western spadefoot habitats will have to take the amphibians into account.

Some exceptions may apply: The commission did carve out exceptions for solar projects in the Central Valley. To take advantage of federal tax credit deadlines, some projects can continue to be built, as long as they protect breeding pools and curtail construction during the season when spadefoots are most active.

What conservationists say: Brendan Cummings, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in Southern California the biggest threat to the Western spadefoot is not solar development: “It’s warehouses or data centers and road widenings and all manner of construction activities.”

What happens next: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will conduct a year-long review to determine if the Western spadefoot should be permanently protected.