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It Could Take Weeks Before Displaced L.A. Residents Can Go Home
The tens of thousands of people displaced by the devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area are increasingly anxious to know when they can return home — or to what remains of their properties.
Officials say crews are working to reopen closed areas, snuffing out hot spots and clearing hazardous debris, but no timeline has been announced for lifting the evacuation orders.
Experts have warned that it could take weeks before people can return to the hardest-hit neighborhoods because of the amount of work needed to ensure the safety of residents.
Firefighters are still trying to contain the Palisades and Eaton fires, the biggest ones in the Los Angeles region, a prerequisite to allowing people to return. Both remained largely out of control on Wednesday evening, though their growth had slowed.
Captain Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department said the timeline for people returning to their neighborhoods can vary. It depends on the extent of the damage, which needs to be mapped and carefully assessed in every impacted community, he added. There is also the threat of hazardous materials, such as asbestos and chemicals.
“We want people to have realistic expectations,” Mr. Scott said.
It took weeks in the aftermath of some previous destructive blazes for people to return. In 2018, the Camp fire destroyed most of Paradise in Northern California and killed 85 people. The final evacuation orders in that town were lifted more than a month after the fire started.
Similarly, after a devastating fire in Lahaina on the island of Maui killed more than 100 people in 2023, it was nearly two months before the first of the thousands of displaced residents could return to their properties.
The suppression of the fire is only one step in the process, according to fire officials. There are yet more safety and infrastructure issues to tackle. Workers need to clear and replace downed power lines, stabilize partially collapsed buildings and remove toxic ash from the ground.
“That’s why the orders are still in place,” said David Acuna, a battalion chief with Cal Fire. “It’s not just about the fire. There are all these other elements to address.”
The grim search for human remains has further complicated efforts to clear neighborhoods. Officials are using cadaver dogs to comb through the thousands of structures damaged or destroyed in the fires to locate remains.
“We have people literally looking for the remains of your neighbors,” Sheriff Robert Luna of Los Angeles County said at a news conference on Monday. “Please be patient with us.”
Even for those whose homes survive, the lifting of evacuation orders does not necessarily mean they can return to live in them right away, warned Michael Wara, a climate policy expert at Stanford University.
“There’s going to be smoke damage,” he said. “There’s going to be the fact that you don’t have utilities.”
In Pacific Palisades, the recovery process was underway in its incinerated downtown. The air buzzed with the sound of jackhammers, bulldozers and tree shredders. Workers cleared debris, pulled down charred utility poles and ground up the skeletal limbs of burned eucalyptus trees.
Ali Sharifi managed to inspect his lower Palisades home on Tuesday. Aside from a burned backyard fence, it was intact. Yet the destruction around it, including charred schools, churches and grocery stores, gave him second thoughts about returning.
“Who wants to live in a ghost town?” Mr. Sharifi said.
Erica Fischer, an associate professor at Oregon State University who studied the aftermath of the Camp fire, said that a fast recovery is not always a good one, especially if it means rebuilding in ways that contributed to the disaster.
Of the ongoing evacuation orders in California, she said, “I know it’s not convenient, and it’s disruptive, but it keeps people out of harm’s way.”
U.S. President Donald Trump pumps his fist after touring the inside of the newest aircraft in the presidential fleet at Andrews Air Force Base on June 19, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
Alex Wong
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Alex Wong
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The newest Air Force One jet, gifted to President Trump from the Qatari government, arrived ahead of schedule on Friday to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
On Friday afternoon, Trump toured the luxury Boeing 747 plane that initially stirred controversy. The plane was one of the biggest foreign gifts ever received by the U.S. government and raised legal and ethical questions after Qatar offered to replace the presidential jet last year. Trump said last May he’d be “stupid” not to accept the offer. Industry groups originally said the plane could be worth approximately $400 million.
Trump also spoke standing in front of the plane, thanking the Emir of Qatar.
The president praised the workmanship of the plane, describing it as the “world’s most luxurious plane.” He also called it the “largest Air Force One ever built,” adding “it flies further and faster than any Air Force One.”
“This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody’s ever seen before, probably even almost outside of an airplane,” Trump said. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this, and in only 10 months, a timeframe no one thought possible.”
The exterior of the jet is no longer light blue, silver, and white – a fixture since the Kennedy administration. Trump unveiled the new red, white and blue color scheme.
“It was time for a change. … Everything was designed good. It was my taste,” Trump said saying that he approved the new color scheme, which reflects the American flag.
The VC-25B Bridge aircraft will now undertake its commissioning flights, what the Air Force calls a “final exam” for the plane. The plane was modified after serving the Qatari Head of State.
“Once these flights are successfully completed, the aircraft is officially ‘commissioned’ into the active executive airlift fleet and becomes available for presidential missions,” an Air Force press release said.
The aircraft from Qatar will “serve as a bridge until the [long-term] VC-25B is delivered,” according to earlier communications from the Air Force. The plane was delivered well before expectations. The Air Force originally estimated the plane would be delivered in 2028 but said by modifying requirements it could deliver the first aircraft in 2027. The modifications “were carefully crafted to prioritize mission over aesthetics, leaving much of the previous head of state interior layout minimally changed,” the Air Force said.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach praised the delivery.
“Many thought it could not be done, but the United States Air Force was able to execute and provide a secure, reliable airborne command post on an accelerated timeline,” he said.
Algae turns the newly repainted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool green on the National Mall on Tuesday in Washington, DC.
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is once again making headlines, this week for turning green.
The Washington, D.C. landmark was refilled with water earlier this month after President Trump had its neutral grey bottom repainted “American flag blue.” The multi-million dollar project produced subtle results in the eyes of many observers, even as Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum — whose agency managed the renovation — touted its success.
In recent days, however, the pool has taken on a verdant hue — the result of algae blooms that experts say are to be expected in these conditions.
“It’s called ‘New Pond Syndrome,’” says Steve Goodale, a Canadian swimming pool specialist known online as “Swimming Pool Steve.” “It’s a known thing that happens when you take a natural, clear body of water like this that sits in an open air environment and you try to start it up, very often you end up with green water almost immediately.”
Goodale says the process took longer — a matter of days — to unfold in this case likely due to the sheer size of the pool, which measures 2,030 feet long and has a surface area of approximately 338,000 square feet.
“Excellent conditions” for algae growth
Rosalina Stancheva Christova, a professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University in Virginia, took water samples from the pool on Tuesday. She confirmed the algae belongs to the genus Desmodesmus, which she said is “growing in excessive amounts” but is not toxic or harmful.
Christova says this kind of common green algae is found all over the region, especially this time of year. The reflecting pool in particular provides “excellent conditions” for algae growth, she said: shallow, stagnant water, strong sunlight and no shade.
“It could happen every single summer,” she added. “But it seems that the disturbance of the pond during the renovations [is] accelerating this process.”
Christova said last month’s renovations may have affected the balance of nutrients in the pool, potentially accelerating the algae blooms. Goodale similarly views the resurfacing as one of several contributing factors.
“The new, darker interior surface is going to absorb more sunlight,” Goodale says. “It is going to result in water that’s warmer, and that ultimately is going to lead to more prolific algae growth.”
A microscopic slide shows the Desmodesmus algae that quickly turned the Reflecting Pool’s water green. The new dark blue paint of the pool’s lining makes the water warmer and friendlier to the algae growth.
Rosalina Stancheva Christova, PhD.
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Rosalina Stancheva Christova, PhD.
The Trump administration has said the algae came from residual material in supply lines that had lain dormant for weeks. Their growth was likely exacerbated by the extreme temperatures that hit D.C. last week, bringing heat index values to 95 degrees and above.
Algae has resurfaced in the reflecting pool periodically over the years — including immediately after it reopened from its last major renovation in 2012, forcing the National Park Service to drain it, refill it and recalibrate its ozone level. And in 2019, crews had to drain four million gallons from the pool to fix a broken water line that had algae growing in it.
An Interior Department spokesperson told NPR over email that algae and other contaminants have “long plagued the Reflecting Pool since 1922,” pointing to the Obama-era renovation as an example.
“Unlike under Obama and Biden, the National Park Service is actually maintaining the beautifully completed Reflecting Pool,” they added.
Responding with tiny bubbles and big vacuums
Workers battle the fast-growing common algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Thursday.
Rachel Treisman/NPR
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Rachel Treisman/NPR
The Trump administration is using a mix of mitigation strategies, including pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to kill the algae.
The Interior Department says hydrogen peroxide is a “milder treatment than chlorine and is used in spas and specialty pools like natural swimming pools,” adding “there are no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment.”
Workers are also deploying what the department calls “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to neutralize algae and other pathogens in the pool. The department says that approach is validated by several universities and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.
Those ozone bubbles are so tiny the human eye can’t even see them, Goodale says.
“The best way to describe it is that the bubbles are neutrally buoyant, so they won’t just rise to the surface and disappear readily,” he explains. “They can last for weeks, if not months in the water, doing their oxidizing thing and keeping the algae at bay.”
‘A monumental effort’
Goodale says it’s more complicated than treating the average backyard swimming pool, since the reflecting pool — despite its name — is actually more akin to a “manmade shallow lake.” He says it’s hard to predict just how long it will take to completely solve the algae problem, calling it “a monumental effort, literally.”
The Interior Department posted on X Wednesday that the nanobubble technology had “very effectively killed the algae,” and National Park Service crews would spend several days vacuuming up the dead algae from the bottom of the pool.
But as of Thursday morning, much of the pool — especially in the center — was still bright green.
Work continued on both ends of the pool. Nanobubble machines deposited their tubes into the water, as mobile vacuuming systems known as “trash pumps” hummed loudly from the shore. Handfuls of workers stood either in the pool or on the edge maneuvering long-handled vacuums back and forth. Their contents, including pistachio-colored water, poured out of hoses laying in the nearby grass.
The work zones were marked off by orange cones, but passersby walking the length of the pool appeared relatively unfazed. Some stopped to peer down and snap pictures of the water itself — including sections of paint that had visibly peeled off — while others were more focused on getting a photo of the Washington Monument in the background.
Loay Hidmi was walking deliberately along the edge of the pool closest to the Lincoln Memorial, hands clasped behind his back, looking over the ledge. The relatively new D.C. resident is a civil engineer who specializes in water treatment, and has been coming by the pool all week to see the progress for himself. He estimates it’s about 80% of the way there.
“I’m taking pictures of it … for the last week and I can see the gradual change,” he said. “So I’m hopeful. But we’ll have to see if it gets sustained.”
What happens next?
Hidmi worries that the algae could come back, given the favorable conditions posed by the sunny, shallow pool.
He acknowledges that’s mostly an aesthetic concern, given how much the administration has just spent on repainting the pool, but says it also raises questions about their process.
“In water systems, when you fix something, you need to look at the step before it and the step after,” he said.
Goodale agrees. He says that when a water system is taken offline, the pipes still remain full of water — “they don’t just gravity-drain away” — and need to be flushed out before any refilling. And he says eliminating algae is no substitute for dealing with underlying filtration issues.
“That’s like the equivalent of mowing the lawn when perhaps it needs to be something else that addresses the source nitrates and phosphorus, so that it’s more like pulling the weeds out by the root,” he says.
The algae doesn’t bother the ducklings swimming in the Reflecting Pool. Experts say the hydrogen peroxide used to get rid of the algae is safe for them, too.
Rachel Treisman/NPR
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Rachel Treisman/NPR
In the meantime, Christova, the algae expert, would like to see the water monitored weekly.
“If we don’t have any control over algal growth, we don’t know what is growing,” she said, adding that not all types of algae are as harmless as the one currently blooming in the pool.
When asked about plans for maintenance and algae prevention, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told NPR: “Thanks to President Trump, new lining and industrial grade materials will permanently seal the Reflecting Pool, which previously leaked 16 million gallons per year and wasted countless taxpayer dollars.”
Even after the Obama-era renovation, the reflecting pool suffered from broken pipes and water leaks requiring costly refills, according to a Department of the Interior report from fiscal year 2023. It called for new expansion joints, supply and return lines with thicker walls, saying “an improved distribution system will ensure the water can be circulated through the treatment plant, filtered, and treated with ozone.”
This latest renovation does not appear to have addressed the pipe problems, even though it did involve replacing failing expansion joints, resealing the pool, removing truckloads of garbage and “fixing the water system, drainage and so much more,” as Trump wrote on Truth Social in May.
Along the way, the cost of the project grew from Trump’s initial $2 million price tag to at least $14 million. Federal contract records show the government is paying $1.7 million to an Ohio-based company for the nanobubble technology alone.
“The scope of the Project has been greatly enlarged as we became involved because we realized how important it would be to Washington, D.C., and the record number of visitors coming to our now very safe Capital for all of the upcoming events in celebration of our 250th Anniversary,” Trump wrote.
The National Mall is hosting a number of semiquincentennial events on and around July 4, including a weekslong state fair that kicks off Wednesday evening.
Three San Francisco couples set out Monday for their annual road trip to Ashland, Ore., for the town’s famous Shakespeare festival. They drove separately and planned to meet at 6:30 p.m. on the terrace of their favorite Japanese restaurant there.
They had booked a table for six, but only four showed up for dinner.
Judith and Wylie Sheldon were found dead in their running car on the side of the road to Oregon, shocking their friends and family and leaving a hole in San Francisco’s arts and film world.
Ms. Sheldon, 84, was the daughter of William Wyler — who won three Oscars for best director — and chaired the board of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Mr. Sheldon, 86, was a prominent lawyer.
David Smith, who had befriended the couple more than 40 years ago, said in an interview that he and the others at the dinner table had grown nervous as time ticked on and their friends did not answer repeated calls to their cellphones. They learned they had not checked into their hotel either.
The friends eventually learned from one of the couple’s sons that the California Highway Patrol had found the couple at 5:46 p.m., both dead inside their running Jeep Compass. It was parked on the side of Interstate 5, north of Redding, Calif., more than 100 miles from their destination, the authorities said. Ms. Sheldon was driving, while Mr. Sheldon was in the passenger seat, according to the authorities.
The Redding area on Monday was under an extreme heat warning issued by the National Weather Service. Temperatures reached 109 degrees, according to the Weather Service.
Mr. Smith said he learned from the son that the couple had been found without any water or other liquids in the car. The fan was on high, but the air conditioning was not working, meaning they might have been blasted with hot air, Mr. Smith said. The windows were rolled down. The car had plenty of gas, and there were no signs of mechanical failure or foul play, Mr. Smith said the son told him.
“They didn’t crash. They stopped. They both just died there,” Mr. Smith said. “The entire thing is so bizarre. We’re still in a state of shock.”
The circumstances and cause of the couple’s death is under investigation but “appears to be medically related,” the Highway Patrol said in a statement.
Whether the heat contributed to the couple’s death “may be determined” by an autopsy, a spokesman for the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office said, adding that one had not been scheduled yet and could take several weeks to complete.
“We’ll just have to see,” the spokesman, Tim Mapes, said.
The Sheldons met at Stanford University and had two sons. They lived in a large home in San Francisco’s upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood that had views of the bay from the front and a garden out back.
They hosted many parties there on behalf of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and sometimes let revelers pose for photos with Mr. Wyler’s Oscar statuettes. Ms. Sheldon fell in love with silent movies after first seeing those created by her father — before his better known blockbusters like “Ben-Hur” and “Roman Holiday” — only about 30 years ago, said Anita Monga, artistic director of the festival.
Stacey Wisnia, the festival’s executive director, said the couple was generous, delightful and unassuming.
Back in Ashland, Ore., Mr. Smith said the four remaining friends had distracted themselves from their grief by attending plays, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Come From Away.” They were able to give away their friends’ tickets.
Ms. Monga had last seen Ms. Sheldon just last month at the film festival, which was held at the newly remade Castro Theater.
“This is such a shock,” Ms. Monga said of the deaths. “Also because it’s still a mystery.”
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