In early January, as the Eaton Fire approached their neighborhood in Altadena, California, Ronald Dunlap and his wife made a last-minute decision to evacuate. We got a warning to be ready to leave, [but] we never got the warning to leave, says Dunlap, a 78-year-old artist. All of the sudden, the power went out and we looked out the window and the fire was pretty close.Hours later, the neighborhood was gone. Theres nothing, he says. Its just like somebody walked through with a blowtorch and just took everything out.For more than three decades, he and his wife had lived in a small, charming house originally built in 1912 as a maids quarters for a larger adjacent house. We bought that house after saving for years, he says. At the time, it cost $165,000. Just before it burned down, it was worth around 10 times that much.The couples home insurance can cover only around half the money needed to rebuild, Dunlap says. (And at nearly 80 years old, he doesnt want to spend the years it might take to go through the typical process of building a house in the area.) At the same time, he and his wife cant easily move elsewhere in L.A. County since the cost of a modest home is now stratospherically higher than what theyd originally paid. Several of their elderly neighbors face the same challenges, he says.But now Dunlap is hoping they may be chosen as part of a new project. A new nonprofit, founded in the wake of the fires, plans to donate small prefab houses to lower-income fire victims who cant afford to rebuild either because they were underinsured or dont have insurance at all.[Photo: Samara]Steadfast LA, the nonprofit, plans to initially donate between 80 and 100 of the houses, most of which will be 950 square feet each. Joe Gebbia, one of the cofounders of Airbnb, is donating $15 million to the effort, which Steadfast LA plans to match with other donations. Gebbias other company, the prefab home manufacturer Samara, is building the homes at cost, with no profit. Steadfast LA also hopes to partner with other modular-home companies.Building homes in a factory can help with one of the biggest challenges the region faces: With some 16,000 structures destroyed, the construction industry isnt set up for that kind of capacity, says Mike McNamara, cofounder and CEO of Samara. And obviously people want to get their homes as quickly as possible.[Photo: Samara]Also, the Trump administrations immigration policies could shrink the pool of available construction workers, adding to shortages that existed even before the fires. By building offsite, the company can avoid putting more strain on the labor market. It also can use a different supply chain. The homes are built primarily with metal instead of wood and dont have the same competition for materials.When you think about the overall construction costs, its tiny compared to building a giant home on-site, McNamara says. The whole idea that we could just do all this work off-site is pretty interesting from a supply chain standpoint.[Photo: Samara]The startup has a 150,000-square-foot factory in Mexico where it builds its homes on an assembly line. (Although the Trump administration may put tariffs in place for Mexican goods, McNamara says that it shouldnt affect the company because it can use American building materials.) Automated equipment turns steel into 2-by-6 studs that are framed. Along other parts of the assembly line, the company builds roofs, walls, floors, and other components. As the structure is assembled, wiring, plumbing, and insulation are added. When the homes are shipped to a site, they essentially just need to be placed on a foundation and connected to utilities. The company also builds decks that are customized to the slope of the land on each property. The houses are designed for durability and should last 100 years, McNamara says.Normally, Samaras homes are used as accessory dwelling units (ADUs). The smallest is a 420-square-foot studio. But its largest two-bedroom model is 950 square feet, similar in size to many of the homes that were lost in Altadena. The Dunlaps house was around 1,300 square feet. Around 600 of the houses that burned in the area were less than 1,000 square feet. In Pacific Palisades, some of the homes that were lost were mobile homes.[Photo: Samara]Steadfast LA will be screening homeowners to make sure they meet certain criteria, including being under certain income limits. But some other homeowners might choose to buy the houses directly, particularly if thats all that their insurance money can cover. (A 950-square-foot two-bedroom unit starts at $261,000 plus an installation fee.) Some fire victims who have reached out to the company say they also want to take the opportunity to downsize. People [are saying] Hey, Im older, my kids are gone, McNamara says. We just talked to a gentleman last week who was like, My house is 2,800 square feetI dont even want a 2,800-square-foot house.'[Photo: Samara]Because Samara is based in California, the houses have been designed for fire resistance. The roof and siding are made from metal. The doors and windows have dual-pane glass with aluminum frames. The homes dont have attics with eaves, where embers often enter in a fire. The air-purification systems are specifically designed to handle wildfire smoke if theres a fire nearby.Before houses can be built on lots that burned in the fire, federal and state workers need to clear out rubble and contaminated soil, and then properties will need to be greenlit for construction. Utilities on each street may need to be repaired. Its not clear how long it will take before new construction can begin on each site, though the first stage of cleanupremoving household hazardous wastewas completed this week.Once the permits are in place, Samara can move quickly. Building a home in the factory takes around six weeks, and multiple houses can move through the assembly line at once. Imagine every two days or three days, a unit pops off the back of the line, McNamara says.Its only a partial solution; even if the homes can be built quickly, residents will likely have to move back onto desolate blocks with empty lots where construction hasnt yet begun. Meanwhile, multiple groups, including Steadfast LA, are pushing to find ways to help accelerate development overall. All of this is happening in the context of L.A.s massive housing shortage. We have to continue to address this broader housing shortage at the same time as we try to rebuild, says Shane Phillips, the housing initiative project manager for UCLAs Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. That includes doing more to encourage people to rebuild multifamily housing, or housing with ADUs, he argues, rather than just replacing single-family homes.Steadfast LAs founder, Rick Caruso, is a billionaire developer known for building malls. He also previously ran for mayor of L.A. and lost, and has criticized the current mayor for her handling of the wildfiresthough the extreme weather conditions and the limitations of urban water infrastructure likely made stopping the fires impossible. (Altadena, it should also be noted, is separate from the City of L.A.) The new nonprofit is running parallel to a separate rebuilding program run by the city, as well as another run by the state. Caruso is widely expected to run for office again; if he does, hes likely to make the fires and rebuilding part of his campaign. Theres no question that theres a political motivation behind Carusos effort here, Phillips says. But that doesnt mean [its] not a positive thing.