When you tell people you’re from California, you usually get the same responses: “Oh, you must love the beach!” or “Do you know any celebrities?” But this week, every time someone in Cork, Ireland, asks me where I’m from, the reaction has been different.
“California? Like, where the fires are?”
It’s been a surreal start to my study abroad experience. I’m over 5,000 miles away from Los Angeles, but the wildfires back home are impossible to escape. The news is everywhere—videos of glowing orange skies over the Palisades, heartbreaking clips of families evacuating Malibu, Santa Monica, and nearby areas, and updates about containment efforts. It feels like the fires have followed me here, in conversations, on social media, and in my thoughts.
Back home, my friends are living through it. They’re texting me updates: most of them are evacuating, a few still in LA trying to stay inside to avoid the smoke, one worried her house won’t make it. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in Ireland, watching the rain pour and scrolling through TikToks of people from home losing everything—their houses, businesses, memories.
I feel guilty.
I’m safe here, worlds away from the danger. But guilt creeps in when I think about the people at home who don’t have that luxury. They’re worried about the homes they might never return to, their family photos that may not survive the night, and the next alert that might tell them to get out.
Even though I’m across the world, I feel tethered to the chaos back home. Every text that starts with, “Are you okay?” reminds me how wildfires have become California’s new identity. People checking in assume I’m still there, and because I’m not, I feel this helpless disconnect, like I’m watching my world burn from behind a glass wall.
I miss California, but this isn’t the way I wanted to feel connected to it. It’s not the “home is where the heart is” nostalgia you imagine when you’re abroad. It’s a deep ache, watching places you love suffer while you’re powerless to do anything.
It also makes you realize what “home” really means. It’s not just the place; it’s the people. It’s my friends, updating me in real-time about cancelled classes and evacuation zones. It’s my classmate, sending me pictures of smoky skies while they try to stay safe indoors. It’s my sister, who is in Fire Academy so she can help protect us from these very events. And it’s the strangers I’ll never meet, who are rallying together to help each other get through this.
Wildfires aren’t just some dramatic headlines to me, they’re deeply personal. They’re where I spent my time hiking, the small businesses I’ve loved going to, the neighborhoods I drove through on weekends. Watching all of it burn from so far away is a constant reminder that home isn’t indestructible.
The Palisades Fire and countless flames raging right now are not just stories on the news. They’re a reminder of how fragile everything can be, and how the people we love are what keep us grounded, even when we’re oceans away.
I don’t have a tidy way to wrap this up. I’m still processing what it means to watch home from afar, to feel both so far removed and so deeply connected at the same time. But I do know this: being far away doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring. If anything, it’s made me care even more.
So, I’ll keep answering those questions about California, about the fires, about whether everyone I love is okay. And I’ll keep scrolling through news updates and TikToks, sending love from across the world, and holding onto hope that when I come home, home will still be there.