My First California Wildfire

The East Coast and the West Coast can seem like totally different worlds, despite the fact that they’re in the same country. I grew up with tornado drills and snow days, hurricanes and blizzards. I’ve never felt an earthquake or worried about a tsunami, and the last thing I expected when coming back to school for winter quarter was to evacuate two days later. 

The first exposure I had to the Palisades Fire came during my three hour poetry seminar. 

“Have you seen the fire?” my dad texted me. 

“I haven’t seen the outside for four hours,” I joked back. 

It was Tuesday, the fires were merely hours old, and even my friends with wildfire experience didn’t seem to think much of them. 

That night, as the winds blew uncharacteristically fiercely, my roommate and I went to Target. Westwood was popping amidst the Michigan vs. UCLA basketball game traffic, but as we grocery shopped, people seemed to be preparing for a disaster. As someone who has experienced the pre-natural disaster shopping binge that precedes a hurricane, the familiarity of the scene was a little off-putting. My close friend from Santa Barbara was already evacuating back home, and my roommate’s mom told us to fill up on gas just in case. For some reason, though, it still didn’t feel real. 

On Wednesday, it truly felt like an apocalypse was coming. The only topic of conversation was the fire, and as I walked the quad in front of Royce, crowds of students and civilians alike took turns taking photos of the smoke rising above campus. As soon as the school announced that classes were cancelled for the rest of the week, my sorority house erupted into a form of panic that I had never seen before. Within 30 minutes, we were all gone, headed to San Diego, Orange County, or north to Santa Barbara. My friend was kind enough to let me crash for the weekend at her home in San Clemente, and as life carried on normally there, it was strange to think of the ghost town of Westwood we had just left. 

Evacuation is hard when you live across the country. Although I am lucky enough to have amazing friends with amazing families who offered to house me while it’s unsafe in LA, I can’t help but think about the international students or students who just don’t have connections who are essentially trapped in Westwood. Or, those who no longer have a home to evacuate to. 

My dad grew up in the Palisades for a short time, and every 30 minutes as the fire was burning, he updated us about what was lost. Although I haven’t lived in LA very long, I still have countless memories in the Palisades, and knowing that those places and the places my dad grew up in are gone forever is heart-numbing. At the same time, I am filled with an overwhelming feeling of guilt, because although I enjoyed those places, my life isn’t altered forever. I didn’t lose my childhood house, my current house, or my high school. All of my belongings haven’t been lost. I am alternating between the feeling of loss and the guilt of mourning a city that was never mine. This paradox is one I have never felt before, but I think it will become a common phenomena for a bi-coastal resident like myself. 

As with all experiences in college, my first wildfire has taught me a lot about myself and the world around me. When I am able to return to campus, I’ll definitely take these lessons with me, and my newfound strengthened sense of empathy, to volunteer my time to those who lost everything. Because maybe next time, the tragedy will hit closer to home.

• evacuation
• fire
• los angeles
• natural disaster
• out of states
• palisades
• wildfires