Students from Los Angeles process wildfires, destruction and rebuilding

By Hugo Gerbich-Pais     1/21/25 10:38pm

Wren Kawamura woke up at approximately 5 a.m on Jan. 8 to a loud, piercing, emergency alert. Her family has lived in La Cañada, Calif., for over a decade. They were in the path of the Eaton fire, one of four wildfires in the Los Angeles area killing over 27 people over the last week, although the official death toll is unknown. 

“I went to the kitchen to grab some [valuables] and the mountain that you can see from my kitchen window was completely on fire,” Kawamura, a Duncan College senior, said.

As they quickly gathered their pets and most important belongings, Kawamura said she was contemplating the unthinkable: losing everything in her home. 

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“I definitely started crying,” said Kawamura. “I thought our house was fucked … How do you react when you think your house is about to disappear in a blink of an eye?” 

Thankfully, the fire did not reach Kawamura’s property. However, many California-based students — including Los Angeles natives — found themselves caught near the Palisades and Eaton wildfires and facing evacuation orders, just days before returning to Houston for the spring semester. 

“I had set alarms for every hour to wake up just to check on what the fire looked like outside my window, or in case another one popped up even closer. The winds were so strong it seemed like smaller fires were popping up everywhere,” Gabi Varga, a Duncan sophomore, said. She, too, eventually received an evacuation notice.

Delaney Miller, a resident of East Pasadena, Calif., first saw the Eaton fire from the freeway.  This wasn’t the first time that Miller had seen a wildfire in person, but this time around, she said the speed of the Santa Ana winds was shocking. 

“We turned a corner and just saw the mountain on fire,” Miller, a Jones College senior, said. “Once we exited the freeway we saw street signs and stop signs bending over, almost parallel to the ground.” 

At 9:55 a.m on Jan. 8, Miller received an evacuation warning. An emergency alert rang out from her phone. Her family readied for a potential evacuation that — thankfully, Miller said — was never executed. 

“We packed all of our bags. I got my high school diploma, pictures and other irreplaceable items and put them in a suitcase too,” Miller said. 

While Miller’s family did not have to evacuate, the high-strength winds caused a neighboring tree to fall on Miller’s home.

“My ceiling was caving in and the tree fell directly above my bed,” Miller said. “I was so lucky that I wasn’t at home because I probably would have been sitting in bed.” 

Lola Foord, a Brown College senior from South Pasadena, Calif.,  also said she experienced the fire up close.

“My parents and I went for a walk on this nature path close to our house, and there was a piece of burning paper that floated down towards us, in this very dry, bushy area. We literally grabbed it out of the air and stomped it out,” Foord said. “It was such a scary moment because we realized that if we hadn’t been there to grab it, it could have started another fire.”

Ashlyn Zhang, a lifelong resident of the Pasadena area, said that growing up in L.A., people were always aware of the possibility of a wildfire. They just never expected to be actually in one. 

As the immediate threat of the wildfires subsides and evacuation orders are lifted, Angelenos have begun to discuss what went wrong and what comes next. Some of these conversations have frustrated Zhang, she said.  

“There’s a narrative going around right now, especially from prominent conservative figures, that have perpetuated the idea that California’s focus on DEI, immigrants and the environment is what inhibited the [Los Angeles Fire Department’s] ability to effectively fight fires,” Zhang, a Hanszen College junior, said. “That’s just ludicrous, in my opinion.” 

Foord said a lot of media attention focused on the Palisades fire, which affected affluent neighborhoods home to the Hollywood wealthy — the average household income in the Pacific Palisades is 2.5 times higher than the national average, Niche reports. Still, these conversations often forget the quieter majority, Foord said. 

“People assume that everyone impacted was very wealthy and has fire insurance,” Foord said. “But there were also lots of motorhomes destroyed in the Palisades that all burned down, that probably didn’t have fire insurance.”

Zhang said an emotional weight was felt across the city, especially as the fires destroyed neighborhoods and the loved ones’ houses — “a collective grief and heaviness,” she said.  

“I was inspired by how quickly our community came together to disseminate resources and information,” Zhang said. “When I had to leave town to come back to school, that was really conflicting for me. I wanted to stay and help my community on the ground.”

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