As Hannah Hernandez boarded her plane back to Rhode Island in January, and flew away from a charred Los Angeles County, she described the feeling in one word: guilt.
“There’s some girls that I know that have to stay back, because literally everything is gone, they won’t ever get to go back home [to their LA houses],” Hernandez said.
The Palisades and Eaton fires in LA County have burned over 37,700 acres and 17,000 structures since Jan. 7, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Hernandez, a third-year from Whittier, 20 miles south of the Eaton fire, was one of the lucky families whose home remained untouched by the blaze. Some of Hernandez’s friends, also college students, were not so lucky.
“I feel as though as college students, when you go to school away from home, we already get homesick,” Hernandez said. “And now, what are you going to go back to?”
While the fires didn’t make it to Hernandez’s neighborhood, they still hit close to home. Hernandez’s brother, a firefighter in Clark County, Nevada, was dispatched to help fight his first wildfire.
“He tried his best to help and obviously we were praying for him, making sure that he was still doing okay,” Hernandez said. “We also were very blessed that he was able to help out as much as he could and come from Nevada to California.”
Hernandez was one of the over 7,000 out-of-state students returning to the University of Rhode Island this January, and she wasn’t the only one leaving behind family and friends in California.
Maren Carrere, a second-year criminal justice and psychology major, watched the Palisades fire start on Jan. 7 from her home in Mandeville Canyon, right on the edge of the burn. Her family evacuated to a friend’s house in Santa Monica later that day.
“I [have] had to evacuate before, but this time we didn’t know if I was going to have to because it was just in the Palisades,” Carrere said. “But then it just kept getting bigger and bigger until we were forced to evacuate.”
Carrere returned to her home 12 days later to find her backyard burnt, but her house untouched by the flames. With a flight booked back to school the following day, Carrere spent her remaining hours at home picking up clothes for her friends whose homes hadn’t made it.
“I was just trying to help [in] literally any way I could, but there’s no real way to help in these situations,” Carrere said. “It’s just so difficult.”
While excited to be back at school, Carrere described continued feelings of anxiety over the fires.
“It’s been difficult,” Carrere said. “I already packed a bunch of stuff in my car, just in case something happens again – stuff that I want there, and stuff is still packed in my room from when I evacuated.”
Carrere, who plans to return home over spring break, said that, while she is excited to see her house and neighborhood, it comes with complicated emotions.
“I know I’m going to want to go to the Palisades and see what has happened,” Carrere said. “That is where I grew up, basically, that’s my little town. That’s where I went to high school. That’s where all my friends lived, so it’s gonna be really weird to see it completely destroyed.”
Over 7,800 buildings in the Palisades were damaged or destroyed, according to the CDFFP. The United States Environmental Protection Agency began their clean up of 30% of those structures on Feb. 3, according to an EPA press release.
Katie Knarr, a first-year criminal justice major from Long Beach, 35 miles southeast of the Palisades fire, expressed her appreciation for the California community and how she is excited to see it come together to help rebuild.
“There’s so many different cultures and personalities and so many diverse people in LA, that it was really cool to see everyone kind of come together and help the people who are really affected by it,” Knarr said.
Even back in her dorm room, away from the smoke and flames, Carrere still feels the stress of evacuation.
“I have found myself being really nervous about a fire happening in the dorms or anywhere else,” Carrere said. “Having to go through that again or me losing everything because it just becomes so much more of a real possibility when you see it happen to everyone, you know?”
Carrere keeps a memory box at home, which she said her parents are ready to grab incase of another fire.
“I think wildfires affecting where you live really puts it into perspective,” Carrere said. “What’s important, what you should be grabbing, what you didn’t grab. I’m just happy that everyone I know is safe.”
