When Sasha Boyd, 2024 alum and freshman at UCLA, traveled back to her dormitory after winter break, the last thing she expected was to be packing up and moving out again just days later. However, with the Pacific Palisades wildfires creeping dangerously near her campus, bringing a downfall in the surrounding air quality with them, students were forced to abandon their routines and adapt to an unpredictable start to the semester.

Wildfires affecting the Los Angeles metropolitan area began Jan. 7 and have continued to spread within the city and surrounding communities. Boyd said when UCLA’s administration announced classes would be canceled for the remainder of the week, students immediately began evacuating the campus.

“It felt like move out day,” Boyd said. “Traffic was horrible. Everybody was frantically packing their bags and leaving the buildings. It was crazy.”

Boyd said she is fortunate enough to stay with a friend during these uncertain times and has a safe place to participate in online classes until further notice. However, she also said other friends of hers are having a more difficult time adapting to the tragedy.

“I have two friends in particular who’ve lost their homes, one of them in Pacific Palisades and the other one in Malibu,” Boyd said. “It’s sad to see your friends, people that live on your floor [and] people that you know and see out all the time, and know they’re homeless now. [It’s] really scary.”

Darrin Dortch, 2002 graduate, LA resident and writer and director in the entertainment industry, said during his 17 years of living in the city, he has been mostly worried about earthquakes. He said he was never really concerned about the possibility of wildfires, and the devastation they could bring, until recently.

“A lot of people really didn’t think it would get this bad, so they had to leave at the very last minute,” Dortch said. “I have a buddy [who] had to leave his apartment building at 5:30 a.m. last week. It was so sudden, and he left everything, and then the whole building just burned [down].”

Dortch said although it is important for celebrities who are being affected by the wildfires to be covered in the news, he also wishes that other, less-wealthy individuals were being represented as well. He said there are a lot of tragic consequences of the wildfires that are not being brought to light due to this lack of reporting, which restricts the amount of support outsiders are able to provide.

“There are people whose insurance [has] now dropped them and that’s just been devastating and just so, so awful,” Dortch said. “I have heard that a lot of people still need clothes because [they] lost everything and they don’t have money; they can’t really do laundry right now and they don’t have a lot to go out and buy things. I do wish that the news would help out other people that just lost everything [who] aren’t rich.”

Heather Von Guten, lives in Oxnard, a city west of LA, and said the biggest issue her family had to face as of late is power outages. She said that when the power is shut off it interferes with school and activities.

“[One] night, [the power] just went off for an hour and they don’t tell you when [that’s] going to happen,” Von Guten said. “My kids have been back in school for probably 10 days and I would say six out of the 10 days they’ve lost power for a couple hours.”

Von Guten said being from Missouri has brought her a lot of support from the Midwest. She said she’s appreciative of the kind messages she has received from people making sure that she and her family are okay.

“I think it’s important to know that California is a huge state and there are wildfires all over the place, many times throughout the year, and because this one is in Los Angeles, it’s going to be very highlighted because it has such a condensed area population,” Von Guten said. “But be aware that just like [Missourians] deal with tornadoes and huge storms, this is our big natural disaster that we deal with. It’s very different, but equally as scary.”

Boyd said the best thing individuals not experiencing the fires themselves can do is to continue supporting victims in any way they can, whether it be through checking in on friends and family via text or donating supplies or funds.

“[You] can message me on Instagram because I have sorority sisters who’ve lost their homes,” Boyd said. “If [you] want to support something a little bit closer to home [rather than a] major foundation, I can send some of the GoFundMe links of the girls in my sorority, girls in other sororities and other people I know.”

This story was originally published on The Kirkwood Call on February 26, 2025.