Southern California: A Deep Dive into the January Wildfires

By Violet Monda '27

In January of 2025, a series of wildfires erupted throughout Southern California. Over 55 wildfires affected people's lives in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, San Diego County, and the Palisades area. These fires separated into the larger groups called the Palisades, Eaton Canyon, Kenneth, Hughes, Hurst, Border 2, Gap, and Green Fires. Over 48,268 acres of inhabited land across Southern California were burned. While this burn area is not unprecedented, it occurred in an urban area, creating a catastrophic event. The LA area alone lost 440 people, forcing more than 200,000 people to evacuate. They destroyed 18,000 homes and structures, including post offices, grocery stores, and schools. 

Map of the Hurst, Eaton, and Palisades Fire

Many people were affected by these fires, including multiple families at Cate. Fiona Pan ‘27and her family were evacuated from Malibu, as well as several other Cate families. Fiona spoke a lot about her and her mother's experience of being close to the fires. She described how stressful it was being away from her family during this traumatic experience, and always being worried about what would happen in the future. She recalled, “checking the fire tracking app [put in place by the National Guard] every second, without being able to go home and see what was going on.” 

Map of Eaton Canyon Fires 

Many people in the Cate community experienced these same deep feelings and fears, including Patrick Wykoff ‘27 and me. While the fires did not hit Patrick’s direct family, his grandmother was forced to move from her home in the heart of the fire and evacuate to her sister's house. While her house was saved from most fire damage, it was incredibly close. As Patrick described, “all the greenery in her neighborhood was burnt, some of the windows on her house melted, and there were a couple of houses that were fully destroyed.”  

While the fires have been completely put out and people have begun moving back into their homes, the lives of people in these communities have not been the same. The fire similarly affected my family, with us having to evacuate from our home for over four months, and the larger city of Altadena is in shambles. About 60% of my hometown’s structures burned down — most family homes and basic services like our post office, grocery store, and five schools. While we were fortunate enough to avoid fire damage, we were evacuated, and many other residences were evacuated for extended periods due to smoke damage. These lasting effects have drastically affected small businesses and businesses trying to stay alive in the community. It has been a complicated process for companies that didn't burn, as they sustained much damage. Many could never reopen because they could not pay for smoke remediation. Some held GoFundMe campaigns to try to raise money to reopen. For example, a nearby ice cream shop faced difficulties reopening, as my mother described,  "The local ice cream parlor needed to raise money to reopen because, with electricity out for three weeks, their walk-in freezers warmed up and all the ice cream melted, destroying the floors, walls, and causing mold.” Those businesses that are still up and running do not have enough customers and funding due to the lack of people in the area. 

These tragic fires are similar to the Thomas fires and the flooding in 2017. These fires tore through Santa Barbara and Ventura County, causing Cate and Thacher to evacuate. Over 1,063 structures were destroyed, including many homes and primarily agricultural land. This damage deeply affected the economy of these two counties, with the fires burning thousands of acres of avocado, lemon, orange, and walnut crops. 

There is a ton of fallout from both of these tragic events. Santa Barbara and Ventura are still recovering from this event that occurred eight years ago, and the whole of LA will have to go through this same process. It will take many years to fix and rebuild, or try to at least. It is an insane destruction of generational wealth. During these trying times, the best thing to do for these communities is to support them. Go out and support these small businesses and families living in these areas. Together, these communities can be slowly rebuilt.