Courtesy of Rose Trisolini
On Jan. 7, the first and the largest of several fires that would spread rapidly across the LA area over the coming weeks erupted near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Hours later, the Eaton Fire ignited, and in the days following, additional fires broke out across the region — including the Lidia, Archer, Woodley, Sunset, Kenneth, Hurst and Auto fires. The Hughes fire, which was among the largest of the fires, broke out on Jan. 22, and grew to over 10,000 acres.
As of Feb. 5 most fires have been contained or extinguished, though approximately 57,000 acres were burned since the onset of the LA fires. According to the CAL FIRE website, there have been 29 fatalities to date and more than 16,000 structures have been either damaged or destroyed. The two largest fires, the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, are 98% and 99% contained, respectively.
On Sunday Jan. 26, a downpour of much-needed rain brought a near-record dry streak in Southern California to an end, playing a significant role in the growing containment of the fires. Although the moisture brought relief to the scorched areas, it also raised concerns about the aftermath of the fires — mudslides, debris-filled floods, toxic air pollution and damaged structures, not to mention insurance battles, financial devastation and profound grief as affected communities begin to grapple with and comprehend the extent of the destruction.
Many students, staff and faculty have connections to the LA area, and have been impacted both directly and indirectly by the past month’s fires. According to an email sent by Bruce Suttmeier, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, to CAS faculty on Jan. 17, approximately 12% of the active CAS student population lists the Los Angeles area as home.
Lois Leveen, director of public relations at Lewis & Clark, clarified that “active” refers to students who currently are enrolled in classes on the Portland campus, studying abroad or on leave. This group consists of active CAS students whose preferred address on file has a zip code located in seven southern California counties that were identified as potentially being heavily impacted by the fires: Los Angeles County, Ventura County, Orange County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County, San Diego County and Imperial County.
In the past few weeks, the college had undertaken efforts to reach out to and support impacted students.
The extent of what ‘impacted’ means varies, with an understanding that some places had poor air quality and/or substantial smoke, some had evacuations, some had actual fire loss,” Leveen shared via email on Jan. 30. “The message went out very early, so it was meant to reach students knowing that fires might spread and more fires might start, which did end up happening, unfortunately.”
In Suttmeier’s email on Jan. 17, four days before the start of the semester, he described how several offices had been collaborating to address students’ needs as they transition back to campus amidst ongoing fires and displacement.
“Since the beginning of the disaster, we have been communicating with affected students via Instagram, direct email and other means, working to make contact and assess how we can best help,” wrote Suttmeier. “Several offices are taking the lead in this effort — Campus Living, Welfare Intervention Network, Financial Aid, and Case Management — talking to students and addressing their most immediate needs. For students who needed to move into the dorms early, we helped them do so at no additional cost.”
Suttmeier expressed his gratitude for all employees and offices working directly with students and families impacted by the fires. He also mentioned that the Admissions Office was working with prospective students from the LA area to ensure that they have extra support and time to submit any necessary materials.
Ben Meoz, associate vice president for Campus Life and senior associate dean of students, was commended in Suttmeier’s email for playing a significant role in conducting direct outreach to students from Southern California. In an interview on Jan. 27, he spoke about his efforts to support impacted students.
“I sent a direct email to all of those students with resources, whether they were an on-campus or off-campus resident, asking them to let me know, let the college know if they needed to return to campus early, either due to direct impacts from the fire or because of smoke,” said Meoz said.
Because the fires changed, worsened and spread unpredictably, Meoz spent a significant amount of time monitoring updated conditions and reaching out to additional students as needed.
“I’m on the CAL FIRE website, looking at the active fire map pretty frequently, and doing additional outreach to students whose zip codes are or their cities are prepared-to-evacuate areas or mandatory evacuation areas,” he said. “Of the whole group that I emailed, the large 250-275 group, the majority did not get back to us, probably because they were in areas that were unaffected … only a handful ended up working with us to return to campus early.”
Meoz explained how the goal of the central outreach was to assess what additional support might be needed for students. He listed academic support, financial support, counseling and advising all as options for impacted students. He said that while faculty were not responsible for reaching out to students, he nonetheless was appreciative of professors who were willing to provide additional support to students. In the first week of the semester, some faculty members took it upon themselves to include messages in their welcome emails acknowledging the devastation of the fires and offering extra flexibility and support for students affected by the fires.
“I really appreciate individual faculty who are underscoring that and emphasizing that in their own communications to their students,” said Meoz. “It’s a really nice compliment to some of the central messaging that we’re doing.”
Meoz shared a few resources for students who may need to replace items due to fire damage, or who may be in need of financial assistance.
“There’s some coordination happening with the Reuse Room in the Office of Sustainability to make sure that people know how to donate items and how to tell students who are in these affected areas how to access the Reuse Room if they’re trying to replace items,” he said. “There’s some coordination with the Equity, Inclusion and Justice committee from ASB, who has an emergency fund that they administrate, making sure that students are aware of that opportunity. And then there’s some other opportunities for people to donate, to support mechanisms like the Pios 4 Pios fund, and Student Life has a student emergency fund.”
In the face of climate change, colleges and universities are increasingly having to create and adapt protocols for supporting students impacted by natural disasters.
“In August 2023 when the fires in Maui were happening, we were doing some very similar outreach to a much smaller number of students from that area,” Meoz said. “There’s this ongoing toolkit we now have for various emergencies … it feels like we have to keep that at the ready more often.”
Unlike on the East Coast, where hurricanes and tropical storms pose a greater threat, Oregon and its adjacent states deal more regularly with wildfires and earthquakes. Because California is directly below Oregon, and because roughly 12% of the undergraduate population is from the seven aforementioned California counties, schools in Oregon have had to adapt to find ways to support students impacted by these natural disasters.
“We talk more abstractly about events like a Cascadia upheaval, earthquake events and things like that,” he said. “At least (right now) we’re saying, ‘Okay, well, the campus is safe, and if the best thing for you is to come back to campus, let’s figure out how to facilitate that.’”
Meoz emphasized the variety of losses Californians are experiencing in the wake of the many fires.
“It’s both the loss of a home, but also lots of businesses burned down, and so there’s certainly a lot of potential for loss of family income,” he said. “So also making sure that we’re helping students connect with financial aid to talk through changes in family income and figure out what that means for them, big picture, continuing their education.”
Meoz invited students impacted by the fires who have questions or need support to email vpsl@lclark.edu, where they will be directed to the appropriate office.
Rose Trisolini ’27, who grew up in LA, lost her childhood home in the Palisades fire. While she was at a friend’s house, her family evacuated her home, bringing with them their two dogs, and a couple hours later, her house had burned to the ground. Along with her home, her elementary school and high school were engulfed by the fire.
“The school offered to fly me back early if I needed, and they covered the cost of my flight, which was really nice, but I ended up only coming back a day early because my identification had burned in the fire, so I couldn’t get on a plane with a proper ID,” Trisolini said.
Her family was able to secure subsidized housing through her dad’s job, but according to Trisolini, many Airbnbs and other temporary accommodations were quickly snatched up.
“I think I definitely have it better than my parents, because I, at least, had some stuff in my dorm, but they lost everything,” she said. “It’s been hard. It doesn’t really feel real, especially because in LA, we couldn’t visit the site for a really long time, because of the chemicals in the air. So yeah, it just hasn’t fully hit.”
Among the items lost to the flames were 60 years worth of Trisolini’s parents’ journals, in which they wrote every day — chronicling their lives, documenting Rose’s childhood, and providing a detailed account of their family’s history over the years. Trisolini lost her own journal of five years along with all of her artwork in the fire — ceramics, woodwork, drawings and paintings. She described a painting her great uncle gifted that was of irreplaceable and sentimental value to both her and her family.
“It was kind of his perception on how language works, it was these ads with these letters, and it’s hard to explain,” she said. “It’s kind of a funky painting, but I loved it so much, and I was so honored when he gave it to me.”
This was not the first time she and her family had evacuated their home.
“We’d actually evacuated a couple times before, so my parents thought it was just gonna be the same thing,” Trisolini said. “I mean, I think everyone did. Our neighbor across the street, he wasn’t planning on leaving, and was like ‘Yeah, it’s fine. I’m keeping an eye on it,’ and my mom yelled at him … He was like ‘Okay, I’ll note that. I’ll think about that,’ and then he got out, thankfully, but 20 minutes later, there was a video of his house burned down.”
Since being back on campus, Trisolini has been in contact with the school, who paid for her flight home in addition to offering financial support in replacing her laptop and clothing. She described how having a routine and being surrounded by her friends has been helpful, but that she nonetheless is still processing and grappling with the aftermath of losing her home to the Palisades fire.
“I never got to see my home in person or go back to my neighborhood, so I would like to do that at some point,” she said.
Although the LA fires have been largely contained at this point, these weeks pose a new challenge for those impacted by the fire; the financial anxiety, disorientation and grief that accompanies the aftermath of a disaster. In the weeks and months to come, students, staff and faculty with connections to the LA area will continue to make sense of the scope of the fire’s damage. Those who lost their homes and businesses will begin the long process of rebuilding their lives, navigating insurance claims and replacing items lost to the flames.
“It’s so surreal,” Trisolini said.
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