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Students track fate of loved ones in wildfires
October 26, 2007
While anyone with a TV last week viewed nightly video feeds of melted cars and gutted houses, there were at least three dozen PLU students with Southern California ties who paid close attention to the apocalyptic pictures of smoke and ruin coming out the Los Angeles area.
Freshman Audra Wheatly was one. Wheatly lives in Thousand Oaks, a suburb just north of Los Angeles, sandwiched between three of the 23 fires that blackened more than 700 square miles of California between the U.S.-Mexico border and Ventura. The fires exploded last Sunday night thanks to a record-breaking drought and hurricane force winds. Since then, Wheatly’s checked in regularly with her parents to make sure the fires weren’t bearing down on their rambler that snuggles up against a hill.
“I was watching the news and it was really freaking me out,” she said. “It was hard to tell how bad it was, and TV made it seem a lot scarier than it was.”
Although her family didn’t need to evacuate, Kurt Oliver’s did. Last Tuesday morning, word came from fire officials that his family needed to move out of their Highland home near San Bernardino. Instead of going to the nearest evacuation center, Oliver’s parents and his five-year-old nephew, Timmy, moved in with his grandma at her Apple Valley home, which is in the high desert away from the flames.
Thursday morning, Oliver’s parents were going to go back to see if their two-story track home survived. Four years ago, the Olivers lost their home in the San Bernardino Mountains to wildfires.
The whole area had a history of being evacuated, so the family decided to move to a safer place, the PLU senior said.
The current evacuation orders for Oliver’s family were due to the Running Springs Fire, which blackened 11,366 acres and destroyed 200 homes. The fire was still out of control Friday morning, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In all, 23 fires have scorched 460,000 acres and destroyed 1,600 homes. At least seven deaths are blamed on the fires, which have caused at least $1 billion in damage, making it the worst natural disaster to face the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina. However, unlike Katrina, the emergency response so far has been described as smooth and organized.
“I’m really proud of the state and local officials, the firemen,” said Sydney Jaimes, a freshman who visited her parents in Fullerton this weekend. Jaimes said the smoke was terrible, and her father told her Wednesday night of his experience driving home on the freeway from Torrance.
“The sky was orange, and the ash was falling on his truck like snow,” she said.
Then there’s the smell of smoke everywhere. Josie Turner, a graduate student that lives in the Laguna area sought shelter in a local Starbucks Thursday morning from the muck outside. Turner, who is completing her master of fine arts degree at PLU, said that since she has asthma, she’s been wearing a mask.
“The sun and the moon both came out orange yesterday, and the ocean was colored pink,” she said. “It’s like being near Mt. Saint Helens when it erupted. Everything is covered with ash, it’s just black gunk.”
Turner moved from Tacoma to Laguna in March. She and her husband William were driving down through a canyon last Sunday night after a day of house hunting when she looked behind the car and saw a funnel cloud of black smoke rushing down on them.
She noticed flames beginning to flare up beside the road and lick at nearby oak trees. The road quickly became choked with cars trying to get out of the smoke. The cloud stalked the frightened commuters almost all the way to the beach, she remembered.
Freshman Sara Aist’s family was also enjoying the last of the Indian summer weather Sunday by hiking in the hills near their Santa Paula home. Then smoke began to billow into mushroom cloud proportions in front of them, and they quickly decided to cancel the hike.
Aist said that she didn’t feel her home was in any danger, but that in a former home, the yearly wildfire evacuation was a seasonal event.
Wheatly concurred.
“We seem to have three seasons here. Fire season, mudslide season and summer,” Wheatly said.
As of Monday, the winds had ebbed to the single-digits, humidity was rising, and all but five fires were contained, according to a Los Angeles Times report. But, noted Jaimes, the officials are not predicting containment of all the fires until at least Halloween.
“At this point, I just keep praying for a miracle,” she said. “I keep praying for rain.”
University Communications staff writer Barbara Clements compiled this report and used material from CNN and the AP. Comments, questions, ideas? Please contact her at ext. 7427 or at clemenba@plu.edu.
“I was watching the news and it was really freaking me out,” she said. “It was hard to tell how bad it was, and TV made it seem a lot scarier than it was.”
Although her family didn’t need to evacuate, Kurt Oliver’s did. Last Tuesday morning, word came from fire officials that his family needed to move out of their Highland home near San Bernardino. Instead of going to the nearest evacuation center, Oliver’s parents and his five-year-old nephew, Timmy, moved in with his grandma at her Apple Valley home, which is in the high desert away from the flames.
Thursday morning, Oliver’s parents were going to go back to see if their two-story track home survived. Four years ago, the Olivers lost their home in the San Bernardino Mountains to wildfires.
The whole area had a history of being evacuated, so the family decided to move to a safer place, the PLU senior said.
The current evacuation orders for Oliver’s family were due to the Running Springs Fire, which blackened 11,366 acres and destroyed 200 homes. The fire was still out of control Friday morning, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In all, 23 fires have scorched 460,000 acres and destroyed 1,600 homes. At least seven deaths are blamed on the fires, which have caused at least $1 billion in damage, making it the worst natural disaster to face the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina. However, unlike Katrina, the emergency response so far has been described as smooth and organized.
“I’m really proud of the state and local officials, the firemen,” said Sydney Jaimes, a freshman who visited her parents in Fullerton this weekend. Jaimes said the smoke was terrible, and her father told her Wednesday night of his experience driving home on the freeway from Torrance.
“The sky was orange, and the ash was falling on his truck like snow,” she said.
Then there’s the smell of smoke everywhere. Josie Turner, a graduate student that lives in the Laguna area sought shelter in a local Starbucks Thursday morning from the muck outside. Turner, who is completing her master of fine arts degree at PLU, said that since she has asthma, she’s been wearing a mask.
“The sun and the moon both came out orange yesterday, and the ocean was colored pink,” she said. “It’s like being near Mt. Saint Helens when it erupted. Everything is covered with ash, it’s just black gunk.”
Turner moved from Tacoma to Laguna in March. She and her husband William were driving down through a canyon last Sunday night after a day of house hunting when she looked behind the car and saw a funnel cloud of black smoke rushing down on them.
She noticed flames beginning to flare up beside the road and lick at nearby oak trees. The road quickly became choked with cars trying to get out of the smoke. The cloud stalked the frightened commuters almost all the way to the beach, she remembered.
Freshman Sara Aist’s family was also enjoying the last of the Indian summer weather Sunday by hiking in the hills near their Santa Paula home. Then smoke began to billow into mushroom cloud proportions in front of them, and they quickly decided to cancel the hike.
Aist said that she didn’t feel her home was in any danger, but that in a former home, the yearly wildfire evacuation was a seasonal event.
Wheatly concurred.
“We seem to have three seasons here. Fire season, mudslide season and summer,” Wheatly said.
As of Monday, the winds had ebbed to the single-digits, humidity was rising, and all but five fires were contained, according to a Los Angeles Times report. But, noted Jaimes, the officials are not predicting containment of all the fires until at least Halloween.
“At this point, I just keep praying for a miracle,” she said. “I keep praying for rain.”
University Communications staff writer Barbara Clements compiled this report and used material from CNN and the AP. Comments, questions, ideas? Please contact her at ext. 7427 or at clemenba@plu.edu.