Wildfires have been sweeping through Los Angeles since Jan. 7, 2025. For two weeks now, the fires have been windblown across 40,000 acres of land, destroying homes and lives in the process. Up until this point, the wildfires have at this point claimed the lives of 28 people.
The fires began as a brush fire starting in Palisades, a neighborhood in LA. They quickly spread and became a deadly wildfire.
A number of factors contributed to the huge sweep of these fires including drought and dry vegetation, high wind speeds, climate change and a budget decrease for the LA fire department.
These fires have affected Utah Tech students and their relatives living in the LA area. One student, Madisyn Bishop, a senior English major from St. George, shared her family’s story. The families’ homes were located in the Pasadena and Altadena neighborhoods.
Bishop’s grandparents were evacuated in the middle of the night from their home and found out a few hours later that their home had been burned and destroyed. Bishop also has an aunt who lived in the area who has been battling with cancer and lost her home to the LA wildfires.
“Their houses are completely gone,” Bishop said. “We saw pictures and all that’s standing are the chimneys.”
If you want to help Bishop’s aunt, you can check out her GoFundMe.
Their story of evacuation warnings in the dead of night is not uncommon. Many people living across LA have been asked to evacuate. At one point, there were around 180,000 people asked to evacuate their homes.
Utah fire departments like Hurricane have been helping in California fight the wildfires. These volunteers are helping to stop the spread of the fires by setting up hose lines and doing structural protection work.
Jason Reed, from Pasadena, is Bishop’s fiance’s uncle, and he has also seen the effects of these fires in real time. His family didn’t live in a particularly dangerous fire zone until now, but the winds put their home in the line of fire.
Reed and his family had to evacuate from their home and relocated three different times around California due to evacuation orders. Their house became uninhabitable due to toxic smoke containing lead, arsenic, asbestos and other chemicals filling the air.
Reed said another important contributing factor to these huge wildfire events is climate change.
“This has a lot to do with climate change,” Reed said. “I’ve been in Los Angeles for 38 years, and I’ve never seen this many fire events and this kind of Santa Ana wind condition as fierce.”
The overall dryness of the LA area is greatly caused by climate change. Higher global temperatures have sucked out moisture from plants, drying them out and causing them to be more susceptible to flame.
Reed’s family does not currently have a GoFundMe but asks that those who are looking to donate do so at the World Central Kitchen.
Karina Boza, a graduate Weber State student based in LA, detailed her and her family’s experiences with the wildfires. Her aunt Aurora Barboza lost her home to the Eaton fire that occurred in Altadena.
Not only were the physical buildings burned in these fires, but memories were lost as well. Barboza lost personal artworks that reflected her Latin roots, photos of the family, historical photos of Mexican relatives and many other treasured items were lost.
“Nina [Aurora] stayed with me after being ordered to evacuate, bringing only a small suitcase and our family photos,” Boza said.
If you want to help Boza’s aunt after the fire burned her home, here is her GoFundMe.
Thousands of families lost their homes and even more in these fires, but community support within LA and outside of it from those with empathy toward the situation goes a long way.
If students and St. George locals wish to aid, they can help by donating to GoFundMe’s linked throughout the story or by looking into other families who may need help at this time.
