Devastating wildfires tore through Los Angeles County in the early days of 2025, impacting millions — with Lafayette College students among those affected. Some spent their interim forced to evacuate their homes, with uncertain futures ahead.
“I think it’s possibly the most scared I’ve ever been in my entire life,” said Charlie Reardon ’26, who lives in Topanga Canyon and was “watching the fires get closer and closer.”
Evacuations were ordered across Southern California on Jan. 7 as multiple extreme wildfires rapidly tore through Los Angeles County. As of Thursday, the fires have destroyed at least 16,000 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Eaton and Palisades Fires, projected to be the costliest in state history, have killed at least 29 people.
Four students local to the Los Angeles area shared their wildfire experiences with The Lafayette, with some facing danger and encountering strokes of luck.
“Fire actually spread to about three or four streets above my house,” said Parmida Amjadi ‘27, who lives in Arcadia, California, and was ordered to evacuate her home as the Eaton Fire worsened on the evening of Jan. 7.
Amjadi said that she warned her parents about the evacuation orders, and, as the family made trips outside to load up their belongings, they saw the fire move and grow. The reality of the grave situation set in.
“That’s the only place he knows,” she said of her dad, who was in denial about the evacuation. She said that her family owned the house for over 30 years.
The entire mountain was completely covered in flames by the time Amjadi and her family left, she said.
“What was really scary about it was how fast it moved,” Amjadi said.
The Eaton Fire particularly affected Altadena, California, where over 1,000 structures were damaged or completely destroyed. Amjadi knows many people who lost their homes, including her best friend.
“I don’t think anything in Altadena will ever go back to the way it was,” Amjadi said. “Right now, Altadena is pretty much uninhabitable.”
Reardon was evacuated for two weeks as the Palisades Fire threatened his home.
“My backyard is Topanga State Park, so it almost always gets evacuated when there’s a fire nearby because it picks up so fast,” Reardon said. He stayed with a friend, Jordan Ellis ’26, in Hollywood Hills as the evacuation order was enforced.
Ellis said that the two made a “breakdown cake” while checking fire watch apps for the safety of Reardon’s house.
Reardon said that a fire station, located just blocks away from his house, prepared a fire block and pushed away the fire before it could continue to spread. There was an eerie atmosphere when he returned home.
“They were only letting residents in before 6 a.m. and after 6 p.m. and there were police checks,” Reardon said. “It was so scary.”
Erin Hill ’25 flew out of Los Angeles Airport to travel to North California for a short trip. On her way to the airport, she saw a smoke plume near the Pacific Ocean. It was what eventually became the Palisades Fire.
“I took pictures of it while I was taking off,” she said. “I was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ But it wasn’t very large at all.”
Hill later returned to her hometown of San Marino, around five miles away from the devastation in Altadena. Her neighborhood was spared from wildfire damage, but the abnormal air quality and hazardous conditions were palpable.
“I was gone for the brunt of the ash and my pool was so covered in ash that it looked like lava; it did not look like water,” she said.
Ellis said that the winds spreading the wildfire were the strongest she and her family had ever seen.
“It’s crazy because we’ve been living through unprecedented historical events since forever,” Reardon said.
Geology and Environmental Geoscience Professor John Sarao explained that multiple factors contributed to California’s worsening fire seasons. According to data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, five of the last eight years saw California wildfires burn more than 1 million acres.
“The global climate’s warming through time,” Sarao said. “Because we’re getting hotter globally, the ice, the snowpack and the mountains in California are melting earlier, and then there’s a longer period before the rainy season starts.”
“That’s what spread these wildfires so quickly,” he continued. “The heavy winds, high winds, those are the Santa Ana winds.”
Reardon was touched by the support he received from his Lafayette community on the other side of the country.
“A bunch of my friends from Laf checked in, and then some of the people who maybe didn’t really have the time to reach out, or don’t have my number, when I got back to campus, they were like, ‘I’ve been needing to ask. Everything okay, is your house okay?'” Reardon said.
Both Reardon and Ellis received a touching message from the same professor: mechanical engineering professor Tobias Rossman.
“I don’t think he even knows we know each other, but he reached out to both of us and checked in and was like, ‘hey I am here if you need anything.’ And it was genuinely so touching,” Reardon said.
Makenna McCall ’27 contributed reporting.