Annie Biggs had to make an unimaginable decision in January—fly back to Marquette for the new semester as normal or stay home with family while the world seemed to burn around her house in Sherman Oaks, California.
Biggs, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, lives in the valley of Los Angeles where she is surrounded by nearby hills. She said it is normally hard for wildfires to reach her community, and that she was never really affected by these natural disasters until conditions worsened in recent years.
Biggs recalled how while she was at home over winter break, the Santa Ana winds, dry and warm gusts from inner Southern California, picked up as expected. However, widespread confusion broke out when a wildfire started in the Palisades region of LA, close to her community.
To the east, the Eaton fire was also just beginning to burn.
“All of a sudden, they just got more intense and started heading north toward us,” Biggs said. “It happened slowly but quickly, which is scary because whenever I watch movies, I’m like, ‘Why wouldn’t people leave a natural disaster while they could? Why are they waiting?’”
Bigg’s family spent three nights up, constantly watching the news as their only source of what to do regarding evacuation. Biggs noted how out-of-control the situation felt in that moment, and how her family had to make several emergency plans, one being whether she should go back to school or not.
While Biggs ended up returning to Marquette for the spring semester, her parents had to evacuate their home in Sherman Oaks. Although her house was spared from the destruction, she said she knows many people who lost their homes, schools and places of cherished childhood memories.
“So much is happening and I’m still in that mindset,” Biggs said of being back at school while wildfires raged on at home. “None of my friends have any idea what this feeling is or how intense it actually is.”
Jess Verdejo, director of the Arrupe Center for Community Service & Social Responsibility, grew up where the Eaton wildfire took place. Like Biggs, she witnessed many friends and former classmates lose their properties to the historic natural disaster.
“I used to do cross country in high school, doing runs, and now I can only imagine what my hometown looks like,” Verdejo said.
Verdejo, who now lives in Wisconsin, pondered which possessions she would choose to save if she were still living in back home in LA. And for Biggs, who is also 2,000 miles away from her childhood community at college, the damage still hits too close to home.
“I deleted Instagram weeks ago because it was constant fire things with everyone I followed,” Biggs said. “It’s intense, but [everything on my feed] looked like a war zone.”
After around a month of record-breaking destruction that claimed at least 29 lives and 37,000 acres of land, the Eaton and Palisades wildfires were reported to be contained Feb. 2. Though the active burning is over, the path to restoring the LA community will be historically costly and difficult.
“Something that is really important on top of donations and giving money is awareness,” Verdejo said. “Sharing stories about the Altadena community, thinking about Black and brown communities and how it’ll be difficult for them to bounce back.”
The Eaton wildfire had disproportionate ramifications for LA’s Black communities, particularly in Altadena. Per a UCLA study, nearly half of the Black residences in Altadena were destroyed or severely damaged, in comparison to 37% of non-Black residences.
Almost 60% of Black homeowners over 65 years old might struggle with insufficient insurance coverage or financial scamming throughout the rebuild process, the UCLA study found. Additionally, the rising cost of living, along with other racial barriers to homeownership, could lead to the decline of the Black community in Altadena.
“This was a neighborhood, this was a community,” Verdejo said.
For now, Biggs is attempting to make a difference in the lives of those who lost their communities from her college campus, all the way across the country. She has been in touch with Campus Ministry and various event planning organizations at Marquette to discuss hosting different drives and fundraisers.
“Bringing awareness is the most important thing because we’re on the other side of the country here,” Biggs said. “We’re having snow days while it’s burning over there.”
One of the fundraisers Biggs is planning is a spring series of art events. She said she wants the money raised to go to small LA nonprofits and/or individual families who are victims of the historic wildfires.
“I felt weird being back at school and not doing anything to help,” Biggs said. “I want to be aware about my community, my home that I’m going back to, and do as much as I can from over here.”
Verdejo, who highlighted the importance of awareness in tandem with fundraising efforts, recalled how late University President Michael Lovell emphasized the significance of allowing people to fully experience and process their emotions.
“I am proud, coming from Los Angeles. We’ve had earthquakes, we’ve had wildfires in the past, but memories are real and trauma has lasting effects,” Verdejo said. “I love the fact that we [at Marquette] care for one another, and caring starts with your mental health.”
Stephen Blaha, director of Campus Ministry, also echoed Lovell’s sentiment of care. He mentioned how over the past few weeks, particularly in Sunday Masses, Campus Ministry has been encouraging students to donate to the Catholic Charities USA LA Wildfire Relief Fund.
Following Marquette’s Feb. 2-7 Mission Week 2025, aptly themed “Act with Care,” Blaha said he encourages students to remain attentive to local and global ongoings, keeping their hearts loving and open in addition to praying and donating to humanitarian aid organizations in small amounts.
“You could think, ‘Today I’m not going to have my usual hot chocolate or coffee, but instead I’m going to use that to send money to relief efforts without breaking my budget as a college student,’” Blaha said.
This story was written by Mia Thurow. She can be reached at mia.thurow@marquette.edu.
This story was updated Wednesday to include additional information about campus resources available for students to help the LA community recover from wildfire damage.
