Wildfires endanger alumni
Smoke engulfs Chapman University. The fires that spread through Orange and Santa Barbara counties forced thousands to evacuate.
Wildfires raged through regions of Southern California this month, endangering thousands of families and their homes. The Tea Fire, which started Nov. 13, burned through Santa Barbara County.
The Freeway Complex Fire burned through Orange and Riverside counties.
While San Diego has largely been spared from more destruction this season, a number of Westview alumni attending college in these affected areas faced the threat of evacuation and property damage.
A Public Safety official burst into Alicia Archambault’s (’07) Thursday night choir practice at Westmont College in Montecito, Calif. ordering everyone to the gym immediately. “The hill” – referencing a popular hiking and hang-out spot near campus – was in flames.
“Everyone started running to the gym,” Archambault said. “But I went to get a few things out of my dorm first, which was close by, fortunately. I knew if the fire was at ‘the hill,’ it was going to spread to campus.”
Westmont is located in a relatively remote area. A few hundred students of the school’s approximate population of 1,300 were secured in the gym, which had been fireproofed, rather than evacuated from campus. Archambault said she knew she was safe in the gym, because the building was not flammable, and firefighting crews were already on site, but she said that it was scary to consider that she and her classmates were essentially sitting in the middle of the blaze.
“At one point, I looked out the windows of the foyer in the gym,” she said. “I could see the flames burning outside only a couple of yards away.”
Fire personnel battled outside, but the campus was ravaged. The math, physics and psychology buildings, as well as a residence hall and 14 faculty homes were burned to the ground.
Archambault is back home in San Diego now. Classes are cancelled until Dec. 1, until debris can be cleared and portable residences and classrooms can be arranged.
Lauren Gragg, who graduated from Westview last year and attends Chapman University in Orange, Calif., watched from her dorm room window as dark orange smoke plumes from the Freeway Complex Fire – all too much like the ones she saw in San Diego last year – shadowed the campus.
“Saturday night, the winds were picking up,” Gragg said. “I was a bit concerned because I remembered from last year how it could move so fast.”
Though Gragg said she was worried by the proximity of the Freeway Complex Fire burning in the Anaheim Hills northeast of campus, she remained calm, prepared what she would take with her if she needed to evacuate, and hoped for the wind to change direction. That night, the wind shifted, directing the fire further east, away from Chapman.
Students at CSU Fullerton, where more than 20 Westview alumni are enrolled, experienced a similar scare that students at Chapman faced, being located in the same area of eastern Orange County.
As of Monday night, the Tea Fire became 100 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.
The Freeway Complex Fire became 100 percent contained as of Wednesday. Fires in Los Angeles, San Bernadino and San Luis Obispo counties also burned this week and not all have reached 100 percent containment as of press.