ASU students based in LA react to wildfires, some lost everything

LOS ANGELES (AZFamily) — Thousands of Arizona State University Sun Devils from California are putting their learning on pause while some watch their homes burn down in the wildfires in Los Angeles County.

The new semester starts on Monday and students say it just won’t be the same without their friends, who lost all their belongings this week in the Palisades fire.

For those students, right now, continuing their education is the last thing on their minds.

“It feels very apocalyptic, like what’s happening,” said Jack Schwebel, a junior at ASU.

This week, he says, his world turned upside down.

“There are definitely multiple people who go to ASU who have been affected. I just got another notification that there’s a new fire, apparently. I have been getting notifications from LA like every 10 minutes,” Schwebel said.

As class begins at ASU, some students, like Schwebel, are learning some of their close friends won’t be joining them.

“I know two people who live in the Palisades. Unfortunately, they both lost their homes. So they are staying at a hotel downtown, so they will not be coming back to school on Monday. So, I’m not sure what their plan is,” he said. “ It would be hard to imagine that the students who have lost their homes will be going back to Arizona any time soon.”

Schwebel is just one of thousands of California-based students who were impacted by the fire.

“We have approximately 6,000 students from California throughout all of our ASU campuses. On top of that, we have about 14,000 students plugged-in learning online,” said Veronica Sanchez, the media relations director for ASU.

Sanchez says ASU California students got an email this week letting them know they aren’t alone, and faculty and staff received instructions on the best way to help affected students.

“We are here as the university to provide support, to provide resources, and we sent them links and information for them,” said Sanchez. “We will be checking in on them continuously.”

But for Schwebel, he’s mourning the semester and the college experience he thought he was going to have.

“It’s extremely unfortunate that I probably won’t get to experience this semester with my friends but it’s more important that they stay with their family,” he said.

Hours after our interview with Schwebel, we got a text from him saying his house was now in the evacuation zone, and he was leaving the area.

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