SoCal fires affecting Santa Clara students

By Liz O'Brien

Though the flames of Southern California's fires have died out far south of Santa Clara County, there are students at Santa Clara who still feel their effects.

The Witch Creek fire, which stretched as far east as Santa Ysabel and reached the near coastal area of Rancho Santa Fe, was one of the most severe, claiming more than 1,000 homes, 30 commercial buildings and two lives, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.

Junior Chris Zures' family, who live in Morgan Run, near Rancho Santa Fe, had to evacuate their home during the first few days of the fires, which began around Oct. 21. While his family members have returned home and are safe now, Zures said it has been confusing to keep up with what's going on in his hometown.

"You don't really know what's going on because there's so many different sources on what's happening," he said. His mom and sister, who stayed with family friends while they were out of their house, relied on their phone to check on the status of their house.

"Every hour they would call the house, and if the answering machine came on, that meant the house was still standing, and if not, the house was burned down," Zures said. "They made me call a couple of times, which was kind of weird."

Evacuation of the San Diego area was estimated at over 500,000 people. Though many families of Santa Clara students were able to stay with relatives or friends in the area, the city offered temporary living arrangements in high schools and community centers. All evacuation notices were lifted by Oct. 31.

Sophomore Claire O'Leary's family, residents of Del Mar, a coastal city southwest of the major fires, evacuated for two nights, the first of which they slept on a state beach.

Many evacuations took place soon after the fires broke out, but O'Leary's family was forced to leave their home after many of the blazes had been contained. The fear for Del Mar and other coastal cities was wind direction, which was expected to change and send the flames back their way.

While family was the priority of most students from the area, pets were also a concern. O'Leary expressed relief that her two dogs were safe, and sophomore Alyssa Paulus, a Rancho Santa Fe resident, was worried about her horses.

Paulus received word that her family was evacuating their home on the first day the fires hit San Diego on Oct. 21. While her family remained safe in Oceanside, where they roomed with family friends, Alyssa's two horses could not be relocated quite as easily.

"We really didn't care about the house," she said. "I was an emotional wreck because I was just flipping out about my horses."

More threatening to her animals than the flames was the air quality in Rancho, and eventually her horses were relocated to a safer environment. Paulus' family and horses are back on their property now, and she said the only pressing issue is cleaning up their house.

"There's just ash everywhere," she said.

In addition to the thick layer of ash settling itself in many parts of San Diego County, homes in highly threatened areas like Rancho Santa Fe were also sprayed with a flame resistant material intended to protect the house. But as no flames hit Paulus' property, it mostly just left a mess of whitish foam flame retardant that killed all the family's plants, Paulus said.

Many evacuees have already returned to their property, and some said they felt that the extent of the evacuations was unnecessary.

Junior Sam Grant, whose family lives in Encinitas, just west of the boundary of the Witch Creek blaze, said his family was not close enough to really need to evacuate, even though they did stay with family for a few days after the local news advised they relocate.

"They said the news was kind of blowing the evacuation situation out of proportion," he said.

So far damages caused by the fires have reached at least $1 billion, according to San Diego news station 10News. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has played an active role in containing the flames and relocating residents, and President Bush declared Southern California an emergency zone on Oct. 23.

Most of the blazes began between Oct. 21 and 26. Overall, the Southern California fires spread across 368,316 acres and destroyed 1,751 residential, commercial and industrial units.

To accommodate students who were affected by the fires, Campus Ministry and Counseling and Psychological Services offered an open reflection on Oct. 24.

Though a number of staff and faculty members attended, there were not many students at the session, said Larry Wolfe, director of Health and Counseling Services.

Efforts to contain and extinguish the fires are expected to continue into next week. Meanwhile, students at Santa Clara watch from afar as their families battle a changing landscape.

"Some of us from the area were watching the news, and we're glad we're here, but were saying we wish we're home so we could be with our families," O'Leary said.

Contact Liz O'Brien at (408) 554-4546 or eobrien@scu.edu.