As Wildfires Devastate Los Angeles, Educators Offer Help and Refuge (Jan. 9, 2025)

Sitting in her home in West Hills, Calif., Denisha Jordan could smell the smoke from the wildfires ripping through the region. Her eyes were burning from it.

The teacher at Los Angeles Unified school district’s Valley Oaks Center for Enriched Studies knows colleagues and students who have had to evacuate. Some have lost their homes.

“It’s going to be emotional for our students,” she said. “I can only imagine that maybe they think: ‘Will it happen again?’ or ‘Am I safe?’”

The devastating wildfires consuming Southern California have moved in a fast and deadly blaze from the Pacific Coast to just northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Thousands have evacuated their homes, and five people have died, with the death toll expected to rise. Nearby states have dispatched firefighting teams to help beat back the flames, according to the Associated Press.

The fires, which experts say are unusual for this time of year, caused 335 schools from Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, and San Diego counties to close on Wednesday, affecting more than 211,000 students, according to the state’s education department. More than 400,000 customers are facing power outages as a result of the fires.

It’s unclear when schools will be able to reopen—or when students or staff will be able to return home.

Jordan can recall instances like this throughout her 22-year career in education—students sheltering in place when the dark plume of smoke blotted out the sky. It feels like the severity of wildfires have gotten worse in the past 10 years, though, she said.

“You have to allow time and space,” said Jordan, who is on release this year for her work with the teachers’ union. “You can’t make the mistake of thinking like, when we go back to school on Monday, that you’re going to just go in and have lessons, pick up where you left off. As an educator, we have to allow time and space for students to not only process what they’ve experienced, but then also to share out and have these conversations.”

Natural disasters upend learning for students

The California wildfires add to the growing tally of natural disasters that have upended the school year for thousands of students across the country. In September, schools in the South faced extended closures after Hurricane Helene swept through the Gulf Coast up through the Appalachian Mountains.

The disruptions will be harmful to students for years to come, researchers say. Across the board, natural disasters have sizable effects on test scores for students in elementary and middle school, college attendance, and potentially high school graduation rates, said Isaac Opper, a senior economist for the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research institution, who has studied the effect of natural disasters on human capital.

Figuring out how to mitigate that damage, though, will be an ongoing challenge for educators, as climate change causes more severe and frequent disasters.

“At least some people are affected by big disasters every year, and so it’s really unfortunate, but just kind of becoming more and more a fact of life,” Opper said. “Because the education system in the U.S. is so decentralized, I think there’s not tons of communication across districts and across states, on what the best practices are. This is a really good impetus for people to be working on this and studying it and understanding how to repair and mediate the effects.”

The challenge is especially salient for Opper, whose own children were home from school due to the fires.

“It certainly makes it more visceral for me. I always thought it was important, having done the research, but it’s different when the disaster is in your own town,” he said.

Wildfires are unusual for this time of year

The fires raging on through Thursday are unusual but not unique, said Jon Keeley, senior research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Two factors are driving the current conditions: a very dry autumn and winter (usually Los Angeles’ rainiest season), coupled with Santa Ana winds—warm or hot winds that blow from the interior toward the coast—that are more severe than typical. Though the Santa Ana winds have long affected Los Angeles, they—and the fires—are more destructive now, with more people living in the region, Keeley said.

“I would say it’s not inevitable that this is the new normal. It could be if nothing changes. But there are things we can do,” he added. That includes fire prevention strategies, such as better care and monitoring of power lines and community councils to head off arson, two frequent causes of the fires.

Though wildfires are not uncommon in California, the timing and conditions have made these fires feel unprecedentedly fast and erratic, a spokesperson from the Los Angeles Unified school district said on Thursday.

The district spans 700 square miles and is the nation’s second largest school district. Some of its communities are facing damage and debris from the winds, which have coursed through the area at up to 70 mph. Others are threatened by the fires. Other schools are experiencing hazardous air quality, due to the wind carrying smoke. All of the district’s schools were closed Thursday.

Three of the Los Angeles district’s schools were damaged by the fire: Palisades Charter Elementary School, Marquez Charter Elementary School, and Palisades Charter High School, an independent charter that the district owns and has been the setting of numerous Hollywood films. The district is communicating with families in those school communities about how they’ll create the least disruptive learning environment in the short term, the spokesperson said.

Educators and staff have jumped into assisting and making sure students are safe, the spokesman said, even when they themselves have lost their homes.

“We’re all trying to wrap our arms around each other and do this together,” he said.

In the Arcadia Unified school district, about 20 miles northeast of Los Angeles, the air quality on Thursday was dismal, said Ryan Foran, the chief communications officer there. He could smell the smoke from inside his district office.

The winds had damaged buildings—the roof of a high school was ripped off—and downed trees across the campus. Power was out entirely in two buildings.

Homes of educators and staff have been damaged or destroyed in the blaze. Some families had evacuated out of the region or the state. Typically, in a crisis, the district tries to stay open to act as a shelter for families, he said. But, with mounting safety concerns, and with staff so displaced, the district decided to close schools through the week.

The district initiated a crisis response team, which created a map and identified all students who are in need of assistance, Foran said.

“With staff, we’re giving them time. Our principals are reaching out to them to see what they need, offering housing, food, and all that sort of stuff,” Foran said. “We’re still in the middle of the crisis. … Hopefully next week, we’ll get a bit better picture of what the needs are, and can get an even more directed approach to supporting whoever needs it.”

In some cases, in the wake of natural disasters, districts have pivoted to remote learning—a muscle formed after years of it during the COVID-19 pandemic—but in fast-moving scenarios like a wildfire, that isn’t feasible, Foran said.

“To put that added stress on students to be like, ‘OK, we’re not in school, but you still have to do school,’ and you’re not even in your house, that’s just not viable,” he said.

Other schools support displaced students and families

David Hussey, the executive director of the El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills north of the Palisades fire, got a call from the American Red Cross around 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

About an hour and a half later, after looping in his board chair and chief operations officer, all hands were on deck on campus to open an evacuation shelter in the school’s multi-purpose room, known as Anderson Hall.

School is still out for winter break, with classes expected to start on Tuesday. But Fernando Delgado, the school’s chief operations officer, is answering phone calls and organizing his staff to support the Red Cross’ efforts to help people displaced from the fires. The office staff has helped by answering phones, taking messages, and delivering information. And the custodial staff has been working to make sure everything is clean and safe, Hussey said.

“I feel good with the people that work here. They are selfless. They just want to give back as much as they can. They understand people are in need right now, so we’re doing our best to support that. I think working in education lends itself very easily to that,” he said.

This is the first time the school has served as an evacuation shelter, though officials have considered it a potential site in the past, Hussey added.

He said the school saw the biggest group of people utilize the space, which is full of cots set up by the Red Cross and small pets in crates, on Wednesday night. The school has not experienced any power outages, but some neighborhoods in the area have.

Paula Hart Rodas, the first-year superintendent of the Monrovia Unified school district, had to close schools for two days due to power and water outages at some sites. Schools would remain closed on Friday.

Tasked with making critical calls and keeping families and staff informed, Hart Rodas found solace in a group text chat with 12 nearby superintendents. That chat includes Elizabeth Blanco, superintendent of the Pasadena Unified school district.

“Pasadena has just been decimated, and Liz, their superintendent, has been nothing but gracious, even in our asking her questions on like ‘How would you do this?’ and things like that,” Hart Rodas said. “Her community is facing just such absolute devastation, and she still makes time for us and offers support and condolences to the rest of us in the group.”

Leading through a disaster

Mary Sakuma, superintendent of schools for Butte County in the northern part of the state, said it was heartbreaking watching what was happening in Southern California. She isn’t unfamiliar with the devastation wildfires bring: She lived through one in 2018, when the Camp Fire tore through northern California. It was one of the deadliest fires in the state’s history, effectively wiping out the town of Paradise, which is within her district.

“It can sometimes feel like victims helping victims, as people evacuate and try to find a place to be while the fires are still burning,” she said.

Once the initial response settles down, it will be important for teachers to contact their students, she said, adding that students love their teachers, and it gives a sense of normalcy being able to hear from them.

Mental health services will also be vital for students in the immediate aftermath, she said. But issues can persist for years, she said.

“People need to be aware that two years hence, five years hence, these things will continue to bubble up, and whether that comes out in the forms of behaviors or lack of academic performance, we just need to be aware that that looms,” she said. “We want to be prepared for it.”

Educators in her district are eager to help those in the Los Angeles area, she said. Her deputy superintendent was on a call with district business officials to help them prepare for insurance claims and FEMA assistance, while the IT director was fielding calls and sharing his experiences.

“We have a statewide network of educational professionals who have a variety of experiences, and we really want to help,” she said. “We also know that right now, the people who are just experiencing it in their first maybe 48 hours may not yet know what it is that they would like help with and we understand that. ... We stand after ready to be of assistance in any way that we can—even if it’s just to listen.”