ALEX LASSITER: Hello, lovely people! It’s Alex Lassiter with the Minnesota Daily, and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota… is what I would be saying, if we were staying in-state for the focus of this episode.
Many, hopefully all of you, know that a few weeks ago a series of wildfires roared across Los Angeles county, burning for close to two weeks. When one looked contained, another would sprout up in a different area of the county. These fires have caused at least 29 deaths and have displaced countless people from their homes.
Reagan Rogers, a University student from L.A. county, says she got to see exactly how damaging these flames were to those people close by her.
REAGAN ROGERS: These close family and friends of mine had lost their entire lives, and I know for them it took even longer to really come to terms with that. Especially for those of my friends who lost pictures or mementos of loved ones who had passed.
It’s just, I truly can’t wrap my head around the emotional toll that that would take—not only just the logical toll of trying to figure out what to do with your life now, but just having to deal with, kind of the things that you really can’t replace.
LASSITER: Rogers is from south Pasadena, and one of the first things she talked about with me about was just how many people underestimated the size of L.A. county. It’s a lot larger than people think, leaving more room for the fires to spread and requiring more help in keeping them contained. If you’re not from L.A., like me, then you may have not even known where south Pasadena is, also like me. It’s just 10 minutes south of where the Eaton fire broke out.
Rogers says wintertime in California is the dry season, so wildfires in general can be more common. But she had no idea how these fires had gotten so big, so fast. She only found out once it was too late—her, and other nearby residents like Cora Murray.
CORA MURRAY: I was actually sitting at my desk at work, where I was studying wildfire home insurance. So I got the notification on my phone, literally in the middle of reading a report about California’s insurance crisis. And it was very dystopian in the moment. I had a feeling as soon as I saw it, I knew that it was going to be big because we had gotten the red flag warnings.
So my heart just kind of sank because I knew it was coming. I obviously, I didn’t know the extent of the destruction. It was beyond what I could have ever imagined, but, you know, I had that feeling in my chest.
LASSITER: Murray does work as an undergraduate research assistant for the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge, an initiative centered around researching the climate and, get this, wildfires. This was right up her alley. Murray is a senior at the University of California, L.A., and is studying environmental policy. Because of her specialty in wildfires, Murray was able to see the warning signs right away.
MURRAY: The first thing was obviously the winds. I knew that this was an unprecedented wind event. We’ve been getting warnings for a couple of days that we were going to be experiencing extremely high winds, and you know, you could see it when you were outside. You could feel it.
When I was walking to work that morning, I remember having stuff fly into my eyes, and I actually just put on sunglasses. I didn’t need them because it wasn’t bright out, but I just wanted to stop stuff from getting in my eyes. So as soon as I saw that there was some ignition, I knew it was going to be big.
LASSITER: For someone like Murray, who does so much work researching wildfires, it’s a little bit easier to recognize the signs. Rogers saw those same signs that Murray did, but without the proper technical expertise or proper notice from the state of California, the meaning behind them wasn’t apparent—not until things started to heat up, at least. Until it became a roaring blaze, the sparks snuck up on her.
ROGERS: My parents and I had gone to dinner, so we got home and we knew that we were on a wind advisory warning, but nothing had really started yet. So, we got home and the power was out, so we just kind of thought it was associated with the wind because it was pretty aggressive. I think it was like 30 miles an hour at the worst where I am. So we didn’t really know that the fires had already broken out.
And then suddenly we had gotten a evacuation warning, so we were told to prepare for further instruction, but we weren’t on an evacuation order yet. And that was when we started kind of getting notice from friends and family that they had out evacuation orders and that they were closer to the fires.
LASSITER: In little less than a few hours, the outlook had gone from a clear blue sky to hazy and uncertain. Though she was a safe distance away, the next few days weren’t any more reassuring to Rogers. She could see the billowing black smoke from her home. The air quality worsened, and the flames cast an eerie amber glow overhead.
ROGERS: We, in South Pasadena, never had an evacuation order. We stayed on a warning for, I believe it ended up being six days. And so we were safe in the valley where we are. I think it’s a mix of just it feeling really surreal and also being grateful that I didn’t get to that point.
But also in a way having survivor’s guilt that, like, we were so close. And, and I know these people who are losing their homes and I just, I feel bad that there’s so little you can really do.
LASSITER: Fortunately, Rogers never needed to evacuate. In fact, she didn’t even leave her home until coming back to the University of Minnesota for the start of the spring semester. And though they came close, Murray and the rest of the UCLA student body didn’t need to evacuate either. However, this wasn’t Murray’s first time worrying about an incoming wildfire. Her first encounter—the one that fanned the flames of her passion for environmental policy—had come just a few years earlier.
MURRAY: I’m from a town called Lafayette. It’s a small little suburb, but there was a fire in 2019 I believe. That was, you know, the closest I had ever been to fire, and I evacuated. I went down to my grandma’s house in San Jose, and just having to decide what you put in the trunk of your car, and potentially never seeing your home again is an experience that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It’s horrible.
LASSITER: The part that people don’t like to talk about, or think about, is that when some of these people pack up to flee from a natural disaster like a wildfire, it’s the last time that they’re ever going to see their home. Entire livelihoods were lost. Not just houses, but businesses and schools. Students in the middle of their semester were suddenly dislocated.
Just picture that for a second. You’re getting ready to go to all of your classes, see all of your friends, finish out your senior year… and then, nothing. No certainty. No safety. Just worry and unrest. And to make things worse, this year of all years, there’s no guarantee that they’ll get covered by their fire insurance.
ROGERS: State Farm and Allstate in Palisades and a lot of L.A. county removed their fire insurance for residents in around October/November. So once they knew that the wind and the dry conditions were coming in the winter, they took away the fire insurance that people have been paying for who knows how long and then these people lost their homes to a fire. So a lot of people do not even have the insurance coming through to help them rebuild or restart a life somewhere else.
MURRAY: We’re in the middle of a reform right now for homeowners insurance, and I don’t know how these fires are going to affect it. I don’t know. We’re, basically there’s a crisis of homeowners insurance where there’s affordability issues and accessibility issues. Accessibility is much more important because it’s, you know, whether you’re even able to get insurance for your home.
We keep permitting these areas and allowing for more development to happen there and allowing for rebuilding to happen there after fire, which is a very complicated issue. You know, it’s like, these people who have lost everything, they should be allowed to rebuild. But at the same time, should they be allowed to rebuild the exact same structure in the exact same place if we know that it’s vulnerable to fire? And, you know, if they do rebuild there, should they be guaranteed insurance?
LASSITER: Though the fires have come back under control and the rebuilding efforts can begin, it will likely be a process that takes years and costs billions. We’re only a few weeks out from the start of this disaster. The natural part is over—the financial part has yet to begin. And though the fire has died down, what Murray says we need to be on the lookout for next is the water.
MURRAY: Right now, L.A. is experiencing some really intense rainfall, which is, you know, necessary for replenishing our water. But at the same time, it could lead to some really devastating floods and some really devastating mudslides in those post-fire areas.
Yeah, and it’s going to be carrying all of that fire debris with it into our water system, too. So, you know, we could be seeing pollution at a large scale that I don’t know if we’re prepared for. I don’t really know anything about the water system. I’m sure that people are preparing for it. This has happened before, so I would assume they know what they’re doing, but it’s just scary to see one kind of disaster after another.
LASSITER: Murray is still back in L.A. county. She’s starting her final semester of her senior year and watching as people pick up the pieces from the fire. While she’s a stone’s throw away from the damage, a conversation with Rogers, who flew back into Minnesota for her next semester, is as close as some people can get to knowing someone affected by the disaster.
ROGERS: I think it’s hard, and this is no one’s fault, living here in the Midwest. You’re so far away from California, it’s, you would have no reason to understand it. People would ask me when I got back, “Oh, how was your break? You’re in California. Like, did you see anything about the fires? What was that like?” And I was like, “well, I am in Los Angeles County. Like, I did have an evacuation warning. Luckily I was safe and that kind of stuff.”
But I think it always shocks people to know that Los Angeles County is so large and I think people, when they saw it on the news, would assume that the fires were in, like, Hollywood, which, you know, is just kind of what everyone pictures L.A. to be.
Even for the people who maybe are wealthier, or who are celebrities, like, they’re still humans, and they lost their home, and everything that they own, everything that they know, they have children who lost their schools. Where are they gonna go to school? It’s the middle of the year. I just think it takes a lot of humility that you don’t usually have unless you live there, and that’s totally understandable. I just, I feel like that’s the biggest thing about it.
LASSITER: Here in Minnesota, we are so far removed from all that went on in L.A. county, and I mean like Rogers said: that’s nobody’s fault. Not many of us will likely pack up all of our belongings and move closer to the fires so we can relate to people more. In fact, we are coming out of a cold front in Minnesota—there’s probably not many people who can relate less to what residents of L.A. county are going through. We may not understand, but we can acknowledge. We may be colder, but we don’t have to be cold. If you know anyone who lives in L.A. county, or has family who may have been affected or friends, reach out. Just trust me, they will appreciate hearing from you.
And if you can give monetarily to help with the relief efforts, you can donate to the American Red Cross, the California Community Fund or GoFundMe’s 2025 Wildfire Relief fund, all of which are linked below. Or if you want to do your own research and find your own charity to donate to, be my guest. Just research smartly, there’s a lot of people trying to take advantage of this disaster to scam folks. Thank you for listening to this episode.
It was written by me, Alex Lassiter, and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in. So please feel free to send an email to the [email protected] inbox with any questions, comments, concerns or story ideas that you want us to produce this next season. I’m Alex Lassiter, and this has been In The Know. Happy new year and take care, y’all.
Read about Red Cross relief efforts and donate HERE.
Donate to the 2025 GoFundMe Wildfire Relief Fund HERE.
Donate to the California Community Fund HERE.
