Mariam Mkhitaryan, a 2022 Ames High School graduate, moved to Los Angeles to attend California State University Long Beach as a film major with plans to pursue a career in directing. When she was back in Iowa spending the holidays with her family, wildfires ravaged southern California.
“When the fire started, I did actually have a weird existential crisis,” Mkhitaryan said. “I bit the bullet. I went out of state, did all of this so I can be in the ideal place, and now that place is burning down.”
The wildfires began on Jan. 6 in Los Angeles County, quickly spreading through communities like Pacific Palisades and Eaton Canyon. The fires have caused at least 28 deaths, displaced over 200,000 residents, and destroyed or damaged more than 16,000 structures with several blazes still actively burning, NBC Los Angeles reports.
While Mkhitaryan was grateful to be safe in Iowa and relieved her Long Beach apartment remained untouched, she said witnessing the devastation unfold in the county she’s called home for three years took a significant emotional toll.
“I just remember waking up every single morning, checking for an update, seeing that it got worse, crying,” Mkhitaryan said. “That was my morning routine while I was in Iowa.”
Ultimately, Mkhitaryan decided to return to her university after winter break, noting that the reality for Los Angeles County residents is often different from how it’s portrayed in national news.
“This is a multi-million population city where a vast majority of people are just normal people who work really hard. They were born in LA, so they stay in LA because that’s their home,” Mkhitaryan said, emphasizing that the glitzy mansions lost to the wildfires are just a small part of the overall devastation.
She expressed disappointment in the online discourse surrounding the wildfires, criticizing the assumption that only wealthy individuals who can easily rebuild are impacted. This narrative, she said, ignores the devastating consequences on vulnerable groups, including working-class families, renters, small business owners, and those without the means to escape the fires.
“Even down to the fact that our death count right now is definitely not including all the homeless people who, for sure, had no way to evacuate,” Mkhitaryan said.
Mkhitaryan also expressed disappointment in the leadership of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has faced criticism for being on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the fires began. The city’s recent budget decisions, which cut funding for the fire department while increasing funding for the police, have also been a point of contention in public discourse.
However, Mkhitaryan emphasized more than local leadership failures or the yet-to-be-identified cause of the wildfires, the dangerously dry vegetation and extreme weather conditions in Los Angeles County — driven by climate change — are primarily to blame for the devastating impact.
“Point the finger at the people who privatized California’s water reservoirs and put us in this drought to begin with,” Mkhitaryan said.
The Red Cross is also addressing the issue, with Emily Holley, regional communications manager for the Nebraska-Iowa Region, highlighting the organization’s efforts to raise public awareness about how climate change is intensifying the severity of natural disasters.
“Our weather is changing,” Holley said. “Disasters like these wildfires and hurricanes and the tornadoes and floods — they’re becoming more frequent and more intense. And that means that the Red Cross is now launching twice as many relief operations for major disasters than we were a decade ago.”
Holley emphasized that even in regions not typically at risk for wildfires or hurricanes, climate change is intensifying the severity of all types of natural disasters — including the extreme heat waves and tornadoes that have increasingly impacted Midwesterners in recent years.
“Part of our responsibility as a disaster response organization is to make sure that people are aware of what’s going on and that they are doing what they can to prepare themselves and their families,” Holley said.
There are currently over 700 Red Cross volunteers working in affected areas of southern California, including four volunteers from Iowa. Holley said the volunteers primarily work in Red Cross shelters, which house over 600 displaced residents.
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“Our main objective is to make sure that people have the immediate support that they need,” Holley said. “Food, water, safe shelter, that’s what we’re working on.”
Holley explained that the Red Cross prioritizes partnering with local nonprofits that have strong, established relationships within their communities to ensure aid reaches as many people as possible.
She also stressed the organization’s support extends beyond meeting immediate survival needs, highlighting the emotional toll natural disasters take on survivors. Red Cross volunteers, she noted, play a crucial role in providing emotional support and helping individuals navigate the trauma and uncertainty that often follow such events.
“When I’ve done disaster deployments, part of that is just sitting with people and helping them process what they’ve gone through and letting them know that they have someone that is there to listen and help them in whatever way we can,” Holley said.
As the Red Cross continues its relief efforts in southern California — where wildfires remain active and containment efforts are still underway — the organization is set to receive a heartfelt contribution from three students at Hillcrest Academy in Kalona.
Moved by the ongoing devastation, seventh grade student Elise Hartsock took the lead in organizing a bake sale to raise funds for wildfire relief, with her friends Celie Shetler and Jaimee Helmuth eagerly joining in to help.
The students described how the impact of the wildfires has extended to the Hillcrest Academy community, with family members of a school administrator having lost their entire home and the family of Helmuth also being impacted.
“My aunt’s dad is having a hard time getting his stuff back, and it’s really hard for him,” Helmuth said.
Profits from the bake sale, scheduled for Feb. 4 during the Hillcrest basketball game, will be donated to the Red Cross, according to Hillcrest middle school math teacher Ashlee Miller.
“I’m just so proud of them, and I love being their teacher,” Miller said. “This is why I became a teacher, to foster these things.”