In January 2025, Los Angeles was significantly affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires, which devastated many citizens. At the time, Southern California was experiencing an extreme drought accompanied by strong winds, creating perfect conditions for flames to spread. Fires across the state affected Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties. In total, the state saw over one million acres of burned land, forcing hundreds of thousands of citizens to evacuate their homes.
Alex Crowley ’23, a Paideia alumn attending California Institute of Technology, had an intense experience with the fires. “The fires devastated the area. I have professors whose homes burned down. Our campus was shut down for the week since the air quality was so bad.”
In addition to the unprecedented fires in California, this winter has also seen an immense increase in snowfall across the country. Areas such as Georgia, Florida, and Texas experienced winter storms. North Texas, where snow had not fallen since the winter of 2021, had as many as five inches of snow in the early weeks of February, setting new records across the state. Similarly, Florida had one of the worst and most significant winter storms in its history, shattering its previous record by nearly five inches.
While the Northeast has always experienced incredible amounts of cold snaps in the winter, many northerners have been left baffled by the growing number of winter storms this season. Many have predicted that by the time winter is over, some eastern cities will have seen more snow than in the past two winters combined.
“The idea that people in the west are facing extreme fires while in the east it’s snowing like never before scares me for the future of the environment,” says Izzy Yepez ’27.
