
Los Angeles was all Marion Govednik knew until she came to St. Thomas University.
She said her hometown is viewed as a place “where every dream comes true, if you work hard enough.”
Since Jan. 7 people’s dreams, homes and lives have vanished in the Los Angeles area during a series of record-breaking wildfires.
The fires have burnt around 40,000 acres so far and claimed the lives of at least 27 people. Death tolls are expected to rise as the fires burn on.
“To me, it’s home and to me, this is hell, like this is not a dream. This is a nightmare,” said Govednik. “Seeing the pictures, seeing everything that has brought perspective that you can have everything you want, but with a snap of your fingers, it can get demolished in seconds.”
The nightmare began on the morning of Jan. 7 when Govednik heard a forest fire had broken out in the Pacific Palisades near Malibu and Santa Monica.
“My family didn’t have time to tell me … When I’m waking up in the morning, they’re asleep and I just started getting notifications from various news sources,” she said. “It was scary. It’s still scary.”
Since Tuesday, one of the L.A. fires in the Palisades has devastated the region burning 23,713 acres. The fire is still burning and is 52 per cent contained according to Cal Fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Govednik’s home is in Lake Balboa, which is in the San Fernando Valley, around 10 kilometres from the edge of the Palisades fire.
She said her parents are not under evacuation but with a wall of smoke looming they’re prepared to leave their home behind like thousands of other residents.

Govednik has been in daily contact with her parents and feels powerless about the situation.
“I feel horrible and I find the pictures are just horrific because that is my home. The idea of seeing just fireballs in the air and in palm trees and homes and all that. I just want to be there to be with my family and I can’t,” she said.

Cal Fire estimates around 5,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed in the path of the Palisades fire.
Govednik said “there’s still a lot” between her family home and the fire, explaining that the fire would have to make a “big” jump to clear the mountain range that creates the valley.
“I have optimism in the sense that I have time, but I also have doubt and fear that if this continues, I may be flying home in May with no home.”
Govednik is thankful that her family has time to prepare if they are instructed to evacuate. She has had the difficult conversation with her mother about what she wants to be taken out of the house if they have to leave.
“I told them I don’t want everything, obviously, because you can’t take everything, but here’s two things that I want, pack those, I don’t care about anything else,” said Govednik.
She wants the family jewelry that she has inherited and her birth certificate alongside other documents.

The Palisades is not the only fire burning in Los Angeles County.
The Eaton fire burns on the other side of the city and has consumed 14,117 acres. According to Cal Fire it is 81 per cent contained. The Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has counted around 8,000 damaged or destroyed structures in the Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre areas.
Govednik’s grandfather and aunt were under an evacuation order due to the Eaton fire. They were allowed to return to their home within a day of the order and their property is luckily undamaged.
She added that some of her friends and their families have lost everything to the fires.
Since Jan. 7, more fires have burned on the outskirts of Los Angeles which has been characterized as a ‘ring of fire.’
The Hurst fire burned about 800 acres. The Kenneth, Lidia, Sunset and Archer fires each burned around the San Fernando Valley in the northeast corner of Los Angeles.
The threat of these fires has been fully contained.
‘Perfect fire’
Wildfires don’t come as a “surprise” to Govednik as it is all a part of living in Southern California. She compares it to New Brunswick’s winter snowstorm season.
In February, before fire season, Los Angeles received over 300 mm of rain. The fourth most rainfall on record for the month, which encouraged the growth of vegetation.
Now, after around 4 mm of rain since Oct. 1, the brush has dried out creating perfect fuel for a wildfire.
The seasonally dry and high-gusting Santa Ana winds act as an accelerator for the fires.
“Everything has dried out and died, which has made this perfect fire … We’ve had about 80 to 90 miles per hour winds, which are hurricane level winds and that’s kind of mixed in with dryness, just comes together and creates this horrible effect of what we’re seeing,” said Govednik.

Those wind speeds equate to around 140 kilometres per hour gusts.
Like many, she attributes the intensity of this fire to climate change.
Even after our planet’s hottest year in 2024, it is still hard for experts to attribute a single event to climate change. But climate change can set the terms. With rapid changes in weather such as parallel periods of heavy rainfall and drought.
Kaitlyn Trudeau, a West Coast Climate Central wildfire researcher, told the New York Times “It’s very clear that something is off and that something, is that we’re pumping an insane amount of carbon into the atmosphere and causing the climate systems to go out of whack.”
Investigations are ongoing to determine the cause of the fire, but speculation includes arsonists, power company utilities, or a previous fire that was reignited in the Palisades.
Govednik thinks that the fire in her hometown may be “the new norm” and she is grateful that she lives in a state that “actually believes in climate change.”
“We’ve had so many extreme weather patterns change,” said Govednik. “Sadly. I’m just seeing it potentially only getting worse from here.”