ASU students impacted by California wildfires
TEMPE, Ariz. - Impacts of the California fires are being felt by many California students at Arizona State University.
The university says 6,000 ASU students call California home. Some of them were evacuated, others completely lost their homes, and some were unaffected.
Things look a lot different for a few of those students as the spring semester started on Monday. They fear the unknown of what they'll return home to in the summer.
"Just the smell and seeing how frantic everybody was, just crazy," ASU student and California native, Shay Mauriello, said. "Everybody was so on edge."
He recalls how tense it was watching the fires consume his Los Angeles community, waiting with his parents for the "go" orders to be evacuated.
"They were freaked out. I live in kind of like a bushy, like, rural area," Mauriello said. "My best friend whose childhood house I grew up going to fully burned down."
This photo was taken as he flew back to Arizona. It shows how many schools, homes and entire communities are gone.
Thankfully, his family's home still stands.
That’s not the case for other ASU students, like Lance Doven who left California on Jan. 5 for his spring semester abroad, not knowing it would be his last time in his childhood home.
"Lance lost everything, like the car that we used to ride around in together and his whole house. Knowing that he's lived there in this community for his whole life, is just devastating," said Doven's friend, Luke Magnotto, of ASU Sigma Nu.
On the other side of the world, Doven heard the heartbreaking news.
"His family, you know, had to tell him overseas," said Jake Crosby, another one of Doven's friends and president of ASU Sigma Nu. "It’s just really sad for him."
Doven's parents got out with only the clothes on their backs.
The ASU community is rallying around students like Doven. His fraternity brothers are posting a GoFundMe all over social media.
"We're trying to show him all the love we can give, given he's not able to be around us," Crosby said.
Other students are starting campus wide donation drives.
"It’s super easy to just drop it in a box, so, I thought might as well help out," said Gracie Mobley, Director of Student Government and Civic Engagement for the National Panhellenic Conference.
ASU Professor, Dr. Gene Schneller, was in Los Angeles when the fires broke out. Schneller flew back to the Valley with other students who lost everything.
"Many of them had to go out and buy everything. From a new laptop, which they might have left in their house, to clothing, you know, right down to the very most basic things," he said.
We were not able to speak with Doven directly because of the time different since he is studying abroad, but his story highlights some of the many stories of those that lost everything.
Donation boxes at ASU will be driven to California on Friday, Jan. 17.
Some students who are impacted are grateful for a sense of normalcy being at ASU, but are still having a hard time being away from home.
If you'd like to donate to the GoFundMe for Doven, click here.