California wildfires affect Union families

BY EMMA NORTH

Richmond student Douglas Hippe is busy studying for his mid-term finals but his mind is on the tragic wildfires burning 2,800 miles away in Malibu, California, where he lived before enrolling at Union Presbyterian Seminary.

“It is very sad for me because I love California and feel very attached to the state,” Hippe said.

Douglas Hippe

While living there, Hippe said the fear of wildfires was always something everyone was aware of but not necessarily an everyday thought. “My wife has been getting a lot of first-hand reports from people there,” said Hippe, “the devastation is pretty massive.”

Among the structures destroyed was the Malibu home of his wife’s grandparents, James and Marcella Shirk.

Hippe’s wife created a GoFundMe page to help support her grandparents who have been featured on Inside Edition, ABC News, and their local ABC News station.

While Malibu is often associated with celebrities and wealth, not every resident falls into that category. When his wife’s grandparents moved there 41 years ago, the area was completely undeveloped and it wasn’t the celebrity paradise it is today.

“I think sometimes people can have a perception of like, oh well, we don’t need to be concerned about Malibu or offer help because they’re all rich,” Hippe said.

He explains that people in Malibu often rent out sections of their home or a guest home to pad their income and help them afford their home. There are also people who work for wealthy homeowners in the area as cooks, maintenance staff, groundskeepers, pet groomers, and personal trainers. These people are not wealthy and their job security is reliant on the homes and home-owners in the area.

The wildfires also spread very close to Pepperdine University, where Hippe received his Master of Arts degree in religion.

The family of Marina Luckoo, a student at Union’s Charlotte campus, was affected by fires that consumed the town of Paradise. Her nephew Jesiah and his family fled their home with all they could carry before it was destroyed. A GoFundMe page has been started to help them recover.

Hippe said the hardest thing for communities recovering from the disaster is the scale, that so many homes were damaged or destroyed. “How will they have the resources to clean up and rebuild?”

Top photo: The Malibu home of student Douglas Hippe’s wife’s grandparents was destroyed by fire.