Junior Micah Shaked left his house for school on what he assumed was a typical Tuesday morning. As usual, he brought his backpack and his basketball clothes, thinking he would return home in the afternoon.

Later that day his neighborhood was in flames and his house and possessions were gone.

His mom, Alisa, rescued a few pairs of clothing and the family dog, and Micah had his school and sports bags with him. Besides laptops his parents had on them and a few other possessions, everything else they owned was in their home.

“She barely grabbed anything because she thought she was going to be able to go back,” Micah said of his mom, who had gone to their home in the middle of the day on Tuesday before the inferno came close to their neighborhood.

A catastrophic wildfire started the morning of Jan. 7 in the Pacific Palisades, quickly spreading throughout the beachside neighborhood and into nearby areas. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation, and firefighters have been on the ground working to contain the flames with 98% success as of Jan. 30. 

Five other major fires broke out in Southern California that week. As of press time, four have been either 100% contained or extinguished. Hollywood Hills’ Sunset fire, now out, was the closest blaze to Shalhevet, but smoke from the Eaton fire, which started the evening of Jan. 7 in Altadena, was visible from the school’s rooftop the next morning. As of Jan. 30, the Eaton fire was 99% contained. 

Officials estimate that more than 16,200 structures have been destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires combined, including more than 11,000 homes. According to the LA Times, around 40,000 acres have burned from both fires.

At least 29 people have died and tens of thousands of people have evacuated from their homes and remain displaced.

The Shakeds have an aunt and grandmother who live in Los Angeles, far away from evacuation zones, so the family stayed with them and friends the immediate two weeks after they evacuated. They leased a house in the Pico-Robertson area and moved in on Jan. 22. 

Micah is the only Shalhevet student who lives in the Palisades, and the only student whose home was damaged or destroyed. But other students and teachers either needed to evacuate or came close. 

Junior Maya Alon saw the Palisades fire from her backyard and her family decided to evacuate to Palm Springs. Soon after they decided they received an alert on their phones ordering people in their area to leave. They stayed in Palm Springs for three days before returning. 

“I just took the basic things I needed everyday,” Maya said. “I wasn’t really too scared, I knew I was going to be okay. I wasn’t really scared until my parents started getting scared.” 

History Department Chair Dr. Keith Harris also saw flames in the distance from his Hollywood apartment’s balcony and prepared to evacuate. His area received evacuation warnings due to the nearby Sunset fire, but firefighters fully contained the blaze before he needed to leave.

The threat of potentially needing to evacuate hung over Pico-Robertson residents’ heads for at least a week after the fires sparked. 

This remained particularly true for Micah. His family stayed at different places in the area before moving into their newly leased home, but he always took with him what few possessions he owned.

“My mom keeps telling me to leave stuff at my aunt’s house but I kind of have a little bit of PTSD doing that,” he said “Everywhere I go, I take everything I have.”

Concentrating on school and having a quiet space to do homework were some of the difficulties Micah dealt with in the aftermath. 

“I guess the way I’ve been coping is just completely surrounding myself with friends and activities,” he said. “It’s kind of affecting my school a little bit, I’m really not on top of my stuff right now…

“I’m focused on being there for my parents, who lost a lot more than I did.”

Micah’s dad, Roy, purchased their Palisades house in the 1990s, after he graduated from medical school at University of California, Davis. Once he married Alisa, Micah’s mom, she moved into the house with him and the family lived there until the fires consumed it in early January.

Among the items their family lost were non-d​​igitized photos from Ms. Shaked’s childhood and things her father passed down to her when he died in 2023.

His mother would also decorate the house with “pillows and little knick knacks” for every holiday, Micah said, and his father had a record player – all burned in the fire. 

“It was a very vibrant home,” Micah said. 

Some of his favorite parts of his house were his basketball hoop in the backyard and a pomegranate tree he planted with his grandmother for Tu B’Shvat when he was in second grade.

The house was located right off of Sunset and Chautauqua Boulevards, and a few miles from Palisades Charter High School, where Micah’s older brother, Levy, went. The high school sustained serious fire damage as well.

Shalhevet administration canceled school Thursday, Jan. 9, the week the fires broke out. Classes resumed on Friday, after firefighters contained the Sunset fire.

The closest the majority of Shalhevet students who live in Pico-Robertson came to evacuating was Wednesday and Thursday of that week.

Some students packed evacuation bags while others kept close watch on the fires’ progressions.

“I didn’t think we needed to evacuate,” junior Hannah Carr said, “but the whole thing was just stressful.”

Hannah did not pack an evacuation bag like some of her fellow students did. Sophomore Levi Brous-Light said his parents had him pack an evacuation bag out of an abundance of caution. 

Micah had two paintings from his grandparents he would have packed if he was able to take things from his house before it burnt.

“I would take a bag full of cards and letters that my friends and family have written to me over the years that I’ve kept because they are incredibly special to me,” he said. “Unfortunately that bag was in my closet and I’m assuming it’s gone. I definitely would have taken that.”

He also lost a copy of the speech his grandfather gave at his bar mitzvah that had handwritten notes in the margins, along with vintage shirts and sweaters his grandfather passed to him. 

Students started a GoFundMe to help Micah buy clothes and other items to start rebuilding his life again. 

“I’m borrowing things from them, my friends are really taking care of me…,” he said. “I’ve just felt like everyone really cares.”

Although Micah is the only Shalhevet kid who lost his home, many other students have connections to kids in the Palisades, including Hannah. 

“I’m kind of always thinking about it because I have so many friends who did lose their houses,” she said. “I just feel so bad for them. I don’t think it’s going to go back to normal, obviously for the kids at Pali [High], but for us too. A big part of LA is destroyed.”