Texas State track coach speaks on damage left behind in Palisades wildfire

SAN MARCOS, Calif. — The damage left behind by the Palisades wildfire in California is hard to ignore.

States away in her home in San Marcos, Texas State Track and Field Associate Head Coach Kendall Gustafson Filip has spent the past several days speaking to friends and reminiscing about everything the sweeping blaze took away. 

“It’s been, honestly, pretty devastating to watch,” Gustafson Filip said. “It makes you feel really helpless when you’re not there. There’s nothing I can really do, so, I’ve just been watching online, following on social media, watching the news and it’s been really heartbreaking just to see the communities and the areas that I grew up in devastated by everything.” 

Gustafson Filip grew up in the area where the fire decimated entire blocks. 

The high school All-American graduated from Palisades Charter High School in Los Angeles before continuing her collegiate track and field career first at Duke and then later at UCLA as an athlete and coach. Once, a high school picked to serve as the setting for movies and TV series, now more closely resembles a nightmare. 

“I have been in communication with all of my friends really that I knew that were still in the area,” Gustafson Filip said. “I would say 90 plus percent of everyone that I communicated with lost their homes.” 

Gustafson Filip tells KENS 5 that her family and friends in California were able to leave their homes safely. Now, she’s just trying to offer an ear and smile to those who need it most. 

“I was just actually talking to some friends, I was kind of sharing with them that I was looking at pictures and you know kind of reminiscing good times and they actually said, ‘I don’t really have any pictures anymore, would you find a way to send them to me?’ So, I’m going to try to put together some photos and get it back to people that I know who have lost those memories.” 

Growing up in Southern California, the fear of your life changing overnight due to a wildfire is ever present. But nestled in suburbia, Gustafson said, you almost wouldn’t think something like this would ever happen. 

“It’s the kind of place too, if you’re there, it doesn’t feel like a place that would be as affected by wildfires that we typically do see in Southern California,” Gustafson said. “It’s a very urban place, you’ve probably seen pictures at this point of houses really close together, they’re not just alone up in the mountains. Some of them are, but unfortunately, it was the neighborhoods that got hit so hard. That’s really where a lot of the devastation came from. The high winds that were happening, took the embers to places that typically don’t see these fires and it wiped out suburban neighborhoods, which is just almost unheard of really.” 

Gustafson Filip told us processing this level of loss is like losing a friend. 

“Watching my childhood over the last couple of days has been really difficult and it also made me realize how connected to that place I still am and how much I will always be connected to that place,” Gustafson Filip said. “The place that you grow up (in), even if you leave and travel it will always be a part of you.”