California wildfires hit close to home for Texas State track coach

SAN MARCOS, Calif. — The flames hitting California are hitting close to home for a coach back in South Texas.

Kendall Gustafson Filip is the associate head coach for Texas State’s track and field program. While calling Texas home now, she grew up in Pacific Palisades in California and even went to high school there.

She says it’s been devastating to watch and her eyes have been glued to the TV as the community she grew up in is destroyed.

Even her high school — Palisades Charter — has been burned to the ground.

“I was there my whole life. I went to Palisades High School and just have so many fond memories there growing up in the area,” Gustafson Filip said. “It was a fantastic place to grow up. Absolutely gorgeous. And I feel so, I don’t know, homesick watching this because those are my places and those are my people. And to see them going through so much is really, really difficult.”

Gustafson Filip said she is continuing to check in on friends and family as the days go on.

She says they’re safe, but most have lost their homes and precious belongings like pictures.

While she says fires are common in Southern California, she’s never seen it hit the suburban areas of the Palisades like this.

And the wildfires continue this morning in multiple areas around Los Angeles.

Officials on the ground say the Palisades blaze is the most destructive in county history.