LA wildfires: Survivors lean on faith
through the flames
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The home of Sarah Ray, a teacher from Altadena, Calif., was destroyed Jan. 8, 2025, in the Eaton Fire, one of five deadly wildfires raging in Los Angeles. "My house burned to the ground," she said. "But it's a blessing to be so close to God, and you're only close to God when you don't have anything." (OSV News photo/courtesy Sarah Ray)
(OSV News) — Survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires said their Catholic faith is bringing them through the flames.
“I left my house at 3:30 a.m. yesterday with really nothing,” said Sarah Ray, a teacher from Altadena, California, and member of St. Andrew Church in nearby Pasadena. “My house burned to the ground. … But it’s a blessing to be so close to God, and you’re only close to God when you don’t have anything.”
Ray — a mother of four young children whose husband died in December 2022 after a 16-year battle with brain cancer — spoke with OSV News Jan. 9 while temporarily staying with her sister, accompanied by her parents.
“They were at my house when it started. They couldn’t even get home to get their stuff because it started so fast,” said Ray.
Altadena was in the path of the deadly Eaton Fire, one of five active blazes that combined have so far killed at least five people and forced almost 180,000 people to evacuate. The Palisades and Eaton fires, the two largest blazes, together encompass more than 27,000 acres and remain uncontained as of Jan. 9. Tens of thousands of structures in the path of the fires have been damaged or destroyed.
The blazes, which broke out Jan. 7, have been fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds reaching more than 60 mph, as well as extremely dry conditions that have rendered vegetation quick to burn.
Amid the loss, ‘we have to proclaim our faith’
Ray said that the fire — doubly searing amid the loss of her husband and an upcoming surgery for her son — has intensified her faith in God.
“I’m getting my kids to heaven, because that’s why we’re here,” she told OSV News, adding that she has also relied on the Book of Job for support at this time. “I told my kids, ‘We have to proclaim our faith. We need to up our game. … I have to give God all the glory.'”
Catholic author Kendra Tierney Norton, a fellow St. Andrew parishioner known for her popular website, blog and book “Catholic All Year,” told OSV News that she was grateful her Altadena home has so far been spared — and that the process of evacuating proved to be a “grace-filled moment.”
“I was standing there in our dining room, looking at all this antique glass that I had inherited from my grandmothers on both sides, and silver platters recognizing my grandfather for his service in World War II,” she recalled. “And I just thought, ‘You know, I love the memories I have associated with these things. But these are things. And I’m not going to pack up this stuff and cram our car full of it. … I’m not feeling attached. We have all of our people (in our family), and that’s what matters.”
One of her sons did make sure to bring along three first-class relics of St. Gerard, St. Junipero Serra and St. Maria Maravillas the family kept in their home’s private chapel, calling them “irreplaceable,” she said.
Calling upon firefighting saints — including Mary
She and her family have also been “asking for the intercession of St. Florian,” the patron of firefighters, and Our Lady of Champion, whose intercession is credited with saving many — and the grounds of what is now her national shrine in Champion, Wisconsin — from the Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871.
Keeley Bowler — a Montrose, California, resident who attends both St. Therese Church in Alhambra and Incarnation Catholic Church in Glendale — told OSV News that she has also been praying to Our Lady of Champion.
In addition, Bowler said she had “sprinkled some holy water” on her house before she and her family evacuated to San Diego.
Scripture has also been a source of strength, said Bowler, who is the producer and operations manager for the Lila Rose Podcast.
She pointed in particular to 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.”
Bowler views the crisis with a sense of holy detachment, even as she grieves with those who “have suffered so much” due to the wildfires.
“If my house burns down and all my things burn down, I haven’t lost anything,” she said. “I can’t bring it to heaven. … So I am feeling very much a sense of hope and a sense of God’s providence during this time.”
Ray agreed.
“God is the real deal,” she said.
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