Wildcat Social Series: Allison Post & Hannah McKee

The Wildcat Social Series contains blog posts written by Daemen College student-athletes on topics of their choosing. This series will be featured on daemenwildcats.com throughout the Fall 2020 semester. Today's blog is a dual submission by women's volleyball players and California natives Allison Post and Hannah McKee.

My name is Allison Post and I am a senior on the women's volleyball team, from Northern California. 

When the topic of climate change comes to mind all I can think about is the devastating wildfires that have taken place in California. According to the CAL Fire website, since the beginning of 2020, wildfires have burned over 3.1 million acres throughout the state. This year's number of burned acres is already 26 times higher than last year. Still don’t think climate change is real? 

Growing up, I vividly remember Smokey the Bear and firefighters coming into our classrooms at school coming to educate us on fire season, how to be prepared and how to help do your part in preventing the spread of fires. Growing up, I never saw the amount of fires and the devastation we see now. Unfortunately, my beautiful county, Sonoma County, has been struck hard in these past years. In 2017, there was the Tubbs Fire; in 2018, the Mendocino Complex Fire; in 2019, the Kincade Fire, and as I write this the Glass Fire. There has been a major wildfire every single year I have been at Daemen College. The Kincade Fire in 2019, was a mile away from my house and my family had to pack up everything we could and evacuate. With the amazing work from the brave first responders and firefighters, my family was lucky enough to still have a home. I have countless friends and members of the community who were left with nothing. 

My beautiful home and the entire state of California are tired of living in fear every year when wildfire season comes. I cannot describe the feeling of having to go through my home and decide which things are going to be left behind. Thank you to all the firefighters and first responders back home for putting your lives at risk every single day while fighting these massive wildfires. Please educate yourself on the issues regarding climate change and help make this world a better place now, and for the future generations. We cannot change the damage that has already been done, but now is the time to make your voice heard. 

My name is Hannah McKee. I am a junior on the women’s volleyball team and am from Southern California.

Growing up in California means that there is a fire season. For us that are native to the state, fire season is normal. Honestly,  until I left the state I never knew that not many states have such a thing. Yes, Oregon has somewhat of a fire season but not nearly to the degree as California. I’m from a suburb about an hour outside of Los Angeles, however for the first 15 years of my life, I lived in a mountain community about two hours outside L.A.. Growing up, I remember fires forcing us to evacuate from our home year after year. The most prominent memory I have is from the Blue Cut Fire in 2008, when I was in third grade. This fire forced my family and I to evacuate to my grandmother’s house for about two weeks. Being so young, I didn’t know what to think. Some of my friends and their families had to go to shelters because they had nowhere else to go. After this fire, my parents had my younger brother and I make a list of things that we would want them to grab if we had to do another emergency evacuation - a “go bag” essentially. I also remember multiple instances of my father having to load up the two cars just in case we got an emergency evacuation order throughout the night and wouldn't have time to pack. Unfortunately, stories like this are a normal occurrence during fire season. 

This past summer there were two fires too close to comfort to my house. I was home for only one of them. Luckily, my family did not have to evacuate for either of these fires but many of my friends did. The first fire, the Apple Fire, happened because of a car’s exhaust.. For about a week, CalFire planes and helicopters flew over our house at all hours of the night trying to fight the fire. This fire was no more than a 15 minute drive from my house. I had friends out there on the frontlines for days with little to no sleep. The second fire, the El Dorado Fire, was even closer to my home and was caused by a gender reveal party gone wrong. This fire however, was dumping ash on my hometown and surrounding communities, my family and friends told me. One friend works at a carwash and he had to wear protective goggles due to the heavy ash fall. My parents said our pool and cars had a layer or ash on them day after day. Luckily for this fire,  they didn’t have to evacuate.  

Fire season is something all Californians dread because it is so unpredictable. Fires, in general, are so unpredictable. This fire season, my family did not have to evacuate but other families have had to and others have lost so much. I know my family and so many others are thankful that Southern California had a relatively light fire season and send our prayers up to Northern California that has not had such luck.