ABOVE: Brush burns in the Woolsey Fire in southern California.
© ISTOCK.COM, JORGE VILLALBA
Several college campuses in California are closed as wildfires rage in the state. At Pepperdine University in Malibu, the campus remains inaccessible because of the Woolsey Fire that has already burned around 100,000 acres and is about half contained. Staff and students who sheltered in place at the college are in isolation, hunkering down in the library, as roads in the area are closed.
“It’s essentially an island,” says Jay Brewster, a biology professor at Pepperdine, whose home is on campus. Since Friday (November 8), he has been tending to the university’s cell culture facilities, making sure cells in the freezers are safe, and otherwise holding down his department’s fort until more faculty members can return to help.
“We’ve had fires before, and this one was really close,” he tells The Scientist. Flames burned the ornamental landscaping ...
