"Kiley Hoiles doesn't want to keep talking about the Palisades fire. She is 15. And it's been nearly a year since the blaze incinerated her family's cozy little house on Edgar Street in Pacific Palisades. And her entire neighborhood. And her old elementary school, Marquez Charter. And the dojo where she trained three times a week. Kiley is a now a freshman at a charter school in West Los Angeles,"
""It was more than a town," Kiley said of the Palisades. "Everyone was so close, and everyone knew each other, and it was all I knew. It was my childhood, like my everything. And it's kind of too hard for them" - her friends - "to wrap their heads around. So I don't want to try to emotionally dump everything that happened on them.""
"She is, for example, an aspiring actress. She is about to earn her black belt in karate. She is learning to sing at the School of Rock. And she loves the BLT sandwiches with avocado and an Arnold Palmer at one of her favorite Palisades cafes. Kiley is poised. She's optimistic. But she is changed. The Palisades and Eaton fires have inflicted a traumatic toll on teenagers, many of whom already had their childhoods upended by the COVID-19 pandemic."
Kiley Hoiles, 15, lost her house, neighborhood, elementary school and dojo in the Palisades blaze nearly a year ago. She is now a freshman at a West Los Angeles charter school and knows few peers who shared the same loss, which has left her feeling isolated. She avoids discussing the fires to prevent being defined solely by the loss and to spare friends emotional burden. She continues pursuing acting, karate, singing, and favorite local routines, appearing poised and optimistic but acknowledging lasting change. Adolescents experienced trauma during a formative period of identity building, worsened for many by prior COVID-19 disruptions.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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