The Lake County fire broke out on September 12, 2015, around 1:30 in the afternoon and though it broke out on Cobb Mountain, the Lake County fire has left a huge impact on the Terra Linda community. Faculty, staff, students, friends and family have been supportive of the fire’s victims. Teachers started drives and organized other ways to aide with cleanup at the fire sites.

Within the walls of TL, English teacher Teagan Leonhart, started a donation drive for families whose houses have been evacuated or burned down. “When you’re a teacher, you have a voice,” said Leonhart. What drove Leonhart’s decision to start the donation drive was the thinking that one day, a fire could strike in the TL community. “You can’t do everything you want, but you can do anything you want.” Leonhart mentions that there has been a lot of support, and though the drive wasn’t very organized, “everybody wanted to help.”

Despite the fact that it took place miles away, the fire affected people within the Terra Linda community. Spanish teacher Tina Gonzalez said that her house in Kelseyville evacuated and her brothers’ dream house “was completely burned down.” Gonzalez finds it concerning that no one yet knows how the fire started, but added that it started on Cobb Mountain and “went down both sides right away,” which is why it spread to both Middletown and Kelseyville and the surrounding areas.

Gonzalez painted a depressing picture with regards to the aftermath of those affected: “Imagine you have nothing, not even a plate, not even a fork. You don’t have a single toy that you grew up with. Every picture, photograph, every memory is gone. Your birth certificate is gone. Like everything is absolutely gone.”

Gonzalez thought that the TL donation drive was great and that it didn’t matter who helped as long as everyone did what they could. Her mother played a huge role in helping, driving down to Terra Linda and taking the donations up to Lake County. All donations were given to the Red Cross Foundation.