When the Franklin Fire outbreak in Malibu this week, students at Pepperdine University were told to stay put — even as those in neighboring communities fled for their lives.
Two hours after the wildfire started, the university announced a shelter-in-place order at 1 a.m. Tuesday morning, telling students to remain in two buildings in the middle of campus. From one of those buildings, the Payson Library, students looked through a window the sky lit up a glowing orange hue and bright red flames swept over a nearby hill.
The next day, the wildfire grew closer to the university along the Pacific Coast Highway and moved over a ridge as it approached the north side of campus. Later that evening, the university said that “flames are still visible in small areas of campus,” showing how close the wildfire had gotten to the school.
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And while others in Malibu were evacuated at the direction of the local fire department, the school maintained a shelter-in-place order.
“I’ve heard from friends that they were stuck in the library all night, in the cafe,” said Henry Adams, a Pepperdine student. “It was just very tiring. A lot of fear, a lot of fear.”
The order was lifted at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Although it has been a longstanding wildfire policy dating back to the 1990s, Pepperdine’s shelter-in-place order has faced criticism in the past – concerns surfaced from parents and students when the Woolsey Fire broke out in November 2018 and exploded in size.
As the massive wildfire quickly burned through thousands of acres and students were told to stay inside university buildings as the flames closed in, some in the campus community who criticized the policy said it just didn’t seem to make sense.
The wildfire policy was first implemented by Pepperdine in 1993, former university president Andrew Benton told the student-run campus newspaper Pepperdine Graphic in the days after the Woolsey Fire. He said he developed the plan with other university officials and the LA County Fire Department and that no coordinated wildfire plan existed at the school before then.
In defending its policy, the university has said certain circumstances – unique to the location, construction and other factors – make it the safest possible measure in the event of wildfires. Fireproof buildings and concerns that students may get stuck in traffic along the limited number of surrounding roads are some of the reasons behind this.
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“Despite any evacuation orders from the City of Malibu or surrounding areas, the University community must follow the University’s instructions,” Pepperdine said in a message to X this week. “We are not evacuating campus even if surrounding areas would be able to. This shelter protocol has been approved by LA County Fire and is being implemented with their cooperation.”
Benton urged students and others not to leave campus during the Woolsey Fire. ‘Stay here. You are safe here,” he told students huddled in a university building.
By its end, the wildfire killed three people and destroyed hundreds of homes as it swept through LA and Ventura counties.
While speaking to students, Benton said he was “annoyed.” The local fire brigade did not send enough resources to the school.
“I’m very annoyed that the fire (authorities) didn’t anticipate this, didn’t get resources here and didn’t realize we were going to have 3,500 people on this campus,” Benton said. “And now they’ve chased some of your brothers and sisters into the streets, and I don’t know where they are.”
That last point, according to the university, is part of the reasoning behind Pepperdine’s shelter-in-place policy.
“There are a limited number of ways to travel to and from campus,” Pepperdine says on its website. “These roads can be closed, congested or dangerous as bushfires can spread quickly and change unpredictably. Roads must also remain clear so that emergency services can move freely and quickly through the area.”
Phil Phillips, the school’s executive vice president, told the Associated Press that the PCH — which has suffered closures during both the Franklin and Woolsey fires — can become severely overloaded during emergencies such as wildfires.
“What you don’t want is to be stuck,” Phillips said. “Protecting our students and ensuring their safety is a moral obligation for us, so we take it very, very seriously.”
Phillips said the school is closing doors with tape and using air filters at shelter locations to reduce smoke in these areas, AP reported. The university also clears heavily flammable brush, which can cause and fuel wildfires, at least 200 feet away from buildings, and constructs its buildings with fire-resistant materials “wherever possible,” according to the university’s website.
Campus roads can act as natural firebreaks and the school has fire-resistant landscaping throughout the grounds. Rick Godinez, a retired LA fire chief whose daughter attended Pepperdine, said some of these features provide solid protection.
“There are concrete structures that are less likely to burn if the fire passes through them,” Godinez said. “Yes, trees and flammable materials will burn. But in this case, where these buildings are, there is a lot of defensible space with the sports fields and areas where the fire will travel.”
