Her home and school burned down in the LA fires. She’s just one of the 700,000 kids whose lives were affected

Lunch boxes at the Marquez charter elementary school, which was destroyed by a wildfire in January in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Eaton fire that devastated Altadena in early January burned down Juan Carlos Perez’s family home and the school where his younger daughter attended sixth grade.

Losing both anchors at once, Perez said, has been traumatizing for the 12-year-old. As the family moved from hotel to Airbnb, his daughter has become increasingly withdrawn and too anxious to return to school, asking to finish the semester online. The only time she interacted with friends was during soccer practice, Perez said, but that routine was suspended last month when the family moved this month to a friend’s house in Connecticut.