‘It feels unreal:' Former Washington State WR Jamire Calvin lost aunt, home in LA fires

Jamire Calvin’s heart dropped when he got the phone call. It was last Wednesday morning and Calvin found himself in the Pasadena Courtyard Inn, where he and his family had sought shelter from the Los Angeles fires that consumed their homes. Calvin got a call from his father, Zaire.

After sorting through the rubble of the home, Zaire and wife Rachel realized the news: Evelyn, Zaire’s sister and Jamire’s aunt, didn’t make it. Her body was found in the ashes of her home, which she had not evacuated.

Calvin, who played three years of football at Washington State (2017-20), lost most of his belongings in the fire, which destroyed the home he shared with his grandmother, Rasheedah. The fire also razed Zaire’s and Rachel’s home, which was next door to Jamire’s and Rasheedah’s house.

“I think we’re all still processing it,” said Calvin, a Pasadena native. “All of it feels unreal, going to sleep and then waking up, and everything you have is gone, as well as your family passing away. So I feel like it’s still something that everybody’s still trying to take in.

“This is a unique situation. There’s not many people that you could be like, ‘Hey, how did you get through your house burning down?’ It’s not a normal situation. So I think that on top of death makes it even harder to accept the reality of.”

Calvin, who totaled 92 catches for 980 yards and five touchdowns in his three seasons of action as a Cougar, doesn’t have many answers right now. He’s still staying in the hotel, reconvening his family at the end of each day, trying to figure out what comes next. How much of his home can be rebuilt, and how long such a thing might take, remains unclear as the family gathers more information from their insurance.

All Calvin knows is that he doesn’t know much. Early in the recovery process, his head is spinning, thinking about everything he lost. Evelyn is top of mind, of course, and he also mourns the loss of all the items he had left behind: his 2018 Alamo Bowl memorabilia, which was signed by all the Cougars from that year’s historic 11-win team; his old recruiting letters; and his jerseys and helmets from WSU and Mississippi State, where he transferred for one year with former coach Mike Leach to complete his college career.

“Just a lot of stuff that you can’t get back,” Calvin said.

Last Tuesday night Calvin’s life as he knew it came to a halt. Around 4 p.m., the fire began to spread near their home. Some four hours later, Calvin and his family received their evacuation orders via phone alert, which is also about when they lost power – as did everyone in the neighboring area.

In Calvin’s view, it was something like a blessing in disguise.

“It was very scary,” Calvin said. “Luckily the power did go out, because if the power didn’t go out, I honestly believe a lot more people would have stayed and been victims to what happened. A lot of people that are from there, from that area, these fires happen all the time. We don’t expect it to actually come down to the community. Even my dad was saying that. So I really do believe if the power didn’t cut out, a lot of people wouldn’t even have left.”

Once they received their evacuation orders, Calvin and his family took that as their cue to book a room at the Courtyard. Thinking he might be able to come back for more belongings later, Calvin was content to pack only a bag of clothes, which already contained his jersey from his high school U.S. Army All-American Game, he was pleasantly surprised to learn.

But when Calvin and Co. arrived at the hotel, it began to dawn on Calvin that this was much more serious than one night at a hotel.

“It was chaotic. It was like a movie scene, almost,” Calvin said. “Just a bunch of people panicking with their belongings, dogs in the hotel. Just a real chaotic scene.”

After catching a couple hours of sleep, Calvin woke up around 6 a.m. the following morning to streets ablaze. He hopped in his car and drove around the Altadena neighborhood, around his home, where it was completely dark, save for the lights of fires.

It was 7 a.m.

“It’s so dark,” Calvin said. “There’s so much smoke that it looks like it’s at nighttime.”

In the days since, Calvin has spent time thinking about Evelyn. When Zaire and Rachel approached her home, they saw her car out front, which made them nervous. Maybe she had visited friends, they reasoned, trying to stay optimistic. But when they waded through what remained of the home, it wasn’t long before they discovered her body.

Calvin has tried to focus on the happier memories. When he was a kid, he would watch movies with her, even the scary ones, which she liked. Evelyn was also a fan of classical music, and she was interested in politics, which she encouraged Calvin to learn more about.

“Just overwhelmed again. Overwhelmed with the emotion again,” Calvin said, recounting his reaction to hearing the news. “Already hurt, distraught, kinda defeated by what happened, emotional about that, and then that was like the cherry on top that just made it even worse. Made it worse than it had to be.”