The Fires Begin
The LA wildfires in early 2025 were crazy. We had just started winter quarter at UCLA, which was already hectic as I was trying to get VEST (my startup/builder club) off the ground. We were running events every other day and meeting tons of new people. Our application pool was growing like crazy - we had applicants with:
- 500k YouTube subscribers - creating educational content
- $200k in app revenue - from a side project built in high school
- Gemini Competition winners - building cutting edge AI projects
- Someone who nearly discovered a new bacteria strain - in their dorm room lab
Impact on Campus
With the fires approaching, UCLA switched to online classes and I drove back to the Bay Area. This disrupted our event planning and halted recruitment, as everyone scattered to safety.
The Problem
Tracking the fires was a mess. You needed to check:
- Multiple sources for AQI data
- PurpleAir sensors
- Government air quality sites
- Local weather stations
- Different map services
- CalFire maps
- News outlet fire trackers
- Satellite imagery
- Campus information
- Live camera feeds
- Official alerts
- Social media updates
All these separate sources made it hard to stay informed.
Building a Solution
I saw an opportunity to help. By aggregating all this data into one website, students and parents could have a single source for fire information.
I built an MVP in just a few hours (thanks Claude!) using Next.js + Tailwind. Check it out here: GitHub Repo
Speed was the priority over perfect code - I just needed to ship something useful fast.
Launch & Reception
Launching on Monday (1/13) across multiple platforms, the site gained significant traction:
- Reddit: 400+ upvotes
- X (Twitter): 500k views
- LinkedIn: 2k views
- Instagram: 1000+ views
Here's the IG post describing the project.
An hour after launch though something crazy happened. The digital media coordinator at UCLA sent me a strongly worded email:
"You need to take uclafire.org offline immediately. We are getting reports related to the site as it is creating confusion within our community and outside about UCLA's fire reporting and management. You cannot use UCLA's trademarks as you do not own, represent, nor have permission to use the mark in any form. This is highly improper especially during a time of crisis. Please take this down immediately.
> Thank you for your immediate action,"
I was using UCLA but not the exact logo so wasn't sure if that was okay. I responded asking if I could keep it up using a different name and they agreed. So I moved UCLA to Westwood and continued to grow the site.
That was my first ever cease and desist letter. My founder rite of passage.
By the end of the day I scaled to 1.3M requests and 35k users. That was insane. Real people were using my product and liking it. If I was able to help even one person, I was happy.
The Side Effects
In the 24hrs of this project I received:
- 4 six-figure job offers - from companies impressed by the quick build
- 5 VC meetings - interested in what I might build next
- Daily Bruin interview request - wanting to feature the story
- Alumni network connections - many reaching out to help and mentor
The Moral
The moral of the story is: just build things. Who cares what people say or think? It won't matter if no one sees your project. Build a small version and just ship it.
If I didn't push out the first version so fast, someone else would have beat me to it. I didn't care about the details (and using UCLA's name lol) and just put it in front of people's eyeballs. I received a lot of feedback and made changes accordingly as well as optimizations to save money.
(shoutout upstash for giving me free credits for the cache!)
The End
You can just do things. If you're a student at UCLA, apply to VEST.