Retailing and consumer science junior Seth Schwartz may never see his house again. Schwartz's family members may soon have to evacuate their home in San Diego due to one of more than a dozen wildfires ravaging Southern California.

Only the house's mountain location gives them hope. All the other houses in the neighborhood have been destroyed.

"I'm glad I'm not there, but I kind of want to be there in case something happens," Schwartz said.

Thirteen wildfires are burning throughout Southern California, and they've already left 16 people dead and burned nearly 2,000 homes.

For many of the 2,900 UA students from California, the fires have meant anxious days and, at the very least, travel delays.

With roads closed down all over California because of raging wildfires, some students found it difficult to get back to school after going home for the weekend.

Lacee Diamond, a pre-physiological sciences junior, traveled for eight hours Sunday night.

She had originally planned to fly from Oakland to Los Angeles to Tucson, but the smoke forced flights to turn around.

Diamond decided to drive to Reno and fly to Las Vegas and back to school. She was delayed by the smoke again and both runways in Reno were closed due to repairs and a plane crash.

"I spent five hours in Reno, barely got to Vegas and made it home at 1:30 in the morning," Diamond said.

Paul Kahn, an anthropology junior, tried driving east from Orange County on I-8 with his friends, but found the interstate blocked because of the fire.

A firefighter told the group that the road would open up somewhere between 20 minutes and six hours. Kahn and his friends decided to wait it out, but the road never cleared. They spent the early morning hours sleeping on and off and checking the conditions of the roads, with no luck.

Around 8 a.m. the freeways opened, so they took I-5 north and made the normally six-hour trip to Tucson in 11 hours.

"I saw all kinds of smoke and ash and I saw a lot of the fire glowing toward dawn," Kahn said.

His family home is largely unaffected by the wildfires.

"Getting back will be OK, just inconvenient. No big deal," Kahn said.

Ryan Asher, a media arts freshman, said that he got out early.

"I have family and friends that had to evacuate; they took

everything with them. It's scary to hear that they had to do that," he said.

Asher saw the fire firsthand.

"It goes all along the coast of Southern California. It's up on the hills and you can see the flames. Ashes fall on you, and the sky is yellow and smoky. It's huge - you can't even imagine," he said.

Three days ago, firefighters cut power lines to destroyed neighborhoods in order to save power for other towns. This allows those people to have access to TV so they can watch for evacuation warnings.

"It's kind of scary and sad knowing your state is being destroyed by fire," Schwartz said.

Dana Crudo contributed to this report.