as originally planned, on December 19, 2008.
==== Thomas Fire of 2017 ====
The Westmont campus was evacuated in December 2017 due to the Thomas Fire. The last week of classes for the semester was cancelled, and final exams were administered as take-home exams. The campus was defended by a volunteer fire brigade, and it became one of the headquarters for CAL FIRE firefighting efforts. No campus buildings were destroyed, and students returned to start the spring semester as scheduled on January 8, 2018, only to evacuate again on January 10 because of the threat of mudslides following the fire. The combined risk of fire and mudslide led to a record five evacuations of campus during the 2017–2018 school year, but the campus ultimately suffered minimal damage.
== Campus ==
Westmont College is located a few miles off of U.S. Route 101 just to the east of Santa Barbara. The city of Santa Barbara is on the central California coast and is 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles and 330 miles south of San Francisco.
The …
