Steve Guttenberg doesn’t just play a good guy on the screen.
The actor, best known for performances in hit films such as Police Academy and Three Men and a Baby, sprang into action when Los Angeles County wildfires threatened the area around his Pacific Palisades neighbourhood.
“I haven’t seen anything like this in my entire life and I don’t think many people have,” he told CNN’s Laura Coates on Tuesday night. “At 9 o’clock in the morning, it was an idyllic Pacific Palisades, and then by 10 o’clock, 10:30, the sky was dark as if it were nighttime.”
Life-threatening fires have been racing across LA County, where residents have been faced unpredictable flames, heavy smoke and evacuation orders for thousands.
Earlier, Guttenberg spoke with Los Angeles television station KTLA as he actively worked to try and clear some of the abandoned cars in an area where he said it was hindering people’s ability to evacuate.
“There are people stuck up there. So we’re trying to clear Palisades Drive and I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “There are families up there, there are pets up there. There are people that really need help.”
The star told CNN he had been in another area and while attempting to get home, he was met with “bumper to bumper traffic” and chaos so he got out of his car to try and help.
“There were mothers who were hysterical [having] panic attacks, helping them with their suitcases and they were worried about their families up there because they couldn’t get them out in time,” he told Coates. “There were little kids crying. There were people who couldn’t speak English, driving their friends cars or their bosses cars and being careful where they drove.”
Ultimately, he said, the fire got so close that people were told to get out of their cars and evacuate on foot. He said he spent all day trying to move abandoned cars to make way for firetrucks to be able to get through.
Heartbreaking images capture apocalyptic wake of destruction
“This is the most unbelievable fire I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Guttenberg is just one of many recognisable faces who have been affected by the fires.
Star Wars star Mark Hamill is among the thousands of LA County residents forced to evacuate their homes due to wildfires.
“7pm – Evacuated Malibu so last-minute there (were) small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH,” Hamill wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday night. “
He and his wife and their dog went to stay with their daughter near Hollywood.
“Most horrific fire since ’93,” Hamill added, before encouraging others to “stay safe.”
Actor James Woods shared a video on social media of the view from his home in the Pacific Palisades, taken the night before he wrote it was hit by flames.
“I took this last night from our beautiful little home in the Palisades. Now all the fire alarms are going off at once remotely,” Woods wrote. “It tests your soul, losing everything at once, I must say.”
Woods appeared on CNN Wednesday and got visibly emotional sharing a heartwarming story about his eight-year-old niece’s desire to help.
“She came out with her little Yeti piggy bank for us to rebuild our house,” he said, breaking down in tears.
Parts of Pacific Palisades High School, a location for films including the horror classic “Carrie” and the 2003 movie “Freaky Friday,” was also engulfed in flames from the Palisades Fire, which has currently spread to nearly 3000 acres and zero containment.
Reality star Spencer Pratt, who is married to Heidi Montag, posted a photo of their children’s room burning. Both their house and Pratt’s parents’ house burned in the fires, according to his social media on Wednesday.
“I think this is a really important time for us to remember that we’re not only a street, a block, a town, a city, a state a country, a world, we are one big community,” Guttenberg told CNN. “And when a crisis occurs then everybody realizes that cars, jewels, none of this matters. What matters is people.”
