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Wildfires in Los Angeles are tearing through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, home to A-list actors, including Ben Affleck — who bought his $20.5 million mansion there in July.
Other celebrities, including Tom Hanks, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Keaton, Adam Sandler, Miles Teller, and Eugene Levy, also live in the neighborhood.
The area, located between Santa Monica and Malibu in northern Los Angeles, is home to some of the country's most expensive real estate. The average house price is $4.5 million, according to Realtor.com data.
The fire started on Tuesday in the Pacific Palisades before spreading west toward the Malibu stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway. On Wednesday, the city of Malibu issued a statement on X advising residents to prepare to evacuate.
Among the at least 30,000 LA residents asked to evacuate their homes because of the fire was the "Star Wars" actor Mark Hamill. He said on Instagram that he had left his Malibu home on Tuesday with his wife, Marilou, and their dog, Trixie. He described it as the "most horrific fire since '93."
"Evacuated Malibu so last-minute there were small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH," he wrote.
Levy told The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that he got stuck while trying to leave the neighborhood. "The smoke looked pretty black and intense over Temescal Canyon," Levy said. "I couldn't see any flames but the smoke was very dark."
Chet Hanks, the son of actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, also mentioned the fire on Tuesday.
"The neighborhood I grew up in is burning to the ground rn. Pray for the Palisades," he wrote in an Instagram Stories post.
Chet Hanks/Instagram Stories
On Wednesday morning, "Halloween" star Jamie Lee Curtis said on Instagram that she was safe, but her home in West LA might not be.
"My community and possibly my home is on fire," Curtis wrote. "My family is safe. Many of my friends will lose their homes. Many other communities as well. There are so many conflicting reports. With all the technology there seems to be very little information. Please post facts! It will help those wondering!"
The Oscar-nominated actor James Woods said on X that he and his family safely evacuated from the Palisades but didn't know whether his home "is still standing."
On Tuesday, TMZ reported that Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, two stars of "The Hills," lost their home in the fire after being evacuated.
The following day, TMZ published footage of Adam Brody and Leighton Meester's home in flames, as well as a photo of Anna Faris' home in ashes.
The songwriter Diane Warren, a 15-time Oscar nominee who has worked with stars like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, shared on Instagram that her beach house of nearly 30 years was likely gone.
"It looks like it was lost in the fire last nite. There's a rainbow shining on it which I'm taking as a sign of hope for all creatures who have been affected by this tragedy," Warren wrote. "The animals and the rescue ranch are OK tho which is the most important thing. Stay safe everyone."
Kate Beckinsale also wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday that "the whole of the Palisades being destroyed is unthinkably horrific."
"My daughter and I lived there for most of her childhood and most of her childhood is gone," Beckinsale wrote.
The "Serendipity" actor shared several other posts, including one thanking local firefighters and another sharing information about assembling an emergency bag.
The Palisades Charter High School also burned down, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The campus was used for films including "Carrie," "Freaky Friday," "Project X," and MTV's "Teen Wolf" TV series.
The premieres for "Wolf Man" and "Unstoppable," scheduled for Tuesday, were canceled.
The fire that started on Tuesday spread quickly thanks to the Santa Ana winds, which created up to 80 mph gusts. The drought in Southern California also exacerbated the situation, creating dangerously dry conditions.
Wildfires in the western US have been steadily growing bigger and more severe for decades, while the time of heightened risk known as "fire season" has been getting longer each year. A paper published in 2023 by researchers from the University of California, Irvine, found the human-caused climate crisis is the "major driver" for the state's increase in wildfires over the last quarter century.
"November, December, now January — there's no fire season, it's fire year. It's year-round," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Back in 2018, the Woolsey Fire burned almost 100,000 acres of land in California, affecting famous Malibu residents like Lady Gaga, Gerard Butler, Miley Cyrus, and several members of the Kardashian family. In fact, Kim Kardashian and her then-husband Kanye West were widely criticized for hiring private firefighters to protect their $60 million home in Hidden Hills.
