- A wildfire has broken out in Los Angeles and is raging through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
- “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill was among the 30,000 people in LA evacuated from their homes.
- The average house price in the northern LA area is $4.5 million.
A wildfire in Los Angeles is tearing through the Pacific Palisades area, which is home to A-list actors including Ben Affleck — who bought his $20.5 million mansion there last July.
Other A-listers such as Tom Hanks, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Keaton, Adam Sandler, Miles Teller, and Eugene Levy also live in the Palisades.
The area is situated in northern LA, where the average house price is $4.5 million, per Realtor.com.
The fire started on Tuesday in the 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 due to the fire was “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill. He said on Instagram that he had left his Malibu home on Tuesday with Marilou, his wife, and their dog, Trixie. He described it as the “most horrific fire since ’93.”
He said: “Evacuated Malibu so last-minute there were small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH.”
Oscar-nominated actor James Woods said on X that he and his family safely evacuated from the Palisades, but he didn’t know if his home “is still standing.”
On Tuesday, TMZ reported that Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, stars of “The Hills,” lost their home in the fire after they were evacuated from the area.
The Palisades Charter High School also burned down, per The Hollywood Reporter. The campus was used for films including “Carrie,” “Freaky Friday,” “Project X,” and MTV’s “Teen Wolf” TV series.
Premieres for “Wolf Man” and “Unstoppable,” which were due to happen on Tuesday, were canceled.
In 2023, the University of California, Irvine, found that California’s wildfires have worsened each year over the past two decades.
The fire that started on Tuesday quickly spread due to the Santa Ana winds, which created up to 80-mile-per-hour gusts. The drought in Southern California also exacerbated the situation, creating dangerously dry conditions.
In 2018, Kim Kardashian and her ex-husband Kanye West were criticized by fans for hiring private firefighters to protect their $60 million home in the Hidden Hills when the Woolsey fire burned almost 100,000 acres of land.
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