Los Angeles is being ravaged by several deadly wildfires that have torn through the Pacific Palisades, Eaton, and surrounding areas after an initial spark started in Palisades on Tuesday, January 7. Exacerbated by wind gusts of over 100 miles per hour, additional fires have started and scorched thousands of acres and countless homes in the region, prompting an emergency evacuation order from Governor Newsom. Many stars were among the 80,000 people who were displaced from their homes in the path of the ongoing blaze, including Mandy Moore, who left her Altadena home with her family on Tuesday night. However, in a heartbreaking update shared on Instagram on January 8, the This Is Us actress revealed that she’d lost her “sweet home” in the fire.
On Tuesday, the A Walk to Remember alum took her followers on her evacuation, revealing that she, her husband Taylor Goldsmith, and her three children had crashed at a friend’s home for the night.
“Grateful for the kindness of friends that we had a place to land last night,” she wrote in an Instagram Story that showed her with one of her children. “Trying to shield the kids from the immense sadness and worry I feel. Praying for everyone in our beautiful city. So gutted for the destruction and loss. Don’t know if our place made it.”
Instagram/Mandy Moore
However, Moore had a sad update as she returned to her home the next day. She posted an Instagram Story video of her driving past the smoking remnants of her home with a brief but emotional message. “This is Altadena. Leveled. My sweet home,” she wrote. “I am devastated and gutted for those of us who’ve lost so much. I’m absolutely numb.”
Instagram/Mandy Moore
She shared a longer update in an Instagram post, writing, “I love you, Altadena. Grateful for my family and pets getting out last night before it was too late (and endless gratitude to friends for taking us in and bringing us clothes and blankets).”
Moore also opened up about her shock at seeing the extent of the devastation, adding, “Honestly, I’m in shock and feeling numb for all so many have lost, including my family. My children’s school is gone. Our favorite restaurants, leveled. So many friends and loved ones have lost everything too. Our community is broken but we will be here to rebuild together. Sending love to all affected and on the front lines trying to get this under control.”
Instagram/Mandy Moore
Moore wasn’t the only celebrity to lose her house in the fires, as Page Six reported that Adam Brody and Leighton Meester, Spencer and Heidi Pratt, and Anna Farris’s homes also burned down in the blaze. Meanwhile, stars like Kate Beckinsale, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Maria Shriver, and Eugene Levy shared their heavy emotions on social media and in interviews, reflecting on the uncertainty ahead as they evacuated from their longtime homes in the community.
“Hearing the winds last night I prayed … My daughter and I lived there for most of her childhood and most of her childhood is gone,” Beckinsale shared in a heartbreaking Instagram carousel with footage from the “unthinkably horrific” destruction.
“Her primary school, every shop or restaurant we used to go to with my parents and Michael’s parents–and devastatingly, most of her friends’ homes,” the actress added. “My heart is broken.”
She continued, “The Pacific Palisades is a community very unusual to find in Los Angeles, heavy on families with young children and pets. I’m weeping for all of the people and pets involved, so many of them I know. My heart is breaking for the families who have lost everything, and the people and their animals, not to mention the horses and all the wild animals, peoples’ businesses and livelihoods. This is just like hell.”
Jennifer Love Hewitt also shared her own message of concern as she posted several photos of the wildfire that appeared to be taken from her car with the words “Palisades fire rages on as fearsome winds are forecast to grow even stronger.”
“I have no words. Only prayers and holding as much hope as I can for our home and our kids while we watch everything burn,” she wrote. The I Know What You Did Last Summer star found a moment for gratitude amid all the heartbreak, adding, “Thank you to every first responder fighting so hard for all of us. Thank you to every friend who reached out and new person I have hugged in tears in the last 24 hours. 💔🙏🏻.”
Meanwhile, Eugene Levy opened up about the harrowing experience trying to evacuate from his home amid bumper-to-bumper traffic and gridlocked roads. “The smoke looked pretty black and intense over Temescal Canyon,” the Schitt’s Creek star told The Los Angeles Times. “I couldn’t see any flames but the smoke was very dark.”
Maria Shriver was already mourning the devastation in her neighborhood as she shared a video of the burned down Palisades community, summing it up as “Heartbreaking, devastating, beyond belief.”
“Everything is gone. Our neighborhood, our restaurants. All our friends have lost everything. We have evacuated, but are safe. But people have lost everything,” she shared,
