Steve Guttenberg doesn’t just play a good guy on the screen.
The actor, best known for performances in hit films like “Police Academy” and “Three Men and a Baby,” sprang into action when Los Angeles County wildfires threatened the area around his Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
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.”
“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.
“This is the most unbelievable fire I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Guttenberg is just one of many recognizable 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.”
“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 spread to more than 15,000 acres and zero containment as of Wednesday afternoon.
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.
