Actor Bill Hader was in complete shock upon returning home to his neighborhood in the Pacific Palisades and finding the ruins left after the devastating wildfire — although miraculously, his own home is still standing.
“People keep saying ‘unreal,’ it does. It doesn’t seem real,” the 46-year-old Barry star told KTLA 5 as he stood amongst the burned rubble.
“I’m sorry, I’m in shock. It’s just gone,” he continued. “Everything. Alphabet streets, which is, to me, kind of the heart of the Palisades.
“This beautiful, beautiful area is gone. The whole thing is gone.”
Over the course of the last eight days, the Pacific Palisades fire, which first sparked in the Santa Ana winds on January 7, spread across 24,000 acres and is still only 19 percent contained.
Like many residents of the neighborhood, Hader learned about the fires from a video shared with him.
“I got a video showing the fire and rushed back, but by the time I got back it was gridlocked [traffic],” he explained.
The Superbad star was at work when the immediate evacuation orders were issued last Tuesday.
Though Hader is one of the fortunate few whose home survived the ravaging blaze, returning to his “great community” to see the scorched and smoky outcome left him visibly distraught.
“It’s kind of mind-boggling how fast it happens,” he said. “If you get an evacuation notice, just leave.
“I do know people who were like, ‘Well, wait and see’ and things like, ‘I’m in the yellow zone’ or whatever,” Hader said. “This thing, once it went red, you couldn’t get out.”
As of now, at least 25 people have died from the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires.
Hader and his family were able to get out safely because they packed up when the evacuation warning went into effect.
“Don’t listen to your friends who are like, ‘Ah, you’re being a little freaked out,’” he urged. “Just get out.”
While Dennis Quaid was lucky his Brentwood property was just on the edge of the Palisades evacuation zone, the actor watched “many of his friends” lose their houses and the memories that went with them.
“I have so many friends who have lost (homes),” The Substance star told NBC 4 Los Angeles. “My agent, he lost both of his houses, and another good friend over at Palisades had just moved into a house and was renting the other one. He lost both of them.
“What do you do, just to rebuild?” he asked. “You start thinking about how long it takes to put a house together and then you can’t really hold it in your mind.”
