Eight people, two dogs and a cat found refuge in George Stroumboulopoulos’s Los Angeles home as wildfires raged through parts of the city, fuelled by ferocious Santa Ana winds.
The Canadian media personality said he opened his doors to friends whose homes were evacuated or destroyed by the flames, as he watched the Sunset fire — one of the smaller blazes burning in the city — spark in the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday and start to spread not far from his house.
Even so, he had no plans to flee unless he’s forced out.
“No one knocked on my door last night to ask me to leave,” he said Thursday. “They knocked on the door to come in. And I think that’s why we stay.”
Stroumboulopoulos said much of the city is rallying to take care of each other.
“We’re out there delivering boxes and moving stuff and bringing people in and things like that, and passing food off to different places,” he said. “And then you watch everybody come together and do their thing.”
The former “Strombo Show” host said some people are even leaving keys in their cars “in case somebody needs to move the car or get out.”
In his neighbourhood, Stroumboulopoulos said most of the danger is related to the hurricane-force winds that would pose a threat even without fire and smoke filling the air. He recalled waking up in the middle of the night earlier this week when the fires were just ramping up, with pain in his chest and eyes.
“I hadn’t realized that the wind had blown my windows open,” he said.
“It was still dark, but you could feel it in your lungs. And then when the sun started to come up, I just went outside and looked around, and you could see these mountains of smoke from a couple different directions.”
By Thursday, firefighters had made big gains against the Sunset fire.
Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott said firefighters were able to keep that blaze in check because “we hit it hard and fast and Mother Nature was a little nicer to us,” and an evacuation order related to the fire was lifted Thursday morning.
But the two largest fires raging through the coastal neighbourhood of Pacific Palisades and in Altadena, a community near Pasadena, remained out of control on Thursday.
The five known deaths are related to those fires.
Montreal-born actor Elias Toufexis, a regular on “Star Trek: Discovery,” was forced to flee his Calabasas home with his family on Wednesday as spot fires erupted at the top of his street.
“It just spread so fast. It started as a small little fire and then suddenly it’s like, this is now burning down half of the Palisades. From Agora Hills, where we live, you could just see the hills were just red with fire,” he said.
Toufexis, who’s been living in L.A. for seven years, said he’s seen wildfires before but knew this time felt different – the powerful winds were an unmistakable warning.
“I weigh 200 pounds. I stepped out of my house and I was getting knocked over,” he said. “The winds were so bad and it was so dry in L.A. I thought, ‘If a fire starts, we’re in big trouble.’”
Toufexis has been staying at a hotel in Santa Barbara with his spouse and their two kids, and wasn’t sure what the condition of his house was. But he said he has several friends in the area whose homes have burned down.
“I saw a producer friend of mine staying at the hotel. I looked at him and he was sobbing. He lost his whole house in the Palisades. His car’s gone. Everything is destroyed.”
The actor said he’s frustrated by the callousness of some social media commenters who say they feel no sympathy for entertainment industry figures whose properties have been razed.
“It drives me crazy. I’m an actor, I’m on ‘Star Trek’ and it’s great, but I’m still making X amount of dollars a year and it’s really expensive to live here. I’m not dancing in money. So if my house burns down, I’m going to be in big trouble,” he said.
“This town is full of working people. It’s not just celebrities who live here.”
Other Canadian entertainers affected by the fires include Eugene Levy and Cobie Smulders, whose homes were reportedly destroyed, and Canadian soap star Cameron Mathison, who shared video of the charred property where his home used to stand.
Canada-born music producer Greg Wells, known for his work with Taylor Swift, Celine Dion and most recently on the “Wicked” soundtrack, posted a photograph of charred trees and an empty lot on his Instagram account.
“I guess Google Maps no longer needs to blur the image of our house,” the two-time Grammy winner wrote in a message accompanying the image. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 9, 2025.