Meryl Streep’s Escape From L.A. Fires Reportedly Involved Cutting Open A Fence to Drive to Safety

Meryl Streep’s Escape From L.A. Fires Reportedly Involved Cutting Open A Fence to Drive to Safety

As Los Angeles was beset with multiple wildfires that ignited across the city in early January, a quick-thinking Meryl Streep managed to escape an encroaching inferno as it tore toward her home by cutting a car-sized hole in the fence on one side of her house and then driving to safety, according to an account from her nephew published this week.

In the latest issue of New York magazine, writer Abe Streep penned a vivid account of the experiences of people from all walks of life in L.A. who escaped the deadly Palisades and Eaton fires that devastated large swaths of the city after the massive blazes ignited on Jan. 7, then tore through the swanky Pacific Palisades neighborhood and Altadena, in the in San Gabriel Valley area just north of Pasadena, killing at least 29 people and destroying more than 15,000 structures. In his feature story, the author revealed that his aunt, the three-time Academy Award actress, had to think quickly to escape the encroaching fire.

“Evacuation mandates were sent across the city. My aunt Meryl Streep received an order to evacuate on January 8 but when she tried to leave, she discovered that a large tree had fallen over in her driveway, blocking her only exit,” the journalist, who has also penned articles for the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, WIRED, Harper‘s and Columbia Journalism Review, wrote in the magazine’s major feature article. 

“Determined to make it out, she borrowed wire cutters from a neighbor, cut a car-size hole in the fence she shared with the neighbors on the other side and drove through their yard to escape,” added Abe, who is the son of Meryl Streep’s younger brother.

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to a representative for Strep to confirm her nephew’s account of the actor’s experience during L.A.’s evacuations, but did not immediately hear back on Wednesday. In the article, Abe Streep does not detail what happened to Streep in the aftermath of her daring escape or what happened to her home after she drove through her neighbor’s yard to escape.

In the feature, Abe Streep did share the fate of other celebrity homes in the Palisades while detailing the total loss Haley Joel Osment experienced when his Altadena home went up in flames. Osment lost a piano bequeathed from his parents, he told the reporter, and his record collection, totaling 500 albums, as the flames devoured his home; Osment’s father also lost his home in the fire, it was reported. The actor said that he is planning to return to Altadena.  

“I will definitely stay in my home,” Osment planned, while professing his love for the area, adding, “Not to cast blame or anything, but I just want to know, when this is all investigated — was there a decision to just let the whole neighborhood go?

In addition to detailing the experiences of a longtime resident and a local teacher, he details what happened with veteran comic actor Martin Short. The 74-year-old star of Only Murderers in the Building has been a Pacific Palisades resident for decades. One of his two sons told the comedy legend to evacuate; he decided to take a family photo as he escaped the quickly-growing blaze. Short shared that on Jan. 7, it took more than an hour to exit the Pacific Palisades and residents were abandoning their vehicles to flee on foot. 

As of Tuesday morning, the Palisades and Eaton fires were 95 percent and 99 percent contained; the Palisades fire is officially the largest in Los Angeles history.