"All My Children" star Cameron Mathison has shared harrowing visuals of where his Altadena home once stood -- and now he’s revealing the full story of losing it in the raging Eaton Fire.
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00:00I'm gonna ask you to tell us what happened here today.
00:03I know you've been to the hospital.
00:06Can you kind of walk us through how this happened with you,
00:10were you and your family at home, were you evacuated,
00:14were you then let back in?
00:16Kind of walk us through what happened here.
00:19So yes, these days I'm living in the house alone
00:22while my kids are in school in Europe,
00:24but they were back for the holidays.
00:25My son has returned to school, my daughter's still in town.
00:29I'm in Pasadena, and as I was driving, guys,
00:32it was like probably 6.20, I was driving,
00:34and in the distance on this one face
00:37of what we call the Eaton Canyon, there was a little glow.
00:42It was like literally I saw what was the beginning
00:44of this massive fire, and I went down to Pasadena.
00:47I noticed it, I was like, well, that's not good news,
00:48and I went to dinner, and then I look at my phone,
00:50and my phone's blowing up, and I go back to the house,
00:53and it's just total smoke and embers and ashes in the air.
00:58No houses at that time were burning in that area
01:02that I could see or that were being reported on,
01:05but it wasn't good, and so I knew
01:07that the evacuation order was in.
01:09We weren't in the mandatory evacuation area yet,
01:13but we were right on the border,
01:15so obviously I just grabbed some things
01:18and then came to Vanessa's apartment here,
01:21and we were watching on television,
01:23and the reports showing that it was getting worse,
01:25so I went back to the house to get things
01:27like passports and birth certificates and photo albums,
01:32although I forgot a few photo albums,
01:33which breaks my heart, and then came back,
01:36went to bed, 5 a.m., saw the news
01:39that literally watching our blocks and streets
01:42and houses I recognized burning
01:45and not knowing about my house
01:47and not knowing, like trying to see the camera angles,
01:49and was at our house and not knowing,
01:51it was just such a sickening feeling,
01:53so I had to get in the car,
01:55and I, against probably all logic,
01:59went up, and that's what the videos
02:01that you saw when I went and saw,
02:03and there was, as I'm getting closer and closer
02:05to our block, this block between Porter
02:07and Chernobyl on Braeburn, guys,
02:10I turned that corner, and it took my breath away
02:13because there was nothing.
02:16It was as if there was nothing ever built there.
02:20There was palm trees and nothing, flat, decimated.
02:25I think the emotion, Cameron,
02:27that people got from your post,
02:28there's the immediate destruction and the shock,
02:30as you mentioned, as you see this video,
02:33but then you start to realize the impact
02:35that this is gonna have on your life
02:37and in your case, your children's lives as well.
02:40Yeah, it's a good point, because you're right,
02:43like you're there, and you've lost it,
02:45and you just sort of think really
02:46kind of surface level at first,
02:47but this is a place, and I'm sure people at home
02:50can relate to this in their own experience.
02:51This is a place that we literally worked
02:55on every square inch of this.
02:57We did everything from HVAC system
03:00to insulation to the tiles and the floor
03:02and the molding and the color and the paint
03:04and the furniture.
03:05It's so kind of crazy to think about the love
03:11and the passion that it was for us to put into this house,
03:14and our kids, like you were alluding to,
03:17grew up there, and they wanted to raise
03:18their children there, and it's so much more
03:22than, oh, I just gotta find a new place to live,
03:25no big deal.
03:25Like, it's incredible, the sentiment,
03:29the attachment, the nostalgia,
03:32and there is like nothing left, zero.