“All My Children” alum Cameron Mathison gave advice on what not to say to someone who lost their home in the Los Angeles fires after losing his own home.
“Maybe if you’re sharing or commenting about somebody that’s lost their home in these fires, and everything they own – everybody’s got a very different relationship with their house,” the TV star said in a video shared on Instagram.
Mathison lost his home in the LA fires that began on Jan. 7 and are still burning.
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“Some people might just generally move around a lot. Some people might have moved to L.A., but have all their childhood things back home with their parents. And then some people might have been in that house for a long time, and it really represents a lifetime of memories, and it’s where their kids were raised and everything they owned – everything they owned – was in it,” the “General Hospital” star explained, “from their childhood, to their kids’ childhood, and it represents a physical object that is like love and memories, and it could mean a lot more.”
“Keep that in mind when you’re sharing, and you say something like maybe, ‘It’s just a house,’ or ‘It’s just stuff, and you can replace that.’”
“For some people that might be true, but for a lot of people it’s a lot more than that,” he added.
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Mathison previously revealed he left behind some “valuable” items when he evacuated his home due to the Eaton Fire. The actor only grabbed passports, birth certificates and photo albums because he “didn’t really believe” he would lose the home.
“I unfortunately left some valuable ones where the kids were very, very young and film that you can’t replace,” Mathison told Entertainment Tonight. “If I really thought the house was going down, I would’ve grabbed so much more.”
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Mathison recalled learning his home burned down while watching the news. “I just was sitting there, it was probably 6 in the morning, and I had to go up there,” he continued, saying he bought a mask and protective glasses before going into his neighborhood. “It looked like a war zone.”
The actor realized the family’s home “was all gone” when he arrived. “It was really, really decimated. There’s nothing there. Less than nothing. It’s just all burnt to just ashes.”
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Southern California firefighters continued to battle the Palisades and Eaton fires Wednesday, which have killed at least 28 people and destroyed more than 14,000 structures since they broke out Jan. 7. Containment of the Palisades Fire reached 68%, and the Eaton Fire was at 91%.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is investigating the causes of the fires but has not released any findings.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
