CNN
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Steve Guttenberg doesn’t just play a good guy on screen.

The actor, best known for his appearances in hit films like “Police Academy” and “Three Men and a Baby,” sprung into action when wildfires in Los Angeles County threatened the area around his Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life and I don’t think many people have seen it,” he told CNN’s Laura Coates on Tuesday night. “At 9 a.m. it was an idyllic Pacific Palisades, and at 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., the sky was dark, like it was night.”

Life-threatening fires raged across LA County, where residents faced unpredictable flames, heavy smoke and evacuation orders for thousands.

Guttenberg previously spoke to Los Angeles television station KTLA while actively working to clear some of the abandoned cars in an area where he said people’s ability to evacuate would be compromised.

“People are stuck up there. So we’re trying to clear Palisades Drive and I’m running there as far as I can to move cars,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “There are families up there, there are pets up there. There are people who really need help.”

The star told CNN he was in another area and when he tried to get home he encountered “bumper to bumper traffic” and chaos, so he got out of his car to help.

“There were mothers who were hysterical (and having panic attacks), helping them with their suitcases and worrying about their families up there because they couldn’t get them out in time,” he told Coates. “There were little children crying. There were people who didn’t speak English, who drove their friends’ or their boss’s cars and were careful where they drove.”

Ultimately, he said, the fire got so close that people were told to get out of their cars and evacuate on foot. He said he spent all day moving abandoned cars so fire trucks could get through.

“This is the most incredible fire I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Guttenberg is just one of many familiar faces affected by the fires.

Star Wars star Mark Hamill is among thousands of LA County residents forced to evacuate their homes due to wildfires.

“7pm – Malibu evacuated so there were last minute small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH,” Hamill wrote in an Instagram post Tuesday evening. “

He moved with his wife and their dog to live with their daughter near Hollywood.

“The most terrible fire since 1993,” Hamill added, before urging others to “stay safe.”

Actor James Woods shared a video on social media of the view from his home in the Pacific Palisades, taken the night before he wrote when it was struck by flames.

“I picked this up from our lovely little house in the Palisades last night. Now all fire alarms are triggered remotely at the same time,” Woods wrote. “It tests your soul to lose everything at once, I must say.”

Appearing on CNN on Wednesday, Woods became visibly emotional as he shared a heartwarming story about his eight-year-old niece’s desire to help.

“She came out with her little Yeti piggy bank so we could rebuild our house,” he said, breaking down in tears.

Parts of Pacific Palisades High School, a filming location for films such as the horror classic “Carrie” and the 2003 film “Freaky Friday,” were also engulfed in flames from the Palisades Fire, which is currently spread to nearly 3,000 acres and no containment.

Reality star Spencer Pratt, who is married to Heidi Montag, posted a photo of the burning children’s room. According to his social media on Wednesday, both her home and Pratt’s parents’ home burned in the fires.

“I think this is a really important time for us to remember that we are not just one street, one block, one city, one state, one country, one world, we are one big community,” Guttenberg said told CNN. “And when a crisis hits, everyone realizes that cars, jewelry, none of that matters. What matters is the people.”