Gossip Girl reboot actress Samantha Rose Baldwin has told DailyMail.com of her dramatic run through fire and ashes to rescue her cat in the Palisades Fire.
Instead of running from the blow torch-like inferno, Baldwin, 26, bravely raced home to save her beloved 10-year-old tortoiseshell, Kitty.
The actress, who made her television debut in the second season of the Gossip Girl reboot that ran from 2021 to 2022, overcame numerous hurdles to get back to her apartment – including facing a stream of never-ending traffic from people fleeing for their lives.
A typical 28-minute drive from West Hollywood to Pacific Palisades turned into a two-and-half-hour nightmare, leaving the New York native with no other option but to abandon her car and run on foot to rescue her cat.
‘When I got back into the vicinity of my home, the cars weren’t moving. There was bumper to bumper traffic and when I looked at my GPS, it said it would take at least another two hours to get home. That’s when I decided to park my car and run.
‘I ran for about 15 minutes on Sunset Boulevard until I made it home,’ Baldwin told DailyMail.com.
Meanwhile, the actresses’ father, Michael, a security guard who works at a nearby elementary school which has since burned down, was helping students safely evacuate.
‘It was an immediate spring into action and an amalgamation of questions racing through my head – can I get my cat out?,’ Baldwin said. ‘Is my dad safe and getting ready to leave?’
Once inside her apartment, the next challenge was finding her tortoiseshell cat who was hiding.
‘It took 20 minutes for me to find her. She had gone into her best hiding spot which was inside the couch. I grabbed her and wrapped her up in a blanket and put her inside my cat carrier backpack.
‘Once we got outside, the fire had gotten closer to us and the path going back to my car was now no longer an option.
‘I thought to myself, ‘where I am suppose to go?’. The fire was all around us. The terrifying part was when a big gust of wind and smoke came in so fast that you couldn’t see anything.’
