Joe Lando and Jane Seymour Michael Tullberg/Getty Images
As the Los Angeles wildfires continue to devastate the city and surrounding area, actor Joe Lando is grateful for his former Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman costar Jane Seymour’s support.
“The Lando family is intact. All of us and our dogs and our two birds, thankfully, there are angels in this world,” Lando, 63, said in a Saturday, January 11, Instagram video, revealing that his house was burnt to the ground in the blaze. “We’re left with nothing except each other. My friend Jane Seymour allowed us to come over to her house and opened it up for us without any hesitation and thank God [she] gave us someplace to come and sleep.”
A string of wildfires broke out in the Pacific Palisades and other surrounding L.A. neighborhoods on Tuesday, January 7, going on to ravage thousands of acres of property. According to local officials, at least 16 individuals have died and tens of thousands of residents have fled their homes under mandatory evacuation orders.
Lando and Seymour, 73, played love interests on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman between 1993 and 1998. The show starred Seymour as Dr. Michael Quinn, who worked in Colorado Springs after the Civil War, while Lando played Byron Sully. In his Saturday message, Lando detailed his evacuation experience.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for American Ballet Theatre Jane Seymour is thankful for her safety after her home was exposed to last week’s California wildfires. “I’m very grateful, incredibly relieved,” Seymour, 73, told Us Weekly exclusively at the American Ballet Theater Annual Benefit in Los Angeles on Monday, Dec. 16. “It’s interesting, you kind of have […]
“The electricity just came on for the first time in three days,” Lando said on Saturday, noting that Seymour’s neighborhood has also been impacted by wildfires. “There hasn’t been any gas and you can’t drink the water and you can’t breathe the air because it’s all poisonous. I’ve never been through anything like this. It’s indescribable.”
He continued, “You see people on TV who go through these things and you think, ‘Oh, my God, that must be a terrible thing. Thank God, it’s not me.’ And now we’re those people. If it was just us I’d be OK with this, but it’s everybody. It’s everything and I’m just devastated and heartbroken for everybody.”
Joe Lando and Jane Seymour CBS
Lando started crying in his social media video, reflecting on “all the people we know that don’t have houses” anymore.
“There’s a lot of wealthy people in my neighborhood, but that’s not the majority of this neighborhood. Most are just hard-working folks [who have] lived there for generations,” he said. “My wife’s parents live down the street or did. They lost their house after 40-something years. Our house wasn’t big or fancy, but it was our home. I worked so hard on it. Whenever I wasn’t on an acting job, I would be working on it, trying to stay out of trouble and save money.”
Los Angeles saw a frightening natural weather event — and its star-studded community has been heavily impacted. An extreme wind storm, caused by Santa Ana gusts, sparked fast-burning brush fires at around 10 a.m. on Tuesday, January 7, with drivers along Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive abandoning their cars to seek safety, according to the […]
In addition to their family’s houses, Lando noted that his children’s school was also completely destroyed by the fires. (He has been married to wife Kiersten Barlow since 1997 and they share four kids.)
“Everything’s gone,” Lando tearfully added. “And there’s no rich or poor, black or white, red or blue. This fire’s evil and it will kill everything.”
Check the LAFD website for local wildfire alerts and click here for resources on how to help those affected.
