A year later, 'General Hospital' star Cameron Mathison talks about losing his home in L.A. fires

By Kelsi Karruli

'Hundreds and hundreds of people who are going through the same thing.'

Cameron Mathison attends a fundraiser in Los Angeles on June 28, 2025.

"General Hospital" star Cameron Mathison has reflected on the first anniversary of losing his home in the tragic California wildfires, sharing a heartbreaking video of the devastation caused when the blaze ripped through his dwelling.

The devastating fires, which broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, destroyed thousands of homes and claimed the lives of 31 people, according to official records.

Dozens of Hollywood's biggest stars lost homes in the fires, including Paris Hilton, Jeff Bridges, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, and John Goodman.

Mathison was also among the famous faces whose home was lost, and he is now opening up about how his feelings of heartbreak have endured, one year after the fires first broke out.

The 56-year-old took to Instagram to share footage of the smoldering remains of his family home, which he and his wife, Vanessa, purchased in 2011, according to property records.

He captioned the clip, "A year since the fire. Loss changed us. Love carried us. Sending so much love to all those affected."

In a video posted to his Instagram account, the actor revealed the devastation that had been wrought by the flames, which obliterated his four-bedroom, six-bathroom dwelling. Only the front pathway was left unscathed.

Just mere days after his home was torched by the wildfires, Mathison broke down in tears as he drove past the remains of his home and neighborhood, screaming in horror as he surveyed the devastation.

"Oh God, oh God," he can be heard yelling as he pulls up to the property, which he bought for $1.7 million but was recently estimated to be worth upward of $3.5 million.

He opened up in more detail about his heartache in an interview with "Good Morning America," admitting that he had been "up all night" just thinking about all of the "irreplaceable" items that had been lost in the blaze.

"I can't sleep, you know. I've lost my home and everything I own," he said. "I have this hoodie and two pairs of pants and a pair of sneakers left. That's it."

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Mathison, who has two kids, noted that the most important thing is the safety and well-being of his loved ones. However, he admitted that it has been hard for him to overcome the agony of all that he and his family have lost in just a matter of hours.

"Every few minutes we're thinking about things that were in there that are irreplaceable ... the kids' projects, their baby photos that were only [on] film, my childhood photos. ... There's just so much.

"Of course, that's just stuff, and at the same time, it is still very unsettling and so surreal. And again I'm just thinking of the hundreds and hundreds of people who are going through the same thing."

Cameron Mathison and his wife, Vanessa Arevalo, in 2022.

One year on from the tragedy, several celebrities have already made moves to rebuild their homes, taking the earliest steps in what will likely be a yearslong process.

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In the past year, more than 1,400 rebuilding permits have been issued by the city of Los Angeles in and around Pacific Palisades. And while more than 1,740 construction plans have been approved and 417 projects have begun construction, only two homes have been fully rebuilt.

An aerial view shows homes burned in the Eaton Fire last year in Altadena, California.

In Malibu, the upscale oceanfront community that lost nearly 600 single-family homes to the Palisades fire, only 22 official building permits authorizing reconstruction have been issued to date, according to the city's rebuild dashboard.

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Meanwhile, Los Angeles County has doled out over 1,110 permits in hard-hit Altadena, according to the county's permitting progress dashboard. So far, construction has been completed on just four single-family homes, one multifamily property, and three accessory dwelling units.

Meanwhile, others have decided to walk away from their properties, putting the remains of their homes on the market rather than spending time restoring the dwellings they lost.

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The two largest blazes-the Palisades fire and the Eaton fire-ripped through entire communities, razing hundreds of properties, many of which remain nothing more than empty lots.

Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena were all heavily impacted by the blazes, which erased an estimated $8.3 billion in home value from these areas, according to a data analysis by Realtor.com.

This story originally ran on Realtor.com.

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