By Dawn Chmielewski

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Foad Farid, a data scientist and engineer who lives in Pacific Palisades, left home on Tuesday morning for an appointment in Malibu when he started receiving alerts on his phone about looming fire in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood.

Farid was unable to return home, as the Pacific Coast Highway was closed and drivers abandoned their vehicles on Palisades Drive to escape the approaching fire.

“I have nothing with me except my car and my phone,” said Farid. “I don’t even have medicine.”

Farid stayed in the gym at the Westwood Recreation Center, a temporary shelter where community members dropped off blankets, clothes, water, pizza and pet supplies for residents fleeing the fires.

Volunteers like Jeff Harris showed up at the temporary shelter — in his case, towing his Feisty Fish Poke food truck, which he set up and began serving food to those coping with the disaster.

“I’m just here to help,” said Harris.

Farid is not the only Pacific Palisades resident who escaped with the clothes on their backs.

A man who asked to be identified only by his first name, Brian, does not plan to evacuate his apartment. That plan changed when he observed the traffic building on Palisades Drive and people walking on the Pacific Coast Highway with their luggage and he observed the approaching fire.

“Right across from us, the fire started going up the hill,” said Brian, who spent the night sleeping in his car before seeking shelter.

A volunteer offered Brian a change of clothes — a sweatshirt with the Laughing Man logo. He declined, suggesting that a more appropriate slogan would read, “sad and in the dumps.”

Rick Cicetti, an actor with more than a dozen film and television credits, left his Santa Monica home with important documents and his beloved 19-year-old cat.

He said he has lived in Southern California for 42 years, but has never had a police officer knock on his door to order him to evacuate.

“When you see it on the news, or you see it five miles away in Malibu or whatever, it’s a lot different than when you’re told you’re next,” Cicetti said.

He said he was touched by the outpouring of compassion from people he met while traveling with author and coach Tony Robbins and who contacted him after learning of the fires.

“I get a little choked up just thinking about all the people from all over the world that have reached out to me,” Cicetti said.