Gary Hall Jr. didn’t think anything of the small, off-colored cloud he saw from inside the kitchen of his Pacific Palisades home Tuesday morning.
Then he noticed a narrow plume of smoke in the sky that doubled in size within a minute.
And he smelled smoke.
By the time he saw flames coming out of houses uphill in the distance, the former U.S. Olympics swimming star knew he had to abandon the rental house on Lachman Lane where he had lived with his dog, Puddles, and ran his business, Sea Monkeys Swimming, since 2020.
“I think part of what made me good as an elite-level competitor in sport was the ability to stay really, really calm in intense, pressure situations,” Hall told The Times in a phone interview Thursday from Encinitas, where he’s staying with his sister, Maria Diego.
“And I was that [on Tuesday] — you know, pragmatic, making decisions and sizing up the situation. I could see that this was a disaster unfolding and that the house was gonna burn.”
That house, Hall said, is now gone. More than 5,000 buildings have been destroyed and 20,000 acres have burned in the Palisades fire, one of several major wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles County this week. As of Friday morning, the Palisades fire was 8% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Hall brought with him only the insulin he needs to treat his Type 1 diabetes, a painting of his grandfather and a religious artifact. He was planning to run back inside to retrieve 10 more prized possessions — the five gold, three silver and two bronze medals he won over three Olympic Games (1996, 2000, 2004) — but realized there was no time.
“I was getting pelted by embers on that first run,” Hall said. “So I grabbed my dog and some dog food, and that was it.”
He had arranged to meet up with his girlfriend, Lara Pezza, in the Palisades Village. But the “panic” and “mayhem” Hall saw soon after arriving there made him realize that wasn’t a good idea.
“People were just running in every direction and the traffic got so congested that there was nowhere to go,” Hall said. “Parents were so desperate to get their kids out of school, they were like driving up on the sidewalks, plowing into other cars. It was dangerous — forget the fire, people are gonna die in the stampede.”
Hall and Pezza used their knowledge of the streets in the area to avoid the major traffic congestion and meet up on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Then they drove down to his sister’s house, where Hall said he has been “taking inventory of everything that’s just happened.”
“I think you’ve got fight-or-flight adrenaline response, so we were pretty wide-eyed and energetic for 24 hours,” said Hall, who blogged for The Times during the 2008 and 2010 Olympic Games. “And then I think the exhaustion coming down from that is setting in. Today I’m completely overwhelmed with the amount of people that are reaching out, that have heard about the news and checking in to make sure that I’m OK.”
He added: “It’s overwhelming. So you know, sit down, have a moment of silence — I haven’t really gotten there yet. But I’m sure the devastation will sink in.”
Another sister, Amy Botha, started an online fundraiser to help Hall get back on his feet. As of Friday afternoon, it had raised almost $59,000.
“I’m too proud to ask for help, but my worldly possessions right now are the clothes that I was wearing and a toothbrush that I bought yesterday,” Hall said. “My 10 Olympic medals, everything else I owned and my home and my business were lost. So she did this GoFundMe thing and through that a lot of people are reaching out.”
At 50, Hall said he is preparing for “a complete rebuild” of his life.
“There’s nothing for me to return to there,” he said of Pacific Palisades. “So I have to find housing. It’s nice to stay with my sister, but I do need to find my own place eventually. And buy underwear, you know, the necessities. And relaunch the business elsewhere.”
As for where he might go to start over, Hall said, “I haven’t had time to think about it.”
Hall knows so many others who are in similar situations, in particular the families whose children he taught to swim in his backyard pool. That, he said, is “the most heartbreaking thing” about the situation.
“Since 2020, I have connected with and worked with so many families in the area, little kids 2 to 6 years old — all of them have been displaced — and that’s what is hardest for me to think about,” Hall said. “We’re talking about hundreds of families that I’ve gotten to know very, very closely and befriended the kids.
“That’s what has hit me more emotionally, sending ‘be safe’ messages to people who have lost their homes and kids who are 4 years old trying to wrap their heads around what just happened here. The world that they knew is destroyed.”
