Jennifer Love Hewitt Still Packs Belongings at Night After Losing Home in L.A. Fires (Exclusive)

Jennifer Love Hewitt is filled with gratitude, but she is still at a loss for words after being forced to escape her Pacific Palisades home as the wildfires ripped across her neighborhood last month. 

“Extra’s” Tommy DiDario spoke with Jennifer about the scary ordeal and how her family — including her three children — is coping as they start over again.

She recalled, “I could see the fires from my home. It was pretty wild. I got a text from my husband saying that the fire had broken out sort of near where our kids’ school was, and that they were being evacuated and he was grabbing them and they were coming back to the house. And then after that, it all went very quickly.”

Jennifer’s family left the area before the major traffic backups. Jennifer said, “We chose not to wait because I could see the fire on the hill, and by the time we pulled out, it was, like, smoke and it was just getting darker and darker, and really, as we exited our neighborhood, it was just black smoke everywhere… We were stuck, I think, in the initial little bit of traffic, like, it took us, like, 40 minutes to kind of get out, but my fear was getting stuck in what happened later, where so many of our friends had to leave their cars behind and jump out and run with their things and all of that… I just felt like we needed to go and so we did, and we got out early, and I’m really grateful that we did. We were able, you know, to take our animals and just kind of get to a safe place.”

While her family is trying to find their next home, Jennifer praised her “amazing kids” amid all the devastation, saying, “They’re incredible little people — they’re so brave, they’re really resilient, they are truly doing the best that they can… We made a pact when we’re driving out of the driveway to just be honest with each other and just check in a lot, and so we do that… Some of us are good at some moments, and some of us are not, and we kind of gather together and help each other… I’m just very proud of them.”

Jennifer is used to playing a first responder in the City of Angels on the hit series “9-1-1.”

She shared, “I’m on a show that’s about first responders… It felt like an episode… It felt like a season-finale episode. It was insane, like, it just felt wild and just devastating to watch.”

In real life, she’s trying to find her new normal now that the fires are over.

She noted, “It’s just been so ever-changing, moment by moment. I mean, I haven’t slept in in a long time; the alarms were constantly going off on the phone. We were sort of trying to keep up with it all, and then you’re trying to, like, find your street and look at what’s going on, and then you’re getting text messages from people saying, ‘I lost everything. What’s going on with you?’”

Jennifer opened up about feeling some PTSD, sharing, “We have very few things, but the things that we have, I put them away every night in our little, like, laundry baskets that we have. I pack everything up before I go to sleep because I’m nervous that if we had to get out somewhere, I just want to be able to go, and I don’t know when that will go away. It’s a weird comforting thing for me right now.”

She explained, “Just to kind of have our belongings, you know, that we do have with us, they’re just so, like, beyond special right now.”

Love Hewitt is doing what she can to stay strong for her kids. She said, “There is a power in all of us being in this together that has been uniquely special and profound and beautiful… I think, especially having three kids, they’re watching how we’re handling it. They’re seeing if we’re getting out of bed every morning and if we’re still able to be silly and we’re, you know, doing fun things for them and if we’re able to smile.”

She stressed, “That’s really our job right now is to be honest with them, but to also show them how to be resilient.”