Meryl Streep's Nephew Shares Harrowing Story Of Actor's Narrow Escape From LA Wildfires

The three-time Oscar winner was trapped on her property but managed to get to safety after creating an escape route with wire cutters, her nephew said.

Meryl Streep wasn’t going to let a fallen tree thwart her escape from the California wildfires.

The three-time Oscar winner was among dozens of thousands of residents placed under mandatory evacuation orders in Southern California earlier this month, and apparently proved to be just as capable and resilient offscreen as she is in her biggest movies.

“My aunt Meryl Streep received an order to evacuate on January 8, but when she tried to leave, she discovered that a large tree had fallen over in her driveway, blocking her only exit,” Abe Streep wrote in a New York Magazine article published Tuesday.

“Determined to make it out, she borrowed wire cutters from a neighbor, cut a car-size hole in the fence she shared with the neighbors on the other side, and drove through their yard to escape,” the New Mexico-based writer continued.

The wildfires across the Los Angeles metropolitan area broke out one day before Streep made her escape, and while the Eaton and Palisades fires are now almost fully contained, they’ve become the most destructive in Los Angeles history.