The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is postponing the Oscar nominations and extending their voting period, as five major wildfires across Southern California have forced more than 100,00 residents — including academy members — to evacuate.
In a letter to members reviewed Wednesday by Entertainment Weekly, the academy confirmed that the voting period had been extended from Sunday to Tuesday. It additionally postponed the traditional announcement from Friday, Jan. 17, to the following Tuesday.
“We want to offer our deepest condolences to those who have been impacted by the devastating fires across Southern California,” they wrote, per EW. “So many of our members and industry colleagues live and work in the Los Angeles area, and we are thinking of you.”
The Oscars weren’t alone in altering or postponing their upcoming events: The SAG Awards replaced a traditional nominations announcement scheduled for Thursday with a virtual press release; the Critics Choice Awards postponed Sunday’s ceremony to Jan. 26.
The academy announced their changes mere hours after voting began, as residents from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena were placed under evacuation orders. The fires have reportedly burned down more than 27,000 acres and killed at least five people.
Production has reportedly halted on numerous television shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Hacks,” whose Golden Globe-winning star, Jean Smart, urged upcoming awards shows to cancel their telecasts entirely — and donate the would-be profits to victims of the fires.
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The burgeoning list of actors affected by these fires, meanwhile, includes Mandy Moore, Mark Hamill, Anna Faris, Jamie Lee Curtis and Steve Guttenberg, who made headlines after helping first responders evacuate his neighborhood in the Pacific Palisades.
Tracy Droz Tragos, who reportedly helped capture California’s Camp Fire in 2018 for Ron Howard’s National Geographic documentary “Rebuilding Paradise” (2020), told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday that she lost her Palisades home to the ongoing blaze.
Only two of the major fires in Los Angeles County are slowly being contained, per Cal Fire. The Palisades Fire continues to burn with abandon, meanwhile, and has already destroyed more than 1,000 structures to become the most ruinous fire in Los Angeles history.
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Traci Park, a city councilwoman, told The New York Times, “This is going to be devastating, a devastating loss, for all of Los Angeles.”