Gary Hall Jr. loses 10 Olympic swimming medals, home in Palisades fire [Video]

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. Olympic swimming star knew he had to abandon the rental house on Lachman Lane where he had lived with his dog, Puddles, and run his business, Sea Monkeys Swimming, since 2020.

“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 …