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After directing United 93<\/a> and Captain Phillips<\/a>, Paul Greengrass has turned his camera lens to another true story of heroism with the new Apple TV+<\/a> film The Lost Bus<\/a>, coming to the streamer on Friday, October 3.<\/p>\n The Lost Bus is described as \u201ca white-knuckle ride through one of America\u2019s deadliest wildfires as a wayward school bus driver (Matthew McConaughey<\/a>) and a dedicated school teacher (America Ferrera<\/a>) battle to save 22 children from the terrifying inferno.\u201d<\/p>\n -Greengrass and co-screenwriter Brad Ingelsby<\/a> (Mare of Easttown<\/a>) didn\u2019t have to do much to deliver a nail-biter of a film. Based on the bravery of real-life bus driver Kevin McKay \u2014 and details from the book Paradise: One Town\u2019s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire <\/a>by Lizzie Johnson \u2014 The Lost Bus tells a story that so easy could have had another ending.<\/p>\n As Biography<\/a> notes in a profile of McKay, it was a Pacific Gas and Electric Company power line that sparked the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire California had seen at the time.<\/p>\n Over two weeks, the blaze burned 153,336 acres of land, destroyed 19,000 structures, caused damage totaling an estimated $16.5 billion, and killed 85 people. (PG&E would later agree to a settlement of $13.5 billion to settle victims\u2019 claims.)<\/p>\n The fire broke out on November 8, 2018, and McKay had only been working as a bus driver for Ponderosa Elementary in Paradise, California, for a few months, per celebrity.land<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe worked at a Walgreens for a really long time,\u201d Johnson, the author of Paradise, told NPR<\/a>. \u201cIt was a very stable job. And, you know, the entire time, he kind of felt this itching in the back of his head that he wanted to do something more. And so he had quit his good, well-paying job and got a job as a bus driver at the local school district in Paradise to save money as he was going back to college to get a teaching degree.\u201d<\/p>\n As the fire expanded on November 8, McKay answered an emergency call to evacuate 22 Paradise Elementary students whose parents hadn\u2019t made it to pick them up, as well as the schoolteachers Abbie Davis and Mary Ludwig.<\/p>\nThe Camp Fire devastated the area of Paradise, California.<\/h2>\n
Bus driver Kevin McKay drove into the inferno\u2019s path to save 22 children.<\/h2>\n