A new film is based on the true story of a harrowing evacuation from Paradise
By Ken Magri
Apple TV+ is set to premiere a new disaster film, The Lost Bus, based on true events from Butte County’s catastrophic Camp Fire.
The 2018 wildfire killed 85 people and destroyed over 18,000 structures in nearby Paradise, Concow, Magalia and Butte Creek Canyon.
Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey portrays the real-life hero Kevin McKay, who successfully drove a school bus with two teachers and 22 children out of the fire zone.
America Ferrera portrays Mary Ludwig, one of the real-life school teachers at Ponderosa Elementary School who helped organize the children and stayed with them during the rescue.
The worldwide release of The Lost Bus will be on Apple TV+, when it begins streaming on Friday, October 3.
The film already appeared at the Toronto International Film Festival, where some of the fire scenes generated audible gasps and visible tears from audience members. The film also had a limited theatrical premiere on September 19.
Actress-turned-producer Jamie Lee Curtis read journalist Lizzie Johnson’s non-fiction book “Paradise, One Town’s Struggle to Survive a Wildfire,” after hearing her interviewed on National Public Radio. She immediately recruited producer Jason Blum to help make this episode from Johnson’s book into a movie.
Johnson, who became an executive producer on this film, covered over a dozen California wildfires for the San Francisco Chronicle, and later lived in Paradise while gathering the information for her book. In its acknowledgments, she wrote that the book was “the product of more than five hundred interviews and nearly five years of full-time wildfire coverage … It’s the product of coming to love a community that I embedded in.”
The film’s trailer begins with close-ups of an anxious McConaughey driving an empty school bus while smoke fills the sky and a radio dispatcher seeks volunteers for a desperate rescue. As two Grumman S-2T air tankers swoop down over the hillsides dropping fire retardant, a long shot of real wildfire footage shows the flames ripping across a distant ridge.
With a darkening sky above, but not yet knowing of the dangers ahead, Ferrera calmly guides school children onto the bus. The trailer’s last shot is an overhead view of the bus meandering down a narrow road with burning evergreens on each side.
Echoes of the Camp Fire
Ignited by a faulty PG&E transmission line on the morning of November 8, 2018, the wind-driven speed of the Camp Fire caused a belated evacuation order that eventually displaced over 50,000 residents in a single day. Evacuees poured into Chico, Oroville and other nearby communities.
But while trying to escape on narrow roads and closed highways, the townspeople of Paradise quickly found themselves trapped in a gridlock of traffic. As flames burned on both sides, some residents abandoned their vehicles, creating an even greater problem. Bulldozers eventually pushed scorched cars and trucks off the roads to enlarge pathways along the routes out.
When the Camp Fire was finally extinguished, it had burned over 153,000 acres and caused an estimated $16.5 billion in damages. While not the largest wildfire in California’s history, it remains the deadliest.
Back in 2019, the Red Cross of New York honored McCay, Ludwig and other heroes from the Camp Fire evacuation. In an interview with the Red Cross, McKay, who had been on the job for just three months, said he was the only bus driver available to answer the dispatcher’s plea.
During the six-hour evacuation ordeal, smoke entered the school bus, making it hard for the children to breathe.
“I told Kevin that the kids were starting to fall asleep, and it was like he had already been thinking about that,” said Abigail Gerspacher (formerly Davis), who was the other Ponderosa Elementary School teacher honored by the Red Cross, although not a character in the film. “He took his shirt off, took his undershirt off,” explained Gerspacher in the interview.
“We started ripping them into little squares,” said McKay. “We ended up making impromptu breathing masks for the students.”
“We had enough {water} to get the rags a little wet,” added Ludwig.
At one point, McKay instructed Gerspacher and Ludwig to make a list of everyone’s name on the bus, in case they didn’t make it out alive.
During an earlier interview with CBS News, McKay made a point to mention his respect for the firefighters rather than accept praise for himself. “Our firemen were going the opposite way we were,” he said tearfully, “and that was awesome.”
About the filming
The Lost Bus was filmed on location in a New Mexico mountain town that closely resembled Paradise and had a similar topography.
Director Paul Greengrass, who co-wrote the screenplay with Brad Inglesby, decided on creating real fire to film some scenes, when possible, rather than relying exclusively on computer-generated imagery. These scenes look very real in The Lost Bus because the flames are real.
Greengrass told cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth that he didn’t want to light this film “in the conventional sense. I wanted the fire to light it as much as possible.”
“We kept the film incredibly low-tech and intimate,” said Greengrass, “which gave it an immediacy that worked beautifully.”
Many of the key sequences were filmed with three takes during what Greengrass called “the magic hour.”
“A little light, just right, and a little dark … it gave the film a live, visceral quality,” Greengrass noted. “You really feel like you’re on that bus.”
Greengrass added to the authentic details of the this story by working with CalFire and casting non-actors including John Messina, who led the response to the Camp Fire on that day. Messina plays himself in the film, as do many of the firefighters that originally fought the blaze.
Beth Bowersox, the initial dispatcher at the Oroville Emergency Command Center, was also cast as herself.
“After running through the scenes a couple of times, especially when they started making the evacuations, I had to step out and take a moment,” said Bowersox in the production notes, “because in a way, you’re reliving that day.”
Will the authenticity of The Lost Bus be well-received by viewers, especially local residents, most of whom have their own Camp Fire stories to tell?
In the film’s production notes, McConaughey said of McKay, “I talked to him, learned as much as possible, and got some insight to give us more of a dramatic track to follow.”
“The spirit of the story, I hope, is still sincere and earnest, and calls back to what is true about Kevin’s life on that day and his relationships,” McConaughey added.
Ferrera said she also spoke with her real-life character, Mary Ludwig.
“Mary was so generous in sharing what happened that day that it allowed me to really live in her experiences and not feel like I was playing a made-up character on a page,” said Ferrera, “but someone with a real, full life and backstory.”
And how does this cinematic version of a real tragedy create a riveting narrative without employing disaster film cliches along the way? These questions were at least raised, if not answered, by critics after the Toronto film festival viewing.
On October 3, Apple TV+ subscribers will have their own opportunity to watch The Lost Bus, allowing locals to judge the film’s effectiveness and credibility for themselves.
For those who wish to watch it, the Apple TV+ app offers a free seven day trial, then charges $12.99 per month thereafter. Also, Pageant Theatre in Chico is screening the film from September 25–28.
CREDITS: Scenes from The Last Bus film about the 2018 Camp Fire, photo courtesy of Apple TV+
America Ferrera and Matthew McConaughey in a scene from The Lost Bus, premiering October 3rd on Apple TV+, photo courtesy of Apple TV+
Good article with insights, good film,too; very intense.