This story is part of ChicoSol’s Changemaker profile series.
Kevin McKay was driving school bus #963 to his Paradise home when he was radioed — just as the film “The Lost Bus” shows — that an empty bus was needed for stranded students at Ponderosa Elementary.
That was the morning of Nov. 8, 2018, when the flames of the Camp Fire that ultimately would claim 85 lives and destroy 11,000 homes were raging through Feather River Canyon toward Paradise. McKay was about to make a decision that would make him one of the most famous school bus drivers in the country.