The 2025 film -- which premiered in select theaters in September 2025 and was released on Apple TV+ the following month -- recounted the real-life story of Kevin McKay and Mary Ludwig, a bus driver and a schoolteacher who saved the lives of 22 children during the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. The disaster was one of the deadliest in the state's history, burning over 150,000 acres and killing 85 people.
Paul Greengrass and Brad Ingelsby co-wrote The Lost Bus based on a section of Lizzie Johnson's 2021 book Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire.
"Lizzie's book is much broader, about the whole story of the fire," Greengrass told TIME in September 2025. "And the Kevin story is only a handful of pages in it. And it seemed very appropriate for a movie."
So, is The Lost Bus a true story? Here's everything to know about the real-life wildfire that inspired the film.
According to the official synopsis, The Lost Bus follows "a wayward school bus driver and a dedicated school teacher" as they take "a white-knuckle ride through one of America's deadliest wildfires" to rescue 22 children.
In addition to McConaughey, the movie stars America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson and Spencer Watson. The Interstellar star’s mom, Kay McConaughey, and eldest child, Levi McConaughey, also appear in The Lost Bus as his character’s mother and son.
"Incidentally, when I cast his son, I didn't know that he was his son," Greengrass told TIME. "And Kevin's son and Matthew's son became pals apparently."
Yes, The Lost Bus is based on the real-life wildfires that destroyed thousands of acres in Northern California's Butte County. On Nov. 8, 2018, McKay responded to an emergency call that 22 children and two schoolteachers needed to be evacuated from Ponderosa Elementary due to a fast-moving wildfire. He drove them 30 miles through thick smoke and raging fire to safety.
"I just knew that things were going to continue to escalate," he told CBS News later that month, noting that his family had already evacuated when he answered the call. "We didn't leave until every kid was accounted for, and every kid was with their mom and dad."
At one point during the five-hour drive, smoke filled the bus and teachers Ludwig and Abbie Davis used ripped pieces of McKay’s shirt doused in water to help them breathe.
“We were both trying to keep each other from crying,” Ludwig told CBS of how she and David were feeling. “And we just kind of held hands and... we just said a prayer.”
Jamie Lee Curtis, who produced the movie, said she learned about their story while reading a review of Johnson’s book in The Washington Post.
“I said out loud to my husband, well, that’s the movie,” the actress told ABC 7 in September 2025. “That’s how you make the movie. And I called Jason Blum, who’s my partner, and I said, ‘I want to make a movie, and I believe it’ll be the most important thing either one of us does in the movie business.’ And that’s how the movie began.”
Yes, McKay and Ludwig are real people, and McConaughey and Ferrera met with them to build a foundation for their respective characters.
“I think of Mary, the person who’s remarkable and was so generous and lovely and spoke to me and answered every question I had for her," Ferrera told ABC 7. “And the Mary who ended up on screen is different.”
She continued, “I think about Mary as, yes, having been on a selfless journey that was about giving herself to other people, but it was also in the end, it’s about her giving herself to herself and choosing the life she wants.”
McConaughey shared a similar perspective, telling the outlet that though he sat with Kevin to see what “really mattered to him,” he eventually made the character his own.
After a six-month investigation, Cal Fire determined that Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the state’s largest utility company, was responsible for igniting the fire. NPR host Kirk Siegler said that residents in the area have claimed negligent maintenance on power lines “for years.”
“But, you know, on the other hand, given the state of the forest and the conditions, anything could’ve caused this fire,” he said in a May 2019 segment, “A cigarette butt being thrown out or a spark from a vehicle.”
PG&E was charged with 85 felony counts -- one of unlawfully starting a fire and 84 individual counts of involuntary manslaughter for the wildfire victims, per NPR. The grand jury report found that the utility company ignored multiple warnings about its aging power lines and failed to follow state regulations.
In June 2020, PG&E CEO and president Bill Johnson pled guilty and admitted in court that their "equipment started that fire." The company was ordered to pay the maximum fine of $3.5 million and also agreed to a $25.5 billion settlement to compensate the victims and their families.
Greengrass told TIME that The Lost Bus isn't about PG&E, "but their failure to maintain the infrastructure was the prime course of the fire, and that's just the facts of it."
The 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people and displaced over 50,000, according to TIME. Curtis told IndieWire that the magnitude of loss the residents of Paradise felt was never lost on her.
“We’re showing the decimation of a town in vivid detail,” Curtis said in September 2025. “My job as a producer was really to be the bridge between the real-life people ... and the fiction ... I promised them I would never lie, that I would honor Paradise and its heroes. Even though this would be released as entertainment, at its core, it had to have integrity.”
In addition to the lives lost, the wildfire also wiped out almost 19,000 buildings, per NPR. Siegler estimated that 90% of the town of Paradise was "completely leveled," and two nearby rural communities also experienced significant damage.
Yes, McKay and Ludwig were both involved in The Lost Bus. The bus driver told Action News Now in September 2025 that he felt "very included" and had input on several elements of the movie.
"I got to share my perspective and a lot of that perspective made it into the film and some very key moments," McKay said. "The authenticity that Apple was looking to come up with, the filmmaker, Paul Greengrass, he wanted this to be real and authentic and true to the story."
He also noted that because The Lost Bus is a "Hollywood film," some moments were "either exaggerated or collapsed." However, he hoped that anyone who was impacted by the fire sees themselves in the movie and is proud that their "story is being told in a worldwide form."
Greengrass told TIME that Davis, the other teacher who rode the bus with McKay and Ludwig, chose not to be involved in the movie. They also didn't contact any of the children McKay and Ludwig saved because they were minors at the time.