AILSA CHANG, HOST:
We're going to turn to a story - another one about Altadena - to the 24-year-old amateur climatologist whom some locals are calling a neighborhood hero because he warned them early about the approaching risk of wildfire. And he urged them to be ready to evacuate. Edgar McGregor is the leader of the Altadena Weather and Climate Group on Facebook. He joins us now. Edgar, thank you so much from all of us here in Los Angeles. I just want to say I'm so glad that you're safe, first of all.
EDGAR MCGREGOR: I'm so glad that I'm safe and my home is standing, honestly.
CHANG: So I just want to explain to everyone why you are being called a hero right now. I mean, before the Eaton fire broke out last week, you were already warning people in your Facebook group to begin making early preparations to evacuate, like locating important documents, turning their cars to face out of the driveway. What were the specific warning signs for you that led you to believe, we got to take these winds really seriously right now?
MCGREGOR: Well, I think all of this really started back in May of last year. We saw one last rain storm here in Southern California. And the mountains were lush - all sorts of plants and moss on the trees. Everything was bright green. And if you've lived in Southern California for a long time, you know that it doesn't rain here during the summer and the autumn months. And so all that feel was going to dry out. Unfortunately, this autumn, we didn't see any rainfall return. It usually does so by November or December. And when the winds were - appeared in the forecast around New Year's Day, I knew that if a wildfire were to break out, it would not be pretty.
CHANG: Right. And when you saw a fire had indeed broken out in Eaton Canyon, near where you are, what was your first thought? Bring me back to that moment.
MCGREGOR: Well, my first thought was where was it exactly because I was hoping that it was right next to homes and that the fire wouldn't be able to get a lot of steam before it hit the neighborhoods. I was hoping it wouldn't be up in the mountains 'cause if it were up in the mountains, it could burn an enormous amount of brush and get really hot and build a fire front before it hit the homes. And unfortunately, it was in a location where we actually see wind tunneling, where winds are squeezed as they go through the canyons of Southern California. We saw winds of 70 miles an hour that night. And I - when I got the location of where the fire began, I knew this was not going to be good.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, your Facebook group now is just full of stories from people who say that they are alive, that they made it out early enough because of you and the warnings that you were issuing to everyone. Is there one story from someone that stands out to you?
MCGREGOR: I think one of the stories that I - there's so many of them, honestly.
CHANG: I know.
MCGREGOR: I can't...
CHANG: I know.
MCGREGOR: I've been doing my best to read them, but one story was of a woman who looked at my forecast and said, you know what? I'm not even going to be in town for this. I don't want to be there during the winds. I don't want to be there if a wildfire breaks out. And she packed up her and her kids, and they went - rented a motel somewhere down south, and they weren't even here. They - those children were spared of the trauma of evacuating from a fire. And so it's not just, you know, that I'm helping saving lives or anything, but it's helping remove those fears from those children's lives that they simply don't need.
CHANG: Right. So I have to ask you, I mean, as someone who wants to warn people of incoming danger, how do you balance keeping people informed of what you perceive as a very real mass threat without causing mass panic? I mean, were you a little worried that...
MCGREGOR: Right.
CHANG: ...Maybe you were being a little too, you know, panicky?
MCGREGOR: Well, the difficult job here was not standing in the middle of the street at 6:30 p.m. that night telling everybody to get out as the mountains behind me were on fire. The difficult task was spending three years building trust in my community, whereby that when I made a forecast, people could be confident that that would come true.
CHANG: OK.
MCGREGOR: And I would never use the word extreme or cataclysmic or generational...
CHANG: All right.
MCGREGOR: ...Or anything like that because...
CHANG: OK.
MCGREGOR: ...When the conditions were right, I needed people to hear my words when I said run and I needed it...
CHANG: And so many did.
MCGREGOR: ...Needed them to...
CHANG: OK.
MCGREGOR: ...Run.
CHANG: Edgar McGregor leads the Altadena Weather and Climate Group on Facebook. Thank you so much, Edgar.
MCGREGOR: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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