With his early fire warnings, a hero meteorologist saved hundreds of lives! Here are his next concerns
Despite being praised as a hero for alerting Altadena residents to the approaching fires, a local meteorologist tells PEOPLE, “This is not over.”
Before the fatal fires in the Los Angeles region ever started last week, Edgar McGregor, a local climate scientist in Altadena, California, who updates the Facebook page Altadena Weather and Climate with hyper-local weather information, was raising the alarm about the wildfires.
McGregor issued a warning to locals on Tuesday, January 7, to stay awake, exercise extreme caution, and get ready to leave. The 24-year-old is now being lauded as a local hero and is being credited with saving hundreds of lives because so many residents listened and left.
McGregor tells PEOPLE, “I haven’t even been able to process that mentally,” in reference to the recognition. “While attempting to save someone’s life, I did not run into a burning building and sustain third-degree burns. I just did my job, I’m thinking as I read all of the remarks that people are sending me.
However, McGregor claims that a week before to the wildfires starting, he warned the public that the Santa Ana winds that were heading to Los Angeles would represent a serious threat.”I knew on Dec. 30th that when this windstorm hit, the conditions would be carbon copies of the conditions that were on the ground in Lahaina, Hawaii, and in Paradise, which both were completely leveled and lost around a hundred people each,” according to him.