Or talking to people in general? That seems incredibly odd.
I asked him about if he could not see the smoke. He said the wind direction took the smoke away from his house and some hills obstructed his view. He had just moved into the neighborhood so he wasn't friends with the neighbors quite yet.
Wow! I would think the logjam of people stuffing their cars with possessions and getting the hell out of there would have been a clue that something, possibly, was happening that might warrant some further investigation.
There's apparently a fine line between "not ardently following the news" and "not paying attention at all."
He did find out, he was talking to people (the OP)