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“Are you the bear guy?” asked the neighbor who walked up Kenneth Johnson’s driveway.

Johnson said yes. A 550-pound black bear was still wedged in the crawl space under his Altadena home, as it had been since Sunday, giving him his 15 minutes of unwanted fame.

The homeowner, who lives across from the canyon where the devastating Eaton fire sparked in January, is no stranger to bears. Residents say Altadena’s bear problem has been escalating for years. Johnson shared video from a few years earlier of a large orange-colored bear crossing his driveway, and recalled looking out his window one day only to see a bear’s head resting there.

While speaking with The Times in his front yard o

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