This is from sky 7 yesterday, actually sky 7, just a few minutes ago we had a live picture from there. We had to ground our helicopter because the winds are simply too strong in Sonoma County for it to keep flying. You can imagine what the fire crews are dealing with to try to get a containment line around the kincade fire which is burning more than 30,000 acres as we speak. Right now lets go ahead and show you this picture, taken from one of those wildfire alert cameras. In fact the website is called alert wifire. This is st. Helena. You can see, yep, in the wine country region, st. Helena right up the road, and you can see the smoke risingas a result of the fires burning, the dry brush, part of the kincade fire. It eats up the dry vegetation in the hills right now at this time of year. You can sort of see where the fire doesnt just burn in a straight line. You can see there was clear flames on one hill, then sort of a patch of clearance, then some more flames, as embers get thrown and the wind blows the fire in driven directions in new places. And the way it expands has so much to do with the geography of the area as well. You can certainly see its posing a real challenge for firefighters. So yeah, just another glimpse at the degree of the fire in st. Helena. Lets bring in meteorologist lisa argen to kind of continue to talk about the winds which were monitoring, hoping theyll start to diminish. We were hitting the peak. Lisa, any sense of that starting to go down . I dont think well see the 80 or 90mileperhour winds we were seeing in the 3 and 4,000foot elevation on the hills of the north bay. But were still seeing gusty winds, we still have our wind advisory in effect. And were still looking at that high wind warning in the north bay. Unfortunately this is a Long Duration event. Were talking about another 24 hours with these winds gusting all around the bay area. And because of that, we are certainly worried, because we saw the expanse of the evacuation just double in size last night, from 80,000 to 180,000 up in Sonoma County. Here is a current look at the winds above 1,000 feet. Up to 50 miles per hour, knoxville creek. This is pretty high, 3 and 4,000 feet. Theyre beginning to come down a bit. Were still looking at gusty winds. Mt. Tam, wind gusts up to 45 miles per hour. Oakland hills, 36. East foothills, 36. Look at the north winds. This right now, surface winds in hayward, in livermore, up to 32 miles per hour. Look at the line here, the red to magenta to pink, it keeps blowing until we can relax the pressure gradient. Were in the close vicinity of low pressure to our east, High Pressure to the west. An the atmosphere always wants to get to a quill i objen equil balance ourselves out. As we look at our 9 00 winds, theyre still gusty, from the east bay to the coast. We have the funneling, we have the terrain, we have the gaps in the winds. The winds get channeled into the lower elevations and they just pick up speed and move across the bay here. Thats what will happen throughout the afternoon. At 11 00, things are getting just a little bit lighter. But we need an onshore flow, we need high relative humidity, we need a westerly opponent. It will lighten up a bit but were still looking at 30 mileperhour gusts through the afternoon. Half moon bay, san francisco, some problems with low level wind shear. Also looking at temperatures and the winds allowing for conditions to be really dangerous for the flights to take off and land. So 10 00, 11 00 tonight, 25 to 30mileperhour winds. The dew point measures the moisture in the area which theres very little of. Look at that, 14 in napa. Were looking at not only low dew points but the relative humidity that continues to decrease complements of the gusty northeastern wind. Relative humidity 18 in vallejo, 24 in fremont, 21 san jose. This will continue to go in the wrong direction. Well continue to dry out as the winds continue to gust here from the north. The gustiest will be in the upper elevation of the north bay. And the current air quality is moderate. Youre noticing that in some areas around here, its actually pretty good because the winds are so strong, they are pushing the bad air out of the bay, out to sea. But of course the fire continues to expand as the winds push those embers up, perhaps even miles out ahead, starting smaller spot fires. You look at the camera behind you guys, the bay bridge camera, wow, that is really shaking. So all across the bay, ive heard from a lot of folks right in the lower valleys, 25 to 35 miles an hour, its a bad day in the weather department, it really is. When we talk about things improving, were not getting any rain, were not getting any change of a wind direction. And in fact were looking at another event that could take us into tuesday and wednesday with an offshore wind component. Heres a look at the fire index. Well stay high on this all day long, because the winds are going to be a little bit less but not enough to help us out and it will continue to be a very tight predicament here as to how much more this is going to spread and whether or not we can keep other fires from starting in the east bay. The diablo range, up to 50 miles an hour. We have some good news on that fire, the claytonoakley fire burning in the east bay. It looks like evacuation orders have been lifted for that area. Ill pull it up on my phone. Residents can return home. Evacuation order for oakley fires has been lifted. East cypress road reopening for residents, that was for a fire burning in contra costa county. Weve got fires all over the place. The main one is the kincade fire. Which well go ahead and summarize for you right now. Its burned 30,000 acres. So it grew by about 5,000 acres overnight, mostly burning in rugged, steep, brushy terrain there near geyserville. Firefighters have 10 containment right now which is actually a drop from the 11 containment they had as of last night. Right now they have 71 structures destroyed. Over 31,000 structures are threatened. Firefighters are tackling this, they have over 3,000 fire personnel working the kincade fire and aggressively working to keep it from spreading into the heart of Sonoma County in windsor and healdsburg. Theyve undertaken the unprecedented effort of moving 180,000 residents, 60,000 people in santa rosa and about 120ish county residents that are getting out of harms way, getting to Evacuation Centers or other places, to friends and family elsewhere. All of that has been happening since last night and early this morning with efforts intensifying as the threat of the kincade fire spreads. One note, because so many people have been evacuated, many of the shelters have actually been filled up. The new information is to head even farther south to the marin fairgrounds in san rafael, 10 avenue of the flags. Youll have to get on 101 south and theres going to be traffic but you just need to have patience and know that is the route to safety. Joining us by phone right now i think iss sothe Sonoma County supervisor who had an update with cal fire through a briefing. Thank you for making the time for us, supervisor. Can you give us a status update . Yeah, we did have the briefing at 7 00 as they do every morning. Its really an operational briefing for the firefighters themselves before the new shift gets back on the line. Its always interesting to glean some information from that. I think last night, about 1 00 in the morning, they were very, very concerned about the activity that was taking place. I know that it could have been a lot worse as we woke up this morning than what it is. And i also know right now, if you look over, im looking over my shoulder at the plume of smoke going in the southwest direction, that the wind is pushing it really hard right now. Even though we want to get airplanes up, visibility is not going to allow them to get good drops on the front of the line of fire. So the ground crews are working really hard right now to make sure that they can get a stop on this thing. Did they have any updates on acreage or how many structures have been burned or how many structures are threatened . Because the latest numbers we have are almost 32,000 threatened. Yeah, theres a lot of threatened structures. If you look at our evacuation map, it rely goes right out to the ocean, because its all downwind with these diablo winds blowing out of the north and northeast. So theres a lot of structures in the path of this. Until they get a larger containment, we cant start pulling off those numbers. You know, we still have the winds, and today is going to be as windy pretty much as it was last night. The National Weather service told us there were 40 to 76mileperhour gusts, 80 minors at mt. St. Helena. Theyll see 30 to 40mileperhour winds today in sonoma. Obviously as you increase in elevation, for every 500 meet, wind speed goes up exponentially. And the winds are certainly coming out of that north northeast direction which unfortunately alliance with the drainages of the topography. It pushes the wind down those drainages and makes it difficult for firefighting. David, thank you for your time. It sounds like were still expecting a 10 00 a. M. Presser with cal fire. We are. They flew the fire this morning, did an infrared flight. They crunch those numbers, however they gather that, and create the maps. Thats what theyll be presenting here at 10 00. All right. We do have to go, but one last real quick question, have you heard anything about the field stone winery and whether that was burned in the fire . Only from what i saw, quite frankly, on social media. Nothing official. I did see pictures of some wineries, soda rock. I didnt identify the field stone. People did tell me wineries were burnt, and that was plural. But again, we hope for the best. There was a lot of from the map, it looks like there was a lot of land burnt last night, whats in that area. It is populated with wineries, and there are some homes in there, not real dense, but obviously the structure damage or structural numbers are going to be going up. All right. Thank you, david, so much for spending some time with us on the phone. Well chat with you later. Sure, thank you. We have got to switch gears. We have sky 7 overhead a fire burning in vallejo right now. This looks like a fresh fire near there are also a lot of refineries in the area, fuel processing facilities, not too far away from the new star plant, a few weeks ago we had an incident there. You can see the grass fire burning, the flames are right next to i80. Interstate 80, yes. Right now cars seem to be driving past it unimpeded. Of course this is just breaking out right now. Its entirely possible that pretty soon the chp may keep people off the roads in that immediate area because you can see the fire is burning in the hillside right next to the freeway. It would be interesting to know how this fire started. Was this the same ember, two different embers, did one start the other fire. So just to show you just how complicated this firefight is for all of the firefighters in the bay area, we know there were 3,000 firefighters on the kincade fire alone. But you have to remember that not every fire can rush to Sonoma County. They have to protect the rest of the bay area, because this is high fire red flag warning for everyone else. So we know there was the oakleyclayton fire which fortunately evacuation orders were just lifted for. Its worth noting, a resident obviously with a hose, trying to protect his own home as the flames get so close to his property, which appears to be in a subdivision. Look at all those homes, as we pull out. We dont see a lot of fief firefighters out there. No, theyre not there yet. You can see the flames are very much encroaching. Theres a little road there that might service a fire break. It does look like they have clearance around their homes, which everyone has been cognitive of in the bay area. You see four people out with their garden hoses which is common in these types of situations. But from this Vantage Point you can see how tough that is. Your garden hose versus a grass fire thats moving pretty quickly. Mmhmm. And it appears to be two spots where the flames are originating at this point. There is one right by the subdivision, and then one a little bit farther away closer to interstate 80. We see some tanks there, which is a littl disturbing because you do not know the contents of that. It could be water storage facility, because thats how a lot of water districts store their water. But as you were saying, we had the new star fire a couple of weeks ago when we had all sorts of Flammable Materials burning, i believe it wasse ethanol. This is certainly impeding right now the visibility in the area by the carquinez bridge. You have to wonder what theyre thinking. Another thing were noting is that there are power lines or transmission lines and towers right by where the fire is burning. If we can pull out a little bit and see if we can get a shot of that. We hope that they have been deenergiz, we dont know. We hope they werent involved. We hope they werent involved, pg e certainly doesnt need another incident in which their equipment is involved or related to sparking a fire. Its burning right around their tower there. We dont have official information from vallejo fire or from officials about whether folks should evacuate. But this is a situation where you can see the flames are very close to their homes. If youre in this type of situation sometime this weekend as we deal with this unbelievable red flag warning, if youre seeing those kind of flames and smoke, its really best to get out. I know the urge is to protect your property, its understandable. But thats not always the safest decision. Right now lets bring in by phone pg e spokesman paul dougherty. Paul, thank you so much. Are you seeing what were seeing in vallejo, that there are fires burning right around one of your transmission towers . Yeah, we are aware of that situation currently. And i dont have specific information in terms of whether or not those transmission lines have been deenergized. Our Transmission System is in scope for pg es event this weekend. There are instances were wind speeds are extremely high where we have been need to deenergize some of those 230 kb and 500 kb lines. There is a chance some of these are deenergized. Again, i dont have that specific information for you at the moment. Were seeing historic wind speeds throughout our service area, as you all know, thats why weve enacted this Public Safety power shutoff event, currently impacting approximately 940,000 customers. We have expanded that scope slightly, and we are anticipating some additional shutoffs in the southern portion of our service area, in kern, fresno, madeira counties for later this afternoon, tonight, and potentially into tomorrow. Do you have any idea whats going on in vallejo . We have sky 7 overhead and theres two fires, one burning close to houses and the highway. There are some very tall transmission lines that we have on live tv right now. Do you have any concept, are those towers deenergized right now . As i mentioned, i dont have specific information to share right now with regard to those power lines, our Transmission System is in the scope for this psps event. And we have shut off power [ inaudible ]. Paul, are you still there . All right. Paul is not able to say right now whether those transmission lines we see in this vallejo shot, if theyve been deenergized or if their equipment had anything to do with this particular fire thats broken out in vallejo just in the last half hour, near the carquinez bridge near a subdivision. Those homes are very much in danger and we see some residents out with a garden hose. Who am i hearing right now . You can also see the wind blowing those trees right now which really goes to show how those flames okay, im hearing that we have the mayor of healdsburg on the phone, mayor daviding he hegel. Good morning, are you there . Yes. How are you doing . Obviously its been a trying night for you and everye in healdsburg. Is the town okay, do you know, is anything on fire, are you still protected . As of now we are protected. Last night, as you can imagine, it was an extremely challenging night. I cant say enough about our staff of First Responders. I was up there around 3 00 a. M. This morning when we made the decision to relocate the Emergency Operations center from healdsburg to santa rosa. And the show of force was just breathtaking. I drove up toward the north end of city limits, the parkland farms area. The number of trucks ready to just go was amazing. So a lot of wind, a lot of branches. A lot of things blowing around, as you can imagine. But so far, nothing has burned in healdsburg. Theres a lot of fires going on around us, so were definitely not out of the woods. Were watching all of that very carefully. But, you know, i cant say enough about, you know, not just our staff but our community and the fact that they listened to the recommendations to evacuate so that the First Responders in healdsburg were actually able to do their jobs as opposed to rescuing people and trying to evacuate people that should have been out of there already. It does sound like you did everything right, from both the First Responders at some point and also the response from the residents. Just everybody coming together. But ive got to say, its trying, and its so sad to see whats happened. We saw soda rock winery completely burned down. We also heard about field stone, do we know anything about the field stone winery and what happened there . You know, i dont. Im focused primarily on the city limits and the city of healdsburg. And thats where my focus has been. Our hearts go out to our neighbors. This goes out to where this whole thing started, healdsburg as a community is a very supportivecommunity. And we jumped at the chance to be able to help our neighbors. So when we hear about these things, or the businesses lost, i mean, that affects jobs in our area. Its something that we all feel. And so we can only hope for the best and just pray that these winds calm down. David, i imagine youve lived in healdsburg or the area for a number of years. Yeah,. What is this like for you, not just as the mayor of healdsburg but as a member of the community to pack up your home and go . I have a 6 and 8yearold, a 6yearold boy and an 8yearold daughter. You have to balance the you get really good at panic, but calm. I shouldnt say panic, but hurry and calm, to do things and move quickly without creating additional panic that, you know, you can see in your kids eyes. And so its something that i experience personally, having conversations with my wife about the evacuation plan and so many unknowns. And, you know, just the fear of what potentially could happen, and balancing all of that with your family and evacuating them and comforting your kids, its a challenging things. My heart goes out to our entire community. And im really just so grateful that people are safe in various locations and they were able to get out in a nice, calm, and orderly fashion. It was so helpful to the First Responders that showed up to do their work. Mayor hagele, thank you so much for your time. I know it cant be easy. But know that the entire bay area is behind you. Stay safe. Thank you. I appreciate it. Right now we want to take you back to our breaking fire in vallejo. This one just in the last half hour, take a look, we are now getting word that i80 is closed in that immediate area by the carquinez bridge as a result of two fires burning. Were told this is the glen cove area. It looks like the flames have gown, the charred areas have grown, and the smoke is now billowing across i80. That one front looks like its just yards from the freeway, which you can see theyve closed one side. One side is open, moving slowly, mostly because those cars are lookeeloos, wondering what is going on as another fire starts in the bay area. If sky 7 can pull out, we were also concerned about that second fire burning near the neighborhood. Obviously these fires starting very close to each other. And we know its windy because we had a closeup of some of those trees in the neighborhood which you can see are really billowing. If you look closely in the backyards and past the fences, youll see folks with hoses. Im actually wondering if i dont see a fire truck. We can talk to our photographer, mike davich in sky7, who could give us a sense for what firefighters are doing. Hi, mike. Reporter good morning. Were just north of the carquinez bridge. We spotted this fire as we were headed to another fire, in oakley. Firefighters werent on scene when we got here, but residents were hosing down the area next to their homes on the hill. This is bay hurst drive in vallejo. Residents were out with their garden hoses. Luckily they have a nice fire break on the back side of their home. Initially they werent in too much danger but the flames were a little scary. I think the fire down on 80 is part of the same scene, as you can see. Its really close. Firefighters are on both scenes now, and starting to address the flames. As you guys mentioned, 80, just past the toll plaza here, is closed and theyre turning traveling around to go back across the bridge due to smoke and obviously firefighting efforts. Oh, my gosh, yeah, we can see that now. Now its hard to see because of all the smoke because youre above it. But yes, we can see the chp turning traffic around, not letting cars get to the area right up to where the fire is burning. Talk about the direction of the smoke and how it might be impacting the carquinez bridge and homes in the area. Reporter the smoke seems to be moving to the south. The winds are kicking it up here too. Its not as bad as when weve actually were going to the fire in Sonoma County, but due to those severe winds and turbulence we had to turn around. Thats when we spotted this fire. As you see, the smoke is heading towards the bridge itself. At this point they havent closed westbound lanes. Mike, sorry to interrupt you, i apologize. Can you zoom in . Because the cars are actually being turned around near the bridge at the toll plaza right there. You can see that there are dozens of cars that are just being turned right back around to head back over the carquinez bridge because i80 is closed because the flames are so close to the highway, to the road. So mike, theyre not ooh, look at that. Thats the fire, coming closer. Right on the freeway, it looks like. Theres fire truck, some signs sirens on top of that vehicle. Perhaps the Fire Department has arrived on scene. Its on both sides of the freeway, fires now on both sides of the freeway. So everyone, just to recap, a were right north of the carquinez bridge, three fires have broken out at the i80 highway, theres one in the neighborhood, one on the side of i80 and another that seems to have skipped the freeway. They havent closed both sides of 80 yet. I imagine that will change real quickly, mike. Reporter absolutely. As soon as they get their hands on the other side, the other lanes, i think theyll probably close it down, due to the smoke if nothing else. But the firefighting efforts will intensify here. And theyll need the space to work. Do you see those tanks that are right next to the subdivision where one of the fires seems to be burning . Do you know what they are . Is that just water, we hope, and not part of some sort of plant or refinery or anything like that with possibly more flammable stuff . Reporter my guess is those are residential water tanks that service the neighborhoods. Were not near refineries specifically right here. There is another reservoir right above it. Im pretty sure thats just water. The flames are starting to fizzle out just a little bit near the neighborhood. But like i said, they had a nice break along the back side of the homes here, so they werent in too much danger, just some scary moments for the residents as they tried to hose it down themselves before firefighters arrive. We see a lot of people continuing to do that. I dont see a lot of fire engines directly in the neighborhood. The fire is now on both sides of interstate 80, right car carquinez bridge. Im wondering if cars on i80 will have to stop in both directions since weve got flames on either side. Reporter yeah, i believe they will. This grove of trees on the other side, the fire has definitely jumpednd is heading down towards the sheline, for those family with the area. I think this is the Maritime Academy below us. The Maritime Academy is now in jeopardy as the fire moves in that direction. Wow. Are you seeing a lot of fire engines or fire response yet . We definitely see a couple reporter from the extension across the freeway here, i have not seen any fire response for that. Think this caught them offguard, obviously. Theyre making efforts to get turned around on the freeway and get to this fire. Its just getting massive on the other side. This grove of trees is just going up. Incredible. This started, when we got here, the flames were very visible, but not nearly this intense. But it has just gotten worse, the winds have pushed it and pushed it and pushed it. That was just a matter of minutes, mike, that that fire skipped the freeway and is on the other side. Reporter absolutely. You can imagine these drivers are wondering what is going on as they are on i80. Unbelievable. So this is just i guess three now, of many fires that are burning across the bay area. You remember the entire region is dealing with high winds, a red flag warning. Weve been focused on the kincade fire since its 30,000 acres and 180,000 people are evacuated but that doesnt mean the threat for the rest of the bay area is over. Of course firefighters will now be busy here trying to deal with that and dealing with a potential i80 closure is obviously difficult especially when were dealing with traffic on highway 1 as folks try to evacuate. Well keep watch this fire in vallejo, which is so scary for all those driver on 80 by carquinez, by the bridge there. We want to bring in reporter Cornell Barnard who has been following the fire destruction in the healdsburg area. Folks, if we can live this up, but for now, whats going on on where you are, cornell . Reporter we are making our way up highway 28 towards calistoga. Every mile we take, we see some devastation. This is the latest. This is an outbuilding, perhaps a home, perhaps a shop here off of highway 128 and chalk hill road. This is an area where we have so many vineyards, so many wineries. We dont think this was a winery, but it is a total loss. Were about two miles from soda rock winery which of course we were showing you all morning, which tragically burned to the ground. All thats left there is a facade made of brick. We want to bring in chris harvey, the Public Information officer for cal fire. Chris, i know youve been busy this morning, thanks for making time for us. How is the firefight going . Last night we saw along this whole stretch of highway 128, several places were fire jumped over the road. We lost some structures, some grapes, obviously. The wind continues out of the northeast today, obviously a significant wind event were looking at again for today. Reporter those winds were forecasted, everyone was gearing up for them, they have certainly come to fruition. Tell me how thats playing a part in whats going on for you guys. Were lucky in this case to have such an accurate forecast several days in advance. Additional evacuations in healdsburg and windsor. I only found one man still at home, the evacuations seem to be working. Reporter the embers which may have caught that beautiful historic winery down the road, theres no way to battle those if theyre in the air, if theyre airborne and they catch fire, they land on buildings, right . Sure, thats a significant hazard for us on these windy days, we can have embers and burning brands that will land one, two, three miles downwind sometimes. They start these spot fires, then the spot fires become winddriven. If it lands on a shake roof or dry fwrgrass, you can have a very significant fire incident very quickly. Reporter weve been here for a couple of hours now, when we got here, its so smoky, really hard to tell where the fire is burning. At some point we thought the fi was burning all around us. Where is the fire currently . The main bulk of the fire continues to be up near geyserville, northeast of highway 128. But again, because we have those winds out of the northeast, the fear today is well have fire spread to the southwest. Thats why, again, we have those evacuations of healdsburg and windsor. Reporter we have our sold school map that you just provided to me. Tell me where the fire is burning and where we are. The fire is here. This black line is what we call a containment line, where the firefighting efforts have concentrated to try and keep the fire from spreading to the southwest. This is the 101 corridor here. Weve made some contingency plans here, this whole area, all the way out to the pacific ocean, its now been divided up for command and control purposes just so we can be extra cautious in case the fire continues to spread in a southwesterly direction. Well see very strong winds coming out of the northeast in this direction. Our fear, and our efforts, are focused on the fact that the fire could continue to spread towards the southwest. Reporter has the fire jumped 101 . Currently right now we have no reports of the fire jumping 101. We just have a lot of spots where the fire has jumped 128 here. Reporter and right here on the map, we have the communities of healdsburg and windsor. Thats correct. Reporter and right now you have, what, 3,000 personnel on the ground . As of this morning the new numbers are 30,000 acres involved with over 3,000 personnel. Reporter weve seen firefighters as far as southern california, nevada county, i know youre from sacramento yourself. We have reinforcements coming in. Definitely. We have out of state, ive seat novato, oregon. We generally get western states, youll be seeing people from all over the west arriving today. Reporter does it appear, and we had a massive evacuation from the communities yesterday, does it appear everyone heated the warning to get out . Im happy to say at this time theres no confirmed casualties of firefighters or civilians. In our opinion, the evacuation orders have obviously worked, everyone has gotten out. So, you know, were feeling very lucky this morning for that reason. Reporter thanks so much for your time. The fire has jumped 128 here. Thats what we have seen here. What we saw down at the soda rock winery. It jumped highway 128, but now the firefight is concentrated on highway 101, making sure it does not jump highway 101. Kristen, you had asked me earlier if Alexander Valley school had burned or had been damaged by the fire. We just checked on it, it is perfectly intact. There was an outbuilding a quarter mile from there which we showed you in the last 45 minutes. Thats what the concern was. That outbuilding. The school is fine. Thats good news, thank you so much, cornell. Speaking of the fire jumping right now, lets take you back to our breaking news in vallejo. This is that fire thats right by the carquinez bridge, jumped 80, and close to the cal state university, one of the campuses of the system, one of the maritime academies, the only one on the west coast. You can see the facility there is very close to where the flames are burning now. Theyre putting water on it. If you zoom back in, it looks like Law Enforcement and firefighters were close to some of those buildings, then sort of farther down, it looked like some flames were getting close to some of those buildings right there. You can see some things are close to catching fire. It looks like a trailer maybe full of equipment or something. Bu its getting awful close to everything on the campus. And theres a lot of firefighting effort going on, you can see them pulling out the hose and trying to put some water on it. Fire engines are arriving as we speak. This is the dry brush on the hill thats right butting up to the cal Maritime Academy which is being very much threatened by this fire that is growing so rapidly. What i see is a storage container. Those could be propane no, those are probably life raft enclosures. Hopefully not propane tanks there. And this fire skipped i80 so quickly. For a while we had two fighters near a neighborhood and then close to the edge of the road, and then minutes later it seems like its taken over this side of the hill. In vallejo, this is on the north side of the carquinez bridge. Theres car on fire. Two cars. Yes, two cars that are currently burning. And we dont know if this is a parking lot belonging to the cal Maritime Academy, most likely so, its in that area. But this fire has spread so quickly and there are little spot fires in areas now burning and including vehicles there. This is in vallejo, by the carquinez bridge. It started near a subdivision there at the top of the hill, then very quickly it jumped the freeway and now its coming down towards the water with smoke going south and embers going south. That is being affected right there. Hard not to notice those giant transmission towers. Pg e, we had them on the phone earlier, they dont know whether that had anything to do with the fire but its hard not to notice them sticking out of the smoke. There were some transmission lines next to the neighborhood and we have a huge fire on both sides of i80. Earlier one side of the highway was closed down. I would bet theyve closed both sides. Were getting word from a representative of the cal Maritime Academy that theyre actively evacuating people from their facility there. There are 115 people on campus, or were, hopefully theyre getting out or have gotten out. Sky7, hopefully well get that shot back, because its over a developing story, dramatic fire breaking out in these high winds, tinder dry conditions. Sky7 from a few minutes ago was able to shoot what you were talking about, kate, i80. The Vallejo Firefighters Association on twitter has confirmed all of i80 is closed. Weve been in touch with folks from vallejo fire who are understandably very busy actually fighting this fire right now. We are working on getting more information about what exactly is happening, whats threatened, how theyre dealing with it. You can see cars are still moving on at least that portion of i80 despite what were hearing from the firefighters. This was from a few minutes ago, from sky7, so it could be changing rapidly. Of course they have to get people off the freeway, out of the area, they cant just be stuck there. So were not sure exactly whats going on at this time. But definitely they want to get people out of that area, off of i80. In that sdivision i have to imagine they must have evacuations going on as well because the fire was burning close to the subdivision even though they have sort of a natural break there at the top of the ridge. But it is too close for comfort. We saw people taking out their garden hoses and trying to defend their properties, defend their homes against the approaching fire. But right now, it seems to be pushing in a southerly direction towards the water, towards the Maritime Academy. The flames near the homes are dying down, we saw a number of homeowners with garden hoses before the Fire Department got there. If we zoom in, mike, it looks like theres yellow engine front of one of the homes, it looks like some firefighters showed up to the neighborhood. Theyre working to protect those homes because obviously thats of great importance. This is a live picture from sky 7 as we speak. It looks like were seeing more smoke than flames. It looks like it burnt the center median. It looks like theyve gotten the cars out of the area, theyve closed it, as we anticipated they might. But you can see both sides of it freeway, the vegetation, fully engulfed. There are a lot of trees there and dry brush. And with the winds that are as they are today, with gusts up to oat miles per ho in higher areas, its easy for this to spread. Lets check in with meteorologist lisa argen. Winds are out of the north, no surprise there, 12 miles an hour gusting to 24. And the current relative humidity is at 17 . So like the entire bay area, the winds now channeling through the delta there, through into vallejo, and getting close to the surface with gusts of anywhere from 25 to 40 miles an hour are calming. Napa has a wind gust of 52 miles per hour. With the northeastern gradient and winds being channeled, its just dry. And the weather is certainly the factor in starting this fire, hopefully not spreading anymore, but it is just not in our direction, our favor, with the low fuels i should say, the low moisture, the dry fuel content, and another example of how the winds are just dominating the weather today, because of the dry brush out there, the dry time of year. Weve had no rain in october at all. And for the next ten days were not expecting any rain. Were not expecting these winds to shift or to become more westerly. Were expecting the dry conditions to continue, the wind gusts today with our wind advisory throughout 11 00 tomorrow, high fire danger across the bay area. This is all throughout the day today. I heard reports all over the bay of the winds just howling, tree in the street. And this is all weather driven, no doubt. Well, and we saw how quickly this fire developed from two somewhat small fires near these homes that youre looking at right now, then a little bit down the hill towards i80. Then all of a sudden it had jump the the freeway, its near Maritime Academy. Its closed i80 completely. I didnt see any cars on the carquinez bridge memoments ago. Weve got mike davich up in sky7. Mike, what are you seeing . Reporter were coming around to check on that subdivision. To our knowledge no homes have burned to this point. Firefighters were on the scene attacking the fire when we went around to check out the extension on the other side of the freeway. The Maritime Academy, i can confirm theyre quickly trying to evacuate people. Their own people are efforting firefighting tactics along the base of their docks and their billets. Mike, i seem to see more cars going downhill. Im assuming people are leaving that area. I dont know if you know of any mandatory evacuation orders. I see Police Vehicles with lights on and it seems to be getting people to drive down that road and leave that subdivision. Is that what youre seeing . Reporter you know, when we first were shooting the residents hosing down, there were a lot of people backing out of their driveways, trying to get at least their cars and their families out of immediate danger. I do see some people leaving now. I havent seen any police per se and i certainly havent heard of any mandatory evacuations at this point. This thing just happened so quickly, i dont think there was any time for that. But the homes at this point seem to be out of internitial jeopar. The fire continues to burn towards 80. As we discussed, 80 is close income both directions at the toll plaza. Do you see any firefighters out on the road, by Maritime Academy, where a couple of cars were on fire . Where are you sort of seeing the resources centered . Reporter we saw some fire trucks come into the Maritime Academy. I had not seen them pull their hoses, most of the firefighting efforts seemed to be coming from the residents and the folks at the Maritime Academy. I have not seen too much firefighting effort along 80 either. Theyre there, theyre just under the smoke. But ive only seen a handful of firefighting apparati. Were coming back to the Maritime Academy here. The fire continues to burn. I dont know if its very difficult for them to get out there, but it almost has this eerie sense. On this shot, we can certainly see firefighting going on at the Maritime Academy. We saw what looked to be their parking lot, right, with a few cars already on fire. And i wonder if the folks that are fighting the fire that we just looked at, were they already at the academy or are these vallejo Fire Department coming down there to try and protect lives and structures. Theres the car thats still on fire, its a pickup truck right there. At least two vehicles. Completely engulfed in flames. Reporter so vallejo Fire Department is actually on scene at the car fire in that parking lot. This seems to be a Corporation Yard for this facility. Just the one truck is on fire at this point, fiefrefighters are addressing that. Most of the firefighting is coming from members o the academy there. Do you knha a the Key Structures . Certainly from here they look intact for the moment. But what will be the key of what theyre trying to defend against there . Reporter i think the buildings that are intact on the lower portion there, thats the main part of the school. And then the upper portion seems to be some support buildings, Corporation Logistics kind of maintenancetype buildings. I think the truck that was burning was probably one of their maintenance vehicles. But well pull back out here and show you that 80 is deserted and shut down. And theres the bridge in the distance. I have not looked but im assuming they have closed the bridge from the other side. We are not seeing traffic on the bridge at all. Nor, looks like, for at least half a mile on 80 back. Theyre probably going to traffic break as the fire grows. It looks like its sort of growing still towards the homes a little bit, although i guess that portion of the hillside has burned already. And you can still see some movement in the upper left corner of your screen. It looks like theres folks in the neighborhood, either trying to fight the fire themselves. We do know vallejo fire is on scene doing whatever they can. But we know fire resources are stretched thin throughout the bay area as there are fires popping up all over the place. Of course a lot of agencies have sent crews to the kincade fire burning in Sonoma County. Is that another fire . That certainly does appear to be another spot fire right around where the cars are approaching the toll, is that what theyre bunched up there for . Theyre being stopped there and turned around . Yeah, mike, can you tell us sort of what were looking at here . Reporter yes, so were now on the other side of the carquinez, to the west, where the cars are backed up because of the closure. And it looks like a spot fire has started. I think this is hercules, if im not mistaken, along 80. Its picked up steam, firefighters are on the scene of this one at this point. Thank you so much, mike. I think were going to go to abc 7 News Reporter lauren martinez. Lauren, if youre there on the phone, we hear you were on the carquinez bridge when this fire broke out. Do we have lauren on the phone . Reporter hello . Hi, lauren. Reporter hi. We hear you were on the carquinez bridge when this fire broke out. Reporter yes, i was approaching the bridge. I could see a small plumef smoke at the time. But right when you approach the toll area, thats where cars stopped. And i noticed that a semi on the right was crossing all the lanes to get over. And i could see him turning around. So then at that point i realized, theyre having everyone turn around after the toll. And thats what ended up happening. There was ash just coming down, and so then all the cars had to move over to the left and just make a uturn. Meanwhile, the other side of the freeway is driving by. At that point thats where flames were right next to the other side of the freeway. You could feel it, it was it was pretty intense. But everyone was, you know, pretty calm, everyone was just kind of blending in together. Ive never been that close, like i have never been that close. And that was really scary to deal with. Where you can feel the heat, right . Reporter yes. What did authorities have you do, where did they have you go and where are you now . Reporter so i drove and i pulled over let me see where im at right now. I pulled over. Im in rodeo right now. Do you know who turned you around chemical was the chp on scene . One agency was there directing traffic because were trying to get a sense of who is on the ground in trying to deal with this fire. Reporter sure. You know, i couldnt tell. I just saw police lights. I mean, the smoke was kind of covering them so i couldnt even get a good look. I was in one of the middle toll lanes. I was kind of in the middle of everything. I wasnt on an edge to really see what was going on. But i could see lights from one at least patrol car, just not letting drivers go through. And you had to turn back. Were you stuck in traffic near the flames or were you able to quickly turn around and get out of harms way . Because were seeing some cars on the freeway. Reporter yeah, i was able to turn around. You know, i think what made it hard too is that other cars are still driving by. You have to, you know, merge. Go with the flow. Reporter right, merge quickly. So that was hard. I think the scariest part was just sitting there and trying to kind of, you know,erge together and then make that uturn. That was just very scary. Were glad you got through that safely. Youre at rodeo now just down the road. From where you are now, can you still see the smoke . That seems to be increasing as the flames grow and move and spread. Were seeing several spot fires. What are you seeing in rodeo . Reporter im on a hill, actually, so i can get a good view. For me, approaching the carquinez bridge, i saw just a small plume, nothing too big. To see it now, just how quickly all of this has just transpired, its just crazy. But i can see it after the energy facility, just a big black plume just continuing to grow. There are people slowly coming out of their houses, kind of checking and seeing. You know, people walking by, and the smoke. The wind is just so windy, its coming in this direction. And lauren, were watching sort of the flames eat up the trees along i80. We can see the winds moving the trees. Cars are sort of okay, these are from a few minutes ago, but the fire is still burning. And you can see, a few minutes ago, there was a fire truck in that neighborhood and cars are, you know, on the freeway. Theyve shut the freeway. And the Fire Department is obviously trying to deal with this as best they can, along with all the other fires that are burning throughout the bay area today. Reporter mmhmm. Yeah, its i just cant believe how quickly, you know, it happened. Lauren, were you coming into work . Reporter no, i was actually heading home to sacramento. And my dad, you know, he was in the city. And he was 30 minutes ahead of me and he was able to go through, no problem. I called him and im like, dad, theres a fire. Hes like, i passed the carquinez bridge 30 minutes ago, nothing was there. So that must have just happened. Are you making plans to take an alternate route at this point . Reporter you know, i dont know. It rattled my nerves a little bit. I dont know. Ill kind of sit here and figure out what i should do. Your news instincts are probably like, keep on driving and come to work. Reporter right. But im sorry that the family plans got kind of spoiled. This is just a crazy situation, as you said. Reporter it is. Were glad you werent caught mi of all the flames and e smoke and that youre safely away from that area right now in rodeo. Reporter thank you so much. And just to recap for those of you just joining us, this is a fire, it looks like multiple fires burning on both sides of i80 north of the carquinez bridge in vallejo, including burning on the campus of cal state Maritime Academy, where we saw a number of trucks on fire in a parking lot. People had hoses out, theyre trying to keep the fire from approaching any closer to campus. I fe i80 is closed in the area. On the other side, folks had garden hoses out trying to stave off the flames. And we spotted another vegetation fire downwind of vallejo, closer to crockett, really. This latest one appears to be across the highway from the tank farm fire two weeks ago, if you remember, at new star. So, you know, there are a lot of refineries in that area, not where this originally broke out by the carquinez bridge, but certainly now that its moving downwind and south, were starting to see some of the threats to the local refineries. And this is actually some social media video of the fire near the carquinez bridge, someone, it looks like, driving in their car and taking it out their window. You can see how scary that was, what lauren was talking about, how it can really rattle your nerves when youre feed away, or yards away anyway, from flames like that burning right next to i80. You can see all those cars were turned around. The freeway is closed. I80 is closed. And you can see those are the flames that we first saw that were burning so close earlier to these homes. That portion of the fire seems to be a little bit died down. I will have to say this neighborhood seemed to have really great clearance, brush clearance around their backyards, and in the property on the hillside leading up to their backyards. All right. Two quick notes. One, for you viewers who enjoy this week with george stephanopoulos, that will be airing right now on 7. 2. Or you can catch it on comcast 715. Were sorry you werent able to watch it here earlier due to thisak