Mikes here getting a look at that commute for us. Well get to that in just a bit. First, lets start out with kari hall with that forecast for today. Different day than yesterday. Eerie looking out there for a lot of us. What does it look like for us today . Still looking at a lot of smoke across the bay area. This is a look at the smoke pollution we have in the upper levels of the atmosphere over the past 24 hours and still really thick across the bay area, we do expect that to continue today as we are not seeing it right now close to ground level, it will be higher up in the atmosphere. So, were still looking at some times of unhealthy air quality especially for people with breathing problems. Well talk more about this coming up. Mike, how is it looking for the commute . Its pretty smooth, kari. I want to give a note out there south bay and a puppy reported running around on 280. Lets look at the map and circle right around meridian. No updates in the last few minutes and thats good news no news there. Slowing in oakland for some construction over there and do watch out for 880 both directions this morning approaching 29th. Well track that and give you a few more details and check in with those crews. Back to you. Thank you very much, mike. Those orange skies everyone is talking about expected to return to the bay area when the sun rises again this morning. Take a look for a moment at this time lapse video. This is taken by one of our photographers on Treasure Island looking towards San Francisco. Its almost hard to believe that orange glow how bright it was and really no matter where you were throughout the bay area you saw it. Bob redell joins us live in dublin and interesting to see how bad the air really is today, bob. I think its going to be just as bad as yesterday, possibly even worse. Were in the hills over dublin. Those car lights behind me, thats westbound 580. You can already see an orange tint to it. You cant see the moon from our vantage point. I mean, i can, but you cant from the cameras point of view and thats already shrouded in orange. No surprise that the bay area air Quality Management issued another spare the air day for today and tomorrow and friday will make it 25 in a row. Another record for consecutive spare the air days. You can see this with your own eyes how bad this is. In gilroy shot this video around 2 00 this morning of ash falling in her yard. I saw it again on my car this morning and im sure other people are seeing it right now. This smoke and soot is coming from the bear fire that is burning over 100 miles away in oraville. Yesterday was a strange one to say the least. Much of the bay area was basking in this orange glow and street lights remained on well into the morning and in some places the afternoon. A lot of comparisons to the martian sky. Images of the smoke layer hovering above us. It will take a change in wind direction for this stuff to go away. Southerly winds approaching that would push it up to the north. Now, there is smoke off of the coast so as we get our sea breeze, some smoke might come back in. But it wont be this dense. It wont be this thick. We have our own nbc bay area meteorologist about this marslike glow. Tells us the orange hues due to the tiny smoke and ash particles and filtering out the light emphasizing the longer wave lengths red and orange from the sun and similar what we see at sunrise and sunset. Reporting live from dublin, bob redell today in the bay. Happening now, four major fires raging outside the bay area this morning. That are the primary culprits causing our bad air yawlty. Tens of thousands to evacuate. The bay area part of the north complex fire exploded early wednesday. Spreading nearly 100,000 acres in just 24 hours. The sheriff announcing three people have died. Now in butte county about 20,000 people are evacuated there. One family they tried to escape their bear creek home tuesday night had to shelter and swamp until the path across the bar bridge. I have no idea how to describe that. We were trapped for like eight, nine hours. We couldnt get out. Ire. The creek fire just east of fresno is still zero percent contained. It continues to consume parts of the Sierra National forest. The National Guard telling us that they rescued 385 people by helicopter. Theyve done remarkable work. Allnew video shows the inside of one of californias National Guard helicopters as it was flying over Fresno County for that creek fire. Rescue people trapped by those flames. On twitter the guard said that visibility has been so low due to all the smoke and, of course, makes their job very hard. Of course, the fire season is far from over. We want to give you some perspective of where things stand. Until Labor Day Weekend the most destructive wildfire season ever recorded in california was 2018 when nearly ll lly 2 million a burned. Fires torched 2. 3 million acres. By comparison, only 118,000 acres burned in all of 2019. So the vast mu yajority of te who had their power shut off early tuesday are waking up this morning with power restored. Now, this is the current outage map. Take a look at it right here. The purple triangles you see here, up here. Those are the triangles that represent customers still in the dark. Pg e has now restored 97 of the power in total from 22,000 people in the north bay who were without electricity. And the utility says the crews did find some potential trouble spots that are now being repaired. That, otherwise, could have caused some problems. And dont forget a great way to stay informed is through our free nbc bay area app. Sign up for alerts. Were sending out the latest evacuation updates and weather alerts along with other breaking news stories. Now to the pandemic. A look at the latest covid19 cases in the bay area. No major spikes to report. In total bay area now has 91,000 cases. Santa clara county is reporting 175 new cases and Contra Costa County 173. Alameda county 100. Now in Contra Costa County overall cases and the positive testing rate is heading down, but health contra costa count county Health Director says concern about antioch, richmond, san pablo and the bay point community. Right now three bay area counties are in the red tier. Contra costa county Health Officials say if the Current Trends of cases lowering continue, it could head over into the red tier as soon as september 22nd. And Santa Clara County just moved into the red tier. Health officials there saying that they are warning people to not let their guard down, even though more businesses are now allowed to resume indoor operations. Well, the legal battle to reopen schools is certainly heating up. Several Southern California parents are suing the governor over the inperson teaching. The judge recently released a temporary restraining order that would allow some schools to reopen immediately. The Court Hearing will continue today. Now, in the meantime, the governor just released new reopening guidelines for schools during the pandemic. He says schools can reopen after the county has been out of the highest tier on the states color coded list which is purple for at least 14 days. Schools with waivers from the county are allowed to stay open. Well, n morning, San FranciscoState University planned to layoff 131 employees due to a lack of funds and recent drop in enrollment. That accounts for more than 8 of the staff. Among those impacted include employees who work in administrative, technical and support services. And not to forget, election day quickly approaching and it will be held amid the backdrop, of course, of the pandemic. Still ahead on today in the bay, the big changes you can expect to see at polling locations across the state if you decide to vote in person. Plus i think one of the scariest things is just seeing it top the mountain and then comes down towards us. And having to leave and imagining not coming back. A san diego family are describing those tense moments that played ow that they tried to escape the valley fire. What they are revealing about the state of their home. And the tentative deal jcpenney just reached to try to save itself from bankruptcy. Youre watching today in the bay. Prop 19 helps californias most vulnerable. It provides property tax fairness for disabled homeowners like cynde, stuck living with a broken elevator. Nineteen helps wildfire victims, like ellie, one of 24,000 whove lost their homes to fire. And seniors like pam who need to move closer to family or medical care, without a tax penalty. Prop 19 limits taxes on our most vulnerable. Yes on 19. Youre on it. Exercising often and eating healthy . Yup, on it there too. You may think youre doing all you can to manage type 2 diabetes and heart disease. But could your medication do more to lower your heart risk . Jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. So, it could help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. And it lowers a1c. Jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. Ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal. A rare, but lifethreatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. Stop taking jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this bacterial infection, ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction and dont take it if youre on dialysis or have severe kidney problems. Taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Lower a1c and lower risk of a fatal heart attack . On it with jardiance. Ask your doctor about jardiance. Right now at 4 42. Our microclimate weather alert continues due to unhealthy air quality. And our temperatures are this morning in the upper 50s to low 60s. Well talk about where were headed for this afternoon in the forecast coming up. If youre headed through oakla oakland, folks, over my shoulder you see how slow it is through downtown because of scheduled construction reds and oranges but in fremont the oranges because of all that smoke were talking about air quality and traffic flow and get you the latest from cal trans coming up. Good morning, im Frank Holland at cnbc headquarters. Here are todays top business headlines. Wall street opening lower it was a broad rally in the markets with the s p rising 2 . The best day since june. The nasdaq gaining nearly 3 to pull itself out of correction territory after a selloff on major tech stocks. Shares of tesla rose nearly 11 while apple gained 4 to bring its market value back to 2 trillion. The focus today the latest report on the number of americans filing for unemployment. Economists expect 850,000 new claims for jobless benefits down from 881,000 last week. Jcpenney reaches a tentative deal with its landlords and lenders to rescue the struggling Department Store chain from bankruptcy. The liquidation that would have threatened 70,000 jobs and represent one of the significant corporate collapses amid the pandemic. The deal would cut the company into three pieces. They teamed up to buy skrjcpenn retail operation. Housing some stores and distribution centers. Jcpenney hopes to emerge from bankruptcy before the holiday season. Your future walmart order could be delivered to your house by a drone. The Drone Pilot Program yesterday in fayetteville, north carolina. The test will focus on delivering Household Essentials from Walmart Stores but some time before drones start showing up at your local walmart. Just last month the faa approved the air Drone Service while walgreens was the first in the nation to start delivering purchases on demand by drone last year in virginia. Thats the latest from cnbc. Kari hall, back over to you. Thank you, frank. Lets take a look at our temperature trend for the morning as you get out the door in antioch. Were looking at temperatures in the upper 50s. Still a lot of smoke and slow climb in temperatures today. Well get a look at our microclimates and talk more about that air quality coming up. And the good news is we had no news on that puppy running around the south bay freeway. 280 is all clear now. I think that puppys okay. The stretch of the nimts thitz is not great through oakland. Welcome back. Its 4 47 to our coverage again on the bad air across the bay area. Something everyones talking about. Take a look at this. This is our technical operation center. All the cameras kroot s across area we have out there kind of giving you a different view and, boy, was everyone not talking about the orange sky. Take a look at all the pictures that people were posting on social media. A lot of teams from here on nbc bay area. Just approaching the eerie glow. I felt like everyone was talking about it. Even the light coming into your house made it dark. I know i took a drive yesterday and i had to have my lights on, everyone did. Their porch lights on. It was just a strange i felt like making dinner all day long because it felt like dusk. I felt like making a movie. Waiting for tom cruise to pop out. Absolutely. And i know we stepped out there and there was ash falling and i snatched them up real quick and im like, lets get back in the house. It was really bad. Were looking at all this smoke still pouring in and this shows the upper atmosphere and all the smoke that has been hovering over the bay area and even with the slight shift in the wind, not enough to really clear things out. But i also wanted to show you what were seeing on the ground level. And, so, the air quality this morning is worse than what i was seeing yesterday morning at this time. As we look at spots like oakland where we are seeing the red sensors there. Once it gets over 155, its unhealthy for everybody. Were also seeing some unhealthy air quality for San Francisco, redwood city over towards fairfield, even up towards santa rosa and san rafael. As we head to the south bay, were also seeing some air quality that will be unhealthy for people with breathing problems and as we go through this forecast, a lot of oour valleys will still have some unhealthy air quality through tomorrow and it does look to improve just slightly for the weekend and thats the reason why that spare the air alert continues until tomorrow. As we look at our temperatures, much lower today, but we know that because of the thick smoke, it was much cooler than what we were forecasting. That may be also the case today. And were stuck in this pattern where we have High Pressure just to the north of us. That strong low pressure system that actually brought some snow to the rockies was the reason why we had those high winds. As that moves on, well see another low coming in and thats going to change our winds going into the weekend. Also the potential of some rain farther to the north early next week. Looking at the sevenday forecast, we are going to have some much cooler temperatures, just a couple more days of this warm weather and then we are going to see it cooling down as well as hopefully clearing out heading into the weekend. Well continue to monitor that and, mike, how is it looking for the commute . Yeah, kari, pretty easy to spot here. Lets just show folks the bigger view of the map that is over my shoulder. Mostly green one section that really stands out is oakland and its not standing out in a good way because of the slow Speed Sensors over there. 880 northbound is slowed and now just clearing in the last couple of minutes. Cal trans did not clear their overnight crew at 29th but Speed Sensors show the clearing there. Southbound jammed up down towards 23rd. Again, were down to one lane again yesterday that took until about 6 30 to clear. This morning it may clear closer to 5 45. But we will track that. That is a slow drive away from the bay bridge. Getting through berkeley and emo emoryville youre all right making the way through the curve. Thanks, mike. Santa ana winds are fanning the flames of several fires, including the bobcat fire burning in the Angeles National forest. Yesterday it doubled in size and still out of control this morning. So far no homes have been lost and some evacuation orders have now been lifted. The forecast calls for winds to start dying down today. Well, the same story in, the first fire that we know was started by a gender reveal party. Evacuation orders expanded in parts of rivertside and San Bernardino county. That fire has burned more than 12,000 acres and little less than 20 contained. Also in Southern California, were now learning a little bit more about the evacuees about the valley fire. One san diego family was able to escape on saturday, the day after the wildfire started. Family says the fire was coming closer to their home and it actually sounded, they say, like waves kr s crashing down the hit actually just air. The mother, children and animals left first while the father stayed behind to set up sprinklers on the roof before he had to evacuate. You start thinking about well, my house is full of stuff. Whats important . What do i take . You know. And that list was really short when it comes down to it. Its like, i know my family is safe and so that means the world. The family did lose a few sheds but firefighters were able to save their home. So far the valley fire has scorched over 17,000 acres. It is 27 containe all right. Switching gears a little bit. Talking about the big voting year. The Public Policy institute of california will actually hold a Virtual Event today unveiling some research that it found showing that vote by mail in some cases actually increases voter turn out while the overall count is higher, the number of Foreign Language in younger voters, often declines. For anyone who does not decide to vote in person this fall, they can expect to see a lot of changes at polling locations. Southern california election organizers say it will look and feel a lot different than youre used to. Mock Voting Centers are already set up in orange county. Polling locations statewide will first open ten days before election day. Its 4 54 right now. Coming up, another county health de director is stepping down. Why the top doctor says shes stepping down. But, first, happening now. Parts of oregon also on fire. Record breaking fires have destroyed at least five towns and caused three deaths so far. The almada fire is ripping through Southern Oregon right now. Burn more than 3,000 acres so far and about 600 homes. One fire official says the fire was the most destructive he has ever see dear california. We know these are challenging times. Rest assured, you are not alone. Weve all had to adapt. And with summer here, your energy bills might go up with rising temperatures. Together, we can save energy and money. Try closing your shades during the day. Setting your ac to 78 or higher. Or cooling off with a fan when you can. United we are always stronger. Stay well, california, and keep it golden. Welcome back. Top doctor is stepping down after leaders voted to end the countys local health emergency. Their unanimous vote cited the states lagging metrics which they believe mischaracterize how the county is doing in actually fighting the disease. In her Resignation Letter public Health Director aimee sesson said it is with a heavy heart that i submit this letter of resignation. Covid19 cases continue to surge at san diego State University. In just three weeks of the fall semester, the school has more than 400 confirmed cases and one student has been hospitalized. Last week, the college issued a stayathome order for all students and stopped inperson classes. That order is now extended until next monday. The cases are being linked to students living on and off campus. And our team staying on top of that breaking news for you this morning. High winds fuelling the flames in two large Northern California fires. A live report on the deadly turn they just took plus how long the smoky and hazy skies are expected to stick around here in the bay area. 4 58. We saw the cloud of smoke and my heart fell. I knew wed lose our home. And we did. Over 24,000 homes have been destroyed by wildfires in the past few years. Wildfire victims need help so im voting yes on 19. It limits property taxes on wildfire victims so families can move to a replacement home without a tax penalty. You never know what youll be faced with. Please, vote yes on 19. Right now at 5 00, ash pl k blanketing the bay area. What will it look like today . Team coverage on what you can expect and if all that orange will stick around. Plus i have the very sobering duty to report that there have been three fatalities to date. Wildfire turning deadly. Three confirmed deaths. More are missing and thousands remain out of their homes right now. The latest on what is still a very real threat to people and their homes. And businesses everywhere hinging on a vote today on capitol hill. Why more pandemic relief is still far from a done deal. Today in the bay continues right now