Some water on the fire but they project cannot suppress it. They are going to have to contain it to this one building. Its a huge building. Its seen a lot of growth and progress and fire crews are surrounding this. Its now increased to a four alarm fire right now. Crews surrounding that trying to pummel it with as much water as they can from the streets below. We are trying to get some information from San Francisco fire as to exactly when and how this got started what the building is intended for as you can imagine, the Fire Department pretty busy, pretty contained with this as its gone to four alarms and may go higher. People on the roof of the building next door at least they are standing up wind of what looks from what looks to be a safe location at this point. But the buildings nearby are in danger because they are being built very close to each other. Absolutely. And brian, you can attest to this how the winds would play a factor in the winds right now. At the moment the winds in the surface at the city are fairly calm. You go back and look at google maps and look at this part of San Francisco, she satellite picture of the area was taken in 2011, there was nothing there three years ago. All there was is recent construction. It reminds me when you see Something Like this brandnew construction going up in flames, you think of santana row, same thing 12 years ago. Right. And same thing. Combustible Construction Materials and there was no fire retardant system in place. All they could do was contain that. Looks like thats what theyre doing now. Ucsf has a huge presence in terms of office buildings, commercial space down in this area. But then alongside of that, we were seeing these condominiums go up and just as i say, the construction has exploded over the years. Wow. Take a look and the those flames. They are completely spread over the top of that building. And you can see that thick dark black smoke is evidence we talked about all that chemicals and nonorganic material thats likely burning right now. At four alarms, San Francisco fire doing everything it can but at this point, i dont know, it looks like this building may end up being a total loss almost a total loss if not a total loss. It looks like the goal is to keep it from spreading to the other construction sites. This again at fourth and china basin near at t park. Folks around the bay area can see this massive plume of smoke rising from the city. Theres one of the cranes thats involved in the construction but spreading not just to the other construction sites but looks like right across the street from what our videographer joe cousins is telling us there is a complete Building People already living and working in that one building on one side of it. Its just off to the lefterrer with we see the fire burning right now but this multiple stories as gone to multiple alarms, four alarms as it just is uncontrolled burning at this building at 4th and china basin. Joseph cousins our videographer is down on the ground right now. He was talking about how its just incredible how hot and how this fire has a real strong chemical odor and just seeing right before his very eyes how quickly it was spreading. He did mention that he didnt see a lot of people evacuating from the building. He said mostly just firefighters. So hopefully nobody is in in any danger. Do we have the google map to bring up . This is what brian was talking about. This is google maps aerial view of the neighborhood. And that building that was under construction. And at the top of righthand side the other buildings under construction. As we widen out, thats great perspective. The cove that comes in there and gives you an idea as liz was talking about just how close this is to the water to the bay and the marina just the north theres the ballpark and mccovey cove at the very top of part of your picture so whats burning is down in the lower middle section we are moving it around, but its right now in the middle of where were looking. Yeah. This is an area that is experiencing unbelievable growth. They created their own weather within Something Like this. That whole building is engulfed now. This is a massive construction project. It will fan its own flames. Its like a wildfire. The every thigh wind has picked up dramatically. They are up to 7 miles an hour in downtown San Francisco not far away from where this is. Its not good news that the winds are forecast to get strong and reach wind advisory criteria within two hours. And its a very dry direction. They are northeasterly winds. Is that going to affect an urban fire like this . Its not going to help it. No. And the heat coming off this thing is intensified. Firefighters can only get so close. Smoke is black when you have Oil Based Products which there are as we all know in construction. So you can see multiple fire units getting water on it. But look how far back they are especially the ones in the lower right hand corner. Okay. Lets get to Mindy Tallmadge with San Francisco fire. What can you tell us about this fire thats happening right now . Its unbelievable seeing it from chopper 5. Yeah. Its definitely very visual. This was the fouralarm fire, originated in a building that is under construction as you can probably see. Its weve decided to fight this defensively. Were basically putting up ladder pipes and surrounding this fire. The goal is to protect the structures around it. Its a lightweight building and because its under construction, there are no suppression systems in the building. Right. Thats why this is burning so heavily. The buildings surrounding it, looks like some of them are completed that people are actually either working or living in those buildings so youre defending against the fire spreading to those . Theres a building across the street that some of the glass from the heat has failed. So it has affected at least that building. And have there been any evacuations . You know, i dont know if there was, excuse me, if there were official evacuations per se. But im sure that, you know, everybody is out of the surrounding building. And the building thats burning that building itself had the construction workers left for the day as far as now . Is everybody out of that . I do not i do not know. Im sure no, theres nobody there. But i dont know if they were there at the time that it broke out. Mindy, you know, over the past 20 minutes or so, we have been following this. This fire seemingly exploded. Can you give us an idea of what kind of chemicals or what could be really fueling this fire to make it so intense so hot . Actually, i dont know what, you know, what is there. Because there are no suppression buildings systems, the whole building is fuel. At four alarms youre putting everything you can on this but it is burning so hot from what we can see, you can only the firefighters can only get so close. Youre putting water on it from quite a distance away. Im going to get a better assessments. If you want to call me back ill update you. Thank you for the information that you did have. Thank you, Mindy Tallmadge. Well check in with you when you have a little more information. As mindy said, thisser doing this defensively all they can do is really protect the buildings surrounding this building that is under construction. And the water that they are putting on it, they cant get close. They just cant. They have to do it from far away. And try to protect the buildings around it. This is burning so intensely. Its been burning for almost an hour now. She mentioned that a nearby Apartment Building right next door actually the glass on that building broke because of the intense heat and intense smoke from this fire. Its unbelievable. Fire crews have surrounded the area to contain it trying to not only put it out but to keep it from spreading to other buildings. This is our videographers smaller picture from the ground on the lefthand side. Thats a thumbsup from joe doing a great job. He is getting in close where you can see just how intense this fire is burning. The scaffolding that liz talks about that is up pretty much around this entire building. They are getting water on this thing from up above and from down below. But at 4 alarms and fighting it defensively, all they can do is just try to keep those flames from spreading. Mindy tallmadge mentioned too that because this building is under construction, there is no suppression to try to put out a fire. So basically this fire is burning 100 extremely flammable fuel which is is why it exploded so quickly and why the flames are so intense and why that smoke is that really rich dark black color there. We have retired fire captain vincent fortino on the line sorry . Scortino on the line. Can you hear us . Yes. Thanks for joining us here in san jose. I live in san jose but im retired from san jose Fire Department. He wanted to talk to you because we had mentioned the comparison of this fire and the santana row fire that Brian Hackney mentioned earlier. Can you kind of give us a comparison to what you see burning here and the way that santana row fire burned . Well, it almost looks identical building under construction with no Fire Suppression. Its like a big giant piling of kindling just ready to go up. The materials that are burning, obviously, Construction Materials, a lot of petroleum base. Can you explain what is going on inside there thats causing all the black smoke . Probably plastic piping from all the plumbing. There could be, you know, the plastics that they use to tarp the area when they are doing construction to keep the wind out to protect the construction workers. Given your experience with the santana row fire, what are the challenges firefighters are facing to get it under control and keep it from other buildings . They are not going to put that fire out. Its going to go out when the fuel runs out. And all they will do is protect anything around there. The heat is so intense from the fire like that. When you suck is hefully fought that santana row fire, how when you successfully fought that santana row fire, how were you able to contain that one building and keep it from spreading . The whole thing was under construction at that time. Wasnt it . Reporter essentially it burned the entire building that was that fire was in. Luckily, it was, you know, that whole that whole complex in sections so that the fire didnt president is to adjacent sections, just pretty much putting up a water curtin and protection on the noninvolved building. When you see a fire like this obviously we cant speculate on the cause of the fire, but what are some of the risk factors when you have a construction site this size when it comes to fire . It could be anything a trash fire, out on the street could start a fire like that. A construction torch inside, discarded cigarette in a pile of paint rags or anything like that. And theres just no way they can save any of this. I mean, they are trying to get out ahead of it. But thats not really to try to save the building, right . Thats just to try to keep this thing somewhat contained to the one building. They are trying to stop it from going to unattached building. Im just seeing it on tv like you are. That fire is not going out until the fuel is gone. Theres a lot of fuel. Theres a lot of fuel. So its just like a giant campfire right now. Right now it looks like they are really battling it from below with those giants fire hoses. Any other methods that firefighters may try to try to put out this fire or protect the other buildings i should say . Well, if it was 1906, id say bring in some dynamite. [ laughter ] well that might stop it a little sooner. But, no, seriously, the water curtains are about all they can do to hopefully protect the buildings that arent involved. Vince, we appreciate your insight. Thanks for helping us out. Retired fire captain in san jose. All right, you guys. Take care, thanks so much for helping us. Ken bastida is in the newsroom and you certainly remember that santana row very, very well. Yeah. As the fire captain aptly described it, this is something you cant put out. Theres just too much fuel involved there. And you got to think of it in terms of little boxes because thats what this probably is. There are lots of little condos stacked up. Now, theres no walls in most of this yet. So theres so much air. You need three things, air, you need oxygen, you need fire itself, the ignition. And then you need fuel. And so all three of those components are there and thats what happens is you get that accumulation of air in those pockets. You can see those little square boxes. And the fuel surrounding them, theres just no way to stop it. If you were to stack a bunch of pallets on top of each other and douse them with gasoline when you throw in all the plastic piping as he was talking about the abs and what not, and, you know, youre also seeing a lot of the outside of the building has those has the yellowish green panels on there. Thats all insulation. And thats supposed to be fire retardant but up to a point and that just adds to the fuel content, as well. They are actually telling firefighters on the ground to back up a little bit because the expectation here ask its going to collapse and theres going to be basically a pile of nothing that will burn itself out. Theres not even Fire Suppression going on right now. All they are trying to do is keep some of that resident heat from, you know, burning some of the other buildings around. Youre seeing some collapsing right now. Some of that is interior walls. Some of it will start to be the scaffolding on the outside. There was a shot from chopper 5 when you can see the bending of that scaffolding pipe, 2 steel pipe melting. Now you can see what they were fearing and this is why you dont put people inside a building like this. Its why you keep everybody back because this will go floor by floor by floor. It will start to just kind of disintegrate from the immense amounted youre talking about thousands of degrees right now. Thats as hot as you can get things and it will melt concrete it will melt piping, whatever. Ken, im told its gone to five alarms in the china basin area. I was thinking the difference between this when we saw the san bruno neighborhood caught fire, here we have a finite amount of fuel provided they can contain it to this one building. In san bruno, we had that natural gas pipeline that exploded and that was like jet fuel just kept feeding that fire and they couldnt get into the neighborhood and here, at least, theres a finite amount of fuel if they can keep it contained. Thats the problem. Great shot there from joseph on the ground where you see the firefighter up on the apparatus there and talk about the San FranciscoFire Department earning their keep today. That is not an easy job. You imagine the resident heat alone will take paint off fire trucks bubble it right off in the street. Those guys are probably 100 feet away. Theres a firefighter exposing himself the side of that building, the ladder you couldnt put your hands on it right now. He is pulling back, too. He is pulling back a little bit. I mean, thats the thing is you can get that resident heat can start popping windows in the neighborhood, it can start actually burning, you know, some of the paint on the stucco on some of the buildings nearby. If you look at the way theyre fighting this, too, they have their Fire Suppression on the side that the wind is blowing. So the wind will come in, say youre going from left to right with the wind, they will get on the right side. The wind is pushing the fire to the right so they will get on the other side of it and just keep it from sending flames and embers down the street on another roof or into another building or through a window or whatever. But yeah, youll start seeing floors collapse here before too long. This is at 4th an china basin and china basin near at t park an area that has grown in the past couple of years. This building looks to be apartments or condominiums but in that area theres also businesses. Right now firefighters are just trying to keep this fire contained to this one apartment complex away from other buildings at the construction site. We are preempting the cbs evening news with scott pelley because this fire is so significant. It is so big. The fortunate thing at this point is that we have no reports of anybody being injured anybody being hurt. But as ken was saying thats why the firefighters are staying so far away and on the left side of the screen you can see how far away they are and still able to get some water on this thing. Yeah. Because at some point there is such a buildup of heat and fire in this that the building structurally wont be able to stay up. It will start to come apart and when that happens, thats the real potential is if you had somebody inside and, you know, at last check, as you mentioned earlier, allen, most of the construction crews in the city knock off at 3 00. These guys come in at 6 30 to 7 00 and work until 3 or 3 30 and knock off. The fire started around 4 30 so hopefully everybody was cleared out. Just like the fire captain said, it could be anything. It could be a spark, a cigarette, anything. Theres so much open space. You can see what happens when they get going. Its a chimney. Nothing but fuel. Theres no suppression agents there. So once that thing catches fire its hard to contain and control. Its the winds and embers. Inevitably its going to collapse. That crane off to the middle beyond that left side you see a red box at the bottom. Thats an elevator system that construction crews use. Thats a good sign. That box is all the way down at the bottom floor. Nobody was probably in the building that the last guy got out and the elevator is always way down on the ground floor. So thats another indication that, you know, hopefully nobody was inside the building at the time. And that everybody got out and, you know, this is something that might have been smoldering for a while. And with the winds we have had, brian was speaking to that earlier, gusting it doesnt take much. A little spark out on, you know, in the afternoon that they could stand by the flames. Again theres no walls up. So wind goes blowing through these buildings until they are finished. Theres more of that black construction netting that surrounds the building. Its starting to go. And when they lose that and, you know, anything can blow anywhere and im sure they are trying to get this thing to collapse in upon itself once that happens. Yeah. Exactly right. You can see that the intensity of the flames in the upper left corner shooting out almost like, you know, the jetpack and thats because theres a roof still above that. And its forcing that fire out. And thats hot fire. When you see really, really dark orange or red flames and then you see the lighter sort of yellow flame, that orange stuff is as hot as it gets. It will melt steel, cars, iron beams and turn them to spaghetti, not a problem. I want to look at this other picture here its a smaller picture of the firefighter on that ladder with that hose pouring water fast on that. You can see the flames almost lookic lie they could almost touch them they are so close to him. He is moving back in fact. Because he has to adjust to the heat and the intensity of that flame as it gets close to him. Lets take just a moment here if we have the video from about 20, 30 minutes ago and give you a comparison to what it was like the way the flames ken were talking about just shooting out of there like a fire cannon. It is so intense and that orange flame, that is the hottest you can possibly get. Its redhot. It really is redhot. Thousands of degrees. Thigh top floors of the building are gone. Earlier it looks like it had started on the side of the building near the scaffolding itch near the top floors. Now this thing spread and take a look at what should be the roof. That is entire flames. You can see that one Little Corner that maybe maybe think could top it and get it out quickly. The roof is has all that composite material thats starting to go and its like a frying pan. It just runs along the top and shoots out the upper windows. Once that starts to happen, you have firefighters inside with axes trying to vent some of that material and let some of that heat and fire out. You cant do that in a building like this because its wide open. You dont want to put any personnel inside there because its just too dangerous. Theres nothing there to stop it. There are no windows in place and im sure the interior walls were pretty skeletal, as well. So once it got started like you say, ken, it just had free reinover this thing. Of course, there is a wall there. This looks like an oddly shaped structure a corner and a wedge on one side. You will probably see some of this stuff fall apart some of the scaffolding already melted and fell down. Now youre starting to see some of the sheeting on the outside of the building start to come apart. Just too much heat. We saw earlier some of the beaches starting to collapse and melt underneath all of that heat. Its just amazing how quickly this fire has done so much damage. We are getting close to 6 00. We are a watching kpix 5 San Francisco san jose and oakland. We are covering live breaking news burning since 4 30 this afternoon in the china basin area near 4th street in San Francisco which is adjacent to the at t ballpark. This area has grown over the past couple of years, a lot of new apartments and businesses going up right now. This was possibly an apartment complex or condo complex. Very close to other construction sites in this area. We spoke to Mindy Tallmadge at the San FranciscoFire Department. She said the goal is not to save this building. This is to keep it from spreading to other buildings in the area also under construction. Also, possibly without Fire Suppression units within the building which is why this fire really grew as big as it is. I can see our reporter joe vazquez there on the ground shot to the left and thats our videographer joe cousins who called this right away as soon as he got down there. Theres part of the building collapsing, ken as you were talking about. Hopefully its collapsing in on itself. I think it is. That would be the best possible scenario. Once the structure gets to the point where its so hot and the metal starts to fatigue not unlike what we saw, hate to bring it up, the World Trade Center the beams get so hot they cant support the weight of the structure anymore they fail and it looks like they lucked out maybe in this respect that it did fall in on itself. It doesnt get any hotter than that. Thats upwards of 3,000 degrees and will absolutely melt anything. Just an inferno. Our retired fire captain down in san jose vincent scortino described it as nothing but fuel and its going to have to burn and burn and burn until it basically burns itself out. Amazing. The smoke, of course, can be seen all over the bay area. We have gotten calls in the newsroom here from people as far down as the south bay who can see that plume of smoke. Its not so bad the winds at the ground level but once it hits the atmosphere and gets winds aloft it will start blowing. Its blowing towards the south bay and folks can expect to have smoke over their homes probably down the peninsula and beyond out into the bay for a while. Yeah. We spoke to joseph cousins who is our videographer down on the ground and he says that the chemical smoke or the chemical odor in the air is just unbelievable and how hot it is near that building. Its just almost you cant even take it. Brian hackney, youre standing just off to my left here, the winds wont really pick up until when . The advisory begins at 8 00 tonight. At the moment the winds are only up to about 8 miles an hour down at the surface in San Francisco. But you look at that and think of the historic fires in San Francisco in 89 the loma prieta quake, the big marina fire at beach and divisadero, that condo complex that went up, the fire crews were about an hour away from falling back and saying, we got to let it go. So their whole thing is contained. Im going to take a break from that real quick and go out to joe vazquez who is live on the scene right now. Joe what can you tell us . What can you see . Reporter first, i want to set the scene for you. Follow me around, joseph cousins our photographer. Right behind me back here thats at t park. You have to follow me around here with the camera. You can see the parking lot and the stadium. So now were south of that. Thats china basin that body of water and then the next street over. This is 4th street and youre looking due south that intersection there is fourth and channel. As joseph pushes in, i was just talking to a guy doing construction on the next project over to the west of the building. And same thing there are a lot of we have been talking about this. There are a lot of Apartment Buildings housing going up in this area. I asked him is this going to be for students at ucsf . Techieslive in the area . He said its pricy so likely its going to be for the tech community, you know, you can expect students here. It just burst into flames. They are extremely concerned that its going to catch on to the structures nearby. He said his building is hot to the touch. They are very worried that this thing is going to spread at this point. As you can see flames are going to roar out the top of this thing. Its right now they have just moved people back. You can see people here in the foreground. They have just moved these folks back a distance. They were on the other side of the street and 10 minutes ago they moved them toward me my direction here and said you t abundance of caution, with all the water being thrown around and with all the materials that could start to break apart, they just want to make sure people are far enough away. We are seeing this building, joe, just on our screen there practically come apart before our very eyes. A wider shot it seems like more buildings have caught on fire. But its all part of