the fire moved very rapidly. it has happened in the past too. this is the most vehicles i m aware of burning at one time on this freeway. watch this. you can see the cars are completely burned out. it would seem there s no way for any at least object the ground emergency assistance to even get there. all we re seeing is helicopters trying to drop the fire retardant retardant. right. it s very congested. we have fire equipment in the area working the fire in the brush as well as on the vehicles. the brush is also threatening nearby homes. there are homes nearby. obviously, from what we could see, it doesn t look like there s a massive development there. but there are homes? the community of baldy mesa they are under a mandatory evacuation. they are under a mandatory evacuation evacuation. stay with me. i want to bring on steve of the
handgun. a law enforcement official tells nbc news that one of those was an ak-47 assault type rifle. authorities have still not identified a motive and the shooter has not yet been linked to isis or any other terror group. sources to nbc news that so far nothing has turned up on his electronic devices, no suicide video or manifesto. they re looking into his recent travel overseas. last year he flew to jordan where his family is from. he didn t return to the united states for seven months. today we learn the identifies of his victims, gunnery sergeant thomas sullivan staff sergeant david wyatt served one tour in afghanistan and two in iraq. he s from north carolina. sergeant carson holmqvist of wisconsin served two tours in afghanistan and lance corporal skip wells joined in february of 2014 and he s from cobb county georgia. for more from chattanooga, i m joined by nbc s sara dallas. what s is latest you re learning on the scene there? reporter: well good evening, steve. a
trailer that exploded. do you feel you are confining the fire particularly on the stretch of the 15? we have the fire burning on the vehicles but we have a vegetation fire moving toward homes in the baldy mesa area. there s two different fronts on the fire. are you evacuated the homes in the mesa area toward which that fire burned? yeah the area is baldy mesa. it s an area of scattered ranch homes, scattered homes, large acreage homes. they are under mandatory evacuation. the area north and west of interstate 13. now, this fire started in the afternoon and my sense was, this was a particularly fast moving fire, that s why we have the somewhat surreal and terrifying image of the cars on the highway because it moved up the slope. is that right? right. it s a busy freeway on friday