Announcer from nbc news World Headquarters in new york, this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. Good evening. We begin with a remarkable number. Right now around 95 wildfires are burning in the western u. S. And tonight the u. S. Military is answering an urgent call for help. At least 100 troops have been called up in Washington State. The first deployment of active duty soldiers to battle fires in nine years. The fires are burning across at least six states. The stakes are high, and so is the cost. 100 million a week. At that rate Officials Say the money will run out next month. Our team is deployed across the region. Lets start in chelan, washington with National Correspondent miguel almaguer. Miguel . Reporter hey, lester, good evening. Heavy smoke hangs in the air here. Behind me there is destruction. In front of me two miles ahead a wildfire is moving in multiple directions. At least 56,000 acres here are been destroyed. More than 32 homes are gone. This as that fire is on the
Lived here 33 years. So its hard to see this. Reporter tonight lives in ruins as this fire rages on. Miguel almaguer, nbc news, washington state. This is joe fryer in simi valley, california. Wildfires are tearing through miles of parched wilderness grassland and creeping dangerously close to neighborhoods. You can see the flames just about maybe 20 feet away from that one fence. Reporter a small brush fire in simi valley spread quickly. Hundreds of homes in its path. Started over there. And it just came like a whirlwind through. The only thing we had on our side was it was not windy that day. Reporter with a quick aerial attack and strike teams on the ground staying ahead of the flames, all the houses were spared. Firefighters fear conditions are ripe for a perfect storm here. The ground is so dry fires are moving unusually fast and the warm santa ana winds are still to come. If we get to the point where we have a santa anadriven fire, were going to be looking at some real scary condi
Announcer from nbc news World Headquarters in new york, this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. Good evening. We begin with a remarkable number. Right now 95 wildfires are burning in the western u. S. And tonight the u. S. Military is answering an urgent call for help. At least 100 troops have been called up in Washington State. The first deployment of active duty soldiers to battle fires in nine years. The fires are burning across at least six states. The stakes are high, and so is the cost. 100 million a week. At that rate Officials Say the money will run out next month. Our team is deployed across the region. Lets start in chelan, washington with National Correspondent miguel almaguer. Miguel . Reporter hey, lester, good evening. Heavy smoke hangs in the air here. Behind me there is destruction. In front of me two miles ahead a wildfire is moving in multiple directions. At least 56,000 acres here have been destroyed. More than 32 homes are gone. This as that fire is on the move.
Here and take a look at what we see here. A National Guard humvee standing watch. Now, we can show you some video from the rest of the town as well. The National Guard showing a very strong presence this afternoon at mondawmin mall. That is the location where teenagers started the rock throwing on monday that escalated into the looting and burning that we saw. There have been some protests around town today. A peaceful protest led by a group of pastors in downtown baltimore saying that they want to get the focus back on the freddie gray investigation. Now, we hear that governor larry hogan is giving a Live Press Conference and we want to go to him on hear what he has to say. All right. We lost the hogan signal there. What we wanted to tell you is weve been seeing a lot of peaceful protests today. Folks are saying they want to get the town back to normal but theyre also telling us that simmering just underneath is that tension that can turn at any second to violence. The next question t
On the death of freddie gray and their calls for justice. Their protests are peaceful. Everything weve seen today, peaceful. But everyone knows violence is really just simmering. This is what Governor Hogan has to say. We dont know that things are over with. Theres still some raw emotions out there. Still some frustrations and were going to make sure that we can continue to maintain the peace in the city so weve more nights like last night and no more nights like monday night. Brad back live now here. You can see the Baltimore City Police Officers are standing vigil here along north avenue but they are no longer in that riot gear. A Police Source told me that what theyve tried to do now is deescalate, put away that riot gear, reduce the number of officers on the streets so people can start to feel as though life is a little more normal although under a state of emergency with a 10 00 curfew. And if officers are needed they can be called back in a matter of seconds. Leon, a lot better t