drought looks like. the driest year in a century met a flame-friendly canvas for the colby fire. 1700 acres charred, thousands evacuated, 5 homes gone in an instant. a drought declared the governor has plunged california into a state of emergency. we are in an unprecedented very serious situation and people should pause and reflect on how dependent we are on the rain, on nature and one another. reporter: in a state of emergency speech the governor asked everyone to cut back water use by 20%. his declaration does lift some environmental restrictions to allow the state to move water to parched regions more easily. the challenge? there s not much to share among the state s 38 million residents. reservoir levels are at record lows. snow packs this season, 80%
conserve 20% of its water use. state reservoirs are critically low and some have begun water rationing measures. want context of this, the nearly 1200 firefighters trying to contain what you are looking at. this is the colby fire. the san gabriel mountains and the flame spread from a camp fire. quickly spread to five homes. gone. nearly 2,000 acres burned. authorities arrested and charged three men they say are responsible. they are being held on $500,000 bail. back out along the fire lines, casey, there hasn t been a fire in the glen dora foothills since the late 60s. there is a lot of dry brush. how are the firefighters handling everything? they had a remarkable degree of success. continuing to use air drops as their main weapon to fight the
jon: right now, a massive effort to fight raging wildfire less than 30 miles from downtown los angeles. william la jeunesse is live in l.a. william? reporter: well, jon, the colby fire literally exploded just before sunrise going from 12 to 30 to 125 acres in just one hour. now it s about 200 acres. cause is not known, but police have arrested not just detained three people they believe are responsible. right now you re looking at some live pictures. we don t know exactly the total acreage, but the spot fires are the exact or the major concern right now. trees and the heavy brush in the backyards and in between homes, these areas have not burned for 45 years. so not only is the fuel very dense, it is tinder dry. in this is the san gabriel valley, 23 miles northeast of los angeles. winds 5-55 miles an hour overnight. the fire began in the angeles national forest and just began ripping towards these foot hill
this is the perfect example of the kind of mud we ve been seeing. possibly major mud slides will be coming through. i can show you what s causing it. this burnt branch. this comes from the hillside behind me where we had the colby fire. destroyed a lot of the vegetation. the soil really can t retain the amount of water we had. three to four inches yesterday, possibly four to five today. some areas will be even higher. it comes rolling down those hills. these are steep hills. when the mud gathers, it s going to come at a speed and come at a pace. authorities here say people have to take this seriously. take a listen. when it comes to mud slides, you can t redirect them. there is nothing you can do. the only benefit of saying behind is that you ll know sooner whether or not mud gets to your house. there is nothing you can do.