Reporter good morning. There is no power at this church where evacuees have been told to go. You can see people are gathered around candles and have flashlights. The red cross is here providing blankets, food and coffee. With me i have one of the evacuees, eric, you said your family was asleep and he woke up you live in this neighborhood that had to be evacuated. What happened . We were fast asleep. We went to sleep early because of the blackout. There was really nothing much to do besides go to sleep. My mom who lives next door came banging on the door and she has a key so she came in and said wake up. Weve got to go. There is a fire. We have to evacuate. So we got dressed in a little bit of a panic. We werent sure what to take and in the end we just left. Reporter did you see the fire or smell the smoke . Smell the smoke when we went outside. Could not smell it from inside. Could not see the fire. It was on the other side of the neighborhood. Reporter described her was the neighborho
Its 70 contained. Before we show you the fire and give you the updates i want to point out that behind us is st. Monicas church. This is were some of the evacuees were told to go to get updates. A short time ago they got the word that half of the people who were told to evacuate ca w return home. We are seeing a little bit of traffic. People who just got the notice are leaving this Evacuation Center and heading up the hill. Up the hill from us in the distance you can see some of the fire trucks and vehicles on standby, watching this fire. Merrill fire broke out around 1 00 last night. It spread to 40 acres but is now 70 contained. At one point it was threatening 140 homes in the Sanders Ranch neighborhood, one mile south from st. Marys college. The university was not threatened. Firefighters say they have a good handle on the fire and will start to switch to mop up mode, and watching things. The spokesperson want to thank the residents were evacuating so quickly. When police came to th
About the pg e power shut off in the south bay and we will bring it to you live. The time is 7 01 and lets get to breaking news weve been telling about all morning with a wildfire in moraga forcing evacuations overnight. Its called the barrel fire and appears to be knocked down. The all clear was issued for the Sanders Ranch neighborhood of moraga, great news and the fire started just before 1 00 this morning and burned 40 acres. It was burning near merrills star colonel north and sanders road south of st. Marys college and Moraga Police originally ordered evacuations for those along Sanders Ranch road, merrill drive and harrington road and now they say about 70 households out of the 140 evacuated are allowed to go back home. The people who live above merrill circle, you are still being evacuated. They are told to meet and gather at Saint Monica Church and there is another gathering area for evacuees, the safeway supermarket on moraga way. Officials with the Fire District there are clo
Is not fun. The subject to high wind because its not that big. Now they are back over this area. Look at that burn area on the zones. You have to tip your hat to the firefighters that jumped up at 1 am and did what they had to do to protect the structures right there. All mentioned i will mention, this has power shut off in phase 2, power went off after 10 pm last night, so electricity not a issue, so it is really easy to start a fire out here you christ. Eight hours later, most evacuations have been lifted, it burned more than 40 acres. Right now, firefighters are trying to find the cause of fire. It mentioned at 1 am this morning, this was after pg e had shut off power so we know it was in the power power lines that spark is. Steve, a lot of people that turn their power off, said its not that would be where i am . You have to understand something. A lot of these transmission corridor lines the Higher Elevations and a lot of these grades are linked up. So, if you 70 mileperhour wind a
Of that mountain that looked like it was acting as a fire break which helped slow the progress of this fire compared to 45 minutes ago. This is good news because they are homes closer to the daly city side of the mountain. Despite that, voluntary evacuations have been ordered. Acreage, 15 or 20 acres. No official word yet. Wind has been a huge story in the bay area this week. The red flag warning is up and running for tomorrow. Meteorologist mark tamayo joins us now. Some people were seeing wind. There is a dry winton place and its it defined wind direction coming out of the east and northeast. Im sure the fire crews are seeing that on the map. As a result this a good strategy to contain this in the short term. There is the mapping system. You can see wind coming in out of the easiest off of the bay. Typically a normal summer day we will talk about a wind coming in from this direction but as you know this has been a fire weather pattern with offshore wind setting up. Here is an idea of