The fire did break out last night at 9 47 in fact we reported on this during our 10 oclock newscast last night. This happened near the geysers geothermal plant, hundreds of people were forced to leave their homes. The entire town of guys are ville is under a mandatory Evacuation Order because of the wildfire driven by the strong winds 10,000 acres have burned so far we are expecting an update from cal fire at 7 oclock tonight. The fire is 0 contained about 8 miles south of guys reveal us south and east is the city of healdsburg. People there are under an evacuation warning kron fours michelle kingston there now with the very latest michelle. Hassett lane just off of the healdsburg avenue behind me you can see that fire burning a lot of smoke but theres not a lot of wind ive here for about 4 or 5 hours now there was a little bit of wind and then but right now theres no wind at all the smoke though is a completely different story weve been watching just behind me here. The smoke shifting
Had a very hard time getting a handle on this fire. It erupted so quickly, roaring through this geyserville neighborhood. You can see this is one of the several houses destroyed by the fire. It is still smoldering. This far is so far zero percent contained. Wind speeds were 65 to 70 Miles Per Hour. The fire was really outpacing the fire fight. This is what firefighters faced overnight as a windwhipped fire blew through parts of geyserville, gobbling up at least half a dozen houses and forcing people and animals to flee to safety. It was everything we could do to try to stay ahead of it but 10,000 acres came fairly quickly. By daylight things had settled down a bit but plenty of damage had been done as propane tanks finished burning and the melted material on power lines dripped down. Tonight firefighters are attacking the fire from the sky as the flames have moved up into the rugged hills. Animal rescuers are also hard at work trying to get horses and other animals out of the fire zone
If youre wondering what that is, so are we. And just now, ceo and president bill johnson explained what that is. He says that the jumper is a piece of wire that basically jumps the conductor over the insulator. We know that it was broken. We also know according to johnson that this is a 43yearold tower that had been inspected four times. Now as you said, this transmission line was not deenergized, and johnson explained why not. Transmission lines in the area remained energized during the wind event consistent with our established protocols and procedures. In other words, they did not meet the conditions that we forecast for transmission level outages. We didnt see the wind speeds in the forecast that we typically would see for transmission outage. And so we relied on the protocol, and we still at this point do not know exactly what happened. The utility turned off power in the area at 9 48 last night, nearly half an hour after the fire started. Pg e is working closely with cal fire to
Toward geyser ville forcing mandatory evacuations in that area People Living in the northern part of healdsburg are under an evacuation warning, 49 structures have been destroyed so far we have Team Coverage for you tonight on the fire meteorologist Mabrisa Rodriguez keeping an eye on the winds, the heat and the humidity fueling the flames kron fours michelle kingston went to the fire line with fire crews and now Justine Waldman went to the downtown area of guys erbil where some people are staying behind to help the fire crews. But first we want go to kron fours taylor sacchi who was at that cal fire News Conference that just wrapped up. Taylor with the latest. Well the biggest thing here is that firefighters are making some progress now we all saw is that fire exploded last night inside so quickly after the course of the entire day, its only grown 6,000 more acres and firefighters say that the calm the winds and the daylight has really helped them get a handle on top of this fire. Now
The Alexander Valley School District and the guys are bill School District more schools could cancel classes depending on the fire and air quality conditions. The Sonoma County office of education says it will be updating that list throughout the night and tomorrow morning we have Team Coverage tonight on the growing kim k fire kron fours michelle kingston is live in hillsborough gas are going to the fire line with the fire crews Justine Waltman and gayle ong have been in geyser ville all day today. Surveying the damage and our dan thorn is live in carterville but first want to go to kron fours 10 us actually who was at that cal fire News Conference earlier this evening. And they have the latest information taylor. Can the best piece of information in the best news to come out of this press conference was that this fire is slowing a little bit you know we saw grow so fast because of the strong winds last night today the fire. A little bit slower because of those slowed when conditions