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tes, good to talk to you. thank you as always for your analysis. tes bridgeman is a former special assistant to president obama and former deputy legal advisor to the national security council. let s turn to breaking news now as massive wild fires continue to tear through california. tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes or left without power. the dry terrain and hurricane forest gusts of wind have created the perfect storm for these fires to decimate portions of the greater los angeles area, as well as several in northern e out in semi-valley, which is about 40 miles northwest of los angeles. forcing the evacuation of the ronald reagan presidential library and homes in nearby neighborhoods. here, you can see firefighters at the scene. the fire this fire alone has already stretched through almost 1,000 acres so far. joining me now is nbc s steve patterson live on the ground in semi-valley. steve, you said when you got there this morning, it was about 500
it s incredible that more homes haven t burned. but firefighters have been working pretty much since this fire broke out since the early morning hours. they ve been putting air drops down. they ve got hand crews out. we have been multiple different departments working in unison to try to do everything they can to save as much as they can. they ve been successful so far. but again as we have been saying the winds are so powerful unlike anything we ve ever seen that this could change on a dime with just one ember. ali, back to you. that s exactly all it takes and that s why these wildfires spread the way they do, particularly with the winds that you re seeing there in simi valley, up to 70 mile per hour gusts. up next, how the markets are reacting to the fed s quarter point interest rate that took place two hours ago. you are watching msnbc. place tw. you are watching msnbc n helping people find a medicare plan. so if you re looking for yours, say hello to hellomedicare. .a one-stop
evacuated. a thousand homes are threatened at this point. at least one home burned. but crews do not want it to spread any further right now. they were prepared for this really strong wind event. they had crews all over the state spread out for this because this is one of the worse wind events they expected throughout the year. but still a lot of crews are coming in to help from all over the place as they continue to fight these flames. we ll send it back to you. kim, thank you. nbc s steve patterson is also on the ground in simi valley. steve, what s the situation where you are? reporter: exactly what kimmy said. that is so crucial is this fire hopping that major highway. that is the separation between some forest and some brush and homes that could burn below. we are at the reagan national library right now. they ve gotten a pretty good containment on this area just because of how much, a, has already burned and then, b, how
the devastating flames. kim tobin joins us from outside of simi valley. reporter: we are in the city of moore park. and you can see where all of these crews are lining this hillside where we heard some horses that were kind of crying for help. it looks like they got them evacuated. but crews are flanking this whole side of the hill wetting down these hot spots. but we still do see some active flames on this side. but the biggest problem right now, those strong, strong winds. crews have been dealing with 40 to 50 mile per hour winds and about 65 mile per hour gusts. this started at about 6:00 this morning. the easy fire started very small. but these winds fuel those flames. they are trying hard to get this from stopping spreading west. because on the other side of this is a big highway that separates the east from the west. they do not want these flames to go any further. this fire has forced mandatory evacuations, 6,500 homes were