Of what was once a neighborhood, a small neighborhood, in glen ellen, now much of it looks like this. The fire inzen rated home after home in this area. Its off warm springs road and the entire town before 800 people is still under mandatory evacuations. The stores are closed, the streets empty, almost every resident of glen ellen has evacuated. Were you thisthis couple returned to their home of 63 years ago on donald lane. Its shocking. Look. Its just amazing. We cant replace the trees, that redwood there. Reporter she also lost three rental homes nearby to the fire. Her partner, archie horton, an artist, lost dozens of his paintings. I had some of my great greatgreatgrandmothers cabinets and dishes and stuff that came from massachusetts. Reporter one man whose property survived unscathed returned home to check on his three horses. Im just coming back up the road to make sure they have food and water and then kind of assess the situation from there. And if we can, well get them out of here and take them somewhere else. But thats been kind of our concern for the last 24 hours is how are we going to get in and make sure theyre okay. Reporter the downtown landmarks are Still Standing giving lie to earlier rumors the fire had leveled the town. But it did bring destruction. Homes, cars, irreplaceable family photographs gone. Cal fire has a staging area in glen ellen. The concerns to this community are the nuns fire and the adobe fire. They are working to create a fire break. The fire blew through with so much velocity were securing it before the winds pick up. A lot of memories for the sons and i did daycare so a lot of people know this place. Reporter cal fire couldnt say when the mandatory evacuation will be lifted. They say they have a lot of work to do and the winds are erratic. Rob, can you tell at all from where you are how far the fire is from glen ellen . Reporter well, im told its you know, its over a ridge. Theres sort of the theres the nuns fire and the adobe fire. They are all sort of, you know, beating down on it. But they are a mile or so away,Something Like that, maybe a little more in the case of the adobe fire. Its going to spread out. Theres fingers of fires and so they are trying to create a break, a line so that, you know, so that if the winds do kick up, it wont breach the line and it wont come back into glen ellen again. Thats sort of the situation. Bottom line, its still close enough that the mandatory evacuations remain in place. Rob roth in glen ellen tonight. Rob, thank you. Firefighters are hopeful that today marks a change in the firefight thanks to the improving weather and also more personnel. Ktvus Maureen Naylor is in fairfield tonight with more. Reporter the fire started in napa county on sunday and moved into Solano County. Today solano put three new areas under an advisory telling precedents be ready to go. But this afternoon, a little bit of hope. At this point, cal fire says it doesnt anticipate any more mandatory evacuations which is a little bit of hope after a week of worry. Reporter firefighters attacked the atlas fire with water drops from the air in Solano County thursday while on the ground a welcome sign for First Responders. This morning when we woke up and saw smoke again, it was a little nervewracking but theyre on it so were feeling better. Reporter 2500 Solano County residents have been evacuated from their homes and the Sheriffs Office says about 90 of residents have heeded the warning. Claire boyd was not one of them. I think whats really hard too is for people who have been displaced from here, social media and misinformation, speculation, and i think people are thinking their homes are engulfed in flames. And theyre not. Reporter next door this mother of four, who also stayed behind, has her car packed with family photos, a childhood teddy bear, and her kids artwork in case the fire moves closer. I had two kids with me and some pets, three pets. So we got those out monday. And we did a quick pickup. But youre not really prepared for Something Like this. When i left, i realized the things i really wanted. Id like to say that our main goal in this is the preservation of life. In Solano County to date we have lost no lives. Reporter in a thursday afternoon briefing, officials said so far 13 buildings including two homes have burned in Solano County. And fire crews on the atlas fire tripled overnight. They say more personnel plus improving weather has them cautiously optimistic. Its not safe yet to let the public back into those areas. The fire was so intense and it moved so rapidly that we still today are experiencing trees falling, power lines that are burned that are still falling, and all of those risks is not tenable yet to allow the public to go back in. Reporter another danger, the fire is simply still burning. But they are getting ready to work on a plan for allowing some people home. But its too early to say exactly what that timeline is. They dont want to disappoint residents by giving them a day and then have that change. In the meantime, there are two Evacuation Centers open. One at the allan witt sports complex, the Solano Community college the other. There was a shelter at the fairfield. That has since closed. Thats the latest from fairfield. Maureen naylor, ktvu fox 2 news. We also have new numbers this afternoon as to the scope of the damage. In santa rosa, nearly 3,000 homes have been destroyed there. And more than 400,000 square feet of commercial space was lost in the fires. Thousands of people who were pushed out of the flames, pushed out by the flames, that is, have now gone south to petaluma to Evacuation Centers. Our ken wayne is also there and he has been talking with evacuees and people who want to help. Reporter reporter the response is overwhelming. There are 2,000 evacuees in petaluma spread out among five different Evacuation Centers. We are at the Petaluma Community center. This is the largest facility. There are about 450 evacuees here right now. The Petaluma PoliceDepartment Mobile Command post is here. All the supplies are here. We had food trucks that were here earlier today bringing in lunches, hot lunches for the folks, pizza oven truck was here making fresh pizzas all to help out the evacuees, who are going through a very stressful time right now and one of them is Katie Merritt from santa rosa eight months pregnant with your 5yearold and your fiance here. How are they treating you . Are you getting everything you need here . Yes. They are treating me really well here. Um, we get good food, good meals, um, they have been giving out free haircuts. Um, theres a lot of stuff for the kids to do. And a lot of people are supporting people here. I am i have been evacuated from over on ventura avenue in santa rosa. Thats near the county jail and just down the hill from the hilton that caught fire. Yes. But as far as you know, your house is okay . Yes. As far as i know the house is okay. Pg e was out for a while. Its back on now but slowly but surely hopefully they will be getting people back in there. I have friends and family that loves their houses in Fountain Grove and coffey park and my condolences go out to those people that lost their houses. And also, i just would like to say for those people who are in the mandatory evacuation zone, get out while you can. Dont get in the way of the marshals and people out there. What was it like for you and your family getting out during the evacuation . It was smoky and hazy, scary. We didnt know what was going on, what was going to happen. Reporter any idea when youll be able to go back . Hopefully, soon. Im not sure when. Im just waiting to hear. I know im a kaiser patient and Kaiser Hospital has been evacuated. So its really hard to get appointments. Reporter i was going to ask, with your situation do you have appointments you need to get to . Youre getting close to your due date, right . Yes, i have an appointment on the 19th of october. Im going to find out if they will still have the appointment scheduled, if they are going to be back open or whats going to happen. So hopefully soon. Reporter all right, katie, thanks. I dont want to keep you on your feet any longer than you have to be. Okay. Reporter there are medical folks here at the Evacuation Center who are talking and meeting with people like katie. One of the big concerns on the medical side is sore throats and headaches from the smoky air. Today its a little clearer here in petaluma. Smoke isnt quite so bad. Theres a kitchen going on right now. Well have more a little later on throughout our newscast on all the activities that are going on here, but frank and julie, its amazing. They are turning donations away because they have been overwhelmed with volunteers and donations. They have plenty for now but they want people to hold that thought. Hold on to what you want to do now because they dont need it now but they will need it in the coming days and weeks. So they dont want people to forget that there will be an ongoing longterm need here for all of these folks who have been hurt by these fires. If you have donations, hang on to them. There will be a time when you can give that stuff. All right. Ken wayne up in petaluma for us tonight. Ken, thank you. The smoke is certainly bad but it almost feels odd to complain about the smoke given that so many people have lost their homes and everything in them. I guess the key thing tonight, bill, is the red flag warning in effect and the wind. Whats the situation . Well, the good news is the red flag warnings are going to be dropped in the next hour or so am so thats good news. Last night, the other good news is what we talked about right here last night. The red flag warning last night, it was up but the winds never really materialized to the point that were being forecast. Not by us but by officials. Winds were about 25 to 30 last night. Thats very good news, not 50. Firefighters getting an upper hand not an upper hand but more of a hand, which is great news, and as you look at the the plume of smoke, you can kind of see what were tracking here, that smoke out of the north bay and the air quality certainly an issue around here. Red flag warning not in effect in about an hour from now. Winds are dying down and coming out of the westerly direction. That gives you a higher humidity. Thats great news, right, for firefighters. And you have a good day tomorrow. After that, when i say good, the winds will be west, temperatures will be on the mild side, humidities will be up, firefighters will be jumping on this. But as we get into saturday morning, we are looking for a red flag warning that will go back very similar to the one we had last night. Winds this time i think will mix down to the surface and have gusts to maybe 35, 40. Maybe 50 miles an hour in the higher elevations. So more of a at least at this point forecast of a forecast robust event for saturday morning. So that is in our minds cal fires minds, thats the moment. That saturday morning period very important. Just like last night was important. We got through that. Now we get through saturday morning, thats very important, as well. Air quality slowly going to get a little better through time. But its going to take a couple of days for the smoke to mix out of the area. When i come back, we are going to take a specific look at what you can expect in your neighborhood and temperatures that will continue to stay mild. [ music ] as we go to break, our coverage continues of the Deadly Wildfires in the north bay. These are live pictures from skyfox near Lake Berryessa. The smoke you see here is from the atlas fire. Its now burned 43,000 acres and as of tonight, it is only 3 contained. As we mentioned, the death toll is up to 26 and 400 people are still missing. Our coverage continues momentarily. Plus if its been tough to breathe this week, you are not alone. More on all the smoke thats shrouding the bay area when we come back. Hows it going down . Thats good. Lica misses you. Im over it thou laughter thats fine. I miss her more than you anyway. Hey, my window is closing. Yeah thats okay. Alright miles. I love you. phone hangs up yeah i love you too. We are joined right now actually well get to that in just a moment. First, take a look at this picture getting a lot of tension. A drone captured a video of a postal worker delivering mail in a neighborhood where most of the homes were burned to the ground. The drone operator said the mail carrier waved. The u. S. Postal service says the carrier was fulfilling the requests from some of the fire victims who had asked him to leave their mail if their mailbox was Still Standing. Thats a sobering sight. We are joined by mark neveau. We have a detailed report every 24 hours from the firefight. What are you learning . Its interesting. A couple of things. What we heard from the cal oes director today, were not out of the woods today. Interesting choice of words. Meaning that were still in a battle here. Theres no question about it. But it also sets up some objectives. We were talking about it before. The incident action plan is developed 24 hours prior so they are building one today for tomorrow. They are working on todays which was built yesterday. Some of the objectives they have for the next 24 hours is they want to make sure they fight fire aggressively protecting lives, minimize structure damage, private property and other improvements. Identify protect cultural resources, protect lets see, continue to foster maintain positive relationship with local cooperators, provide timely accurate incident information, maintain fiscal accountability. Those are the broad brush objectives. But now when we get down to the key they are talking about what nent to did with regards to the fire. They want to make sure in particular this is the atlas fire now. And its all remember there are three or now fires under a complex. In this case they want to make sure for atlas that they are keeping the fire east of highway 29. They want to make sure that they keep the fire north of jamison canyon, keep the fire west of pleasant valley. And keep the fire south of pope canyon road. So thats what they are shooting for, for the next 24 hours that they are working on glue one of the things when i was listening to the press briefing today they were saying they are getting firefighters constantly coming in from out of state. And relieving some of the firefighters who are literally working around the clock. I wanted to put up a picture here that someone sent me. It shows firefighters grabbing sleep where they can and when i look at this picture, you see the guy there in the middle sleeping with his head on a rock. Yeah. It literally looks like theyre so tired they just laid down and fell asleep. Is that the case . They are exhausted. Keep in mind, they are resting. Theres a number of firefighters still active on that hand crew and they are keeping an eye out for fire and flares and things like that to maintain their safety. But they have been at this for days. Good news, we have gone from approximately 300 at one point sunday now up to like 1500 firefighters on one particular fire. So you can see the systems working. They are bringing em in from as far as australia, across the country, federal firefighters are coming. So its all good news that way. Just very quickly, is there anything positive that youre seeing from this . I i are they getting are getting a handle on this . Are we talking about fire burning here for days, maybe weeks . The positive thing is the weather. What we were fearful of before hasnt materialized. And bill was talking about this earlier about, well, you know, sunday was once in a 50 year situation. Mmhm. We were concerned about what was going to happen over the red flag period. Now that doesnt seem to have materialized. So thats good news. We are getting resources in. Thats wonderful news. And i think containment is starting to go up in certain areas. So its going in the right direction. Todays a good day for fighting. Bill is talking about possibly another wind event possibly on saturday. So well get more with him on that in a little bit and well talk to you and continue with your expertise later on tonight. Thanks, mark. Youre welcome. Speaking about the weather, lets bring in our chief meterologist bill martin right now and and and what do you think, bill . I think just like you guys are talking about, i mean, we caught a break last night. It was a red flag warning. The winds didnt materialize. We talked about that last night. So instead of 50mileanhour winds, we saw winds that were, you know, in the 20, 30mile anhour range. Firefighters are were and are prepared for that kind of wind. Its when you get up into the 40, 50mileanhour range that theres no fighting that fire. So as we move forward, they made progress today, they are going to make progress tomorrow. They being cal fire and all the entities involved there. But this is the linchpin here. When we get to saturday night pardon me, friday night into saturday morning, were going to get back potentially into a forecast wind event which is a northeast wind. Right now its for the higher elevations. But this event will be a little will have more surface winds than we have been seeing. Last night the surface winds didnt really develop but higher up we noticed a gust of 50 miles an hour in mount diablo or higher. This deal on saturday morning is would be the next rough patch just as the piece we got to get through. The last piece we have not the last, but it is a very important piece to get through. In the meantime we have plenty of time to fight these fires until we get to saturday morning. And ill illustrate that in a minute. Theres the red familiar glow out on the bay. Im telling you, the smoke in the bay area, i have been talking to the raiders and cal bears, they are talking about they may have to move some games. Nfl is talking about moving they are not going to but they are concerned about the smoke and same with the cal bears. They are playing washington this weekend. And theres that smoke. Now, the next couple of days, well see plenty of smoke. Its going to be coming and going as we go through time. Like today some areas were pretty clear in the east bay but San Francisco is bad as its been. Whats going to happen tomorrow, its going to be mo