Transcripts For KPIX CBS This Morning 20171009 : comparemela

i want to go through the cameras to give you a sense of what we are seeing across the bay area. here is the camera. you can see the haziness over the bay bridge, causing low visibility this morning all across the waters there. this is ssl. it is gray. this is not clouds and not fog. it is smoke throughout the area. places like san jose are looking pretty nasty this morning. south of san francisco, you can smell it. here's a look at the golden gate bridge where you normally see the fog coming through but we are seeing smoke all across the area. of course, it is because of the fires across to the north. the smoke and the fire is burning. you can see the line where you can see the glow. that is where the fires are burning. it is sending the thick smoke billowing. the high definition doppler is showing a good view of the smoke, spreading further south and highway 29 is dealing with it it is one thread but we can pick it up on the satellite radar. that is where the smoke is coming in on the radar. that is a 3 hour loop. we start intensifying. here's what to expect in terms of air quality. it is bad because of the fires. limit your outdoor activities today. close the windows and doors throughout san francisco and beyond, because you are going to see ashes flying into some areas. that is what we are dealing with as far as air quality. we have a representative with -- they are joining us on the telephone. we are getting right -- around in the county is a nightmare because of the active flames. what are we dealing with? >> we are dealing with several closures. many evacuations and the whole sections of the county. it is somewhat chaotic. getting the people at the greatest risk out of those areas. what message do you have? to the best that you know, are the people that are in the path, the immediate path of this fire -- have they been moved to safety? >> to the best of knowledge, yes. we have been working all night with all of the agencies in the valley to make sure that the people were notified and helped out of their residence. -- out of their houses. a lot of the houses where the fire has occurred or is occurring are very rural. it is hard to get to them. we needed to get to them as quickly as possible so that they can gather up belongings and get out of the house. there have been very little actual firefighting happening. the main purpose of what we are doing overnight was to get people out of their houses before the fire got to them. >> one of our reporters in the field has described this fire as crisscrossing the roadway, shifting as the wind shifts. talk to us about the challenge of keeping the roadways open when it is not simply moving in one direction. it is moving back and forth across the roadway as the wind ships in that area. >> generally, the wind has been in a southerly direction. they are giving us a section of the county to keep evacuating. the problem is that there are so many fires all over the place. we have got a fire in north napa county, the big one in atlas peak and some that are coming in from sonoma back into our valley. we are all stretched to a point where all we can do is just evacuate people until we get more help. >> all right. thank you for the update. the officer is with the chp. we have another view of the fast-moving flames and nap as we continue our live coverage of this series of wildfires burning in napa and sonoma county. this was posted to instagram, showing the dangerous drive that many people faced as they raced to try to escape the flames. kpix reporter -- talk about the conditions of where you are right now. tran01 i have been making my way north along appel road. i guess i am on the very eastern edge of sonoma county coming north on 12 up napa road. the last time -- we were talking about the accident. a pickup truck. it presumably -- the highway patrol cruiser. the gentleman checked himself into a hospital. further up the road, there were trees down which had burned. again, another factor of how difficult it is to keep the roadways open and to get emergency folks around. the last spot i have gotten to, further up the road -- i am watching the spots that i have seen burned south over highway 12. i have come up on the northern end of this fire, burning along the ridge on the eastern side of the napa road. now that we have a little bit of sunlight coming up, it is certainly a lot easier to orient itself to what is going on. i have a feeling firefighters are more excited than anybody to see the sunlight. you can see where the fire is. i would not be surprised if it is not long before we see the flames and the helicopters get out here. >> that will help. up to this point, firefighters have not been able to begin fighting the actual fire since the main priority is getting people out of harm's way. we will find out a lot more about what we are looking at when it comes to loss of property and possible loss of lives as the hours tick by. wilson walker, live for us in between napa and sonoma county. emergency shelters -- we have been talking about them open in napa for people affected by the fire. one is set up at the fairground at 1435 north oak street and another option is napa valley college gym open because the community church is full. that is located on napa vallejo highway in napa. >> we are actually right now in the middle of a continuing coverage of this very dangerous dynamic situation that has occurred overnight. there are several large fires that are burning right now as we speak in the sonoma and napa county areas. there are a couple of additional counties as well. this fire has grown dramatically overnight from the original estimate of roughly 200 acres burned to now more than 20,000 acres burned, five different fires, four different counties, and large parts of the north bay and wine country have been evacuated to get people out of harm's way. we have spoken to several people with the fire department, cal fire, law enforcement and they said that the first and greatest priority is the evacuation of people at greatest risk and they said that -- we spoke to someone from the chp who says that there is little firefighting going on at this point. obviously, there are things that firefighters are constrained by at night. they cannot do air lifts -- they cannot do choppers and airplanes and water drops and things of that nature. that will begin as soon as the sun really is up in earnest this morning. it is a very dangerous, dynamic situation. >> it is a frantic situation since the fires broke out at about 10 pm last night. all night long, authorities were going door to door to get people out of their homes. for people to get to the evacuation centers was a nightmare and very dangerous when you saw the fire jumping many of the road closures that we saw. we are going to hear about injuries and we are likely going to hear about deaths from the fires as dozens, possibly hundreds of homes have earned and one of the most dangerous places has been near the santa rosa area. one fire turned from a wild plane they wildland fire into a fire within the city limits and katie nielsen has been watching the evolution and the evacuation centers are opening in that area. katie has more. tran01 we are standing on top of the parking garage of kaiser permanente. if you look behind me, you can see what is left of the journeys in mobile home park which is basically nothing. there are dozens and dozens of homes destroyed. we are literally surrounded by fire right now. as you can see, what you are looking at are some mobile homes that have already burned. some are still an active fire. there is one fire truck that we can see inside the mobile home park that is position between the mobile home park and the hospital, trying to keep those fires at bay. we are also hearing and seeing what looks like some type of a gas fire, where it sounds like the flames are actually being fed by -- i am not sure if it is propane, natural gas, something like that, but there is no sign of that stopping. flames are continuing up the hill. the hospital has been evacuated. 100 patients were taken out to kaiser san rafael hospital. the most critical patients were taken to memorial hospital in santa rosa. as we are talking about right now, this fire is unprecedented for a city of santa rosa. when we spoke with cal fire earlier, they said right now they have the fire estimated at 20,000 acres. it started up near calistoga in the overnight areas and because of these incredible winds whipping the flames, it traveled all the way down and it is impacting the city of santa rosa. it has jumped the freeway and it is on both sides of 101 near bicentennial way. again, what we are looking at right now is what used to be a mobile home park. i can only seem they > i can only see about two dozen possibly mobile homes that are still here and do not seem to be impacted by the fire. the rest of them are all basically piles of ash at this point. i am not sure if you can hear it but we are hearing multiple higher pitched explosions right now. we were told that on the other side of the roadway from the mobile home park was a gun and ammunition shop and it sounds like potentially that shop has caught fire because we are starting to hear what almost sounds like rounds of ammunition exploding. again, we are on top of the kaiser permanente parking garage off of bicentennial way in santa rosa, looking down at what used to be a mobile home park. no doubt the people living here barely had any time to get out we don't know if there were any injuries and cal fire says that they will not have a better idea of what the damage looks like and how many people are injured until the sun starts coming up and they are actually able to get a look into some of these areas.>> that was katie nielsen -- not live at -- in santa rosa and here is another view of the fast-moving flames in napa. another fire -- as we continue the live team coverage of the wildfires and video shows what it was like as many tried to drive out of the fire zone which is massive. wilson walker has been traveling -- tracking the fire and he filed a report minutes ago. tran01 i have been trying to explain what the roadways are like if you're trying to make your way around napa and sonoma county. this is it. this is what driving around his leg. truth be told, i think that everyone up here has been making it up as they go along, poking around, trying to figure out where it is safe and not safe and where somebody might be telling you to go and sometimes you have no choice but to stand around and watch the fire what -- watch what it is doing. hopefully it moves and you can get down the highway. incredibly dangerous driving conditions. it is dark and smoky. there is fire along many roadways. sonoma county, wilson walker. >> emergency shelters are open for people affected by the fire. one is set up at the fairgrounds at 1435 north oak street. another option is the napa valley college jim, just opened because the center of the crosswalk community church is full. that is located on knapp of alejo highway in napa. >> the city of napa posted on twitter that the company opened the animal shelter to take in household pets. >> as for the evacuation centers, the family community center is full but other evacuation centers are open at the santa rosa memorial building. the community center on moore street and the center on north mcdowell boulevard in petaluma. all of the santa rosa schools will be closed as the crews firked to lebae th. e schools. if you live in the north bay wine country you want to check that before you send your kids out. we are monitoring the situation closely and calistoga. flames engulfed a home on top of the hill in the city. that was one of dozens, possibly hundreds of homes that have burned in this series of fires. they burned closely to a fire truck that was speeding down the roadway. that highlights the challenges of getting around. near calistoga, manda terry evacuations are underway for people living along petrified forest and the mountain home ranch road. again, school canceled in that city as well. power is out in calistoga as it is all across the area right now in napa and sonoma county. a lot of communities are affected by the power outages. that will be in effect until 11 am. at least. one of the things that has been a challenge is we have had strong, gusty winds that are fueling the fires. you said that as the morning goes on, the winds are going to taper off. has that begun to happen? be back the peak of the winds were between midnight and three ampere that is why you are smelling the smoke. people in san francisco are seeing the ash from the fires. it is really what we are waking up to and smelling. the winds are going to taper off. the past few hours have been intense. let's show you some live cameras to give you a sense of the nasty smoke that is from the fires to the north. it is spreading -- it is showing the intensity of that smoke. a lot of times with the fires they create their own weather. it is not just winds coming from the north but in the areas of the fire, it is causing these swirls and winds blowing in different directions and that is what the firefighters are dealing with. the doppler gives you a sense of the smoke in the air. you can see it from the sky. this is south of napa. look at how far it is blowing. it is over berkeley, oakland, highway 24, 580, 185, all dealing with low visibility because of this. it is as far south as places like fremont getting the impacts of the smoke because the wind is blowing in this northeast direction. it is dry wind coming down and it is sending the smoke into the bay area and further south. high fire danger and a warning is in effect so this is the worst case scenario for the firefighters. sustained winds are picking up, coming from the north, fairfield at 18. i will send it over to you. evacuations are underway and sonoma county. here is a map showing the area straddling 101 in the northern part of santa rosa. tran02 katie nielsen continues our live team coverage. the fire was getting close to your location. have you been forced to move from that parking structure near the hospital? tran01 yeah. we actually had to move from the kaiser permanente parking garage. we are now at mendocino and fountain grove.. if you look behind me, you can see what used to be the fountain grove inn and hotel. what is amazing is that this has burned down to the foundation. there is not a single fire truck in sight. that is because all of these firefighters in this area are trying to save lives. we see the trucks going back and forth. that was a fire truck from cal fire that just went by. they are not stopping. they are not worried about property. what we were told by one of cal fires spokespeople a few minutes ago is that we are at the northwest corner of this fire. it originally started overnight as a 200 acre fire near calistoga. these incredibly strong winds pushed the fire. it is now 20,000 acres and it has pushed its way from calistoga all the way down into santa rosa proper and we are on the other side of the road from where we were at the kaiser permanente hospital in santa rosa at bicentennial way. we were looking down at the mobile home park. we are on the other side of the mobile home park. we saw dozens of mobile homes burning. you can see what used to be the hotel -- it is burning out of control. firefighters have no intention of putting this fire out right now because their main concern is saving people's lives. they are saying, we do not have the ability to get to the property. we do not have the resources. when we talked with cal fire, they said that they have a couple of hundred firefighters in santa rosa and they are calling for mutual aid statewide across the entire state of california. they are calling firefighters. that is because of the sheer number of fires that are burning right now in northern california. he said that there are five large fires burning just in northern california alone right now. this one is in santa rosa. it is one of them. the reason that this is so unprecedented is that this turn from a brush fire into a very densely populated structure fire after structure fire. we have seen countless homes go up in flames. we are looking at a business that is literally wiped out. there will be nothing left of this once the fire is eventually put out or burned itself out. again, as we were talking about, firefighters are not doing anything to try to save the structures. they are trying to save people. so kaiser permanente hospital where we were just a few moments ago -- that was evacuated because right now we are on the backside of kaiser permanente hospital. these types of fires -- they worried that they would impact the hospital but thankfully, right now, the hospital as it has been evacuated, has not received fire damage. they wanted to make sure that all of the patients were out before anything potentially happened. we are starting to hear some of the first helicopters overhead. they said they cal fire says they would not be able to get an idea of what is happening in the city of santa rosa until the sun comes up. that is when they will be able to start figuring out where this fire has burned so far and where it is continuing to move. we are at the northwest corner of this fire. the hardest part for firefighters this morning has been the wind. fr the north to the south and then the winds started pushing it back to the east. again, it is moving to the northwest. firefighters at this point are trying to stay on top of these evacuations, getting everyone out safely. let's take a look back at the hotel that is right behind us. if you look over to the left, you can actually see some of the fire trucks at the end of the road. this is not a situation where they are trying to save the businesses. when we were on the side of the freeway by kaiser permanente, that was a residential neighborhood. we have gone to the other side and the wind was able to push the fire. it jumped the highway and it jumped the freeway. what we are looking at is a much more industrial area but up on the hill, we can see what either looks like condominiums, apartments, something of that sort. once the sun comes up, firefighters will start to figure out the impact that the fire has had. santa rosa, katie nielsen, tran02. >> i know that you have got to move that i have a question. earlier you were talking about the evacuations of the hospital. i understand that those are complete. what is your sense of the evacuations of that general area? at what point do you think that the firefighters are going to pivot towards fighting those fires in your area? tran01 to be perfectly honest, i do not think it is going to be anytime soon because they are so limited on resources that they are pulling firefighters from southern california, asking them to drive up to help fight the fire. at this point, this is still a situation where they are trying to save lives. >> katie nielsen, thank you. we understand that she has to move for her own safety as the situation is evolving near santa rosa. some of the emergency shelters that are in place for the fire in nap -- at the napa county fairgrounds -- there is one open at the napa valley college gymnasium and that was open because another one was all full. there are a lot of evacuation centers open in napa and sonoma county. sonoma county fairgrounds is a big one that people can go to to seek shelter. the red cross is setting up to help people. you can see the photograph. this was sent in by somebody who is flying into sfo and they saw this view out of the airplane window overnight. it is a stunning view of the devastation, the flames, the smoke that we have been dealing with throughout the north bay since the fires broke out at around 10:00. we are doing continuous coverage, breaking into your normally scheduled cbs this morning as we keep you up to date on the fires that have been burning all night long. this morning alameda county fire tweeted out that it is sending a strike team to help and katie mentioned fire crews from all over the state of california are on their way to help with this fire as we move from the massive frantic evacuation situation to somehow being able to actually start putting out this fire once they can finally get aircraft into the air. it was stunning looking at the picture to see how it looked like nighttime at that point. here is a live picture from chopper five. we are able to get the helicopter up in the air. the conditions are dangerous. the visibility has been low. you can see the massive amount of smoke right now pouring off of the fire. this is the fire that is burning in napa county. it is not to confuse this with the one that we saw katie at in sonoma county. we have five fires burning between the two counties right now. >> that is a fire that started roughly between 9:00 and 10:00 last night. the original estimate was 200 acres burned. the fires had grown dramatically overnight. this is napa county -- a live look. firefighters have said repeatedly overnight that their first priority was evacuation so simply getting people at the greatest risk of being in the path of these fires as they grew out of harms way. many of the tools that firefighters typically use for these large fires are not at their disposal overnight. they cannot fly helicopters. they cannot fly airplanes. they cannot drop water on the fires overnight. it is not safe to do so. as you can see, now that the sun is up, we have been able to get the chopper over the fires. you can imagine that firefighters are going to get there airplanes and helicopters and that should actually help significantly with some of the fires and the ability to drop massive amounts of water on these fires. it is more effective than any hose on the ground is going to be a. the flames are spreading. >> dealing with two different types of terrain so the aerial attacks will be helpful because you have the fires that are burning within the city limits. in santa rosa. this is in napa. it appears to be more of a rural area fire. this is the areas where the people were being evacuated, starting at around midnight. this is over kenwood right now. this is the area that we are going to see a lot of wineries and we know several large resorts have been evacuated overnight as this active fire continues to burn. we are not seeing firefighters actively fighting this fire. the conditions there -- they look almost impossible with the smoke pouring from the area. we have been talking about the fact that we wanted to get a better look at the fire from above. it is impossible to see what you are looking at burning there are hot flames and a massive amount of smoke. >> you can see the dark, billowing smoke coming off of the fire. it is not surprising that because of all of this smoke that is being generated by these fires overnight, that is why we are beginning to smell the smoke miles and miles, 50, 60, 70 miles away. if you did not know, this is the fire in napa county, kenwood. these are fires burning in napa and sonoma county. tell us about what you can tell about the weather conditions and the wind in particular that has been spreading. the worst-case scenario, the wind gusts were so intense and strong between midnight and 3 am. that is when you saw the wind gusts in the 60s and 70s. look at this. the way that the smoke is blowing, it is blowing to the southeast of the screen because they're coming from the north. that is places like san francisco -- they are smelling the smoke. the area that is burning -- they say that it is near record dryness when it comes to the brush. we have a high season of rain and not caused a lot of growth but then we had the dry air coming in and the winds from the north that are dry winds and that is what the firefighters are facing. look at how widespread this is of the chopper as it pulls out -- to give you an idea of the size of the fire, the direction of the smoke. it is blowing into the bay area beyond san francisco. i saw it on the high definition doppler. you can see the smoke as far south as places -- because of what is burning to the north. the wind gusts have died down a little bit they were between 15 -- 50 and 70 miles per hour. we are seeing some gusts in the 30s for napa county, sonoma county, and santa rosa saw peak gusts in the 60s as well. we are giving you a sense of the haziness across portions of san francisco. there is the bay bridge. you can see the haziness hovering over the water. here is the camera pointed at the fires. that is giving you another sense of what is going on. sfo -- you can check the airport and there are no delays at the moment because of any of this smoke but we will continue to watch that throughout the morning. san jose, the sun is out in official sunrise is at 7:12 am. people are waking up and seeing how gross it is out there. cliff house, the beaches showing the nasty smoke as well. you can see it is spreading all throughout the bay area. the winds are strong in places like sfo. here is another look at the doppler to show you where the smoke is spreading. it is patchy when it comes to the views from the high definition doppler but it is further spread out. right now you can see a little bit of it north of walnut creek. it was right over berkeley and oakland and now it looks like the valley -- to the west there. it is impacting highway 101, 28 th peak gusts, santa rosa, 61, and in sonoma county, in the mountains, 79 miles per hour peak gusts and that is why the firefighters have had a tough time. their main concern was not property because this morning they were not able to get out there. it is too dangerous. and fires create their own type of weather so then you get the swirling winds pushing a lot of the embers. the sustained winds, 14, fairfield, 18, santa rosa, 10, and it is calmer to the south but berkeley, 12 miles per hour this morning. the winds are going to calm down after 8:00, 9:00. the wind advisory will end at 11 am this afternoon. we are expected to see the calmer conditions which will help them out temperatures are still hot today and it is still dry out there. wind advisory for the north and east this morning for the next few hours, red flag warning in effect for tomorrow because it is dry. humidity levels, 10%, 20%. 13% at 5:00 this morning. usually, they get moisture in the air at those hours but that is not the case. look at the temperatures. the highs today will be in the 80s for napa, santa rosa, 83, san rafael, 81. temperatures are in the lower 80s and we will not get cooler air until tomorrow and wednesday. that is when we will get the onshore flow that provides much- needed relief. here is a look at the conditions for the next seven days. monday, tuesday, the winds are strong until tomorrow morning. the red flag warning is in effect. they taper off and we get cooler and the temperatures will drop about 10 degrees by thursday, friday, into the weekend when we finally get a break. that is what the firefighters will be looking forward to. let's send it over to jacqueline. >> we have been monitoring the 101. we were taking a look at the closures between steele lane and shiloh road. at one point, 101 was jammed as everyone was trying to evacuate. looking at it now, the sensors are starting to show yellow and green because that is not because traffic is flowing through the area. there really is not a lot of traffic southbound 101, especially through santa rosa. we are tracking the closures along highway 37, completely shut down between 101 and 80 and we are seeing the backup along 80 eastward to the freeway, jampacked, especially as you make your way from highway -- the highway further south. other closures, 121, from the mall road, napa road, and highway 116, and also highway 12 and arnold to shut down. 128 at hub road. we are also getting reports of the transit, golden gate transit from santa rosa -- that is canceled. and the light rail anywhere south of santa rosa, counseling service for now. here is a check of the san rafael bridge. it is a busier ride than what we typically see. 35 minutes to get across. the eastern shore freeway is 42 minutes in the color red, jampacked from highway for mac and this is 80, ashby and a look at the toll plaza. you can see the smoke in the air. the sun is starting to come out. we can see the conditions and, of course, lots of traffic going into san francisco. 31 minutes from the main into th over tyto -- of the traffic. >> we want to go to the pictures, chopper 5 -- these are pictures from butte county. another wildfire -- this is not even involved in the five wildfires that we were talking about in our area of northern california. this is butte county, the cherokee fire, and it has burned about 500 acres so far. i believe that we do have the pictures from above napa county right now. this is one of the largest wildfires that we are dealing with in our area, burning in a mainly rural area. you can see the massive amounts of smoke above that area right now. there are evacuations in place. that is called the adobe fire right now. i keep checking the website for the cal fire because they always keep us up to date on the incidence that they are working. they're working so many that the adobe fire is not on their list as far as what they are getting on the website. they are continuing to work at this point, mainly to try to mitigate the possible injuries to get people out of that area before they are able to do much work on being able to fight the fires. we just finally were able to get our chopper up half an hour ago because the conditions are very dangerous and that is where they have been waiting for, the ability to get the aircraft be able to drop water and flame retardant on to th is area because the fire has been burning quickly. it is almost impossible to fight it from the ground. it is jumping roadways which has caused evolving road closures all morning. all evening. to get you up to date, if you are just joining us, the fires broke out in napa county and sonoma county at 10:00 last night. they have burning -- been burning out of control throughout the night. there have been mandatory evacuations of hundreds, possibly thousands of people. the updated numbers are still coming in. they try to get a handle on exactly what they are dealing with. >> we have heard law enforcement and firefighters say repeatedly overnight as they have updated us on this dynamic and dangerous situation that they say that right now fire -- fighting these fires is not the highest priority. the first priority is to evacuate the people that are in the current path of the fires. there are large swabs of sonoma county that have been evacuated as the flames and as the fire advances. there are two hospitals in santa rosa that we should mention that have been completely evacuated. that is kaiser permanente and sutter health. those evacuations, thankfully, are complete. that was kind of a chaotic and a nightmare like situation as described by katie nielsen. she said in some instances nurses and other hospital personnel were evacuating some of those patients in their personal vehicles to get them out of the hospital, out of the area, out of harms way as those flames inched ever closer to the hospital. she has had to move several times. there was also a mobile home park in the immediate vicinity of those hospitals in santa rosa. it is known as the journeys end mobile home park. katie reported and we saw in some of the pictures from her broadcast that there were several homes in that community that were destroyed or damaged by these flames as the fire moved through the area and, as we mentioned, the fires originally broke out somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 last night. the original estimate said about 200 acres have burned but the fires have grown so dramatically overnight that it -- just one of those fires in santa rosa known as the tub fire has grown overnight to 20,000 acres, moving from rural areas into densely populated areas inside of the city. those fires, as you can see from the video from the chopper 5, are just burning uncontrollably in many areas at this point. there are plumes of thick, black smoke blowing off of those fires and very little that firefighters at this point are able to do to bring those fires under control at this point. >> the massive amount of devastation in sonoma county and a lot of that is spreading to the city of santa rosa. this is what you are looking for in napa county above kenwood. the live pictures are from chopper 5. it appears that there are structures down there and they have been burned and they are in danger of being engulfed by the flames that you can see continuing to burn. separate fires, five separate fires, right now between napa and sonoma county, including some of the other fires we were talking about in mendocino and butte county. we are looking at what appears to be several structures. this is in large part a rural area but there are a lot of wineries and some of that fancy wine country resorts. devastation and we have no idea exactly the extent of the devastation at this point except that we know that many structures, many homes, possibly in the hundreds, have been burned between these five fires burning in napa and sonoma county. the smoke is what you are smelling as far south as santa matteo county. that smoke has been traveling in the high winds -- it has been making it very difficult for firefighters to get any sort of handle on this fire. it has been jumping between roadways, different areas, and i believe that we can see one of the aircraft right now that will start the job of trying to possibly drop some flame retardant or some water on this fire. >> yeah. as you mentioned, the winds have been whipping and pushing this fire. they have made the evacuations dangerous in some regards. we have had one of our crews, wilson walker, in the area, along route 112 and he kind of described the fire crisscrossing, traveling back and forth across the roadway as the embers were blown and they would burn and catch the fire in another location. in many of those areas, people have listened to the call and they understood that the flames were coming dangerously close to where they were, their homes, and they have evacuated. there have been a number of evacuation centers that have opened in these two different counties. >> they have quickly filled up. >> that is what we have been dealing with as far as -- you are trying to divert evacuees to one center. it fills up and all of a sudden you are going to the fairground or another location. they have got multiple locations in each county and they have had trouble staffing the locations because transportation is difficult when it comes to road closures. some of the volunteers had a hard time making it to those centers. >> at this point, the people in the centers have no idea how long they will have to be there. the assessment is going to be incredibly massive project when it comes to what kind of damage was done and what danger is left. power is out to many communities as well. across the wine county, napa and sonoma county. as far as people getting a handle on if their property is still standing and when they might be able to return home, the entire area is dangerous right now. >> one of the benefits of the aerial view that chopper five is giving us is it gives us a sense of perspective of the size, the scope and magnitude of this fire and some of the terrain that it is burning, wooded areas and areas that are populated as well. as we mentioned, the fires broke out between 9:00 and 10:00. the evacuations came from many people late at night or the middle of the night. jessica florez is continuing our team coverage in the evacuation center. many people had a few moments to grab what they could and get out of harms way. correct? tran01 we have been there for a couple of hours. between 11 pm and 1 am -- we are trying to figure out, what do they knew to bring? about 300 folks have been here as the fire continues to rage in napa. the wind is whipping up the flames. we do not know if it has been can't -- contained at this point. they are trying to make sure that people are safe and they are trying to save lives at this point. we do not know about the injuries and structure fires. what you are looking at is the fire continuing to burn. it looks like it is sonoma county. i believe that is what the pictures are. 20,000 acres. in napa, we have several hundred acres burned at last check, 200 acres, forcing hundreds of evacuations. i am going to do an interview with the chaplain for the fire and police in napa.in ca llof the evacuation all morning long? >> the evacuation is continuing on. there are certain areas in napa that are being evacuated. i got a report from a home about a country club that is burning right now. it is kind of hard to say, really, because of the wind and the high gust winds, the fires are going to continue. you can see that this guy -- it is continuing. tran01 we have three evacuation centers. we have napa, valley community college, the napa fairground and this one is almost completely full. >> we want to clarify that. napa fairgrounds is not a full line evacuation center. right now, we have at least two. we have one of the college, the junior-college, as well as at the red cross. it is the crosswalk. tran01 do we know how many people have been evacuated? >> no. right now, that is pretty impossible to ascertain. they have self evacuated their parking lot. hundreds of people, home depot, people there -- with their motorhomes and things like that. it is probably 350 or more here. there are another hundred plus at the college right now. they are all over the place. you know? tran01 i have got to say that folks here have been pretty positive even the devastaroundtm th are trng toatn keinepiog it enhapp together. they have not slept four hours. can you give us a sense? >> absolutely. napa is a great community. i wanted to just say hats off to the dispatchers. they have done an excellent job along with our law enforcement and fire guys. they are out there right now. i saw one of the fire trucks taking off. they are doing great. in part, that is a reason that people are doing so well. it is because they are being taken care of. red cross is doing a great job. this community takes care of itself like nobody's business. it is really cool. tran01 thank you for talking to us and keeping us updated. we have a couple of -- there is some room at the crosswalk, the community church and we are in downtown napa. as you heard, there is also a shelter in the napa valley community college. you can go there. some folks are parking at walmart or home depot or whatever and waiting to see what happens. as the sun is coming up, this morning, you can hear more ambulances and fire crews -- we are not sure where they're going but we are learning what is going on. you heard from chaplain lee, that one home has been burned down for the atlas fire. many more homes in sonoma county burned at this hour. we do not know the scope of the devastation but as the sun is coming up and we learn from the fire crews, we will hear about the loss of property and is -- if there is loss of life and the injuries. it is devastating for sonoma and napa county. >> a quick question for you. to the extent that you can tell, how close are you to the active fire lines? i am sure that when they are evacuating, they want to get them a safe distance but how far are you away? can you see smoke? can you see flames? tran01 we cannot see flames from this location but there is smoke all around and you can see the glow of the flames in the distance. no flames are from my vantage point. we are probably about two miles or so from the flames. we were getting video. you can see the orange moon in the distance. it is impacting the community. even if you cannot see flames because of the smoke in the air, the ashes raining down in certain areas. wherever you are, you want to close your windows and stay inside if you are not being evacuated because you do not want to be breathing the smoke. we want to give your reports and updates to make sure you are safe. we are going to stay on this story. we will be tweeting updates and bringing it to you live. back to you. >> we want to show you evacuations underway in the city of santa rosa as a huge fire in sonoma county jumps from a wildland area into the actual city limits. it has burned dozens of homes and buildings. katie nielsen has been continuing the coverage in santa rosa. she is joining us from an area that is under evacuation orders. what are you dealing with? tran01 at that is right. we actually moved back to the other side of the freeway from where we were earlier. you can see some of the businesses that are on fire. and andy, you own one of the businesses. tell me about what happened. it was about 3 am. somebody texted me to my cell phone and told me it is better you move out and going towards the south because i was in this area. i was moving out. i was with my wife and in my shop, i saw that my truck -- fire was not coming close to the building but i called the fire department and 911 and they said that they are sending someone over. it took a couple of hours to show up at around 5:30 am, 6 am, and a couple people started working on it. i said why you don't have enough people? they said that they are shorthanded and there waiting for people to help them. this is what happened. the whole building is there now. i have multiple tenants in that building and over 300,000 -- $300,000 in inventory. i am in this business for 22 years. hopefully insurance takes care of me for the situation happening. had one what were the other businesses that were there? can you tell us about this blog? >> right in the corner there was a gun shop. next to it was herbalife. both of them were my tenants. there was another -- next to it there was a -- a sports guy. tran01 where do you go from here? be back just i am waiting until the fire goes down and then i will go home. tran01 have you heard anything about the house? we have heard that the fountain grove area -- >> not yet. when i was leaving the house, i saw that some houses were burned out already and i did not go back to the house. tran01 good luck. we are sorry that this is happening. >> thank you so much. tran01 thank you for your time. we did just speak with the lieutenant jonathan cosby, one of the fire spokespeople and what he told us so far is that this is nowhere near contained. actually, if you would not mind the battalion chief coming over and giving us an update. what are we looking at in terms of the action that is going on? >> you are looking at the commercial structure that was ignited through the north part of santa rosa. the firefighters have taken -- they are trying to hold the roadway. this is the tactic that they are using to stop the progression from the building to building. the firefighters are using this to cool the structure down. this is one of many commercial and industrial structures that are burning in the northern part of santa rosa. tran01 can you give us an idea of where else we are seeing some active fires right now that cal fire is focusing on? >> the goal of pushing into the city of santa rosa in the north and east side of the city. there are some significant wind gusts up on the hill and coming down. along the 101 corridor, basically north santa rosa is being impacted by this fire. it is very dynamic. it is very active as you can see. tran01 what are we seeing and doing? >> you are seeing material igniting and burning. you are getting a lot of materials that are combusting. the gas lines -- a different material -- they are storing in this structure. the explosion is occurring as well. tran01 are we in danger? do we not -- need to start think about moving back? >> we can step back for a second. tran01 we are going to have to move. i'm going to send it back to you. it is too dangerous for us to be here. >> absolutely. very good. katie nielsen live in santa rosa. there is a dynamic situation. there are fires in industrial area homes, businesses and in addition to the fact that the fire has continued to spread. >> in the area that katie was reporting from, there are two hospitals, community hospitals, sutter health and kaiser permanente that -- where the flames at one point were less than .5 miles away. there is a mobile home park right behind, apparently, the kaiser permanente hospital, the journeys in mobile home park. several homes that we saw in the video from earlier had been destroyed in that area as the flames advanced upon the hospitals. we think for now -- we know that hospitals have been completely evacuated. we believe, for now, that perhaps firefighters have a plan of attack to protect those two hospitals which would be devastating to that community if they were to lose one or both of those hospitals which was a real threat as the fire was spreading uncontrollably in that area. >> a positive thing that we saw in the live shot was the firefighters were able to put water on the fire. for about 6 hours overnight since the fires broke out in napa county and sonoma county at around 10:00, they were not able to think about putting water on the fires. that was either from the air or the ground because they were moving so incredibly quickly with the debris, the ash, it knighting other fires combined with the high winds. you are taking a look from chopper 5 above the fire that has been burning in napa county. i know that it says sonoma county but i believe we are looking at napa county above kentwood and the smoke from one out of five wildfires burning across the area from wine country, napa and sonoma. >> apparently the chopper 5 has as it is showing us these amazing live pictures this morning -- they have now crossed into sonoma county. many of the fires have straddled the line across from napa into sonoma and they are burning in different areas. it gives you a sense of the size, a sense of the magnitude, of these fires as well as the varied terrain in which they are burning. you can see that they are burning in what looks to be some hilly, wooded areas. we have seen them burning into densely populated urban centers as well into cities. >> the firefighters are dealing not only with the rugged terrain. there are hills that they are working around and also the city fire attack is another -- businesses and homes that they are trying to protect and first of lives and eventually they can get into the areas and see how to attack this. i wanted to explain what we are watching with the fire direction. it is burning down hill and the smoke is being sent uphill. the wind direction is really swirling in the actual area of the fire. that is because we are getting the overall northwind that is pushing the smoke overall down south into san francisco which is why somebody people are waking up to that smell this morning. in areas where the fire is burning intensely around the thick trees, it creates its own set of weather so you are dealing with swirling winds and fire tornadoes as we have seen because the fire is so intense that it creates its own weather into the area of the smoke. this is a structure burning. some of the areas of the white smoke -- that is the brush they the dark smoke is more structures or thinkers they figure trees that are burning. this is something -- we are zooming in on some of the areas but it is hard to tell what roadway that is. it looks to be in the upper elevations. they are under a red flag warning today. that is what we are seeing. the fuel for the fires is there. the dry air is there. humidity levels between 10% and 14% is extremely dry, very low, and dangerous conditions. we have been warning people about this for the past several days. the national weather service knew that there would be a high wind event happening this monday and the red flag warning was issued. we have a wintel advisory for the morning. the area that you are watching under the alerts and warnings -- that is because of the conditions. the firefighters were fearing the worst case scenario -- because of how dry and windy it is and some of the gusts this morning, when i looked at the peak gusts, sonoma county as high as 60 miles per hour. hawkeye, as much as 79. we have not seen that in a long time. one spark could send the embers flying all over the place which is why there are so many fires burning. it could be one fire that spread to five different ones because of dry branches and the trees are down. that is what causes these. >> it has been an incredible challenge for firefighters. we want to give you an update on the fire that we have been watching in napa county. the atlas -- 5000 acres in addition to the huge fire burning in sonoma county. 20,000 acres. as we are getting more information, they are able to assess the damage but they are able to assess the acreage now that the sun is up and they are able to get aircraft above the fires to get a view on what they are dealing with. we want to go to tran02 reporter wilson walker. highway 12, in between napa and sonoma county. with more on some of the new evacuations, he is on the telephone. what can you tell us? >> i have made my way up to glenallen. if you take arnold road they that was the route i took . most of the traffic was going the other way because they have evthe ishe evacuation order for partth next town a little bit further down is eldridge, i believe and everything along arnold lane going towards glen ellyn. i think highway 12. there you go. they are moving everyone out of here. it is pretty evident that the fire is burning to the north. this is a specific pattern. folks are coming south, trying to move everyone out. that is out of glen ellyn. >> i am sorry for interrupting you. we are getting new information, wilson, about some of the hospitals around santa rosa. two of them have been evacuated overnight. they are telling people to not go to the hospitals in the city of santa rosa unless you have bona fide extreme emergency because they are trying to keep people out of harms way and they are dealing with road closures. back to what you were saying. i know that you have been dealing with road closures everywhere that you have been going. some of them are so dangerous that you are seeing cards making u-turns because the fire is coming their way. i moved a little bit away from where the fire was burning. tran01 it is a very large evacuation across multiple parts of the north bay. it is difficult to move all of these people. there is kind of a fire about half of the directions that you might want to go. you know? just by glancing at the traffic, the outbound traffic. it is backed up on all of the roadways, trying to get away from the fire. it is very slow moving. my understanding is that on the other side of the ridge on highway 101, they are also trying to move it around. it is getting more difficult to find places to go, frankly. >> wilson walker. thank you. please be safe. we have been in a number of areas where there have been active evacuations. we want to make sure that you are safe and that you do not get trapped in the path of this fire as it continues to spread. thank you.>> we are looking at the pictures in sonoma county. it appears to be -- this has been burned by one of five fires that have been burning throughout the north bay, napa and sonoma county. you can see the active claims and the orange on the left-hand side and a lot of what appears to be properties there. that has been burned in this fire and they appear to be in the middle of the fire and the smoke that you can see coming -- it is a massive amount of smoke and all of the smoke has been blowing around the area. even in the studio, we can breathe in and smell the smoke. the air is accurate all around the bay area. you are watching us in the bay area. you have probably noticed that a lot of people are told to keep their windows and doors closed right now. so many people, hundreds, possibly thousands under evacuation orders trying to make their way to centers or to deal with emergencies. emergency workers want the rest of us to stay home if you can and stay off of the roadways. so many are clogged up with the road closures. there are on and off closures from they transportation has been a nightmare. chopper 5 is taking a closer look. 200 acres burned and it has now grown up to 5000 acres with a separate buyer in sonoma county in the city of santa rosa has grown 20,000 acres overnight. this was a very dangerous dynamic and at times chaotic situation. people evacuated in the middle of the night undercover of darkness and it was very difficult to get accurate estimates in the number of the people that were evacuated overnight or the homes and businesses that were damaged or destroyed. we have been able to put up our helicopter chopper 5 zooming in on what appeared to be clearly a subdivision where there was an active fire in one of the houses and appears that looks like a number of homes have been burned and it was difficult to tell. exactly what we were looking like but it looked to me as if the fire had moved through an entire subdivision and it looks like many of those homes had been burned to the ground. but you get a sense from the air of the size and the scope and how massive these fires are in the challenge that firefighters are facing even now. >> we are looking above sonoma county with another huge fire burning in napa not far away in the area. jessica flores has been watching the carnage from that. >> we are in front of the crosswalk community church where people have evacuated. at around 11:00 p.m. i got up and checked out the news and sought it was not far at all from where we live. i went and got my husband up and said that we need to be aware of what is happening with the news. within minutes we had police asking everyone to voluntarily evacuate. so we did not take any chances and we grabbed a few things and our dog and came on down. >> how far were the flames from your home? >> it was very dark and smoky. from our direction the flames for more on perhaps the eastern side of atlas peak and there is enough low hills that it was not able to see it at that point. >> you are right across from the golf course with a lot of brush around the area. >> there is also a lot of spectacular heritage oaks on the course. we did hear that there was some fire damage at some point during the night. fortunately i am hoping that all of the people have evacuated safely and that is what is the most important. >> so your dog is in your vehicle and this is a story for hundreds of folks here. >> everyone here has been so welcoming and so warm and mature right away that red cross was already on their way. just now the salvation army showed up to help with breakfast so everyone is doing what awesome communities do helping each other out. they have made it as easy and as nice as could be under the circumstances . thank you. there is some coffee and breakfast for you. we have people bring their dogs and there is water and food pet as well. there is another shelter at the community college with the gym open for folks and people are not sleeping. they are waiting until this dies down but it does not look like it will anytime soon. this is the glow in the distance near downtown napa and it is 5000 acres burned up from 200 just a little while ago. this is a massive task for firefighters as they battle these winds and the dry conditions. right now the first priority is saving lives and i talked to the chaplain earlier and he says the one thing they are concerned about right now is the folks who are elderly or maybe they did not get to and that is what they are doing trying to make sure anybody who needs to be evacuated is evacuated with 350 here at this church alone. >> we are hearing now about some new evacuations in sonoma county and owner park. what those people are dealing with is an amazing challenge rested from their bed and 2:00 in the morning and people do not get that message. all of these evacuations happened in the dead of night since these fires broke out and they spread so quick he a lot of the messages people were getting is simply by a deputy pounding on the door saying they have second in order to get out. >> you can only imagine how anxious it must be for those people not known. i can imagine the question in their mind is to everyone that i know get out? >> and we are not going to have those answers for possibly days because getting into these areas will be an extreme undertaking on the part of the firefighters and the chp trying to make sure that these areas are secure before we get any picture on the extent of the damage we are looking at pictures from chopper 5 and some of these areas look more like night and day but it does appear to be a structure burning in sonoma county. 20,000 acres have burned so far and it does appear to be spreading to the south but we are hearing of more evacuations. we are looking right now from chopper 5 with eastern santa rosa and we heard from the lieutenant earlier it is the northeast side of santa rosa with the extent of the damage in the fire going right into the hospital dozens of homes have burned and this is one of the main challenges firefighters have had with the brushfire jumping the city limits spreading from home to home close to downtown on the northeast side of the city it continues to spread right now. >> one of the challenges as chopper 5 zoomed into a home on fire and then as he pulled out although it is difficult to tell it looked like there was a much larger subdivision in which that home was and it looks like manny had burned as well. that is really how it appeared from the air moving through that area destroying many of those homes and then a few homes are still actively on fire. if that is in fact the case, that will truly be devastating. that is some type of a large home or perhaps some other building in the area that is completely engulfed in flames and in the process of being destroyed by this fire. as you mentioned, we have some new evacuation orders in the fi this point in a little bit overwhelmed by the size and magnitude of these fires. they have been running uncontrollably in many areas and they are just now getting into some of those areas to see if they cannot begin to draw a line around this fire and either stop it or slow is spread. the fact that now out of an excess of caution or because there is a real gathering threat moving into reynard park we are hearing about evacuation orders to the south of santa rosa indicating if the threat is clearly not gone and there may be a direct threat of the massive fire in the sonoma county area which grew overnight that there is an ongoing threat with new additional evacuation orders. >> in the meantime more resources e g lljustd heardin they are sendi images and officers to these fires. the crews from all over the entire state right now are on their way to try to deal with the aftermath because we are looking at what is going on for week is when it comes to rebuilding and even figuring out what we have here because it is going to be difficult to get in as the smoke continues and it is 4 miles this fire is going on looking like it is many different little wires when you can see the chopper zooming in on the large structure earlier to the ground that could have very well been a hotel as well because they will see the damage coming from the wineries in addition to the city limits in santa rosa. it is just a massive amount in a wide variety of devastation that we are looking at today. >> and one of the things about this fire is just how incredibly it has grown overnight with the first report somewhere between nine of and 10:00 p.m. with at least five separate wires in the sonoma and napa county going from very small fires 200 acres up to 5000 acres in napa county and 20,000 in sonoma county moving into some sparsely populated areas into the city felt threatening neighbors, homes, and two hospitals in santa rosa. it appears they are not burning and we have heard that we are specifically mentioning sutter hospital and those evacuations happening is the flames and fire came with a quarter mile away from those hospitals. all of the patients moved to a safe area. >> already having potential breathing problems you can see the smoke coming from this fire and he been looking at this wider view here from chopper 5. we have more intense views as people are trying to escape. we have a cell phone video near the roadway as they are traveling away and you can see their on one side of the road and suddenly in front of them they are figuring out anyway out so massive claims and plumes of mock is what people are dealing with as they tried to evacuate last night in the county. >> you can imagine what a nightmare it is to have to evacuate in the dead of night and then drive through this narrow road where each has a fire. that had to have been a very terrifying experience for the people who had to get to safety. we mentioned evacuations in sonoma county. this is near the sutter santa rosa hospital and fire is urging anyone who has told to evacuate that this is serious and life-threatening if you have been told that you are under a mandatory evacuation, you need to get out. embers are spreading and there is a number of evacuation centers that have opened. that is the finley community center and others are also open including the santa rosa veterans memorial building on maple bill avenue and also on north tao boulevard. we also just received this statement from the mayor of santa rosa who says if you can avoid getting on the road, please stay in place as long as you are safe many are congested with traffic and we have declared this as a local merchants the. since then city personnel has been working tirelessly to respond to the needs of our community. these fires groups so much overnight. >> if i can interrupt you we have the mayor of santa rosa on the phone and we just read the statement. can you just tell us what is going on? it is a disaster. we are trying to evaluate what zach lee is going on. as you have mentioned our road fairly congested with people trying to get out of the evacuation zones and with people trying to get to work as well. i want to repeat that if you do not need to be in your car please stay. >> what are you seeing as far as the extent of devastation? >> i am staying out the fire zone we have professional people dealing with this is that and i am staying out of their way. >> i am sure you are getting a lot of information about was has happened. we have seen from some of the pictures some of the businesses that have burned and a mobile home community that has burned and to the extent that you can, give us a stands of what has happened to neighborhoods and homes and businesses. >> all three have been devastated we have got neighborhood multiple houses are gone and i think one of you mentioned that you have not started putting all of the data together yet. i cannot do much more than antidote at this time. i've been talking to constituents and friends, but i do not have a lot of actual data for you at this point. >> i know that this was a chaotic and challenging situation overnight with firefighters prioritizing evacuations and to the best that you know, have we been spared any loss of life in the city as these flames spread? back i think it is to daughter took her early -- too girly to say that but i would not be surprised if there was possibly fatalities. >> and a lot of the challenges husband just trying to get people out of the area. are you getting any sort of sense from them? we still in a massive evacuation mode ? >> i do not have any up-to-date information from our personnel. >> all right. we wish you the best of luck going forward and of course we will be in touch. >> we are one additional question before we let you go. we have been hearing about two hospitals threatened by the fire. can you give us any meaningful update? the buildings themselves would be a terrible to your city. are they safe for now? >> recently i heard that kaiser was not burning even though i heard it reported it was burning. >> okay. ho s soevaculated and your information as of a few moments ago is that kaiser was not burning at this point. >> that is correct. that is very good news for the community. >> we want to go to kpix 5's katie nielsen who was in an area under evacuation orders getting a sense of some of the devastation from the ground. >> reporter: earlier this morning we were on top of the parking garage looking down into the mobile home park and we are there now. it literally looks like a bomb went off. you can see fires are still burning right now. there are no firefighters here. but now they are just trying to save lives. if you can hear, there is a hissing sound and a large fire behind us from a gas line so this is where the fire has already pushed through and from where we are standing, it literally looks like some type of devastation that you would see from a bomb or a massive explosion because really there is nothing left standing and it is nothing but trouble from where we are. everything is earned, and the flames are melted and twisted. all we can hope right now is that everyone was able to get out before anything happened. and so when we were talking with the cal fire spokesperson, he said the fire has already pushed through this area. it comes to the if you look back behind us we just heard a loud noise coming through and it appears the firefighters are on the other side of this motorhome and they are not in a position where they are trying to save any property yet. it is trying to create a fire line so where we were when we had to move we were back over on mendocino. when we were over by the masses there, the battalion chief explained to us that they were trying to protect those businesses to keep the fire from spreading across the road. that is what we have here now. firefighters are just trying to keep this fire from moving into areas that still are safe. so what we are being told at this point is that firefighters are still going to be here but there are just not enough firefighters to get into all of these properties. the real thing right now is trying to save lives. we will bring you updates as soon as we get them. katie nielsen, kpix 5 . >> you and your photographer have been doing amazing work bringing us the images. before the sun came up, you are at nearby kaiser hospital at a parking garage in that area. we could see that mobile home park in the distance and it appears they were spreading coming in the direction of the house at all. have they been able to stop the advance of the flame? >> reporter: when i talked with the battalion chief a couple minutes ago and we had to stop and move, what he told us is that they were getting report the hospital was on fire but kaiser hospital is not on fire. where we are now is on the other side of that mobile home park so we are now down on the ground at the entrance and so some of these fires that you are seeing those are the fires from up above. we are seeing firefighters in between where we are standing at the entrance of the park and where the hospital is so they are not putting out fires to try to save the homes but to keep it from spreading to nearby kaiser hospital. they said they have identified key structures within santa rosa that they want to protect. sutter hospital is one of them and they want to make sure they are protected the shelters because there are so many people in those areas now and the spokesperson told us one of the biggest issues right now is the winds keeps changing directions. when we first got here it was blowing so hard we could barely see because all of the smoke was circling around us. as these winds continue to change direction, firefighters are being told that they do not know where to tell residents to evacuate next. someone was asking us this morning we had heard anything about her street. she is name and off the streets and i told her we did not have any information with mandatory evacuation still in place. i asked her how did you find out there was a fire? my husband woke up about the house next door was on fire because the sky was just orange and i said what are police officers and she said she was not able to get anything out except her children and her dog. is now pushed into very densely populated city. the city of santa rosa. and i have so many people here. they told us that there is a strip mall just down from where we were at the furniture store that included a kmart. that kmart is gone. and so is every other business in that strip mall. this is unprecedented damage. we actually just had a residence here taking a look behind us where they pulled up and it looks like this could be someone who used to live here. this is the mobile home park. that we had been seeing from the roof of the parking structure at the hospital. again, right now firefighters in santa rosa say that nothing is near containment here. this is still a very active fire. both in the neighborhood and commercial areas. up in the hills, the winds keep changing direction when we first got here it my hair was blowing one direction and now it's blowing behind me. firefighters are trying to stay on top of the evacuations. that is the main concern. we just don't know where to start the evacuations and where to tell people to go. the evacuation shelters are starting to fill up. they are continuing to open new evacuation shelters but even that is tricky because they don't want to send hundreds of people into harms way. so again, we are here at the journeys and mobile home park. at bicentennial way. it is right down the hill from the hospital. as of right now the hospital is still safe. we are just trying to protect that hospital down there. as of right now, we have not heard of any injuries here at journeys and. but the fire chief told us that they don't -- they know some people were hurt but we will not know the extent until they are able to get into the neighborhood. and right now they are not able to do that. it is too dangerous and they do not have the manpower. they have actually called for mutual aid. they have already up -- approved crews to come in from other areas. but they are also going to be calling on crews from central california and southern california. from los angeles and san diego. this is literally a statewide mutual aid situation that we are in. both for santa rosa and all of the fires burning here. of course we will keep you updated as we learn more. >> i am looking from those pictures and there's nothing left to save their. the big project of priorities the -- prioritization between officials and what exactly they are planning on doing here. flying overhead the clouds are covering it. we are looking at kenwood where the flames were a bright red within the just last hour. the sun is up at this hour, and these intense pockets of flames it looks like it is the dead of night. there are telling people to cooperate with law enforcement when they receive orders to evacuate.>> when you look at these massive fires in the smoke generated from them, it is not surprising that dozens of people took to social media reporting smelling smoke in the bay area. many people woke up saying they smelled smoke and that woke them up. it shows ash falling in the sunset district. if you look closely, that is ash falling from misfires. in this morning you can see the haze hanging over the city. this emphasis go fire department says that dozens of people reported smelling that smoke. and we are asking everyone to close the windows here in the city and parts of east bay in the peninsula. do not call 911 unless you see a fire of -- and flames in your immediate area. the weather has not been cooperating overnight. there have been really strong wind gusts which is what is pushing the flames.>> intense moments between at midnight, 10 am and 3 am, right now we do have roger gas with us from the national weather service from -- because they from watching this weather conditions. roger, what are the current conditions of the firefighters are dealing with as we get a live look?>> our forecast has slowly diminished to the morning. it may have tapered off slightly, but we are still seeing wind gusts of 40 miles per hour in the santa rosa area. most of the humidity values are down to the lower teens. it is very dry conditions and very windy out there. it is continuing to fuel this fire. but the wind has died down some and we do see peak wind gust at 60 miles per hour. the winds are going to continue to diminish but dry conditions will persist today. >> let's talk about those dry conditions out there. you can really see it from our aerial view. why is it so dry right now? i know you issued this red flag warning and a wind advisory, because you knew this was going to happen today. and then obviously any spark from a fire could go quickly why is it so dry out there? >> this is our summer month were we don't see any rainfall across the area. after a wet winter we had a lot of growth out there. so when we had a few heat waves and all of those things, it boils down to dry conditions across the region this time of year. it is pretty typical for us this time. with late summer and early fall to have these critical fire conditions. >> we really need a shift in the wind. which would hopefully help those firefighters. so let's talk about this direction how is in -- important is it for this when direction? >> normally we have offshore wind events coming from the east or northeast. which we saw overnight last night. and that really cuts off all of our more moist influence from the pacific. these dry conditions are typical this time of year. we have an offshore flow. and we knew these conditions were going to be in place several days in advance. and we were just hoping that something like this would not happen. >> a little spark led to this of course. and why we look at this -- while we look at this video here from i-5, fires often create their own weather within the fire. especially something so large and intense like this one. explain that to our viewers.>> the intense heat from the fire makes its own fire weather. one of the sites that we saw in the santa rosa area had a temperature spike of around 91 degrees. it peak up to 91 degrees about 4:30 am. that is when we saw those intense heat areas locally. the wind will even push around in different directions as well which we saw with a southwest really wind around that time. very dynamic and dangerous situation when these fires get going. >> and that makes it hard to know where your attacking the fire when it wind is changing its direction so frequently.>> i want to show you from these weather cameras here, even places like cliff out our smoky. and it is all over the place. roger i know the wind direction is pushing the smoke across the bay area, is there going to be any type of relief? >> we are expecting a little more southerly component later on today. especially across the san francisco bay area. but higher peaks are going to continue to see winds out of the east. and they will continue to blow the smoke toward the pacific. it looks like by late tonight and into tomorrow we should feel a little relief from that smoke. >> thank you roger we are going to check in now on the road conditions with jacqueline. >> we are tracking a lot of smoke filled skies across the golden gate bridge. we have a live look right here of the golden gate bridge. we are also seeing quite a few emergency responders heading northbound across the golden gate. right now, we continue to see those closures along 101, and this is north of santa rosa between mark west and steel lane. we are healing -- hearing more reports of lines coming down rocking -- locking the roadway on north and southbound lines by power lines being -- power lines being down. over an hour drive up to an hour 15 minutes for drivers trying to evacuate and head down that way. keep in mind that the roadways are much busier this morning.>> we really are. and they are a mess in many respects as far as people looking at damage along the side of the roadway. and trying to get places like evacuation centers. to say nothing of those going about their normal monday morning activities. emergent the -- emergency authorities are telling people to stay off the road if you can. we have jessica florez here live she is in nampa with mud -- with more of that fire we have five separate fires going on what's going on there? emac evacuees of the fire are headed here to this community church in downtown nampa. we've been speaking with them for the last several hours. joined me now is marlene rosenberg who is among the evacuees. she lives in the silverado resort area. what was that like when you got the knock on the door? >> the power had gone out. so we had opened our garage door. and the fireman was right there at her garage and he told us that we had to go right now. so we went with what we had. and we took the dog and that was it. and i have not been back. >> you have any been able to sleep? even think about what happened your home? >> exactly. everyone's home. there are a lot of people there that don't know what's going on. >> i just found out that somebody lost their home. and i know there are more. i can't wrap my head around what happened. and all these disasters that have been happening. it is now happening here. >> you tell me you've been there since 1975 and you've never seen anything like this? >> not to this extent. there have been fires and they burned some of the upper property, but nothing to this extent. this is beyond anyone's wildest expectation i'm sure. >> the red cross is providing cots with food and water? >> and they're doing a wonderful job. and the church it is absolutely could not be nicer. they've been opening our -- their home to us. we are very happy that they are here.>> we finally got television coverage so we know how bad it is been. it is all over sarah rosa. so it is terrible. >> we will keeping you updated because i know you are glued to the television try to figure out what is happened to your property. >> thank you very much. >> now that is just one of hundreds of people here at this community church who have evacuated. they all have some role -- similar stories. the wind and the dry conditions whipping up those flames making it very difficult for firefighters all through the night. the priority was not necessarily to stop the fire it was to get people out to safety. we do know this morning, that the fire has grown to 5000 acres. up from 200 acres. so you can imagine how the flames have spread. whipping through acre after acre here. and this is not the only shelter an emergency center here. there is also napa valley community college. there are also more beds here but it is pretty crowded. if you want more space, napa valley community college should be a place for you. the red cross is really taking care of those here with food and water and even gave us some breakfast burritos because we have been live all morning. we really need to give credit there to those who are coming out here and helping with this community.>> she is referring to the atlas fire. is 5000 acres and is bring five miles northeast of downtown napa. these are live topper pictures you are looking at in -- over santa rosa. where a fire has burned 20,000 acres. we are hearing about the possibility of new evacuation orders there. even moving south to places like loner park. the situation in santa rosa is very much out of control at this point. as far as the damage done, we know dozens of homes have burned. many businesses as well. just north of downtown santa rosa we spoke with santa rosa's mayor earlier and he says he has no idea what they are dealing with right now he is just trying to stay out of emergency crew ways. -- emergency crews way. where to showing a picture of what some of these folks are dealing with overnight when they woke in the dead of night to get out while the fire was jumping roadways on their escape route as they tried to head toward evacuation centers. the extent of the damage is going to come later in the coming days. at this point people are just trying to make sure that they are out of harms way. >> once again we are looking at a live picture from chopper five. this through the haze. very difficult to see. it gives you a sense of how big the fire is and how thick the smoke is. we are looking at a live picture of the santa rosa area where there have been both homes and businesses destroyed by the fire. a number of areas that have been affected by these various fires, as many as five burning in four counties have been evacuate these evacuated. wilson walker has been in several areas where there have active evacuations underway. the last time we spoke to wilson we heard that someone had come over a pa system telling people to get out. bring us up to speed with what is going on. >> we were hearing the sirens and that was the push to get people out of glen ellen. in particular the southern end of glen ellen. a fire had sort of arrived here on the northern end of the small town. we are not talking about a huge distance it was a pretty intimate evacuation. i have since made my way through glen allen, and while there is some good news from the center of town, a team of firefighters from san francisco managed to stop the flames in the central part of glen allen. they saved a bunch of homes and apartment complexes in the downtown area. but for folks familiar with this area if you go out warm springs road, which is the northwesterly way out of glen allen, there is a terrible scene of devastation along warm springs. houses on either side of the road for maybe a quarter of a mile are completely gone. burned completely to the foundation. frankly the worst kind of fire damage you could see in a town like this. as is the case very often, the devastation will stop right beside one home. the firefighter who fought this fight with his team says when they got here, the fire was literally jumping around them. >> what is the deal with transportation? i know you've been driving around highway 12, and part of it was closed. how is it to get around those roadways in that area? >> it depends on which direction you're going. if you are part of the evacuation, and in my case that would've been heading south on arnold and napa road, you have a long line of credit -- long line of traffic trying to get out of the evacuation area. if you are still there it is pretty empty now. people have largely cleared out some folks are coming into check on their homes and see if their friends homes made it but it is pretty quiet here now. the biggest challenge is a lot of downed power lines. >> what we are seeing right now here on our live picture is flames getting dangerously close to some power structures right now. so we will likely see more power outages from these areas along north napa. >> sure. plenty of spots without power around here. it is very spotty. you can go for a mile into -- or two and everything is dark and then you can go another mile or two and everything is powered backup. so power is spotty and roadways are flooded with debris and power lines. and plenty of firefighters all over the place trying to control this the best that they can. and at least put up lines with the devastation can -- has stopped. >> thank you very much for your reporting. as he was mentioning there are stories the devastation of homes and businesses being damaged or destroyed. there are also stories of heroism where he said a group of firefighterswere able to save some structures in the glen ellen area although many other parts of napa and simone -- sonoma county neighborhoods and business owners have not been nearly as fortunate. in one of the areas that has been hardest hit by this fire, sonoma county specifically in santa rosa is kp x5 katie nelson continues our team coverage in santa rosa. in the journeys and mobile home park. which in many places as simply burned to the ground. >> what is the latest from your location? >> if you take a look over here you can actually see there are still mobile homes actively burning right now. we were told by one of the residents that this was the manager's home. the one who manage the mobile home park. if you look off to the left you can actually see the hospital right behind this mobile home. so this mobile home park is just down the hill from where the hospital is. it was evacuated around 5 am this morning. about 100 patients were wheeled out in hospital beds in wheelchairs. they were taken to kaiser san rafael and also local medical centers in the area. as we look down to this mobile home park, we have said it before but it almost looks like a bomb went off. this park is leveled. there are still fires burning and we can hear the gas line the fire is still being fueled by those natural gas lines out here. and as you can tell the wind is just changing directions. firefighters are very concerned because they still have active fires here. and it is backing right up to the backside of the hospital. which is something very important for the community of santa rosa for the firefighters to be able to save. we were talking with chief cox a little while ago, she said that this is their worst nightmare. the reason why this started off in the middle the night, as a 200 acre brush fire. adding the wind that we've been talking about all day and then you have a 20,000 acre fire that has pushed well into the city limits of santa rosa. this mobile home park is gone. we were also told that there is a shopping center over by ranger avenue. it had a kmart inside of it that kmart and that entire stripmall are all gone. we were over by fountain grove and the in on the corner there between fat and grover -- it is gone. firefighters do not have the resources right now to try to protect structures. their main concern is trying to get people out and protect the people. the issue, is that the wind is changing direction. what seems like every few minutes. so the flames are pushed in one direction and then push somewhere else. so when they think that they are getting those neighborhoods evacuated and keeping people safe all the sudden it turns. we are hearing from a lot of residents they do not know what is going on. it is hard to get cell phone service here we lost service for a while. power has been going in and out of the area. residence here are just shellshocked. they cannot believe that all of this has happened. when they went to bed last night everything was fine. there was a wind warning and they knew that there were red flag conditions. and it seems like there were a lot of calls about downed power lines overnight. so that is definitely going to be something they will look at. and the cause of the fire here. but ay sathaeyth th pulled in firefighters from all over northern california, it simply is not enough with the amount of active fire going on here within the city limits of santa rosa. just in this mobile home park alone. there must be at least 50 homes that we can see. there are cars everywhere destroyed that we can see on the other side here. fires are still burning and some of them are being fueled by gas lines like we were talking about. the sun only came up an hour and a half ago. they said that was very important to try to figure out what is going on here within the city limits of santa rosa. the fire continues to move. we asked them how contained is this fire within the city limits? and they told us that it is not. there is still an act of fire burning with in the city and their active fires everywhere they have not been able to get those fires contained. right now, again, we are trying to stay live in make sure that we get people evacuated as quickly as possible. he did say there were injuries and we do not know the extent of those injuries as of yet. we are not going to be sure about what exactly happened until firefighters are able to get into the neighborhoods and are going through the residences one at a time. and right now, there is no manpower to do that. cal fire has activated a statewide mutual aid alert. they are trying to pull in firefighters and trucks, and equipment from all across the state because this fire is so big they know they do not have the resources to fight it on their own. again, as we have been talking about all morning, the wind is not helping at all. they keep changing direction which makes it hard for firefighters to set a line and stop any forward progress on the fire. they are not able to slow down the progress of the fire it is still actively burning throughout the city of santa rosa. the majority of the fire is here in the northern part of the city. and we have been talking all morning, a couple of the big concerns is kaiser hospital right behind where we are now. just above the top of the trees you can see the line. and we talked with chief cox last, and he said there were reports of fire damaged the hospital which is not correct. as of right now, the fire lines are holding to protect the hospital. the same thing goes for the other hospital last we heard. but it is changing from moment to moment. as we learn more we will definitely bring you up-to-date as quickly as possible. live in santa rosa. >> that is a 20,000 acre fire burning in sonoma county. we have another one we are keeping our eye on in napa county with 5000 acres of burning northeast of downtown napa. they broke out since 9 pm last night. it has been a lot going on over the last several hours. the team here in the newsroom is monitoring everything and trying to get you more information as soon as possible. we join you now with more information.>> we are just bringing our viewers up-to-date now. a reset, you have been watching live coverage of a massive series of fires in sonoma and napa counties. we have reports of 25,000 acres of burning throughout the area. that number is likely to grow. these fires are out of control right now. they say that they are struggling and overwhelmed with the need for firefighters. help is on the way but we are looking at a series of fires that are currently out of control. you can currently see smoke from chopper five. it is permeating the air throughout the bay area. throughout the north bay and san francisco and all the way in to san mateo and the east bay counties. dozens of homes have burned. we are looking for a specific number but we do not know how many homes and businesses have burned as of yet. and that is because of fire officials are telling us that they are in emergency mode. they are evacuating neighborhoods right now. they are trying to save lives. hundreds and maybe thousands of people have evacuated. there you can see a mobile home park in santa rosa where we have been reporting from all morning. it was completely destroyed. she counted perhaps 50 structures that were decimated. including shopping area throughout the -- a shopping district in the area. official say they are working on saving lives right now. they are trying to get people out of areas and evacuate those areas. and then they focus on the firefighting. we want to get you to this business owner and one of the fire zones. she was telling us that she owns property and is very concerned about the spread of the fire. >> i own two homes in santa rosa. one is in the fresh creek neighborhood and we got alerted this morning my husband is a fireman out here. that coffee park burned down. and they had evacuation on the other side the freeway where it was going toward fountain grove. it looks like that they are evacuating bush creek. in our home is going to burn in brush creek as well as our home that we just lost in coffee park.>> one of many stories throughout this area. >> schools are close right now through napa and sonoma county. we will get you a complete list as we go along but know that there are school closures and that number could grow. emergency shelters have also opened up and want to give you that list as we go along here. some hospitals have evacuated. kaisers and -- and southern. wind continues to be a huge factor. gusts have been tropical storm force at times which makes it continue to shift and it makes it difficult for firefighters at this moment because as you know, what they tried to do is anticipate where the fire goes and where the flames might be shooting in the next direction at the winds are going really fast. and then the wind shifts and they have to worry about people and homes in another direction. we have reporters on the ground, and what we have been seeing from these reporters, katie and jessica, a series of what i would say -- describe as mass chaos. we have flames shooting through the air through both napa and sonoma counties. we have fire officials racing to the scene and we have seen essentially in some cases fire department officials deciding to let areas burn gettinpeople evacuated. what we have learned here in the last few minutes is that several fire agencies throughout the bay area with emergency first responders are headed out to the area to help. a number of fire agencies are now taking part in the mutual aid but again, the focus is on evacuation. they are working on containing the flames and keeping them from spreading. as we come back live we are looking at a news conference from napa county officials. we will be monitoring those events.

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