Transcripts For KTVU KTVU Mornings On 2 At 7am 20170707

In the middle of the flames. 13 minutes later, 5 45 a side of the Apartment Building being constructed, was scheduled to be completed by next february just collapsed. We do have Team Coverage for you on this still breaking story in oakland. We will bring with ktvus Christien Kafton. Youre out there right now. Youve been out there for several hours. Now, what is going on out there now . And who is with you . Reporter yeah. Yeah. Weve been here all morning long. We have one of the construction workers who have been working on this project. So were looking to talk with in the middle of the street. Reporter it had to be difficult to watch the fire burn this morning. Yes, it is. Reporter any idea what may have happened . I know it is preliminary. You came into work. Did you hear anything about this when you came in . No. Just what i seen on the news this morning. Reporter and when you see this kind of fire going on here, what are you thinking as youre watching it all burn . You have a unique understanding of the lay joust the building and how far it had come along. Yeah. Ive been here a few months. And i have watched it grow up. And now its all gone. You know. Good place to work though. Good people. Nice people to work for. Reporter thank you very much. Good luck. Lets go ahead and swing on around so you can see you can see everybody trying to get in on that interview as well here this morning. So our live look at the building here. You can see that the fire at this point is contained. That is what we have been hearing so far, which means that there is no risk at this point or little risk of that fire escaping from this building and spreading to other neighboring buildings. There are still hot spots and potential fires inside of the building. We were trying to set up an interview with the battalion chief from oakland just five minutes ago. We were closer but the chief told us that she wanted us to move back. She said there is still some possibility of danger. It is still a very active scene. Theyre working hard to get this fire under control. One of the people that we saw them talking with earlier was a representative from biggy, the crane operator. The crane has been the focus of a great deal of their attention. Earlier this morning that crane was swinging around in big wide circles. The concern that the crane could collapse at any time. We heard a lot of chatter from firefighters saying that they did not want to stage anyone underneath it. They didnt want any crews underneath it. They didnt want any crews near it because they didnt know if it was going to collapse, how it could collapse. We heard it was unsecured. And we saw it swinging around earlier. Just down the street, that really is the command post. That is where the firefighters are getting together, working on their strategy, trying to figure out how theyre going to tackle this fire. You said it earlier that there were a great deal of firefighters here. Went to four alarms. They pulled in neighboring agencies working to try to make sure that the fire didnt spread to neighboring buildings. Earlier this morning, it was absolutely huge, sending big plumes of flames up into the sky, raining embers down into the area. So a great deal of concern. At this point in time, still appears to be contained. Not completely controlled. Firefighters still putting lots of water on it. Were working with them to find out what their strategy is going from here. As disheartening it would be to see the fruits of your labor go up into flames. The one bit of good news that we can bring to people is that no one was injured in this massive fire. Christien kafton live for us on the scene. Reporter yeah. Im having a tough time hearing you right now. Thats okay. Reporter you will have to forgive any pauses or anything like that. Were having a technical problem right now. You can see that the firefighters still clearly putting a great deal of water on this fire, trying to trying to make sure that it doesnt escape containment. And we are hoping that we will get a battalion chief to talk with us. Christien kafton live for us at the scene of the four alarm fire in the heart of oakland. Again, i would like to reiterate the fact that no one is reported injured as a report of this massive fire. A number of people have been displaced. As a result, the red cross set up an Evacuation Center at christ the light cathedral next to lake merritt. It is at grand and harrison street. We have a reporter talking to all those forced from their homes earlier this morning. This is not the only problem that the fire is causing. You see evidence of ash and embers as well as other remnants from the fire falling on nearby buildings and cars. One car was just covered with debris from the fire. The time is 7 06. She was here on mornings on 2. This fire is in her district. It is tough for her to see flames destroy a project as big as this one. We have a housing crisis that is really creating one of the highest rent districts in the country. You know, were looking for more units to go up to relief the pressure of the demand within our housing. Oakland unfortunately has a huge gap in terms of serving retail, Community Serving retail. So the neighbors work for many, many years on a specific plan that would bring and attract retail into this corridor. And so we were happy to see this investor come in to do this project. So this is this is very disheartening. But grateful that theres been no loss of life. Council woman gibson says the project was due to be completed at the beginning of next year, bringing units expected to be a mix of retail and condo units as well. The building that burn was supposed to be retail and residential. It could have helped ease the housing crisis. This is a rendering of what the building would have looked like when it was completed early next year. Developers call it the alto waverly building. It had 198 apartments and 130,000 square feet of retail space. It was expected to be finished next year. Not much if anything is left of the building. The developer is a Real Estate Company located in atlanta. It was between larger downtown buildings and neighborhoods up to the north. We will have coverage of the fire on mornings on 2 and you can get updates on ktvu. Com, facebook and twitter for more information. All right, gasia. The time is 7 08. Lets check your weather as this day moves on. Youve been busy not only watching the fire but also what else is happening in the bay area. Yes. We have the light winds out there. That will remain. It will take a while for the smoke to disburse. Be aware of it if you live in the oakland areas or where were seeing that drift. Because, again, poor air quality could be an issue for the first part of the day before it moves out. We wont lose the on shore breeze completely. We will have a push from the pacific later this morning. 9 miles per hour. Inland cities not really going to get any relief from the pacific and that cool air. As a result, temperatures will rebound in a big way for the afternoon today. 57 degrees to start your morning in the north bay of novato. If we go to the east bay shore, 64 in san jose. 54 in the city of San Francisco. Yesterday temperatures came up and were carrying that over from yesterday. Already off to a warmer start. Fairfield up by 5 degrees. Around the bay, two or three degrees. Up four degrees for our folks in livermore. Here is a look at the afternoon highs. Going to be baking this afternoon. We will start in the north bay. 95 the afternoon high expected for santa rosa. East bay, nearing 100 in areas like antioch and brentwood. 97 in the south bay and morgan hill. Around the bay, upper 70s to 80s expected. In city of San Francisco, a nice day, 71. And 68 expected in pacifica. We will have the localized on shore breeze to keep the areas comfortable. You go inland and it will really heat up. If you dont like the heat, i have good news, temperatures are coming down for the weekend. I will have a look at those numbers coming up. Lets check on traffic. Good morning, sal. Good morning, rosemary. Westbound 580 and interstate 880 near the fire scene have not been affected. As a matter of fact i put it on the map here for you. 580 and 880 are doing well. So is interstate 980. The fire as you know is somewhat near lake merritt. Grand avenue closed there. Some of the major streets around grand and broadway, grand and harrison will be affected. It is a good area to stay away from. I want to let you know that we have traffic issues on the Richmond Bridge. Traffic is at a stand still because of an injury that you can see on the span. You can see how hard it is to get across the span. We do not recommend using the Richmond Bridge to get into san rafael. Maybe you can use the bay bridge to the golden gate or highway 37. At 7 10, lets go back to the desk. Thank you, sal. We are waiting for the much anticipated meeting between President Trump and president putin on the side lines of the g20 summit in hamburg, germany. This will be the first meeting for the two leaders in person. They are expected to discuss a range of issues, including the war in syria, the north Korea Nuclear threat, russias involvement in ukraine and President Trump is under pressure to talk about russias alleged influence in the president ial election here in the United States. Just yesterday President Trump said russia could have been behind efforts to influence the election but that, quote, nobody really knows for sure. There have been a number of violent protests as World Leaders gather for the g20 summit. Thousands of protesters marched where the leaders are gathering for the twoday meeting. They used water canons and pepper spray to clear the protesters from the streets. Medics were on the streets treating those injured at the demonstration. We are following this mornings huge fire in oakland at a construction site near lake merritt. These are live pictures. This is what the firefighters are dealing with right now. We will tell you more about the fire and the evacuations. The search for a 12year old girl continues this morning after she went missing in the city of richmond. Details of what happened just before she disappeared. Destruction and danger. We were covering that huge four alarm fire near downtown oakland. A partial Building Collapse happened as alex savidge was bringing us a live report. The building itself was under construction and essentially in ruins. We saw a tall crane being used for construction swinging wildly at the height of the fire. If we can bring in a live picture, the scene has changed dramatically. Firefighters have it under control. We see smoke rising from the site of the fire but we dont see any active orange flame. When ways coming through oakland at 5 20, dave, i saw a fireball churning. If i looked left to the grand avenue exit near lake merritt, i saw a large orange glow and a plume of smoke. Now we see light gray smoke and a lot of water being poured on the construction site. We have a number of crews covering the fire itself and what the ramifications are for the city of oakland. Retail and housing which are very much needed in oakland. We will talk about that as we continue our coverage of the four alarm fire in oakland this morning. We thank you for joining us on mornings on 2 this morning. It is 7 15. Sal has been busy all morning. Yeah. We are going to go to the area where the fire is, just to put it on the map for you and show you the freeways nearby. 580 and 880 and 980 had a good view of the fire as gasia mentioned. We did not have any major slow traffic. It seems to be a lighter than usual morning as we back up. The east bay commute does not look bad as you drive through. The freeways have been lighter than usual. One thing that is not light is a pretty serious accident on the richmond bring heading from richmond over to san rafael. It has been a tough commute this whole time. We can actually see the accident on the bridge from our camera in san rafael. It is right around here. You can see how big the traffic jam is. It is basically just crawling along until you get past the accident scene. I want to mention that if youre going to try to get to the Richmond Bridge, you can see how slow it is. I would not do this. We have seen the same truck in this picture for a little while. It is barely moving on the span. Try to use an alternate route to get into san rafael from the east bay. Highway 37 comes to mind. It would be a better drive for you. Lets go to rosemary who is filling in for steve today. Tgif to you. Hopefully you have a good weekend in store. We are looking at temperatures nice and warm. Hopefully youre also craving summertime heat, at least for the inland communities. A look over the oakland skyline where we can still see some of that smoke lingering from this mornings fire. Keep that i guess in your thoughts if you do suffer from respiratory issues. Definitely something to consider. Any type of smoke is toxic. Avoid outdoor exposure if at all possible. Here is a look at the pattern in place for today. Ridge of High Pressure remains over the four corners. You can see how we are picking up on a little bit of moisture there. That monsoonal moisture eventually comes our way in the summer months. You see Southern California on the edge we have some. If you go farther up, theres a slight chance for the lake tahoe area today. Not so much for the weekend. But if you are thinking of heading up to tahoe for the weekend, be aware that were seeing a little bit of that. For us at home, mostly sunny skies and warmer weather today. Eventually this trough will swing closer and come into play for the weekend. It will bring the temperatures down. Today will be the warmest day. Here is a rock at the futurecast model. Lets talk about the coast and the bayside and inland communities for today. Temperatures near 100 degrees in the afternoon for areas like brentwood. Already 71 outside your door. 64 in concord. 66 livermore. Closer to the bay we have low 60s in oakland starting your morning. At the coast, 59 Half Moon Bay. Low 60s in the south bay of san jose. Lets check in on the inner east bay. This is where were really going to see the heat on. 72 in antioch. 72 reported in pittsburgh. Upper 60s in danville. The afternoon highs at the coast going to be mild. The on shore breeze will remain although it will be very weak. 64 at stenson beach. 95 in santa rosa and 98 expected in clearlake. For the east bay, we will go 77 oakland for today. Upper 90s for inland cities like walnut creek and danville. Brentwood expected to hit the century mark. 97 morgan hill. Who is headed to santa cruz . 77 expected there with partly cloudy to mostly clear skies. Palo alto, 85 for you. In the 60s for pacifica and Half Moon Bay. It will be nice for you. Temperatures will fall off on saturday. Perhaps even cooler on sunday. And then the trend will continue as we get into monday and tuesday. But still very nice out there. 60s along the coastline. Upper 70s in and around the bay. And low 90s expected inland. Gasia. Thank you, rosemary. The time is 7 20. A 12yearold girl is missing this morning. Police are searching for her after she disappeared on wednesday night. Her name is jessica pedia. She was working at the library on a summer project when her mother picked her up and they started to argue and she went back inside saying she forgot something but a Library Worker said she went outside and went towards the mcdonnell area. It is a high crime area. She is saying that with her, she is really worried about her, including all of us. Were all worried. Were just trying to find her as soon as possible. Jessicas photo has been posted throughout the neighborhood and the library. The family says jessica has never run away in the past. Surveillance video from nearby businesses is being checked by police as the investigation continues. Jessica is latina, 50, weighing 140 pounds. Long black hair and green eyes. She was wearing a green shirt, blue jeans and black shoes the last time she was scene. Her picture is on the screen. If you have any information about her whereabouts call richmond police. We continue to follow the fire near lake merritt. More on the fire fight and the evacuations underway as a result. Award winning interface. Award winning design. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. The most awarded luxury suv of the century. Visit your volvo dealer today and get up to 4,500 in allowances. What should i watch . Show me sports. Its so fluffy look at that fluffy unicorn hes so fluffy im gonna die your voice is awesome. The x1 voice remote. Xfinity. The future of awesome. Pictures here from a huge four alarm fire that has been burning since the Early Morning hours in oakland at a construction site at valdez. Spinning out of control. There was concern for a time that the crane might collapse. But that did not happen. Were on the scene of the massive fire. It was a mixed use building that was under construction. Housing and retail that was expected to be complete next year. That is no longer the case. Good news to bring you, there are no injuries reported as a result of this massive fire. The fire fight itself continues. It is something that were staying on throughout the day. You can see here live from sky fox a lot of white smoke coming up from the scene of the building. As i drove past it in the 5 00 hour this morning, i saw a big ball of orange flames. Again, the situation has changed dramatically. Were seeing fire crews put water on the construction site as it continues to smolder. A lot of people forced from their homes and offices this morning. Were staying on top of the developing story for you throughout the morning. A four alarm fire north of lake merritt has decimated a construction site. More throughout the day here. All right. The time is 7 25. Today in yolo county, it could get up to 108 degrees and a wildfire is still burning. It is near the city of winters. It grew to almost 1700 acres late last night. The containment is about 18 . Mandatory evacuations have been issued for two communities. This fire started yesterday afternoon. It spread quick because of dry grass and that rugged terrain out there. At least one injury has been reported. Now, here in the bay area, sky fox is flying over a grass fire in south livermore. It destroyed a barn and damaged a vineyard. The fire reported just before 1 30 yesterday afternoon along west vineyard avenue near highway 84. It burned about five acres but no injuries have been reported. No evacuations. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. And then sasoon city, a brush fire threatened homes near the air force base before flames spread on to the military installation. The fire first reported at 4 15 in the afternoon. Fire crews were able to put it out quick before it burned homes but it burned some of the land at the military base. A popular beach on the Russian River is closed this morning due to bacteria. The beach was shut down to all swimming and other water activities. They posted signs at the beach warning of contaminated water after recent tests showed e. Coli levels above state safety standards. The beach closure comes in the wake of a busy holiday weekend. Tests so none of the other russian beaches are contaminated. The time is 7 27. A major fire burning this morning in oakland. You have been watching it with us on mornings on 2. We will bring you the latest on scene as the fire crews responded to the fire that broke out just before 5 00 this morning. 7 30. Live pictures above the scene of a massive fire at a construction site just north of oaklands lake merritt. Here we are about three hours after the fire started. We can still see smoke rising from the scene at 24th and valdez. It was supposed to be a mixed use building, retail and residential. Both of which according to the Council Woman who represents the area, dave, are badly needed not just in that part of oakland by the city itself. We have been following this story for you on mornings on 2 this friday, july 7th. Im gasia mikaelian. Good morning. Im dave clark. Were following several stories related to the fire in oakland. The fire was reported this morning near lake merritt. It was a frightening site about two hours ago as we saw parts of the building itself come down during a live report from ktvus own alex savidge. Right around the time this was happening, we were always watching a crane at the construction site swinging around dangerously. There was fear it would come down. That did not happen. Ktvus Christien Kafton is also at the scene. We will begin our live Team Coverage at 7 30 with Christien Kafton. Yeah. To give you a sense of where we are, so you have a sense of the geography of the fire, we are at the Southwest Corner of that fire. We are going to go ahead and swing around and show you the progress that fire crews have made at this point in time. Were not seeing the open flames we saw earlier. Were not seeing the thick, dense black smoke we saw earlier. We are seeing a lot of steam coming off of this, an indication that there are still hot spots inside of the building. This is a technique that is referred to as surround and drown. So fire crews are surrounding that fire, not wanting to put anybody inside of that building because of the danger of collapse. As you said before, alex was live on tv and saw one of the walls collapse. Clearly not a safe position for firefighters to be in. It is much better for them to be on the outside or the perimeter of that building. And just pump as much water in as possible to put out the hot spots. Again, not seeing those big, huge flames like we saw here earlier. One of the Major Concerns still that crane that is standing there. At this point it is still standing. There was major concern all morning long about that crane. When fire crews arrived at 4 30 this morning, they were using the radio to warn one another about the crane saying it was unsecured. In other words it was able to move freely. That is exactly what we saw as the morning progressed. We saw that arm swinging around wildly. A great deal of danger of course is that anybody in the path of that as it could pass down, as it could go down to be a danger if anybody was nearby. We are hoping for a briefing from oakland fire, perhaps Oakland Police. We do see them meeting right now. They have been telling us that they are hoping to get a hoping to get a briefing for us to let us know what the plan is. I can tell you, gasia and dave, when i was there earlier, they had a representative from biggie, the crane operator, the crane manufacturer who was on scene consulting directly with firefighters working to try to work out a strategy to see how stable the crane is. We are hoping to get an update fairly soon. We see a couple of officers. Do you have time for a quick briefing. Okay the latest were hearing is 15 minutes or so. Yeah. Reporter excellent. Were hearing that the briefing to come possibly in about 15 minutes or so. We hope to have that for you live so we can bring you the latest information on how this fire is developing and what the state of that crane is going to be throughout the day. Christien kafton, great job. Youre on it. Thank you. We will talk to you later. The time is 7 34. In the meantime alex savidge has also been out there for several hours. Alex is talking with people who have been evacuated from their own buildings after the neighboring building went up in flames. Alex. Reporter yeah. Good morning to you guys. A couple hundred people forced out of their apartments early this morning because they are just across the street from where the huge fire is burning. Let me step out of the way and give you our perspective. Were standing along grand avenue at valdez a block away from the fire scene. From the left hand side you see this Apartment Building at 100 grand. Because of the sheer size of this fire, the heat it was putting off, everybody inside of the building was forced to evacuate early this morning. We will take to you video of the fire from early on. Obviously it was burning with an intensity. Now a much different story. But early this morning, just before 5 00 is when the fire alarms went off in the neighboring building. Fire alarms went off. There was an announcement over the loud speakers telling everyone inside that they needed to get out as soon as possible. Obviously people scrambled and grabbed whatever they could. Grabbed their pets and they made their way outside. It was from all accounts a chaotic situation. But everyone got out in an orderly fashion. List tone some of the people who made their way out and they described what they saw once they got outside. Actually the alarm didnt go off so we heard a banging on the door. After a couple times we got up and at that point in time we knew there was a fire. So everyone exited out the gates and it went quick. Around 5 30, yeah. I was sleeping. And there was an evacuation notice. And i didnt know what was happening. And then when we all ran out, it was crazy. I was scared. I get outside and i go to the corner and i see flames engulfing the crane. It was super high. You could feel the heat on you, the ashes falling down. It was pretty crazy. Reporter to let you know a little more of what were learning about the building under construction that caught fire this morning, it was a project called the atlo waverly. It was set to open in february of 2018. According to a gentleman with the contracting company, he told me that this was going to be a sevenstory market rate Apartment Building with retail on the ground floor. The contractor is anderson construction. The project manager is Wood Partners. We did have someone from our team here at ktvu reach out to Wood Partners based in atlanta, looking for a comment on this fire this morning. We have not yet heard back from anybody with that company. We will bring you back out here to a live picture. What youre looking at is our Vantage Point here down grand avenue. A lot of people still out here. Many of them are folks who were evacuated earlier this morning from a large Apartment Building that is caddy corner to the fire at 100 grand street. What we heard from someone associated with the building, they are hoping to get everybody back inside sometime very soon. They just got word that they should be let back in very soon after what was a tough morning for a lot of folks being woken up early in the morning by the fire alarms and being forced to evacuate with very little notice. Alex, ill take you back to another aspect of the issue that you have been covering this morning. You spoke to someone related to the construction project itself who told you at about 4 45, the motion sensors at the building detected some sort of activity. Can you gentle us what you said for those hearing it new and if you learned anything more about that. Reporter right. Sure. No. That was just a brief conversation that i had with the gentleman who was one of the contractors here. He explained to me that they have Security Officers who walk around the perimeter of that building. And they do that obviously during the overnight hours looking for anything suspicious, making sure that nobody gets inside. The officers were here this morning. Talking to them will be part of the investigation. At the same time he said that they were motion sensors at the construction site and the sensors did pick up some sort of activity at 4 45 this morning. We dont know exactly what it was, if it was related to the fire or not. That was information that he passed along to me. Obviously that information has been passed along to the authorities as they try to figure out what may have caused this fire and whether or not it is suspicious in nature. Okay. Youre looking at everything at this point. Youre looking for reporter absolutely. Anything tiny or large. Alex savidge, thank you so much. We will bring you in throughout mornings on 2. This fire is one of several fires in the oakland area at residential buildings under construction. Back in may a 7story Apartment Building an san pablo avenue was destroyed by fire. Investigators say it was arson. That same building was set on fire in july of last year. Also in october of last year, there was a fire at another Apartment Building under construction near lake merritt. Certainly weather a factor in this and all of the fire thats we cover. We will bring in meteorologist rosemary orozco. When i drove by earlier at 5 00, i saw the inversion layer in full effect. Like someone drew a line saying no smoke below this point. Now look how it has changed. Yeah. It has disbursed. You can see it right in there. It is still drifting a little bit. We will continue to see that as we go through the morning hours. If you are just joining us and speaking about it just a little bit. So the winds were generally light this morning, which is good news in the sense that wind can really impact a fire in the way of fanning the flames, feeding it more oxygen, sending the embers flying and catching other buildings on fire. Thankfully the winds were not strong. But on the flip side, were waking up with ash and debris all overrake land. It is due to the fact that we had the inversion in place, acting as a lid, not allowing the smoke to go anywhere. The winds were not helping to disburse the smoke. Everything was raining down back on the city. If youre waking up miles away from the fire this morning but are seeing it on the ground, this is why. The winds will remain generally light. You can see they are here. Fairfield reporting 9 miles per hour. It is an on shore breeze. It is not going away completely. Were definitely scaling back on the sea breeze. It will be local right along the coast and just inside of the bay. That will help to keep these areas a little bit more comfortable. But the farther inland you go, the hotter it will be for today and some of our hotter spots are expected to hit 100 degrees. 64 in concord. 66 in livermore. And 67 in walnut creek. Closer to the bay, we have low 60s in hayward. 56 to start your morning sfo. Low 50s around santa rosa. With a warmer day yesterday, were off to a warmer day today. That will heat us up faster. San francisco, upper 60s in the forecast by lunchtime. Low 70s for the afternoon. It will be very nice for you there. But you go inland and were baking. 98 in concord. 99 the afternoon high in antioch. Temperatures will begin to come down slightly as we get into your bay area weekend. I will detail that in a little bit. At 7 41, lets go to sal. Lets head out the door and see what is going on out there. Good morning, rosemary. Were looking at the freeways and still following some of the traffic in oakland. So far it doesnt look too bad. The traffic is beginning to slow down in the normal commute spots on 880 and 580. But when the fire was roaring, you could see it from all over the place. However, there are no major problems in oakland when it comes to the Richmond Bridge and traffic is recovering after that earlier crash. We were talking about highway 24 and some of the other freeways near the fire. And you can definitely see it. In fact, we have our emryville cam radio looking up at the hills here. You can see there is the freeway below. And everything is moving along pretty well. And fortunately this has been a pretty light day as you can see downtown oakland here as kevin follows it. So when we move back to the fire, you definitely can see where it is. But it has not thankfully affected the freeway traffic in the area. And that looks that is definitely good news. Lets go to the Richmond Bridge. Traffic on that span is moving again on that Richmond Bridge getting in and out of marin county after an earlier accident was cleared. We have a look at the toll plaza. Look how better that looks after the crash has been gone. Were looking at the bay bridge toll plaza. That looks pretty normal which is to say a 15 to 20 minute delay getting into San Francisco. And 880 near the coliseum a little congested. At 7 43, lets go back to the desk. Thank you, sal. We are still following obviously the breaking news in oakland. Then i looked out my window and i saw the fire. And i said oh my god. It was big. The very latest on that big fire in downtown oakland and the evacuations still underway. We have been covering the four alarm fire near lake merritt. Look at your screen. This is a smaller fire in the fruit vail district. It appears to be on the second floor of a threestore Apartment Building. We will bring in Sal Castaneda. This is just a handful of miles from the original fire. This does not appear to be related. It is far enough so we can safely say the embers from the first fire most likely and i would say almost assuredly had nothing to do with the original fire. This is a multi unit building here. And you can see i dont see any fire crews on the scene. Remember, gasia and dave, because of all of the fire crews that are at the original fire, we do have other companies from other cities that are going to be covering oakland. I dont i do not see a fire truck on the scene. It does look like the smoke is still coming out of this building. Again, this is in the fruitvale area of oakland. It is pretty much between 880 and 580, right in the middle. We are trying to get an exact location. I believe that is a firefighter on scene. But fire resources are stretched thin because of the major fire we had earlier this morning. Oakland fire is getting help from Alameda County fire and neighboring districts would be offering mutual aid as well. We just got we just got the location, gasia. Im sorry. I didnt hear what you just said. I was getting the location. The 3,000 block of east 15th street, one block off from international in oakland. In fact you can see international there below. And oakland firefighters did tweet the location. If you look at the left hand of your screen it looks like one of the oakland Fire Truck Companies is arriving on the scene at the top of the screen. You can see they are arriving. Again, this is going to be kind of a major strain on the Fire Departments. Yes, 7 47. Lets go back to you guys. Okay, sal. Now back to the major fire we have been covering north of lake merritt in oakland. It started at 4 21 this morning. Huge flames coming from the building under construction. It was to be a mixed use building, retail along with residential. This happened live on the air in the Early Morning hours. We saw part of the building itself crumble down as a result of the intense fire. Something else that we saw was a crane related to construction at the site was swinging around wildly out of control. There was concern that it might come down. That did not happen. This was the scene, an intense fire fight from the 4 00 well into the 5 00 hour of mornings on 2 today. As i drove by on poof five especially on the grand avenue exit, i could see clearly a large ball of orange flames. At this point we know a number of people have been evacuated from the neighboring buildings as fire crews essentially decided this building cant be saved. Lets protect what is around it, where people are currently living. Those people are being helped out at an Evacuation Center. We see water being put on the smoldering remains of the building under construction. Gallons and gallons. We still see smoke rising from the scene of the fire earlier at the height of the fire fight, it was a thick dark, gray, almost black plume of smoke rising. Here as were giving you another live picture from the street, we do see active flame on the street level. Certainly a cause for concern. But we know that firefighters are all over this scene. Dave, certainly fire crews are in close proximity to this. Were staying on top of this. You see a small sign that says alta waverly project. That was the name of the project under construction. Almost 200 units destined for oakland and retail space. We heard from the Council Woman who represents the area. They had just landed an anchor tenant. That is all now put on hold this morning as number one the concern is for life and property. We have no reports of anyone injured. Any minute we expect to get a briefing from Oakland Police and fire crews. Christien kafton talked with them briefly in his last report. We will bring that to you as it happens live weve also had a chance it talk to a number of people near the construction site that went up in flames. They were forced to evacuate as the fire broke out just before 4 30 this morning. One man says he and his neighbors got quite the wakeup call in the Early Morning hours. So we have a fire alarm system in the building that went off. It was really loud. Then an announcement said there was a fire across the street and get out of the building. That resident said he and others were prepared. They held an emergency drill in the past month. Wow. The time is 7 50. Pam cook is learning more about the Oakland Building that caught fire. Pam, youre in the news room. Thank you for joining us again. Yeah. We have calls in to the project developer. We have been talking about this building and what it was intended to be. According to the website for the project, the developer Wood Partners based in atlanta, we have not yet heard back from them at this point. Now, the building under construction was called the alta waverly. Here are drawings of what it was set to look like once it was complete. It is part of a huge construction boom in oakland, as we have been talking about. This particular area is part of the Broadway Valdez plan. At the corner of 23rd and valdez in downtown oakland. Set to open from the website i know were getting conflicting reports but the website says it was set to open in spring of 2018. Now, the plan was for nearly 200 market rate apartments above some retail space which would be on the street level. Reading through the detail, it was going to add a fairly upscale addition to downtown oakland. It would have a fitness room, outdoor fireplaces, a dog run with a pet washing area and a rooftop deck that would be overlooking downtown oakland, the Oakland Hills and the skyline. No specific rental information on the website. But the listings in the area for this kind of building is about 3,000 a month for a one bedroom apartment. It can go up from there. We also have calls into two local real estate offices that are listed as the contacts for renting the retail space. We have not heard back from them at this point. Gasia and dave, as we have been talking about, just a revitalization of downtown oakland. This was intended to be a nice addition to that. Just from what im reading, we talked about the Council Woman saying they had secured an anchor tenant. We heard it may have been a sprouts market which is a growing little marketplace. That could have been one of the tenants that was set to move in. We have calls out to who we think is the developer and then as well as the real estate offices for this project. All right, pam cook in our news room. Thanks, pam. We will take a break. We will be right back. Award winning interface. Award winning design. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. The most awarded luxury suv of the century. Visit your volvo dealer today and get up to 4,500 in allowances. Welcome back to mornings on 2. It is 7 55. Lets go back to sal. A lot going on in the morning commute. Thats right. Were looking at the commute, dave and gasia. Were also looking let me move it into position. We are looking at the second fire in the fruitvale district. It appears to be out. We see firefighters on the scene. This was, again, at the 3,000 block of east 15th street. Some people in the street. The fire was in the going. It is now out. Fire crews been stretched thin in Alameda County because of the major fire this morning. This fire seems minor. We do not have any word that anyone was are injured but it looks like the fire is out. Lets look at the other commutes here. I want to show you the traffic on 880 is slow as you pass the coliseum, as is normal driving up. 580 has not been affected by the fire. A little bit of traffic which is usual. At the bay bridge we have a traditional commute. 25 minutes before you make it on to the span and on to the bay bridge. Lets bring in rosemary with todays weather. Partly cloudy skies for today. Temperatures will be warmer. Will be hot inland. If youre in the oakland area for today, just be aware of haze out there and perhaps poor air quality from the fire earlier this morning. For the rest of us, moderate air quality in place for today. 60s and 70s at the coast. Upper 80s around the bay. 90s reaching near 100 degrees inland. Temperatures are already soaring for inland folks. 77 in brentwood. 60s for most of us. 64 in oakland. A little cooler Half Moon Bay in the 50s. Afternoon highs for today, we will tick the numbers up. 68 expected for pacifica. 70s around the bay. 82 in hayward. 98 in concord. 99 in antioch. 100 for brentwood. Temperatures begin to cool off as we get into your bay area weekend. Not by a lot. If you are enjoying the summertime heat, 60s at the coast and 90s expected inland. Thank you, rosemary. 7 57. Were staying on top of breaking news in oakland. A major fire breaks out in the very Early Morning hours. Watch out. We will take you to the scene and tell you where the fire stands now four hours later and what is happening with those who have been evacuated from their homes. What should i watch . Show me sports. Its so fluffy look at that fluffy unicorn hes so fluffy im gonna die your voice is awesome. The x1 voice remote. Xfinity. The future of awesome. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to mornings on 2. It is friday, july 7th. Im mike mibach. Im gasia mikaelian. Were following breaking news for you. A massive fire that broke out at a construction site in oakland. On the left you see the scene as flames engulf the building. Those pictures taken at about 5 30 this morning. On the right side of the screen, a picture from the site 09 minutes ago. This was designed for both housing as well as retail and was scheduled to be completed early next year. Flames raced through the building there under construction. It started just after 4 00 this morning. That created a reddish glow that could be seen in the city of oakland and far below. It grew to four alarms and forced nearby residents to evacuate. No reports of any injuries. We expect a briefing from oakland fire and Police Officials in the coming minutes. When that happens, we will bring it to you. It is at valdez and grand avenue. That is near really just to the north of oaklands lake merritt. And close to the main bart stations there at the bart center. Christien kafton is joining us live from the scene to begin our Team Coverage. Christien kafton. Yes. We are on stand by waiting for oakland fire to begin their briefing and let us know the latest in terms of the fire, where they stand at this point and in particular the fate of that crane. Im not sure if we have video ready. If we have video, we should be able to show you how big the fire was earlier this morning. It went to four alarms. The fire started sometime around 4 30 this morning. By the time we arrived around 5 20, the building was absolutely engulfed in flames. We could feel the flames from about 200 feet away or so. And then about an hour after that fire started, we started seeing that crane wildly swinging around. The crane a major concern for firefighters and First Responders all morning long. We could hear them talking about it on the twoway and radio warning people not to stage or set up anything underneath it. Be aware that it was not tethered and there was a possibility it could collapse. Over the course of the morning, we have seen representatives from biggie, the company that operates those cranes on scene here working side by side with photographers or working side by side with firefighters rather trying to figure out exactly how that crane is doing at this time. How it is functioning, what its stability is. At this point we see firefighters in a perimeter around this building. Not actually making entry inside of it. One of the Major Concerns still has to be that crane, whether its going to collapse, if its going to collapse, what direction its going to collapse if it does in fact collapse. And then the idea is how to dismantle it. How to remove it as a potential hazard. Another potential hazard on scene is the wall. We had dramatic video of my colleague alex savidge who was live on air as a portion of the Building Collapsed right behind him. That, again, also a major concern for any firefighters who would either try to make entry or do even an Exterior Inspection of that building. Because when the walls collapse, it is very unpredictable. They could collapse inward or outward. It is unclear. We dont want firefighters put into danger. We have been on stand by. There was supposed to be a press briefing at about 7 45. That press briefing was then pushed we heard until 8 00. It is now about 8 05. That just gives you a sense of how fluid the situation is here at this fire scene. The firefighters told me earlier when i tried to get some details from them, they said they were simply too busy to talk. They were too busy trying to work out a strategy, trying to work out positioning, trying to thanksgiving out what they were dealing with this fire here. We are still in a standby mode. We dont see the battalion chief yet. We will take that for you live as well soon as that comes to us. We have a lot of questions not only about how it started but how it may have spread to adjacent buildings and the fate of that crane. Thank you, Christien Kafton. Earlier this morning we spoke with people who live in neighboring buildings who were told to evacuate because of the massive fire. We just grabbed just just the clothes to put on and, you know, ran down. The exit everyone was going down the stairs. So it was pretty pretty organized but there was a lot of people. Building managers were seen taking a roll call in the 6 00 hour, calling out the numbers of apartments and having people respond im here or she is okay to make sure that all of the residents had in fact been evacuated. One resident said they were prepared for an emergency, the building had a fire drill last month. That certainly helped todays evacuations go smoothly. For the evacuees, the red cot set up a shelter at the cathedral at christ the light it is on harrison near lake merritt and a couple blocks from the fire scene itself. It is causing problems throughout the bay area. You see ash, embers and emanants from the fire falling on this car. That is the scene. You see it right here on your screen. Here is what we know so far about the building that is under construction there. Developers say the atla waverly building was a mixed use project, including 196 market rate apartments and more than 31,000 square feet of retail space. This was supposed to be finished early next year but the building was pretty much destroyed because of this fire here. The developer is a Real Estate Company based in atlanta. The project was promoted as being located kind of between the larger downtown area and then the small scale neighborhoods just to the north. A lot of people sharing their photos of this big four alarm fire out there on their social media pages. Kendall sent in that photo of the flames here. Another one from nicole molina. You can see how tall the flames were initially around the 5 00 hour. We would love to see more of your photos. Share them on facebook, twitter and instagram. More breaking news in the city of oakland. Just four miles away from that fire, three hours later, a separate fire. Sky fox giving us these live pictures earlier on mornings on 2 from the fruitvale district. Flames broke out at a 3, 4 Story Building around 7 30. You could see heavy smoke coming out of the second floor. So far firefighters have not released any information on injuries or how the particular fire started. We will bring in Sal Castaneda for the effects on traffic that the fires are having and all of the my tall aid coming to the sit mutual aid coming to the city of oakland. Yeah. With so many oakland fire stations on the fire, a lot of the stations are being covered by Alameda County fire. This is sky fox just over the fire. You can see plenty of activity at the fire. The biggest street is grand avenue and valdez of course as you know. Visibility from lots of parts of oakland. The smoke is still rising. As we get to the commute, fortunately the fire has not really affected the freeway traffic. We have normal traffic going on at bay bridge toll plaza. Backed up for about 25 minutes before you make it on to the bridge. Were looking at 880 northbound which is normally slow. And this morning it is so different driving up into downtown oakland. San mateo bridge is moderately heavy as you drive through. We look at the peninsula and traffic will be okay as you drive up through redwood city or going down. There is an accident in sunnyvale at 101 at the lawrence expressway. Two left lanes blocked by a motorcycle accident. It sounds pretty serious here. The best way to get around that is to use 280 or 85. Do not use highway 101. Again, two left lanes blocked sunnyvale northbound 101. A motorcyclist is down on the freeway blocking the two left lanes. 8 09. Lets go back to the desk. Thank you, sal. Were sitting here having a debate about the smoke. When you drove in, you thought it was going towards the south. Yeah. Towards lake merritt down to the san mateo bridge which is south southwest. An hour later i was crossing the san ramp bridge and it san rafael bridge and it was headed to the north towards richmond and vallejo. You think of the shifts in the atmosphere. We have a southwest and northwest wind and a variable wind out there. The smoke could drift depending on what layer it as caught up in. Looking at the current winds, we will start there. In oakland, the northwest breeze at 5 miles per hour. In concord, it is southwest. Fairfield reporting a southwest. And novato ratherring a north. These are generally at the surface. This is an upper level wind coming from the north and west. You can see it shifted here. Depending which way the wind was shifting and the smoke going up, wherever it was picking it up, it was blowing it in one direction or another. The winds were in general very, very light. Because of it, thats why we had the thick cloud over the oakland area for so lock. And also an inversion in place that locked it in. Right now we have a little bit of fog off of the north bay coastline right in towards the Golden Gate Bridge and areas of the outer sunset and all the way into daly city seeing a little bit of fog this morning. Thats about it. Mostly sunny skies for today. Even at the coastline. 64 in oakland. Upper 60s in walnut creek. Upper 60s in livermore. And 71 in fairfield for the morning. For the afternoon, it will be mild to warm to hot. 68 pacifica. 71 in San Francisco. 99 for antioch. But today is the warmest day. We cool it off some getting into the bay area weekend. More on that in a bit. Thank you, rosemary. New this morning, President Trump and president putin just wrapped up their much anticipated meeting on the side lines of the g20 summit in hamburg, germany. We will share video of the two leaders in a photo op following their first facetoface meeting. We see them shake hands. They didnt reveal anything specific what they discussed. President trump said it was an honor to meet with the russian president. President putin and i have been discussing various things. I think it is going very well. Weve had some very, very good talks. We will have a talk now and obviously that will continue. We look forward to a lot of positive things happening for russia, for the United States and for everybody concerned. Speaking through a translator, president putin said he was delight today finally meet President Trump as well. There have been violent protests as World Leaders gather for the g20 summit. Thousands of protesters marched towards the Downtown Conference Center where the leaders are gathering for a twoday meeting. 160 Police Officers were injured and more than 40 protesters had been detained. We are asking brian sobel to join us on the 9 to talk about the meeting between President Trump and president putin, climate change, north korea, south korea but it looks like the facetoface meeting is on a lot of peoples minds. Were getting word from producers and the crew in downtown oakland that a News Conference is about to get underway regarding the four alarm fire that started just before 5 00 this morning near lake merritt. Lets listen in here. With me are the personnel from ofd. Ill hand the mic offer off to darren white from the oakland Fire Department. T. Good morning. Im darren white. Im the interim fire chief for the oakland Fire Department. Thank you for your patience this morning. Im here to answer any questions that you may have about the incident. Ill start by giving you ai brief narrative about what occurred this morning. At 4 30 hours we had a single call come into the Fire Dispatch Center indicating there was a building on fire at the valdez street address. First units arrived approximately five minutes later. At that time they saw heavy smoke billowing from the structure. Immediately behind that was rapid flame extension and the building became rapidly involved. Not fully engulfed but rapidly involved. They summoned additional alarms to the third alarm right away. The fire quickly progressed, moving forward they actually activated a request for mutual aid. Cities from alameda units from Alameda County, berkeley and albany all assisted to provide assistance to the incident and provide backfill and coverage for our station thats were coming in to fight the incident. That being said our first in units immediately saw the situation and decided it was time to set up a defensive posture and considering the scaffolding and the crane and the activity of the crane at that time they decided it was a hazard not only to the citizens but the First Responders. So they withdrew to a safe perimeter while they developed master streams to fight the fire effectively. Our personnel engaged quickly and effectively to minimize exposure to the buildings, including the parking garage and Residential Structures object all sides of the building. Because of their quick efforts, we were able to minimize the damage to those buildings to primarily radiant heat. In addition, because of the circumstances involving the crane and involving the fact that we had rapidly extending fire, the decision was made to evacuate the residents in all of the adjacent buildings. A 22story structure right adjacent to the building, along with all of the perimeter housing around and surrounding the building itself that was on fire. At this time, theres a temporary Evacuation Center established at the cathedral for at least one hundred person whos have been temporarily displaced by this incident. We have other agencies such as our Alameda County Arson Investigation Task force, alcohol, tobacco and firearms, atf, American Red Cross and the other agencies that i indicated before that are currently assisting us with follow through and investigation on the incident. If anyone has any questions at this time, i have myself and the by tallon chief who was the initial Incident Commander and deputy chief logan will be able to answer any questions you that may have. Can we talk about the size of the fire. Christien kafton with ktvu channel 2. Wondering if we can talk about the size of the fire, the impact on the surrounding area and the crane. We saw the crane swinging around. And finally about the collapse that we saw as well. Im going to allow the battalion chief to speak to the majority of this. Based again on the size of the building and the volume of fire that we encountered on arrival, it was readily apparent that we had a Major Incident so we summoned the Additional Resources up to a third alarm. We had 80 personnel respond to the incident. We had embers permeate the area which would you expect from building debris that is under construction that we have seen in past incidents. With that being said, i will pass on the information to the First Arriving individual on scene. Chief. Can you talk about the size of that fire, the crane swinging around and the collapse. Sure. When we first arrived on scene, the first engine as chief white mentioned, arrived within five minutes of the call. And they reported when they threw the ladder pipe up to the building, they reported there was smoke on the roof. We positioned another truck to the valdez side of the building and had them take a top side view. They were able to identify the flames. The flames and the fire spread significantly and quickly. We knew automatically that we were going to have to go into a defensive mode of operation. This is a 7Story Building under construction. We have seen these types of incidents in the past. Based on that, those were decisions we were making. In addition to that, the neighboring buildings had to be evacuated because of the crane. We talked to biggie representatives and they mentioned when the crane takes on that much heat, it starts to spin. That was one of our Major Concerns fighting this fire. It is something that we had to maintain Situational Awareness because we had Companies Operating near the collapse zone. At one point we had to move them out of the collapse zone approximately 150 feet because we still had to operate and prevent the fire from spreading to adjacent buildings. There was also a collapse. A portion of the Building Collapsed. Thats right. On 24th and valdez, there was a partial collapse approximately two hours into the building. Into the fire. The building was burning as i mentioned significantly. There was a lot of heat. Some of the buildings in the surrounding areas may have taken on that heat. Consequently we had a partial collapse. We let our departments on scene that we had a partial collapse and made them aware of it. Effective in maintaining the perimeter in light of any issues that we had to. Is this at all suspicious since theres been a number of large fires at construction sites. In may, the building previously burned in july and now this one. Is this suspicious or is that something that you will be looking into. The fire is still under investigation as you can imagine. We are not able to make any determinations at this time. How long will the evacuations continue and the damage to other buildings, is that limited to heat damage or is there also burn damage. As far as we can tell, it is radiant heat damage. We are an engineer coming to evaluate those area thats were concerned about area thats were concern areas that were concerned about. We will have updates as time moves forward. We have cal osha and the engineer working together. Weve been told they have security around this building and maybe video cameras. There is a report of motion detectors being set off before the fire started. Can you comment on that. There was roving security patrol. I dont have any information about footage that is available. But i believe the Alameda County task force will be gathering all of that information. What about the motion detectors. I dont have any information unfortunately. The evacuations took place predominantly because of the radiant heat and the condition of the crane, that it was spinning and appeared to be unstable. Everybody was evacuated within a few block radius of the area in part because of that. At this point we have an Evacuation Center established at the cathedral on the corner of grand and harrison. There is roughly 100 people there right now. What about the suspicious nature of the fire . It is just deemed to be under investigation currently. As you can imagine, were still in a position to put out the hot spots and ensure that we can get in there safely at some point and do an investigation. What are some of the challenges for firefighters moving forward . Please raise your hand. As far as containment is concerned, you can see we still have a bit of volume smoke, a little bit of actual flames. I would estimate just looking at it, were roughly 85 or so contained. The second part of your question. Challenges to firefighters. The same that we encountered early on, we have a lot of instability based on the scaffolding and that you had burning materials and the actual crane itself is a major concern. Maintaining a safe perimeter not only for the citizens but First Responders is a priority. Is everyone okay . Any injuries . How was the evacuation process. The evacuation process thanks to the Oakland Police department and others went as well as it could go as well as neighbors making sure that neighbors were sea. My hats off to the Oakland Police department for getting involved quickly and making sure that the residents and affected bizones or other members were removed from the perimeter as quickly as possible. The second part of your question. Any injuries. No. Zero injuries. Can you remind us about the construction site thats have been fire in oakland in the past few months here . How many . I can think of two to three right offhand. We had one around lake merritt. We had the event over on san pablo on apgar. Going a couple years ago, we had the 7th street bart station incident where we had a Major Development taking place there as well. Weve had a couple. I talked to a couple construction workers who work on this site. Their reaction was they cant imagine this was accidental. What is your response to that. I can only state that once i get some findings and some information, definitive information, whether it is from video footage and or the investigative teams assessment of the situation, i cant comment on it without knowing the facts. Was there power . I dont have that information. Is the crane going to collapse or what is your concern about the crane. Right now we dont know what the condition of the crane is. We have assistant from the alameda Sheriffs Office to get an aerial view of what is going on and a closer look without putting our people in the direct perimeter of the collapse zone. We are trying tagline what we can about the status of the we are trying to determine what we can about the status of the crane. Can you talk about the time of the response and the number of personnel and the equipment and what time it was knocked down. Knocked downtime if im estimating correctly was approximately an hour ago. You saw the flames pretty much diminished. As far as the number of individuals on scene, we had 80 personnel respond on scene. 25 or 26 units or apparatus on scene. That included mutual aid units our fourth alarm response and battalion chief, myself, arson investigators and more. It was a four alarm. Yes. We will take one more question and then we will come back. What time are you coming back . We will determine that and let you know. It will be it will be soon. We have no additional reports of any additional fires. Again, i credit that to the immediate efforts of our personnel to get in and start put up a perimeter and prevent exposures. What was the initial call that came in to you guys . Smoke showing from a building under construction. I think that was the jest of what was stated. It was by a lone caller. How did it activate to four alarm . On rapidly expanded conditions and flame presentation. Thank you. We will be back. So time like later this morning, early this afternoon . You have been listening to Oakland Deputy chief darren white there deliver the First Official comments we have heard since this fire began just before 5 00. We now know the initial call went out at 4 30 this morning. Five minutes later crews rolled up to the scene. Active fire. A ton of smoke. I was curious about the decision process. You have to tip your cap knowing what they went through now that we heard from the deputy chief. Tip your cap to the firefighters. They come up on the scene. They are aggressive and want to contain it. All of a sudden, it starts to get too big. Then they realize theres a crane there not stable, swinging around. At the same time, they have to defend the other neighboring buildings knowing there are residents in there and start the evacuation process with them. Here we are threeplus hours since the fire started. Really four hours. An official appears to be holding drones. They are using drones to assess and get video of what the situation is deep inside and high above the building. The two challenges that fire crews face right now, number one, the instability of the scaffolding of the building itself. And number two, the stability of the crane. We heard the fire official say a moment ago that it started swinging around wildly. The crane was taking on that much heat and thats when it starts to spin and we saw that happening live on mornings on 2 in the earlier hours. They had to move many, many people away. A 22Story Building had to be evacuated. People around the construction building itself had to be cold to leave. They are at christ the light cathedral a couple blocks away. As the crane was spinning because of the intensity of the fire, crews were brought back by about 150 feet. They had to maintain, you know, Situational Awareness while dumping water on that fire. We did have a partial collapse. Remember during alex savidges live report there. We saw part of that building came down. Want to mention something very curious that he said during that News Conference. Crews arrived and saw this was burning in the center of the structure. We heard our Christien Kafton there on scene. He asked do you think this is suspicious based on the similarity of other buildings under construction that caught fire recently in the city of emryville. A site that caught fire twice near completion of it being done. They said of course we have atf agents working with oakland fire investigators trying to determine that. I say center of the construction. Because in the emryville fire, firefighters say it started in the middle of the structure. When that happens, it acts like a chimney and explodes to the rest of the building. Right. This seems to have if theres one similarity, it may have been that it started in the center of the building under construction. The chief said the first unit as arriving decided they had to take a defensive posture and withdraw and decided the building was in danger. The most important part of this report according to the Fire Department we had zero injuries. That is a success. We are staying on top of the breaking news. We will bring you more in a minute on mornings on 2. Very busy friday morning, july 7th. Welcome back to mornings on 2. Im gasia mikaelian. Good morning. Im mike mibach. The oakland fire is top story this morning. The fire burning near lake merritt. The first call came in just before 4 30. Flames quickly spread throughout the entire building. On your left you see the fire at its very height. On the right you see what the situation is there now. The building is just north of the lake there on valdez street near grand avenue. Ktvus alex savidge has been at the scene for hours now. Youre now talking to people who were forced from their homes, alex. Reporter yeah. A couple hundred people had to be evacuated this morning. A good portion of them were evacuated from this Apartment Building right here. It is called the grand. It is caddy corner to the building that caught fire this morning. All they have the fire essentially under control, they are still worried about the crane. They were about to let the evacuees back into the Apartment Building, there were a couple hundred people that were evacuated, they were just about to give them back inside. They gave them the headsup that they were going to be let back inside but then they stopped them and did not let them back inside. And that is because of the concern of the crane potentially collapsing. I got word from firefighters that what theyre doing to inspect the crane, they put the drone up into the air and are flying the drone up in the air. Theyre checking on hot spots on the fire as we have seen in the past but theyre also putting the drone up in the air to get a closeup look at the crane itself. To try to asset how much damage has been done to the crane, the top portion of that crane. So they can get a better sense of really how likely it is that the crane could potentially collapse. Again, they are not letting people back into the adjacent Apartment Building just yet because of concerns about that crane potentially coming down. I want to show you video from earlier this morning when the fire broke out. It was just before 5 00 this morning at this Apartment Building. A 7story Apartment Building under construction here. This project is called the atla waverly. According to one of the contractors, this Apartment Building was set to open sometime early next year. It sounds like in february. It was going to be complete. And open. But, again, it caught fire for some reason early this morning and this fire burned out of control as crews across the region tried to dump water on it from the outside using ladder trucks and just to make sure that it didnt spread to nearby buildings. For the most part, they did that. A huge portion of the building came crashing down into the street. We saw that happen live here on mornings on 2. And we talked with some of the people evacuated from the neighboring building this morning and they described what they went through. Actually the alarm didnt go off so people were banging we heard a banging on the door. After a couple times, we got up and at that point in time we knew there was a fire. Everybody exited out the gates and it went pretty quick. Around 5 30, yeah. I was sleeping and there was an evacuation notice. And i didnt know what was happening. And then when we alt ran out, it was crazy. I was scared. I get outside and i go to the corner and then i see flames engulfing the crane. It was crazy. It was super, super high. You could feel the heat on you, the ashes falling down. Reporter yeah. Quite a scary moment for a lot of folks. About 240 or so units in this neighboring Apartment Building called the grand. It is right at 100 grand. And it is just caddy corner to the building that caught fire. All of those people forced out this morning. They grabbed whatever they could and got out. The red cross set up a shelter at the nearby cathedral about a block away to give the folks a place to stay for the time being. As we first reported they were about to let them back into the building, the evacuees, but then they put that on hold because they are still trying to assess the stability of the crane here at the construction site. That crane was not attached to the structure itself. It is a Free Standing crane. Obviously you had that massive fire just sort of burning underneath the crane for several hours this morning. And they are clearly quite worried about that crane potentially coming down. So they are checking the stability of the crane and they wont let people back into the area until they know for sure. It looks like we lost alexs shot right there. Pam cook is learning more about the building that caught fire in oakland. She is joining us live from the news room. Hey, pam. Good morning. Yeah. The building were learning under construction was called the atla waverly, as alex mentioned. According to the project website, it was set to open next spring. We have calls into the project developer which we understand is a Company Based in atlanta, georgia. We have not heard back from them yet. I want to show you drawings here of what the project was set to look like when it was finished. It is part of a huge construction boom there in downtown oakland. This particular area is part of the Broadway Valdez plan. We were talking to Council Woman gibson about this revitalization in the downtown oakland area. This building was going to have nearly 200 market rate apartments as opposed to affordable housing. It was going to be a fairly upscale addition to the downtown area with a fitness room, outdoor barbecues and a pet washing area and a dog run. You can kind of see a little bit on the drawing a rooftop deck that would be overlooking downtown, the skyline and the Oakland Hills area. No specific rental information on the website. But the listings in the area for this kind of building is about 3,000 a month for a one bedroom apartment. On up from there. We have calls into local real estate offices listed as the contacts for renting the retail space and the apartments up above. We have not heard back from them. We heard earlier that the Council Woman had recently secured an anchor tenant. We havent received confirmation on what business that was going to be. Again, this was going to be a very large rental with retail use building that is completely destroyed this morning. Im pam cook. Back to you. Thank you, pam. It only adds to the oakland housing crisis. We have some of the highest rents here in the country. Staying on top of that story, also the traffic ramifications. Sal, i had to fight every urge that i had to take out my cell phone and get video or pictures of that huge fire as i drove by it on 580 early in the 5 00 hour. Youre a reporter too. When i have been in your position, i would have wanted to pull over and start reporting from the scene. I think a lot of people saw the fire, gasia and mike, from all over the east bay. Fortunately it is not a traffic issue. It never really was a major issue for the freeways. Lets go to highway 24 first. Show you the traffic on 24. It looks okay driving through the lafayette area with no major issues driving up to the tunnel. On the bay bridge, we have a typical delay of 15 to 20 minutes, surprising since the other commutes in the bay are relatively light. Were looking at 580 and 880 just to show new relationship to where the fire is. This is where the fire is. The fire is not having an effect on the freeways. It is normal commute traffic. Northbound 101 in sunnyvale, a motorcycle accident clearing there. Somewhat nearby as we move over to westbound 237 at zanker road, there is a crash there. In general, the commute, unless theres opinion a crash, has been a little lighter than usual. At 8 40, lets go back to the desk. Desk. Actually if we can bring in rosemary orozco. The fire itself we always talk about it creating its own weather system. A lot of people saw smoke and flames from very, very far away. And that crane that was circulate. Yeah. How crazy is that with the 100 foot flames going. Yeah. The hot air created its own pattern. The winds were generally calm but the thing was going around for some time. Outside our doors at this hour, we will remain with a light on shore breeze for today and just a little bit of fog. That means our inland areas not going to feel any relief from the pacific. Not going to get any relief from the marin layer marine layer. And it will be quite hot. We have a little bit of fog over the north slower and the Golden Gate Bridge. Thats pretty much where it stops. Fairfield reporting 12 miles per hour. We do expect that to continue. As we get into the afternoon. But not enough to bring us any relief inland. There is a look at the fog at the Golden Gate Bridge. 54 in San Francisco. Upper 60s low 70s already inland. These inland folks will hit almost 100 for the afternoon. When i come back, we will have a look at the afternoon highs. And in the extended forecast, were cooling it down a tad for the bay area weekend. Thank you, rosemary. We continue to follow the breaking news out of oakland. I looked outside and huge flames right out my window. The latest on that massive fire at the building under construction near lake merritt. 8 44. We will update breaking news we have been following since 4 30 this morning. At this hour a few dozen firefighters are at the scene of a massive blaze at a building under construction near lake merritt in oakland. We brought a News Conference to you live about 20 minutes ago. About 100 people have been evacuated to christ the light cathedral. The plans are on hold to let them go back home. There is concern about a Free Standing construction crane hovering over the building. This is the scene of the partial Building Collapse that we brought to you live when it happened around 5 45 on mornings on 2. The building itself there, the stability of the crane is in question. People will not be let back home into the adjoining buildings. We are staying on top of the story for you on air and on ktvu. Com. Right now we want to get to news happening in the south bay. Community services in san jose will begin its 15th annual pack a Backpack School supplies drive. Casey gary is joining us live there with the parents who have turned out to register their children to receive a backpack. Jessie. Reporter mike, the line started before 4 00 this morning. It runs from alma all the way to floyd here in san jose. The washington neighborhood. People lined up to get these these free backpacks. This is the 15th year for the backpack giveaway. 3300 parents are registering their kids for the backpack giveaway which will be on august the 11th. Im joined by matt king, the director of organizing for sacred heart. Matt, how big of an impact does this make on families lives. This is huge. These supplies cost 60 to 100 per kid. It can easily be a few hundred dollars for families. They are hammered by rent, working jobs that dont pay enough to make the ends meet, so the school is actually strongly encouraging families to provide all of this stuff. We work with the schools to make sure that were giving out the right things. So these are speaking of right things, let me say we have a backpack right here. Why dont you open that up while eye hold the microphone. Lets see what we have in there. This is a sample of what the givea ways for the backpacks. We have notebooks, highlighters, pencils. This looks like a bag for the younger kids. For the older kids, we have a scientific calculator and a usb. We try to have a certificate for every student coming in. If people want to donate or, you know, contribute, how can they do that . Were here six days a week for the next month. We need it by august 4th. The easiest thing is to go on to our website sacredheartsj. Org. Matt, very very much. Registration is from 9 00 to 3 00 this morning. They recommend if youre coming out were in the shade. If you are coming out, bring water and sunscreen. It is hot in san jose already. It will only get hotter. Were live in the washington neighborhood, jessie gary, ktvu fox 2. 8 48. We will help get you out the door. Thank goodness this is a friday night traffic along with the fire thats were having. It helped out with the fire because it was light during that time on 580 and 880. We are look at other areas of the bay pretty quick because we have a traffic jam in the sunnyvale northbound 101 at lawrence expressway that is clearing. 237 at zanker an accident there. 280 in san jose doesnt look too bad. The south bay commute continues to be good. At the bay bridge toll plaza we dont have a huge backup but there is one. At 8 48, lets go to rosemary with todays weather. We have a lot of sunshine out there and fog along the coastline. North bay coast down to about the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see here now we can see the Golden Gate Bridge. A little earlier a little bit of fog there just sort of swallowing up most of the tower. We are, again, looking at mostly sunny skies away from the coastline. If you look towards the back drop you see the fog about right in there. San francisco right now 63 degrees. 61 in santa rosa. Low 60s in oakland where we have sunshine and warmer temperatures already this morning. Livermore and san jose in the upper 60s. Most of us starting out a little warmer than yesterday. That will continue for your friday and into saturday we begin to drift. So today is the warmest day. Into the weekend, we will pull it back some. Still going to be warm. If you have been craving the summerlike heat, it will still feel like it, especially inland. Just not today. 92 for napa. 95 in santa rosa. 87 san rafael. 74 in sausalito. Notice at the coast,64 sten son beach. You get away from the coast and it warms up quick. Take a look at some of the numbers. 97 in danville. 100 the afternoon high for brentwood today. Closer to the water, more comfortable. Low 80s in san leandro. South bay locations, upper 80s for san jose. A beautiful 77 if youre lucky enough to be hanging out in santa cruz. 85 in redwood city. San francisco will be a Beautiful Day there. 71 the afternoon high. A look at the extended forecast. Temperatures again fall off as early as tomorrow. A little bit more fog. Still very, very nice out there. Low to mid60s at the coast. Near 80 for our bayside communities and low 90s expected inland with a tad bit of cooling getting into sunday, monday and tuesday. Thank you, rosemary. 8 50, were on top of breaking news in oakland. Chaos after a building is under fire that is under construction. We will have the latest in a moment. Staying on top of breaking news. That massive fire that broke out near lake merritt in the 4 00 hour this morning. It was a going under construction. It was expected to open early next year. A mix of retail and residential space. Now from this live picture you see what little is left of it. A real estate website says an atlanta based Real Estate Company was behind the construction. Again, were staying on top of the scene here. There is nothing left but just a crane ask scaffolding. Still smoke rising from the scene. More on a live report coming up in minutes on the 9. The other big story this morning, President Trump and president putin just wrapped up their much anticipated meeting on the side lines of the g20 summit in hamburg, germany. This shows the two leaders in a photo op. They did not reveal anything specific about what they discussed. President trump said it was an honor to meet with the russian president. President putin and i have been discussing various things. I think it is going very well. Weve had some really, really good talks. Were going to have a talk now. Obviously that will continue. But we look forward to a lot of positive things happening for russia, for the United States, and for everybody speaking through a translator, president putin said he was delighted to meet President Trump as well. Bay area congressman jackie spear is offering a 50,000 reward to find a person who shot a College Student last year. Riley was playing pokemon go in august when he was shot and killed. He was attending Delta College in stockton. Shortly after the killing, police say the shooter may have been seen leaving the area in a toyota avalon. She will announce the reward today alongside his parents. The city of San Francisco is funding the reward. This morning the two men charged in the ghost ship warehouse fire are set to appear in court. They are facing 36 counts each of involuntary manslaughter. One for each of the people who died in the fire last december. Expected to enter their pleas in minutes at 9 00. It will happen at the Alameda County courthouse in oakland. Both men are in jail. Bail is set at 1 million each. The huge fire that started in the 4 00 hour in oakland near lake merritt. A partial collapse happened while we were live. More on that coming up in minutes on the 9. There was a partial collapse of the Apartment Building under construction. We have live reports lined up coming up in the 9. More on that breaking news again from the 4 30 coming up in the next hour. A Delta Airlines flight headed from seattle to beijing was forced to turn around after a passenger allegedly assaulted a Flight Attendant. Seatac Officials Say a 23year old man in first class assaulted the Flight Attendant 45 minutes into the flight. Passengers helped restrain the man until the plane landed back in seattle. Officials say the Flight Attendant and one other person were injured and transported to the hospital. The flight left for beijing last night. Search and rescue crews in italy are looking for anyone who may be trapped after a five story Apartment Building collapsed near naples. They believe six or seven people may be buried in the rubble. Workers are removing the debris by hand. The building was under construction. No word on what caused the building to collapse. Train service is running again this morning after a derail amount the penn station. Officials say the train was carrying about 180 passengers and crew when it went off the tracks. A slow speed derailment. New Jersey Transit is working with amtrak to determine what cause touchdown go off the tracks. A federal judge in hawaii left in place the travel ban from six majority muslim countries. The judge denied a motion to clarify what the Supreme Court meant by a bona fide relationship in the ruling last month. Hawaiis attorney general objected to leaving grand parents aunts and uncles off the list but the judge said the question was better posed to the Supreme Court. This morning at levis stadium there will be sand traps and greens. It has been trance forked to a 9hole golf course. It is stadium links where football stadiums and baseball parks look more like pebble beach. This is video of a similar event at a ballpark in texas. We just checked. While most tee times are booked there are a few spots available. We have a link on ktvu. Com. I looked outside and huge flames right outside of my window. A lot of neighbors running around different doors to make sure that everybody was waking up. We were dead asleep. Dozens of people in downtown oakland woke up to fire alarms and calls to evacuate. At 4 20, the first call came in about a large fire burning at a building under construction on valdez street near grand avenue very close to lake merritt. A number of crews on the scene throughout the morning. At 5 32, Christien Kaftons camera caught this crane as it was swinging around due to the heat it was taking in. Firefighters were concerned that the crane itself would collapse. Thankfully it did not. 15 minutes later our alex savidge was in the middle of a live report when part of