coming to an end. everywhere you looked was on fire. houses on fire, trees on fire. i was transported into a war zone. i just lost it. i hear my dad screaming, it s here, run. you just got to push through. you do not stop. i said, please send somebody. and she said, there s nobody to send. it was, survivors said, like something alive a living, breathing giant that came out of the woods to hunt them down. the flames were so relentless, they burned for a month. so fast, they raced through roughly three football fields per second. hi, everyone. i m lester holt. welcome to dateline. it was california s biggest wildfire, one of the most brutal ever recorded. tonight, you ll hear from the people trapped in its path, how they ran for their lives against the flames, against the clock to escape. and it began in one of the most beautiful places on earth. it was perfect. it was our dream home. it s exactly what you want if you want to be away from a city.
coming to an end. everywhere you looked was on fire. houses on fire, trees on fire. i was transported into a war zone. i just lost it. i hear my dad screaming, it s here, run. you just got to push through. you do not stop. i said, please send somebody. and she said, there s nobody to send. it was, survivors said, like something alive a living, breathing giant that came out of the woods to hunt them down. the flames were so relentless, they burned for a month. so fast, they raced through roughly three football fields per second. hi, everyone. i m lester holt. welcome to dateline. it was california s biggest wildfire, one of the most brutal ever recorded. tonight, you ll hear from the people trapped in its path, how they ran for their lives against the flames, against the clock to escape. and it began in one of the most beautiful places on earth. it was perfect. it was our dream home. it s exactly what you want if you want to be away from a city.
front of the american tomorrow night. the passing of n chester. massive crowd has also xwatherred the gathered there. continue to story out of the south and storm will align, turning daylight into darkness. the franklin institute will have a number of ways to see the event during a free viewing party off the parkway. today, a lot of people were on a mission to find the special glasses. we talked to a surgeon at will s eye center. looking at the eclipse without special glasses can do permanent damage to your eyes. you re doing something you don t normally do, and that s where the recipe for disaster comes. once it happens, we don t have a good way to make it go away. those lucky enough to have glass should put them on before they look up. if you do not have them, they re now let s get to the forecast with erika martin. is rain a threat to hit the region? here s the deal. we do have some clouds and scattered showers flirting with our viewing area. i m going to time
pelley: it hit hard, it hit fast, it hit with an intensity we hadn t seen before. those are the words of fire chief mark hartwig describing the wildfire in san bernardino county, california, that has forced a mass evacuation. the runaway fire exploded overnight, torching more than 30,000 acres and an untold number of homes. nearly 83,000 people have been evacuated, 34,000 homes are in tonight, carter evans is on the fireline, 60 miles east of los angeles. reporter: massive flames tearing through miles of dry brush, unstoppable. this is the nightmare wildfire chief mike wakoski has always feared. in my 40 years of fighting fire, i ve never seen fire behavior so extreme. reporter: unprecedented, they say, the result of five years of drought. communities, consuming local landmarks and homes. that building totally gone. reporter: after home after home. it looks like it just incinerated everything here. correct. it was very nondiscriminate in what it chose to take in
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