People closure in the area. Reporter now search teams have also been using drones to take video of the burn out areas. Theyre doing that to gather evidence and also to possibly find victims. Now i just got off the telephone with sheriff Gregory Ahern from the Alameda County sheriffs department. He has been out here all day today. He tells me that teams are now at a location where they may have just discovered the remains of five more people and waiting to get some confirmation. In fact he is calling me now ill pick it up and get that back to you in a minute reporting live in santa rosa, jodi hernandez, nbc bay area news. Okay that would be a considerable development. Unfortunate as it stands. Thank you jodi. Well the death toll continues to rise each hour. Were at a point where the numbers are turning into names. Tonight a local high school is honors one alum who died in the fire. The family of Kristina Hanson is expected to expect the cal high homecoming game in san ramon, 27 years ol
Merging now into one, 44,000 acres, crews have it only 5 contained at this time. We are looking live now in santa rosa. As we mentioned we are awaiting the briefing from the sheriff. We will break into coverage when i begins to talk. He has yet to address the podium we he steps ford we will cut in. Lets begin with rabbit handa near oakville with the latest. Robert clarify. You are in napa county which we thought it was primarily just the atlas fire. It is the nuns fire approaching where you are. Reporter thats right. We are at what cuesed to be called the nuns fire now the Central District fire because of the merging of the fires. From this area you can see this fire is spreading fast. In fact cal fire told us we will have to leave this scene soon, the next few hours. You can see which. The fire above napa is now a valuey of thick smoke and flames endevelop. Ing everything in the path. We will come back with the update as soon as we can. We foe you have a press conference you need to t
To attack them and not have to go into those steep stretches and fight them up on terms that are much more dangerous. Reporting live, im joe vazquez, kpix5. Thank you, joe. Firefighters are gaining ground on almost every other front. The massive atlas fire is now 68 contained. The tubbs fire is 70 surrounded. In spite of that flareup the nuns fire is 50 contained. It may still merge with the aggressive oakmont fire close by. The pocket fire is at 40 containment and the Redwood Valley fire is 50 contained. Also today more people allowed back home. Evacuations were lifted for parts of Sonoma County including Bennett Valley road, kenwood, glen ellen, Boyes Hot Springs and areas around the city of sonoma, but its a slow process to get people back into their homes. Cal fire has to give the green light on the reopenings and of local officials are asking the public to be patient. 40thous covered by evacu heres the thing. If your house is burned in a burned area, days or weeks before you can g
Still in full force in parts of the north bay. Tonight choppers dropping water targeting rutherford, the hills above this winery. As the fire comes down and progresses down towards the rutherford area above the winery we are working to slow the spread of that fire. Reporter this morning, a tragic loss in the fire fight. A water tender driver working the area of the napa hills lost control of his truck wg rolling it over down the side of the hill where he died. Our hearts go out to obviously the family and the friends that are impacted by this as it has an impact on all of us. Reporter one more reminder how dangerous the fire fight continues to be. Those who have homes and businesses still in harms way say they are grateful to all those putting lives on the line. Yes its nerveracking. I have complete confidence in them. They are get going in hand under control. Nick not only owns a business at the base of the hillside thats a hot spot. He is a volunteer firefighter who has been out on t
Helicopters move in with yet another water drop. This is an area dotted by some of the most famous wineries in the world including the Robert Mondavi winery. The flames are miles away at this point. Cal fire believes it is making progress. Officials say the plans to let the flames continue to march down toward the valley and meet the containment lines theyve diligently dug. There are a lot of fingers and canyons in there. So if its too steep or the vegetation is too continuance and its too dangerous to put too deep and its too dangerous to put people in there, well use aircraft and use the lines put in in front of the main fire to begin stopping that fire at this point. Reporter suffice it to say cal fire seems to have a level of confidence that theyre going to eventually be able to get this stretch of fire under control in, part because of the control, in part because of the weather and also in large part because they now have a lot of resources theyve been needing both on the ground