Transcripts For KGO ABC7 News 500AM 20171017

Homes are currently threatened. We know that one building has already burned down and about 150 people are being evacuated. Were told that the police are going door to door making sure that the people who need to are getting out immediately. Abc 7 News Reporter matt keller is in the area right now, he has been monitoring the situation for us on the ground. Situation for us on the ground. Matt, what [ no audio ] okay. We are going to try to get to matt keller in just a moment. Reporter hello . Are you there, matt . Reporter i am. Im here. Sorry. Yes, we are in the mountains to obviously cellphone connection is an issue. Winding road getting to the command post and getting to this fire. We just ran into several people who have been evacuated out of the area, one person who was not at home at the time was trying to get through a road block but they would not let him back in. People are being evacuated out, not being allowed back in. Ive been told that these are mandatory evacuations theyre going through, knocking on doors and getting people out of the area. This is a remote area above Boulder Creek, were talking 100 residents, 150 residents up there. This all came in as a structure fire last night and that structure fire spread into the wild land around it and started burning a lot of the trees and brush up here. One of the locals told me that it is just ripe for fire and he said if it was just a couple of days ago they had major winds up here that this fire would have been disastrous and catastrop c catastrophic, but tonight the winds at least where we are at here is calm. So were trying to get to the command post up here and deal with that. Obviously firefighters we just got new information from firefighters that the issue is its very remote up here, access issues, they have three hand crews, about 20 Fire Agencies 20 fire yeah, fire agency tier from different Fire Agencies will be on order to come out here. They have crews that are working it now, but theyre trying to get more resources out here. Six water tenders, they have a bulldozer, four more on order just to get some fire lines up here. Theyre hoping for aircraft earlier in the morning, thats one of their first priorities when we get to daylight today. Matt, you gave us a significant change there. You said that these Evacuation Orders are now mandatory because earlier we were saying that these were advisories. Can you expand on that a little bit . Sure. I dont know where you got your information, i had never seen where it said it was an advisory Evacuation Order. The police were said it was a mandatory evacuation. I know that theres confusion on when people up in the mountains here, im sure there are some people who are being told to be ready to go but apparently when they go and knock on your door theyre telling you its a mandatory evacuation. So im getting two different words from two different stories from different people about whether or not people are being told they have to go or whether or not they are being told they should leave or whether they should be ready to go, but obviously in the middle of the night if someone knocks on your door and tells you that you should probably get out thats probably a good idea to get out because you dont want to go to sleep and wake up and find another evacuation. So im hearing i heard from a Santa Cruz County sheriffs deputy and he had told me that it was a mandatory evacuation, but then ive heard from you guys and also from a resident who was saying it was an advisory. So im sure there are places that its advisory and some places that are mandatory so thats probably where the confusion is coming . Just to be clear we were getting it from cal fire which said that if you feel that you need to evacuate that you should, which to us sounded like regardless, that is the advice from officials. Reporter sure, and im sure that theres certain theres certain areas of this fire, the closer you are to the fire im sure they have become mandatory evacuations but when you are talking about the peripheral areas then you are talking about an advisory evacuation. So im sure thats probably what theyre dealing with. Im sure theyre telling some people be ready and some people get out now. Im sure thats why theres probably confusion on whether they are advisory or mandatory, im sure people are getting different Evacuation Orders. Okay. Matt keller, live on the phone in the Santa Cruz Mountains this morning. We will continue checking in with you, matt. Just another note on whats happening with the fires in the north bay, want to look at the containment figures right now, progress in mendocino and lake counties, the red wood fire we can now say is 55 contained, the sulphur fire 90 contained, the atlas fire at 70 , the tubbs fire 75 , the nuns fire at 53 and the pocket fire at 43 contained. I had someone on twitter mention to me or comment to me that the entire bay area feels like its burning, the entire state of california feels like its burning we have just seen so many fires. Historically october is the month that we do see a lot of fires. Lets check in with mike nicco. Mike, are conditions going to be any better for fire today . I think a little bit. Just because the winds arent going to be as fast, but the most ideal conditions will be with that rain thats going to come in thursday and friday and the cooler air that its going to bring in. Also you can see the Boulder Creek fire there or what were calling the bear fire. Bear fire. Bear fire. Okay. Were hashtagging it bear fire on twitter if you want to follow us there. You can see that it was Strong Enough at times radar was picking it up as it was throwing enough ember and smoke into the air. Lets take a look at what its doing as far as our Current Conditions and there is no real measuring spot right there, there is no official one, but all around it were trying to guest mate elevation, lower elevations, the humidity is a little bit higher, the temperature is a little cooler in the 40s and 50s, up in the mills where they will be fighting the fire temperatures about 69, no wind and humidity, 23 . I decided to do the forecast in the hills because this fire will climb up more than it will climb down or spread right now because of the light winds. Later on northwest wind at 9 miles per hour, temperature 84 and humidity will be about 22 . If youre worried about air quality right now, poorest air quality in the north bay, the rest moderate, but the Santa Clara Valley we will be watching you all day today because that smoke will blow from northwest to southeast, possibly into the southern parts of the Santa Clara Valley from morgan hill southward. Lets get a check on that morning commute. We will head down to the Santa Cruz Mountains and talk about this fire, mike. We do have a lot of closures, this is really not a typical busy route that we would talk about, but obviously we have got some mountainous roads and we have some folks trying to get out of the area. Its between the summit and Boulder Creek and, yeah, these are really some twisty curvy roads you heard matt keller kind of describing that, a lot of them are down to one lane and a lot of them are under construction as well just because of all the washouts that we had over the winter season, the rainy season last year. So a lot of these are tough to pick up on the map but we do know kpr chp that bear creek is closed at deer creek, hawk ridge and state route 9. We also had overnight construction on state route 9 that caltrans picked up a little early to help out folks trying to get out of the area and out of danger. As soon as i have any new information i will pass that along to you and we will take a look at drive times in a few minutes. We do want to look at the containment figures one more time for the north bay. Its something we are monitoring so closely for you. Progress in mendocino and lake counties, the red wood fire now at 55 containment, the sulphur fire at 90 contained, the atlas 70, tubbs fire 75, nuns fire 53 and the pocket fire 45 contained. Okay. This morning once we focus back here on the north bay we want to talk about the sutter hospital in santa rosa, it was evacuated during all of those fires last week, it has now been reopened. It is reopening soon. Abc 7 reporter Amy Hollyfield is there this morning. Good morning. Reporter good morning. Getting cleared for reopening this morning wasnt easy. The hospital had to be thoroughly cleaned and then had to pass inspection from two different state agencies, but of course evacuating was stressful, too. Look at this video that was given to us by the hospital, it shows the fire that was threatening the building last week. The sutter hospital here in santa rosa actually has waterha building. This hospital is new, its only three years old and this water system was included in the design with an emergency like this in mind. They evacuated 77 patients and moved them to other bay area facilities and they are going to be reopening at 7 00 this morning. Full services will be available including emergency care. Another sign of recovery here in Sonoma County. Reporting live in santa rosa, Amy Hollyfield, abc 7 news. Now your accuweather forecast with mike nicco. Lets take a look at whats going on. As far as our winds, and they are very conducive to getting these fires more and more contained, were calm just about everywhere, especially in napa. We have about a 5 mile per hour wind up at the airport in santa rosa and its blowing right down 101 towards petaluma and rohnert park, but notice the visibility, 4 at halfmoon bay, thats more because of low clouds thats not because of fog, we have a little bit of fog around novato but eerybody else doing really well. Look at how clean the air looks this morning from the east bay hills camera, you can see all the way into San Francisco. So lets talk about whats going to happen today. Got your 12hour day planner together. Waking up a little milder this morning with 51 at the coast, mid to upper 50s for the rest of us, about 53 to 57. We will be around 62 to 65 at the coast today from noon to 4 00, 73 to 77 around the bay, look at that 78 to 84y warm inland. We will be back in the 50s, 60s and 70s by 7 00. Cooler weather is on the way, a slight chance of rain and then falllike weather after that. Got a lot to talk about in your accuweather sevenday forecast. Good morning, mike. We will take a look at a new problem in the trivalleys. Westbound 580 near strobe ridge just before you get to 238 we have a crash blocking the slow lane. I do want to take you back a little bit. It looks like we have heavier traffic on westbound 580 getting out of dublin. Im definitely wondering about the location, they could be a little off on that. I will give you an update coming up in just a minute. A quick check of drive times, westbound 580 tracy to dublin 42 minutes in the yellow. Its not slowing you down too much. Antioch to concord in the green at 15 and southbound 101 san rafael to San Francisco you are in the green at 16 minutes. Air quality relief from north bay fires, the reason people in the bay area are running into issues with buying pure fires on amazon. Pure fires on amazon. And the move happening today hi leaving a career to follow a calling takes courage. A personalized Financial Strategy can give you confidence to take the next step. Hi guys aw yeah see how access to j. P. Morgan investment expertise can help you. Chase. Make more of whats yours. dog panting another 2am stroll, huh . Im worried. I have this medical bill. Dave, you have anthem, and they have people to talk to who are empowered to help answer any question you. dog grunting, panting is. Is he okay . Real people . Living and breathing. Hopefully not breathing like that. For all the things that keep you up at night, Anthem Blue Cross has a solution. Back now to that breaking news on the bear fire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The fire started around 11 00 last night near Bear Creek Canyon and deer creek roads. We do have a significant update here for you. It is now at 125 acres, that is up from the 30 that we reported earlier. Cal fire says 100 structures are threatened and one was burned down. There are Evacuation Orders for several roads in the area and we have posted those on our website abc7news. Com. An Evacuation Center has been opened at Boulder Creek Elementary School in Boulder Creek. The fire burning in Mendocino County is 55 contained. The Red Wood Valley fire has burned nearly 36,000 acres, its responsible for eight deaths. The sheriff says all mandatory Evacuation Orders in the county have been lifted and residents are being allowed back in, however, some parts do remain under evacuation warnings. That means you should be prepared to leave if the situation gets worse. We do have a list of all Evacuation Orders on our website abc7news. Com. Firefighters are making significant progress on the sulphur fire in make county, the fire is 90 contained, all Evacuation Orders there have also been lifted. The fire has charred more than 2,200 acres near clear lake oaks. Law enforcement patrolling 24 hours a day in case of looting. The air quality around the bay area has been bad since the north bay fires broke out eight days ago but according to the chronicle some people are having trouble ordering air pure fires on amazon, theyre getting an error message saying the item cannot be shipped to your selected location, the reason, it has to do with a California Law passed in 2010, it bans the sale of ozone generating air pure fires because they can emit a powerful lung irritant. Safer air pure fires are legal within the states but they must be arb certified. In kenwood and oakmont and Sonoma County fire are leaving and residents are slowly being allowed back to their communities. Both towns were raked by the nuns fires with wineries and homes all going up in flames. My guys and gals worked their tails off to take care of what we did to put our fingerprints on it and to make it right. Its so eerie, i dont even know how to explain it. Even what im feeling, its just a weird i dont know. Melissa and her husband were filling buckets with water to give to the pets in the kenwood neighborhoods. They were giving back even though their home had burned to the ground. Happening today, this is the 28th anniversary of the massive home ma preet at that earth day and if you felt it you will never forget that day. The quake struck just after 5 00 in the afternoon and 63 people died over 3,700 were injured and just three days from now is the 26th anniversary of the Oakland Hills fire. 25 people died in the firestorm there, damage estimated at 1. 5 billion. Also happening today more than two weeks after the Mass Shootings in Las Vegas San Jose officials will discuss requiring gun owners to lock up their firearms when they leave their house. According the mercury news the ordinance would require gun owners to put them in a lockbox in unattended cars. Supporters say this would keep the firearms out of the hands of burglars. Opponents say criminals will become nor brazen because they know the guns will be locked up. Also happening today the city of richmond will present different options for moving forward with the North Richmond annexation process. The east bay times reports the formation of North Richmond was largely due to racism. In the 1940s people of color were sent to live in areas prone to flooding. The City Council Meets at 6 30 tonight to discuss an exing North Richmond and it3700 residents. Drone versus commercial plane. There is a report of the first ever collision involving the two. Gio benitez has the details in this mornings gma first look. In this mornings gma first look investigators are looking into the first ever collision between a commercial plane and a drone. This should not have happened. That drone should not have been there. This incident just the latest in a series of close calls between drones and aircraft. It was just off of our left side maybe 100 feet away. With more than 250 dronerelated safety issues reported every month, thats up by more than 50 from last year, the faa is now seeking new Emergency Action to ensure more drone flight plans are reviewed fore takeoff. And its not just commercial planes. Federal safety officials are now looking into an incident from last month when a drone hit the wing of an Army Helicopter that was flying security for a meeting for the United Nations and we will have more on drones coming up at 7 00 a. M. With your gma first look im gio benitez, abc news, new york. An important report because we are looking forward to that, we had a lot of drones flying in the north bay fires and that was told to stop, everyone had to stop flying their drones and that continues in the north bay. I will look forward to that. We will check in with mike. The weather we want to see whats happening with now two areas where fires are concerned this morning, mike. The weather has been Getting Better and better and it will get probably its apex of best fire conditions, if you will, come with that rain thursday into friday. Hi, everybody, lets go down south, san jose 280 at 17 you may see a little smoke later today from the bear fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Its more parallel with you than it is north of you because the winds will be blowing from northwest to southeast. I think from morgan hill southward thats where the smoke will be an issue, places like watsonville, also down into the salinas valley. Lets talk about highlights. More clouds, warmer than average today, tonight steady lows, mainly cloudy once again and the extended seems like forever we have been talking about this chance of rain. Its 7 00, thursday evening, blake, Mendocino County, the northwest corner of Sonoma County some light rain falling. Okay. Notice it stays green, never get moderate, never gets yellow or red or heavy. By midnight its starting to move into the heart of the bay. By iv in the morning its pretty much rained on all of us and its starting to taper and it will continue to do that by the end of the commute with our best chance during the rest of friday up in the mountains and that will taper as you head towards friday evening. Lets look at rainfall amounts. Its not going to take much to make it slick out there since it hasnt rained in a while, most of us will be less than a tenth of an inch. Some areas influenced by hills, oaklan oakland,. 11, a couple hundreds in the south bay. A 1, light on our storm impact scale, it will end friday morning, our coolest day and a warming trend will take us pack in the 70s and 80s away from the coast by the end of the weekend. Good morning. I want to take you back to the trivalleys. A few more details on this crash. About a mile east of eden canyon road on westbound 580. You can see that line of red in the dublin area away from the 680 interchange, three vehicles involved. Off on the shoulder. I did check in with waze and sounds like the right lane is blocked. Emergency crews are on the scene and giving them a little room there. Also gilling in here at the bay bridge toll plaza, i dont believe we have official word yet that those metering lights are on, but if they are not yet they will be any minute now. Not quite as well here southbound 680 through walnut creek. Typical values through the bay area this morning. We will talk about those road closures around the bear fire coming up next. Next, the seven things you need to know as you start your day. Plus the new thing bill gates and oprah have in common this morning. And we have an update to that story concerning that young as fan who lost everything in the north bay fires. Trusted battery for your sons favorite toy . T maybe not. Maybe, you could trust he wouldnt leave the upstairs water running. woman screams or, you could just trust duracell. Im in the kitchen. I need my blood sugar to stay in control. I need to shave my a1c im always on call. An insulin that fits my schedule is key. Tresiba® ready announcer tresiba® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. Dont use tresiba® to trea diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar, or if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. Dont share needles or insulin pens. Dont reuse needles. The most common side effect is low blood sugar, which may cause dizziness, swtiting, confusion, and headache. Check your blood sugar. Low blood sur can be serious and may be lifethreatening. Injection site reactions may occur. Tell your prescriber about all medicines you take and all your medical conditions. Taking tzds with insulins like tresiba® may cause serious side effects like heart failure. Your insulin dose shouldnt be changed without asking your prescriber. Get medical help right away you have trouble breathing, fast heartbeat, extreme drowsiness, swelling of your face, tongue, orhrhroat, dizziness, or confusion. Ask your Health Care Provider if youre tresiba® ready. Covered by most insurance and medicare plans. Tresiba® ready it is 5 24 whether you were just joining us or about to go out the door here are the seven things to know before you go. Number one, breaking news, a fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains forcing evacuations near Bear Creek Canyon and deer creek roads. Its at 125 acres at last check. Cal fire says 100 homes are threatened, already one structure has burned down. Number two, the winds are going to be conducive, they are light to the northwest at about 10 miles per hour, it will be a little warm in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Lets talk about whats going to happen when we can finally get a change in the forecast. Yeah, storm impact scale is a 1, its a light storm but it promises light rains thursday night into friday morning. Number three, we do have road closures surrounding that fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains this morning, between state route 9 and state route 17 really in a mountainous area, bear creek is closed at deer creek, hawk ridge and state route 9 according to chp. Number four, firefighters are making progress on the wildfires in the north bay. The atlas fire now 70 contained and the tubbs fire 75 contained. Number five, in another note of progress, sutter hospital in santa rosa plans to reopen this morning at 7 00. The hospital closed, it was evacuated last monday when those fires were so close to their front door. Number six, the fire burning in Mendocino County is now 55 contained. The Red Wood Valley fire has burned nearly 36,000 acres and is responsible for eight deaths. Number seven, exactly what we do not want to hear, Security Experts have discovered a major vulnerability in virtually all wifi connections. It has quite the name. The crack hack. It could put every device on the planet at the risk of being hacked. Thats scary. How am i supposed to go on with my day after saying that . Okay. Forbes just released its risk as the richest people in america. Bill fwats with a whopping 81 billion and amazons jeff bezos with 67 billion. Warren buffett, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison round out the top five. Elon musk, Travis Kalanick and mark ben i dont have also made at list at 34, 78 and 150 respectively. Donald trump he ranked 156 with 3. 7 billion and oprah just to show you how rich these other people are, oprah comes in at 239th with 2. 8 billion. When you consider the fact that bill gates has given away a huge chunk of his money and is still at the top of the list its incredible. Do you know what, though, i would be happy with 239th. Id take it. I will take one. Were coming back with a full 90 minutes of news including the latest on that wildfire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Matt keller has new details. He just spoke with the fire command chief there. And some fire evacuees in the north bay can finally return home. We will tell you which Evacuation Orders were lifted. We have weather and traffic we have weather and traffic on your screen through hey grandpa. Hey, kid. Really good to see you. You too. You tell grandma you were going fishing again . Maybe. vo the best things in life keep going. Thats why i got a subaru, too. Introducing the allnew crosstrek. Love is out there. Find it in a subaru crosstrek. Now from abc 7, live breaking news. Good morning. It is tuesday, october 17th. Natasha zouves is off im jessica fast troe. We are continuing to follow breaking news out of the Santa Cruz Mountains. A wildfire is burning near Boulder Creek. Matt keller live at the command post on bear creek road. Matt. Reporter good morning, reggie and jessica. Behind me you can see the flames are burning here [ no audio ] looks like were having some trouble were trying to see if what happens we can hear him again. Matt, are you there . Reporter sorry. Im here. Can you a hear me . Yes. Go for it. Reporter okay. Im not sure if youre able to see this, but you have some flames burning here in Bear Creek Canyon and the mountainside here, the hillside that just looks like hot coals and its smoldering here. We have 150 firefighters battling this fire. I talked with cal fire and the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Department and i want to get some clarification of what weve been trying to figure out this morning about mandatory evacuations and advisory evacuations. Santa clara county Sheriffs Office told me that they have about 100 to 200 residents up here that they are that are under a mandatory Evacuation Order. So theyre trying to get those people out and ive been told that they have been knocking on doors. Some residents have told me that they actually were told by other people who were fleeing the fire they got horns were being honked going down the road and people were coming up and knocking on their doors and telling them to get out. So everybody is lending a hand trying to get people out of the area. The winds are calm right now, no wind to speak of, which is the good news up here in the mountains, obviously if you have wind fueled flames thats going to be a bigger issue, but these flames seem to be sitting down right now, which is the good news for cal fire. The santa cruz Sheriffs Department told me they do have these evacuations in the las cumbres area, they say it would take a while for those flames to reach those homes where they have that mandatory Evacuation Order which is the good news so there is a little space between the flames and the homes. There was one structure that was destroyed, that was the original fire that started that spread into the wild land. Up here it is really dry, as i was driving up with my photographer ian and there were leaves and just dry brush, dry trees all around this area, so it is very ripe to burn, but the conditions seem to be relatively cool and relatively calm, which is going to give firefighters a fighting chance against this as these flames continue to burn. Problem with the fire starting in the middle of the night is they cant get aircraft out here to dump water or flame retardant on to the names. They are going to have to wait until its light outside before theyre able to do that. Theyre hoping by 6 00, 7 00 a. M. This morning that they will be able to get some aircraft to this fire and get it on this on those flames that we are seeing in front of us here in the Bear Creek Canyon. Theyre also putting in a major order for more help to come here to the scene, whether it be from the Central Coast or from other Fire Agencies across the state, cal fire would come in and help out, obviously resources are stretched thin all throughout california but this is an interesting sight to see, this fire burning behind us. When we were coming up upon it really looks like those depictions of hell when you look at this glow and coming off the hillside its really kind of eerie in the middle of the night. Weve seen a lot of residents who were evacuated from their home who are parked on the side of the road and staying away interest their homes and just watching this as it burns here in the Early Morning hours. We will keep you updated, get you updates from cal fire, they say theyre planning on giving us another update at about 7 00, about 125 acres have burned, firefighters, 125 of them, 150 firefighters out here on the scene trying to put these flames out in the middle of the night and of course when we right now my photographer ian says you can see the ashes that are coming down from this fire that is burning really close by here this morning. Back to you in the studio. Okay. Matt, thank you. Not what we wanted to wake up to, another middle of the night fire, but hopefully this one will be contained faster than the north bay. Matt said hell and frankly it looks like deja vu for so many in the bay area. We will check in with mike nicco here and ask him about those weather conditions as far as how this looks compared to last week. I have good news, jessica, reggie, hi, everybody. Look at the winds, thats the key right now, the winds as matt mentioned, nonexistent. It is calm. So this is what we call a chimney fire. Its going to burn in the vels and climb up the chaels heat from below rises from the valley, dries the vegetation above the fire and eventually it gets try and warm enough that it ignites. We dont see embers jumping from ridge to ridge because we dont have the ridge so they are staying in the valley also. 69 right now, humidity 23 , we will get the northwest to southeast breeze at 9 miles per hour, could hamper things later this afternoon plus it will be warmer, 84 and humidity never climbs it will be 22 . Things will get a little worse but once the sun comes up maybe they will start attacking it with some airplanes and helicopters. Hopefully they will have time to get ahead of it before the weather changes. I want to head back down on our traffic maps becaus we do have road closures related to this. We do still have lanes closed on southbound 17 until about 6 30 this morning, you will notice the northbound side is just fine. We also have overnight road work on state route 9. Caltrans crews picked that up well ahead of schedule due to this fire, this one fire, because obviously they wanted to help folks out who were trying to get out of the area, but bear creek road is closed at deer creek, hawk ridge and again at state route 9. So just know we definitely have some closures in place if youre not living in the area obviously dont head here and then just do your homework before you try to head out of the area here this morning. Next traffic update coming up in less than ten minutes. We do want to look now at the containment figures from the north bay wildfires this morning. Progress in mendocino and lake counties. The red wood fire is now 55 contained, and the sulphur fire is 90 contained. The atlas fire at 70 , the tubbs fire 75 contained and the nuns fire at 53. The pocket fire, 45. And this morning a sign of progress in the north bay as firefighters get a better handle on the fires. The sutter hospital in santa rosa will open in just about 90 minutes after being evacuated for more than a week. Amy hollyfield is there. Good morning, amy. Reporter hi, jessica. Good morning. It is quite a process getting a hospital reopened. They dont have any surgeries scheduled for today, but they will be open and ready to go for any emergency surgeries as needed. Here is a look at that stressful evacuation that had to happen a week ago. This is video provided to us by sutter hospital here in santa rosa, it shows the fire threatening the building, they evacuated 77 patients to other bay area hospitals. A spokeswoman tells me this morning they wont be moving all of them back. Some might not need to come back, but they are reopening and are ready to accept any new patients. They had to clean the hospital to get ready for this day and pass inspection with two state agencies. So that they could reopen. Theyre reopening today at 7 00 and hoping that this will be healing for all involved, not just the patients. At least 60 of the employees here lost their homes in the fires. So its been a very stressful week in many ways for this hospital and they are ready to get back to the business of healing people. Reporting live in santa rosa, Amy Hollyfield, abc 7 news. Some Sonoma County residents are able to return home after officials lifted Evacuation Orders to four areas and those areas include highway 128 between River Rock Casino and what you can hill road, fought and east shiloh road, west of Fourth Street east and gehrcke road including norbom road and north of east and west napa street to the burn area are open. Cal fire and Sonoma County Officials Say they are confident in the progress firefighters are making, but if your home is in an area that is still evacuated, it could be weeks before you can go to your house. We do have areas out there that are still evacuated and as soon as we can mitigate the threats of that by putting good control line on these fires and making sure that we are not putting people back into their homes and having to pull them back out the next day is eliminated. We will get those repopulated as well. Right now in Sonoma County the death toll is at 23 and around 80 people are still listed as missing. The sheriffs warns the death toll could increase as searches of burned neighborhoods continue. At last count more than 40 tier, Police Officers and other First Responders lost their own homes in the north bay firestorm. After saving lives many of them are now starting to focus on their own losses. The fire union is offering financial help, counseling and assistance with housing. Novato chief Battalion Battalion chief menzel returned to his home now turned to rbble. Everything was incinerated. Theres nothing to salvage. Ive been through here, my home, and its unbelievable. Its extremely humbling and but also its uplifting because because i have so many people that are reaching out. A fund has been established to help the firefighters. Do o donate use your phone, text ff strong to 41444. We also have a link to a go fund me page on our website, abc7news. Com. Now your accuweather forecast with mike nicco. Lets take a look at the visibility. You will like seeing that, even up in the north bay its not too smoky this morning, lowest visibility petaluma at 7, maybe a little lower towards novato and the lowest visibility halfmoon bay at 4, thats due to a little fog there. Sutro tower, you can see how much cleaner the air is today. Here is your 12hour day planner, at 7 00 this morning most of us in the low to mid 50s, 52 to 53 degrees so a little warmer than at this time yesterday morning. The coast, 64 at noon, a little bit of a sea breeze and thickening clouds will drop you down to 62. Increasing clouds around the bay, 72 to 77 from noon to 4 00, if youre heading out for lunch, nice inland, 78. You take the sunglasses even though the high clouds will get thicker. 84 by the afternoon hours so those temperatures are above average. 56 at the coast, 67 around the bay and 71 inland if youre heading out at 7 00. Air quality now i tweeted the air quality last night said poor technically is supposed to be a spare the air day but today is technically not a spare the air day. Never got an answer back from them but you do have poor air quality in the north bay the rest of us moderate, we will keep and i in the Santa Cruz Valley you may get more smoke from the bear fire. I want to take you back to the trivalleys where we have the far right lane blocked on westbound 580 due to a three car crash a mile east of eden canyon road, sounds like everyone is off on the right shoulder, however, chp is there and they are taking that right lane away, we are looking at a backup almost to 680 at this point, you are crawling along at 9 miles an hour, you will want to use Dublin Canyon road as an alternate. We also have the bay bridge metering lights on as of about 5 20 this morning, filling in through the maze, a quick check of drive times, no major delays out of the north bay, Castro Valley to the maze, northbound 101 slowly starting to fill more tragedy in the north bay that one. This. That one. Back now to our breaking news on the wildfire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Here is a live look from the Bear Creek Canyon area, the fire started around 11 00 last night, right now 125 acres have burned. Cal fire says about 100 homes are threatened in the area and one has been destroyed. There are Evacuation Orders for several roads in the area and they include deer creek road, rons road, Bear Creek Canyon and some other areas cumbres part of the mountains. Cal fire says they are waiting until daylight to attack the fire from above using aircraft. We will continue to monitor this breaking story for you throughout our newscast. And now to the north bay. A death of a private contractor there, a water tender driver, it marked the first fatality among the crews working to fight those fires in the north bay. We are sorry to report that yesterday. The driver of that truck died yesterday morning after his rig overturned on its way down the oakville great at the nuns fire. The cab landed upside down on the side of a hill below the roadway, the empty water tanker became detached. The chp will be looking at several factors that could have caused that accident. We will be looking at things such as evidence in the road, fire friction marks, gouge marks, we have wheel stamping which is indicative of a vehicle rolling on to its side, we will take a look at how far it went down the hill. The drivers identity has not been released. Based on the log information on the cab this rig traveled from red bluff to help with the napa valley fire fights. Not only did thousands of people lose their homes in the north bay fires, hundreds are now unemployed. The Human Resources director at Hilton Sonoma wine country lost her job along with 130 coworkers and she turned to social media to find help for her work family. She sent out a plea to businesses in the area with all the positions of employees now left without work and within hours she received thousands of responses. I expected a couple hundred shares. As of now its at about 8,000 shares, i have about 500 emails to my work email. I already have about seven employees that have started working. Thats wonderful news and people who are looking for jobs can go to the local Assistance Center at the old press Democrat Building in downtown santa rosa and hopefully have the same outcome. That was super creative of her. Good for her. When our neighbors are in need abc 7 shows up as well and seven on your sides michael finny will be at the north bay Evacuation Centers to help people affected by wildfires today. You can come see him at the Sonoma County fairgrounds in santa rosa at 10 00 this morning. For a list of all the locations go to abc7news. Com 7 on your side. We have an update to a story that we first brought you offer the weekend. The oakland as are collecting items to donate to a young fan who lost his home in the north bay fires. 9yearold lauren smith had quite the as collection, but he lost it all last week. So the as tweeted if youd like to donate baseball memorabilia to our pal lauren, please send items to the address below and we will make sure that they get them. A dozen teams including the giants have replied they are now sending lauren some gear. I know a lot of people on twitter were responding yesterday after this got a ton of traction. And who could say no with his smile and the missing teeth . I think this is just fantastic, people are donating to help this little guy out. Yeah. Good morning, mike. Doesnt it make you feel good, restore your faith. There is a lot of good people out there you just dont hear about it a lot but when Something Like this happens they come out of the woodwork and they do their thing. Lets take a look at san jose 280 at 17, temperatures running in the low to mid 50s down in the south bay, we will see more clouds as the day wears on, today warmer than average temperatures, steady lows tonight, just a little more cloud cover than this morning, still seems like forever weve been talking about this chance of rain. Here we are at 7 00 thursday evening, light to almost moderate showers from lake and mendocino counties up north, but notice were dealing with just light green to maybe a darker shade of green. We will have light rains as we head through the midnight hours, especially in the north bay, but moving into the heart of the bay and then by 4 00 its down in the south bay but notice its falling apart, always happening this time of the year, the tail end of the storm loses its start as it moves through the south bay. As we head through the end of the morning commute everything pretty much left over lp up in the high country with spotty sprinkles and drizzle, but it will make things wet for the morning commute, so you want to be careful there. Alexis and i will be here to get you through that. Look at the rainfall amounts, not very impressive, not by this models standards. I will go with a little lighter amounts because we are so early in the season. Most of us less than a. 10 of an inch trailing down into a couple hundredths in mountain view. 65 at the coast, 70 San Francisco, mid to upper 70s around the bay and low to middle 0s inland, 80 to 83 degrees there. My accuweather sevenday forecast, a little cooler tomorrow, cloud cover, and the temperatures 50s and 60s for highs friday but then the warmth comes back, 60s, 70s, and 80s by saturday and sunday. Our Biggest Issue so far today is in the trivalleys, westbound 580 a mile east of eden canyon still have that far right lane blocked, a tow truck is trying to get to the scene. They are stuck in traffic, too, they just requested to use the right shoulder and i dont think they were permitted to do, probably a little longer before they get there. Dublin canyon road for an alternate if you want to go over to that surface street that will save you some time. Southbound 680 through walnut creek filling in. North bay mass transit is starting to return to normal, smart train free regular service through wednesday. Gg transit, piner and industrial are open, a regular schedule today and Sonoma County transit back to normal Weekday Service and no fares until further notice. New at 6 00 farm animals racing to safety amid the chaos in the north bay. Where he this ended up, its a heart warming story of survival. Plus the major vulnerability plus the major vulnerability Security Experts uncovered in President Trump broke list silence about the isis attack that left four american soldiers dead in in a zeer. I will at some point during the period of time call the parents and the families because i have done that traditionally. I felt very, very badly about that. The Army Green Berets died after being ambushed during a patrol earlier this month. This was the deadly combat incident involving u. S. Troops since President Trump took his remarks yesterday were the first on the attacks since it happened. The obamas have chosen the artist who will paint their official portraits. Former president obama chose new yorkbased artist kahinde wiley, he is known for his contemporary paintings of africanamericans. Former first lady, michelle obama, chose amy cheryl known for her life size paintings of africanamericans. Both pieces will be added to the Permanent Collection of the Smithsonians National portrait gal are i in washington, d. C. They are expected to be unveiled early next year. Security experts have discovered a major vulnerability in virtually all would i guy connections called the crack hack and could put every device on the planet at the risk of being hacked. Any hacker would need to be physically inside the rage of the wifi signal, however, that being said experts advise you to make sure your wifi network has a password. You can also stop using wifi until your routers are fixed and switch to ethernet instead. Lets talk about whats going on as far as our air quality in the next couple of days. You can see still going to be poor up in the north bay, but for some reason that didnt trigger a spare the air like this normally does, still waiting on an answer from the bay area air Quality Management district about that. We will keep an eye on the Santa Clara Valley. Storm impact scale its a 1, its light which means we have light rains from two tenths of an inch to a quarter of an inch from the south bay to the north bay. It will be breezy at times but this is definitely going to help the tier by bringing down the temperature, rising the humidity and bringing a little beneficial rain. Alexis. We did have a new crash in the cordelia area, westbound 80 right around state route 12, it was a multicar crash blocking two lanes, we just got the all clear from chp but you are jammed from the fairfield area. Westbound 580 tracy to Castro Valley long delays, one hour 14 minutes. Northbound 101 highway 85 to the sm airport slight delays at 17 and no delays 280 highway 1 into San Francisco. Next at can have tracking breaking news in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Matt keler is standing by right now, he is working on getting new information on a fire that is forcing evacuations right now. This is a live look at it. It is 5 56 and we are keeping on top of weather and traffic where you live. Our way of helping you have a better day. Wow nice outfit. When i grow up, im going to mars. Were working on that. Some people know how far they want to go. A personalized Financial Strategy can help you get them there. See how access to j. P. Morgan investment expertise can help you. Chase. Make more of whats yours. dog panting another 2am stroll, huh . Im worried. I have this medical bill. Dave, you have anthem, and they have people to talk to who are empowered to help answer any question you. dog grunting, panting is. Is he okay . Real people . Living and breathing. Hopefully not breathing like that. For all the things that keep you up at night, Anthem Blue Cross has a solution. Now from abc 7 live breaking news. It is coming up on 6 00 a. M. That breaking news in the Santa Cruz Mountains where a fire is forcing evacuations for about 100 homes this morning. That fire started around 11 00 last night and it has quickly grown in acreage. This is happening in the Bear Creek Canyon area near bear creek and dry creek roads. Matt keller is live in the Santa Cruz Mountains right now. Matt, whats the update . Reporter good morning, jessica and reggie. I have an important update to pass along would you. I just talked with cal fire and they say currently in a rescue operation to save a firefighter who fell down a ravine, they dont know his condition, they havent reached him yet, theyre trying to get to him and get him out and see how hes doing. No word on how if hes injured or what theyre facing, but he did fall down a ravine and theyre trying to get to him. They say they are currently in a rescue operation. Another person, an inmate with a hand crew team out here, was injured as well. Smoke inhalation, so theyre dealing with a lot of smoke. Behind me you can see what theyre dealing with as well with the flames in the trees and in the brush, the deep brush out here. We did talk to the cal fire aist cyst ant chief and he told us what hes facing. Its kind of hard to