They got the last of the people out, even the people who did not want to leave. Here is a look at the current evacuation map. You can see that people should be ready to leave in many parts of Sonoma County, reaching all the way to the pacific ocean. It goes all the way as far as mt. St. Helena to the coast. Once again, these are mandatory Evacuation Orders. We also have video from sam brock, our former coordinator and now nbc correspondent. He tweeted this incredible video. It looks like driving through the end of the world. He said fire encroaching the highway on this is in sonoma up. Everywhere. Trees and power lines are down thats from sam brock. We have video of structures on fire in geyserville. Look at that. A big home on fire. These are under mandatory evacuation. We heard that 50,000 people were evacuated within five hours yesterday. Its incredible that authorities have been able to successfully get everyone out safely. We have no word this morning of any injuries given this incredible damage. The one piece of good news were looking at right now is people had time to get out today, yesterday, the day before. We want to get right now to our meteorologist kari hall who can break down a bit more of the information and these winds that got so strong overnight. Kari, you told me these are hurricaneforce winds pushing the fire. Earlier this morning that topped 80 miles per hour, and right now our wind speeds still very strong coming. These are sustained winds with higher gusts. The area around the kincade fire. Weve seen wind conditions very erratic. And at times gusts really high. Right now theyre at 31 miles per hour. Right now the temperatures very cool at 46 degrees and the humidity very low, now down to 16 . A lot pushed off toward the east. Not really affecting the bay area at this point which would, of course, affect the visibility. This is a look from our pg e camera from cobb mountain. It shows the kincade fire. Were seeing this from different angles. The theyre lit up. This is looking from the healdsburg hills as were seeing some of the high wind gusts there. Weve seen this. Check out st. Peek62. Were tracking the fire here. Weve seen gusts in pittsburgh and were watching the fire at bechtless island as well. Were looking at strong winds throughout the morning and possibly into the afternoon. This will be a prolonged, possibly windy bet here as we see the winds rush behind the cold front thats bringing down cooler temperatures. Its also dropping the humidity. But look at these wind gusts. Miles per hour. Wind gusts, 43. Clear lake, 43 as well. Even as we go through the day, unfortunately were not going to see much improvement here. At times, it may get even worse. At times we sauna pa gusting up to 55. With wind gusts, not only could it spread fires rapidly but cause damage. Were looking out for the potential of downed trees as well as this rncade itio. I will, kari. Fi grstng to be joined by rohish lal of Sonoma County. Youve been up all night . Yes. I know a lot has changed overnight. What is new thats changed this morning . Most importantly, weve updated our evacuation areas. It includes a lot of the county and most recently a majority of the city of santa rosa, specifically north of highway 12 and west of 101 and then north of steele lane all the way east to the nappa county border. Oh, wow. Yeah. And this correct me if im mistaken. These are the same people who were hit soy the fires two years ago. Yes, that would inclu s tryi. These people were evacuated in the pitch black. Were you able to get these residents out . I believe people are heeding the warning and evacuating. They know its serious, and for those who havent, id like to urge them to police take this Evacuation Order seriously and Police Evacuate at their earliest convenience. Its really not worth it for People Holding out to save their properties. No. And if youre you know, for people worried about traffic, traffic has been flowing. It hasnt been an issue. So theres really no excuse to wait. Please evacuate. And you have multiple Evacuation Centers in your county, but now are some yes. Finley center Finley Community center in the city of santa rosa has been evacuated. If you were thinking of heading there, please do not. You have a few more than that, is that right . Yes. It can be found on our website socoemergency. Org. Again thats socoemergency. Org. What about the people under evacuation . As weve shown on our screen, east to the napa county border all the way to the pacific ocean. Where do you recommend they go. We have a few Evacuation Centers, and well be posting more information, but were urging folks to evacuate. And from the countys perspective, rohish, what are you going through right now. Were here for the community. This is a tough situation for everyone involved, but id like to let our Community Know and your viewers we are here and were you know, were here to support. And is the hope that youll make it through tomorrow and things will die down. We know we cant say, but we hope for the best. Were monitoring the situation closely and evaluating our options as they present themselves. We all just are with you. We continue to hope and pray for the best outcome. Rohish lal of Sonoma County. We appreciate the sent meant. Thanks for spreading the word. Thank you. Well probably check in with you later this morning. Rohish lal with Sonoma County talking about Evacuation Orders not spreading. Just to recap, those of you under mandatory Evacuation Orders, here is a look at some of the centers. We have at least three places you can go to. The petaluma veterans building, community center, and fairgrounds. The addresses are all on the screen. Please take photos of this and send it to your friends. Evacuations are allowed to bring their pets and small animals. Livestock and small animals can be brought to the Sonoma County fairgrounds. Keep in mind thats not an evacuation place for people. You can drop off your animals and move along and get somewhere safe. Just a reminder, if you know your power is going to be shut off, charge your phones, check your batteries in your flash lighhe gas in your car, have cash on hand, know how to pull the cordnmanually. I saw a great tweet on twitter. If you noel derly or they have disabilities, get their cars on the sidewalk, out of their garages. Do that favor for them. Get them facing the Evacuation Route so they can get out as well. This is the time to look out for ourselves and for one another its 5 10 right now. Again, this is a special edition of nbc bay area news because of the breaking news. We want to take you back to the video of sam brock. He was anchor with our nbc bay area and is now an nbc correspondent. He said fire on both sides of the highway in Sonoma County. Winds picking up. Trees and power lines everywhere. Gosh. It looks likerivi through hell. Looks reminiscent of peop escaping two years ago in this exact same area. We have new video of structures destroying this home. This is just devastating. You see people who have been through this. Theyre going through it once again. We are with you here all morning to give you the very latest. We now want to check in with meteorologist Craig Clemens with fire weather lab. Craig, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Where are you located . Im on a road in santa rosa coming over. We were in knights valley. Youre in an area that is now under evacuation. I assume youre being safe. I assume you know what youre doing. Can you tell me what youre seeing . Yeah. What we saw earlier this evening were winds gusting to 50 miles an hour plus at the surface, and with our Doppler Radar, we were able to measure winds in excess of 65 miles an hour on the ground. You were there with flames and structures on fire. What were you seeing . We didnt see structures. We were a little further away. We were about 3 kilometers from the fire front. We saw extreme fire behavior. Very extreme fire behavior, flame lengths and feet. Lots of downed trees on our way over on our way to santa rosa. P its a big windstorm and its driving the fires fast. Oh, my gosh. How are you able to stay safe through this . I assume with your meteorological knowledge youre able to drive the opposite way the wind is blowing . No. Were actually making measurements with Doppler Radar and supporting you said 50mileperhour winds were the winds that you were measuring just at regular ground height. Yeah. Right at the trucks we were measuring the winds. The radar was measuring a lot of interesting things as well that we saw, but, yeah, its extreme. The fire behavior is extreme. Do you feel hot . No. We were on the soid ide of the plume, so we were able to view it as it was burning perpendicular to us. The air temperature was 48 degrees. Wow. It was very cold. Now its 60 degrees in santa rosa. Its jumped. The temperature has risen since the last hour. Craig, can i ask you how long have you been doing this . Is this unlike anything youve seen before . This is a pretty extreme case. Its one of the most extreme ive experienced but not the most extreme in california, but its what weve observed. Weve been to 30 fires with the mobile system in the last five years, and this is our most extreme fire. Wow, wow. That is something to note. Craig, we want to thank you so much for joining us this morning. Craig clement sure. Fire weather lab. We hope you continue to stay safe. Thank you for bringing us all of the information from the front lines, and well probably check in with you again as the morning progresses. Stay safe out there. Sure. Thank you. We want to turn it over now to meteorologist kari hall. As you just heard meteorologist Craig Clements talking about seeing 30 fires in california. That information that theyre gathering is really critical for future research for us to know more about how these in certain him for that. Conditions. Thats serious work and we thank as we look at our current conditions, as we talked about, its very cold because a cold front swept through and thats whats also driving these high winds. Now the current temperature is at 46 degrees, and were also seeing very low humidity, down to 16 . When the air is dry, the fire spreads more rapidly, and you have a gust to push it along, and thats what were seeing. Right to the east of geyserville toward healdsburg, its going to blow everything toward the ut why healdsburg and windsor are under mandatory evacuation because we dont know how fast this is going to spread. As we look at the satellite and radar, we see the smoke, the thickest smoke and visibility. Weve got a lot of cameras on some of the peaks in the north bay. Were seeing bright lights here even though its nighttime. This is the fire as its being seen from lots of different angles and the smoke thats billowing out of that. We know that the wind is driving those flames and causing it to just explode very rapidly here. Weve seen our gusts in st. Helena reaching 61. But even as i mentioned in the lower elevations, were seeing high wind gusts, so thats something weor t throughout the day as our winds in healdsburg gust up to 52 miles an hour and to the north, were seeing gusts at 65 miles an hour. Going through the rest of the derek were still looking at really high winds here, coming in at about 40 to 45 miles an hour through 7 00 to 8 00. It may get higher. Look at 8 00. Were seeing models putting down high winds. All of these areas in the hills, higher, in the 1,000 feet are going to see the higher gusts, and going into the afternoon, were not catching much of a break here. And so theyre having to evacuate these areas downwinlds of this because this is going to be a prolonged wind event thats also going to cause erratic fire behavior, and weve seen as people get video close by and they see the firenadoes and things that can spread fires in different directions. So as we go throughout the rest of the day, even tonight, were taking it into tomorrow morning, were still seeing some of those wind gusts continuing especially in the north bay, and it wont be until tomorrow morning when we see the weather conditions getting a little bit better. Were still under this high wind warning throughout the day. It ends tomorrow morning at 11 00. Its all these areas mostly above 1,000 feet in purple that are included this high wind warning and a red flag warning meaning we could still see fire conditions spreading rapidly for areas all across the north bay. We talked about humidity just a little bit. Lets go into the forecast where the humidity levels as we go in to the rest of the day. Mostly in the wind stream theth is very dry. Critically dry conditions going into the rest of the day. Even into early tomorrow. So what we talked about earlier with the kincade fire, make sure youre checking the information thats scrolling at the bottom of the screen. Weve been told that everyone around healdsburg needs to evacuate as weve seen those gusts reaching 80 miles an hour. The strong winds will continue as the fire spreads rapidly throughout the day. I wanted to show you the rest of the forecast, what were expecting here. We have a high wind event. Now well see the winds calming down on monday, but unfortunately theres going to be more high winds on wednesday if we dont get some containment on this fire soon. Theres going to be another chance that we could see thisng were going to keep you you up dated on as we look at the high humidity in the forecast. Thanks for preparing us, kari. We hope for the best on that front. We want to take you now to the sound booitd of fire officials as to how the fire is growing on highway 128. We were out here on highway 128 observing fire behavior. The fire behavior was subdued. The winds had. Picked upiest. We monitored it as it shifted. Strong sustained winds. We observed increased fire behavior. There was containment lines installed and firing operations that were oveaken bthe fire. The fire behavior continues to increase. The strong gusty winds were forecast, updated from 3 00 until 10 00. The fire containment is increasing. I know yesterday you guys were looking at all kinds of different forecasts, weather models, fuel conditions, the path the fire may take. So basically you have prepared as much as possible for this exact scenario. We have done everything that smart fire and fire this is a very difficult situation to stop because it di fast. Its like man against nature. Theres a point where the fire behavior, the weather, all the condition conditions become at a level where theres almost no stopping a fire when its got a strong head on it. We always have to keep safety in mind. The safety of our firefighters. I apologize. No worries. The safety of our firefighters and the safety of our we have cs and strategies that maintain the safety at all times. All right. So what happens next . I know youve called in a bunch of resources. Whats the strategy Going Forward . The strategy Going Forward will be decided tomorrow at base camp by the leaders of this incident. All right. So are you putting some of these mobile units in for structure protection . So we have several resources, several different nd theyre being given assignments based on their strengths. At times, its going to be structure events, fire front following. It depends on the unique situation at the time. Thats up to the Division Group supervisor or the branch. All right. Last thing. What should the public know . What should they do . Its repetitive, but what should they do from this point on . The public should evacuate when orders are in place. Its very important priority is life safety. The second is the safety of, you know, and the third is resources. So i would ask the public to evacuate. Really good information from cal fire. We want to turn to melissa salbolten with pg e. Thanks for being with us this morning. I assume youve been on alert the last couple of days. Whats the latest you can tell us in terms of pg es Power Outages . The latest with pg es Power Outages. I can share that. We have turned power off to approximately 940,000 customers in approximately 35 counties. That began late safrmtd customers in kern, fresno, and madera also power turned off tomorrow for safety. Thats because is that because of the weather patterns youre looking at . Youre afraid that the winds will move more inland and, in fact, in kern, fresno, and maduro as well . Thats right. Because of the winds, we have included those three counties as well. In terms of the Public Safety power shutoff, people who still have power right now, do you in the north bay, in the south bay, in the east bay, here in e be in the clear, or are there still potentially more public power safety shutoffs to come . Yeah. So its hard to say. He clear in the sense of the wind or are you asking clear in the sense of a future Public Safety power shutoff at the end . Sorry about that wording. More in the out of the concern that they need to charge their phones, gas up their cars, go get cash, fill up their freezers, fill up their refrigerators. Should people still be operating under the assumption that that could happen to them today . People on peninsula perhaps, people in the south bay . Our station is located in san jose. Street lights are still on, you know. Stoplights are still functioning. Should we operate under the assumption that that might not stay . Thats right. So if you were to be included in this Public Safety power shutoff event, you would have been notified with a specific notification alerting you your power will be turns off so at this point if you were to be included in this you would have received a notification. But what i can share with is theres still a possibility due to this widespread wind event you could have a power outage unrelated to the Public Safety power shutoff, but due to wind damage that may have occur red s part of the event. Right, right. As part of nature. Were looking at 940,000 people without power right now, and what does pg e do now, wait until the fire goes down or winds go down . We have to wait for an all clear given. Once its passed, we can send crews to begin conducting patrols and inspections of the lines. Once the inspections have been completed and theyve assessed that theres been no damage, we can begin the restoration process. So times is really contingent upon the weather passing and crews being able to access the area safely and, again, determining no damage was sustained to the lines. It almost sounds like its a domino effect. Once you get the all clear from cal fire is it and the National Weather service . Yeah. So once we receive the weather all clear, that the weather has passed, then were able to send our crews in to begin patrolling. We have crews in the area. We have 42 helicopters on standby. We have crews standing by overnight given the Long Duration of this wind event. Power cannot be restored until that all clear has been given and were able to inspect and deenergize lines and begin to turn the power back on. So were looking really at tuesday right now that people could potentially be seeing their power turned back on if the protocol is as expected that the winds will die down as the day progresses today, and then maybe 48 hours from there. What do those helicopters do that you have on standby that you have right now . They provide visual inspection of our infrastructure particularly in some of the more rural areas. We also conduct onfoot surveys. So its a multipronged approach to inspect the infrastructure, but they do allow us to cover a significant amount of ground in a shorter amount of time. Yeah, absolutely. And so you said overnight they were able to do some inspections even though were in the midst of this chaos right now . So they have not once the all clear has been given, we do have a fixed winged aircraft on standby that can conduct some looks like we just lost Melissa Subbotin of pg e. We want to thank her for her time and update this morning. She just indicated there are 940,000 people without power across the bay area right