Fire. Its burned 1,500 acres since it started yesterday. At least one home has burned. Firefighters are having a hard time controlling the fire which is just 5 contained. One firefighter was taken to the hospital with a minor eye injury. Abc 7 News Reporter chris nguyen is live near morgan hill with this developing story. Reporter this fire erupted so fast that resident barely had a enough time to escape. Im going to step out of way so you can take a look at the smoke behind me hovering over the Santa Cruz Mountains this afternoon where some of the neighbors are still waiting to find out if their homes are still standing. In the Santa Cruz MountainsCommunity Members try to lean on one another for support. They lost their house and their animals in front of their eyes. It was heart wrenching. Reporter just below loma prieta on casa loma road many gathered to wait it until as crews worked to contain the loma fire. Seniors up there thats lost everything. Some of them are on medication. They didnt even have time to get their medications out of the house or anything. Reporter sky 7 shows the smoke dominating much of the Santa Clara Valley skyline this. Womans childhood home has been spared but her grandmothers house a few doors down didnt make it. I didnt think it would hit us and all of a sudden, no, its coming. I can see flames from mini pateko. Reporter fire personnel will on the ground with more to arrive in the coming case. Temperatures on the fire lines are anywhere between 90 and 100 degrees this afternoon. We have very, very, very dry fuel up. There. We have steep terrain and territory that hasnt burned in 50plus years kind of making the perfect storm for this event right now. Reporter residents nearby say they are trying to keep their heads up. Do you know that the community is here to help support in any way they can, and its a wonderful feeling. Reporter a devastating 24 hours, but an ordeal thats brought these neighbors closer together, and those numbers, again, at least 1,500 acres have burned. The fire is just 5 contained. We expect to get another update from cal fire at 7 00 tonight. Reporting live in santa clara county, im chris nguyen, abc 7 news. Video from sky 7 shows firefighters hosing down flames next to a building and home on casa loma road as severalhorse s nervously pace back and forth. Residents grant pets they can and head to safety. The cats, thats important and i dont really know. I mean, were agrade that even if nothing goes wrong with our house we wont be allowed back in so were not sure where well be staying, grabbed a few days worth of clothes. Thats all weve got. Three shelters have been set up for evacuees. Most of the rescued large animals are being taken to the kanata cruz county fairgrounds in watsonville. Fifth, are keeping a fire from growing in cloverdale. The sawmill fire is 55 contained. Its burned 1,500 acres since breaking out on sunday. More than 1,000 firefighters have endured High Temperatures, dry conditions and steep terrain. Investigators are working to figure out what sparked that fire. Here at least 11 wildfires currently burning across the state of california right now. One of them is that soberanes fire. Weve been talking about this for a long time. It was started by an illegal camp fire back in july and still only 81 contained. The fires are causing some air quality issues. Just take a look at this. You can see the smoking haze off in the distance looking towards the loma fire. Spencer christian here now with a closer look at our air quality. All right, larry. Air quality should begin improving this evening as well as tomorrow and you can see on live doppler 7 nothing back at the coast and its cooling effect and it will bring a change in wind directions. Conditions near the loma fire. 89 degrees. Still pretty warm though not quite as hot. Relative humidity up. The wind is generally light, about 4 miles per hour, but gusts have exceeded 10 miles per hour. Look at the direction in which the smoke is blowing on this satellite image. You can see the smoke is sweeping southward away from the bay area right now. That pattern will continue into tomorrow, so not only will the cooler air here in the bay area improve our air quality but the fact that smoke is moving away from us will also be helpful. Not helpful to the firefighers will be the stronger winds tomorrow. Midday winds will be generally 9 to 12 miles per hour. At least the gusts will be, so that may complicate the Fire Fighting effort just a ilwill bit. However, on the helpful side. Temperatures will be dropping off sharply and cooler over the next seven days. Much cooler over the loma fire and relative humidity will be increasing. All weather factors except winds will be favorable to the Fire Fighting effort. Ama . All right. Thank you so much, spencer. Now back to that fire burning near petaluma. Sky 7 is over this scene of that fire where there are reports of at least two structures burning just east of highway 101. The northbound lanes are closed right now at lakeville highway because of this fire, and we have a witness on the phone right now with us jody hicks. Jody, how close are you to this fire . Reporter i. Ive actually moved away from the fire. They were asking people to step back because a lot of people were clamoring to get a view, so i was kind of clogging up the streets so ive actually moved far away to get out of the way of the fire trucks. So were you just standing there looking on . Honestly i was in my apartment like two blocks, three or four blocks away and i looked out the window and saw the smoke, and i thought it was the safeway or, you know, like much closer, because the smoke was so large. As i started to walk down the street, i realized this is much further away, and once i got closer i realized this was actually right near the 101 by the overpass, the pedestrian walkway over the freeway. Well, what were seeing right now it looks like two homes that are on fire unless they are attached right there. Its a little bit hard to tell and firefighters are on the roofs of those homes trying to vent the smoke. Does it look like there egos anything else aside from the brush in the area thats presently on fire . No, and while i was there, you know, it would turn to white smoke, and then would you hear kind of a popping noise which is customary when trees and such catch on fire and so you could see a big blume of black smoke but then it would quickly go back to white as the Fire Department was getting control of the fire, but, no, people on the streets were, you know, obviously its all hear say because we dont really know and people were saying its six houses or three or four houses. There was a woman, you know, that ran by crying. She said her mothers house is over there, so out of respect for everyone involved, we we all kind of stepped back and just let the Fire Department do their jobs. Well, that is very kind of you, yeah, we are seeing it. Weve confirmed two structures on fire and what were seeing right now, seeing a little bit of the brush smoke as well at this point, but it seems like its a fairly densely populated area when we take a wider shot. Can you talk about the area and whats in there, a lot of businesses or just mainly homes . Its mostly homes right in that area. You know, the 101 is right next to most of the homes. At least i could estimate it was in proximity to the 101. You know, as people were coming by they were saying, oh, its right by the overpass. Initially it was just a tree, and but, yeah, its mostly homes in petaluma. Petaluma is, you know, a quaint little small town with a densely populated area of homes and apartments. There is a little business area, you know, further up off of off of mcgregor, but its not its mostly people with, you know, onefamily homes living in that area, and it was spreading pretty quickly until the Fire Department got a handle on it you mention that had you live in an apartment complex nearby, and were showing some scenes from our helicopter so traffic is backed up because the highway is shut down near sturlt drive, but whats the level of general anxiety because you could see how this type of thing could spread rather quickly . Of course. Yeah, you know, where im at, you know, theres a major road between myself and where i live and, you know, the fire. I would say the level of anxiety is largely with those losing their home or think they have lost their homes. The majority of the rest of the people that i witnessed, they were largely calm and all too willing to just step to the side and get out of the way of the professionals and the let them take care of this. There was no kind of hysteria or anyone, you know, being kind of out of control except, as i mentioned, those that were fearing that they had lost their homes or their loved ones. We can all understand that. Jody, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about what was going on, what youve been seeing and being so respectful and letting firefighters do their job. For sure. You can see the flames now erupting from the roof there. This may get worse on that one particular home, that situation, before it gets better, but weve got the firemen on the ground, and you can see on the right of your screen they are trying to deal with hot spots in that area. It doesnt seem like the brush is burning anymore at this point. It looks like maybe they have taken care of that, but that is what appears to be a home or perhaps some sort of could be a garage. Yeah. Its hard to tell, but you can see the flames just shooting through the roof. Petaluma, stewart drive, and we did see most of the businesses are on the other side of the freeway. Sure, sure. The concern, i guess you would have, if youre a homeowner in that area is any kind of debris or particles that get whipped up into the air could easily hop across the street, and then youve got a much bigger problem to deal with, and i guess we have a chp officer on the line right now, john, can you hear us us . Yes. Whats the situation with respect to the chp, and i can see the 101 is closed, at least in this area. Our officers came at about quarter after 3 00 and what they thought was a vegetation fire. Turns out multiple houses were involved. Petaluma pd requested we shut down the freeway so that they could get Fire Equipment in there, so as of right now northbound 101 is being diverted off lakeville highway. We are trying to get at least one lane open as of right now, but thats probably at least half an hour in the future here, so if youre coming in from marin county into Sonoma County just be prepared for a very long commute on 101. Yeah, certainly, and so its the northbound. Southbound not affected except for people, of course works will be slowing down and looking, but no closures there . No closures on that side. It does look like we have some pretty slow traffic on that side. Again, people sitting there watching and so it is hard getting through petaluma in both directions right now. Whats your advice to anybody that has to go in that direction . Is there any other alternate route . There are a couple of alternate routes. If youre still in marin county, you might consider 37 to lakeville highway. If youre coming in around the county line, you can take san antonio road and hit the back roads into petaluma. I think either way youre going to see some a lot of congestion in all the back roads. Yeah, certainly. We are showing some helicopter video, and it looks like traffic is backed up basically forever there while firefighters work to try to contain this this blaze. Do you have any information from the have they told you whether its one home or two homes . We can see the brush thats on fire. Its a little bit hard to tell how many homes may be impacted. According to our officers first on scene there were multiple homes involved. Okay. He said two to three at that time and that was almost an hour ago. John, thank you so much for giving us that update. Just tuning in, again, youre looking in from sky 7. A live look in petaluma at this fire thats burning. Multiple homes. You can see the flames come out on 101 northbound shut down in that area. People are being diverted off at lakeville highway so that the firefighters can get any vehicles that they need to get to that fire. But as the officer mentioned, 101 will be closed for at least a half an hour and it doesnt look like they got the fire in this one house really contained at this point. Youre still seeing smoke coming up and active flames and this may take longer than half an hour. Absolutely and even to get one lane open in half an hour probably wont do much good for the evening commute. Were keeping a close watch on this and will bring you the late as we continue on the abc 1 news honey nut cheerios get their delicious taste from honest ingredients. Like real delicious honey, and real oats. Ok thats still honey. Ahhh, there we go. Were back to honey again. Whos directing this . That guy, figures. Introducing tiny toast. The tiny cereal with the big taste of real fruit. Want to continue with our breaking News Coverage of this fire in petaluma at stuart and mckenzie drive there. That has closed down northbound 101. I was just checking in the Weather Center with spencer christian, and he says the temperature right now is 82 degrees. 33 humidity which is not bad, and the winds are from the northwest at 8 miles an hour. So these conditions are actually favorable for the firefighters, especially given what everybody was dealing with over the weekend when we were in triple digits in many neighborhoods. Yeah. It was certainly quite hot. Fortunately were on this cooler trend as we start to bring the temperatures down a little bit. You can see on the map where this fire is burning. You can see petaluma where stuart drive, is and now as we take a look at the traffic, you can see that northbound 101 is what is affected, is what is closed right now. Traffic is getting off at lakeville highway. Southbound is still open, but, of course, people are going to be looking, and and that will definitely slow down a little bit through theyear. Its going to take forever there, and even with we saw the earlier shot there just a few seconds ago, the traffic being diverted, but this is kind to wind for miles perhaps. Yeah. So its going to be a pretty slow commute in petaluma tonight. Another big mess today on the Richmond San Rafael bridge, and there a big rig caught fire in the eastbound lanes. Crews have been trying to clean up that mess pretty much all day long, and the road is still closed there as well. Not expected to open until 6 00 tonight. Abc 7 News ReporterWayne Freedman has been following this story and joins us now with the latest. Wayne . Well, it is good news, bad news, larry. The good news it will reopen at 6 00 tonight. Thats an estimation but the california highway patrol. The bad news that for eight hours the Richmond Bridge eastbound, youre looking at westbound, the Richmond Bridge eastbound has been closed. It is the one big rig that took up and snarled two eastbound lanes of the Richmond Bridge, the only two lanes. It happened during commute. But the aftermath extended on through the day. 8 00 a. M. This morning this big rig or what remains of it hit an eastbound guardrail and careened another 150 yards and caught fire. Big hollywood productions have nothing on this. The crash is still under investigation, but we do know that the driver was not intoxicated. There were no injuries, no other vehicles involved and what a mess from diesel spilled on the road bed to metal to a cargo of contaminated soil to concerns about structural damage in the fire to the rerouting of traffic off the bridge and backwards. Meantime on the western side of the Richmond Bridge some eastbound commuters waited. Read this womans lips as she said i left two hours ago. Her name is beth miller from santa rosa. Shes a teacher. What are you runing . Patience and tolerance and acceptance. That would be a good start until the next stop. Two jammed lanes and one long day on the Richmond Bridge. And and a lot of people trying to get across the Richmond Bridge will look like this gentleman right here sitting in his car waiting for the bridge to reopen supposedly at 6 00. This is the parking lot near san quinton prison. Its been filled, lets just call them optimists. Filled with optimists all day long and they are still optimistic at 6 00 that this bridge will reopen. Live at san rafael, sam freedman, abc 7 news. Thank you. Abc 7 viewers have been sending us pictures of the big rig fire. Gay timmons actually saw the fire from a dissins it a. You can send us your pictures using the abc7now and you might see your pictures like this. The road is not expected to open for a few more hours and thats creating a huge mess for the evening commute as you take a look at the traffic map and the red lines show the slowest areas for drivers, and weve got a considerable amount of red all over the place. What a mess. The best place to be is at home watching us and not in your car. Exactly. Spencer, as were you mentioning earlier, at least the temperatures are starting to trend downward a bit. They are indeed and humid city going up a bit. Winds relatively light and thats good news for your concerns. A look at live doppler 7. You can see fog has returned to the coast and the cooling has begun significantly near the coast and bay. Still pretty warm in our inland areas, but the marine layer has brought the relief weve all been looking for. Check out the 24hour temperature change. Its 25 degrees cooler right now in Half Moon Bay than it was this year yesterday. 17 degrees cooler in San Francisco and palo alto and just as hot in concord though as it was at this time yesterday. Inland areas are still pretty warm. This is the view from sutro tower and spilling through the golden gate and reaching out over the bay. It will continue its push late evening hours. 69 degrees in San Francisco and near 90 this year yesterday. Oakland 80 and 83 in Mountain View and 92 at san jose and 96 at gilroy. Inland areas quite warm. 59 right now at Half Moon Bay. Heres a view from emoriville of the fog rolling through the golden gate. Bring it on, the cooling, tha