in san francisco. our media partner, the san francisco standard, was there today as city crews cleared an encampment near the central freeway. at one

point, as you can see here, even dragging that tent with apparently somebody inside, the standard's reporter will join us live with more on what he witnessed in about ten minutes. but we begin with the wildfire emergency here in the west. the park fire in northern california continues to burn through communities. one of more than 100 active fires from here to colorado and arizona. thanks for joining us i'm kristen z. this is abc seven news at three. that historic park fire is now the largest wildfire burning in the u.s, and the fifth largest wildfire ever to burn in california, triggering evacuations in butte, tehama, shasta and plumas counties. so far, it has burned more than 385,000 acres. and it's 14% contained. abc's tim pulliam has more. reporter >> firefighters struggling to tame the park. fire's wild flames. only 14% contained. and the fire is still spreading. >> i have not personally seen a

fire grow, so fast in such a short amount of time. >> this week, butte county district attorney charging 42 year old ronnie stout with arson. >> he watched the fire develop under his car, then got in a position to push the car backwards into that gully. >> the smoky inferno is now the biggest fire burning in the u.s. more than 300,000 acres of land scorched. abc's mola lenghi is on the ground. >> while conditions have improved, firefighters are still scrambling to put out spot fires like these as you can see, can spread quickly. >> thousands of people forced to evacuate, one family leaving behind their rottweilers and puppies. but a rescue animal group getting them to safety. >> i basically didn't have any leashes. i just had food, water and i think a good attitude. >> the fire ravaging more than 150 structures, including the homes of father and son firefighters david and jonathan tehan. they returned, finding some valuables untouched by the blaze. >> my baby picture, his baby

picture. >> firefighters working around the clock worry hotter weather this week will continue to fuel these flames. >> that's going to present a challenge in itself, right? with our firefight, our tendency is probably going to be that we're going to see the fire grow a little bit. >> the arson suspect claims the fire was an accident. he remains in jail, awaiting his next court appearance. so far, the fire has not caused any injuries or deaths. tim pulliam, abc news, los angeles >> this gripping new video gives you a firsthand look at the perspective from a north bay cal fire crew currently assisting in the firefight. more than 5500 personnel are coordinating in the response. if you can imagine the size of the park, fire it is larger than the entire city of los angeles and nearly 12 times larger than san francisco.

evacuation orders are in place in kern county, where the burrel fire has charred more than 57,000 acres since it broke out six days ago, reports say. all but a few buildings in the mining town of havilah, northeast of bakersfield, have been wiped out. in all, some 2300 people have evacuated their homes due to the fire. that has caused $2.5 million in damage. governor gavin newsom was in kern county this morning. >> we just signed a few moments ago an emergency proclamation that will make additional resources available. this emergency proc will allow more national guardsmen and women to help support your efforts, not just in the immediate, but in the aftermath, in the mopping, as we say things up and getting people back on their feet as it relates to unemployment insurance, we'll be able to fast track some of that access. >> the governor is meeting with emergency officials and surveying the impact. the boral fire is 17% contained. the fire is burning across california.

have us keeping a close eye on air quality here in the bay area. let's get right to abc seven's spencer christian for a look at current conditions. hey spencer. >> okay, kristen, you know these wildfires trigger so many concerns. air quality. one of them, of course. so let's take a look at the satellite radar composite image first showing you that those strong winds falling from west to east across most of northern california. and that is carrying most of the smoke from the park fire to our east, well to the east, over towards the susanville area and out into western nevada. so little, very little of that smoke has come down to the surface. working its way into the bay area. some of the smoke aloft moved through our region a couple of days ago, but it didn't really affect our air quality. so the surface smoke animation shows starting this afternoon, the bulk of the smoke, especially the more concentrated levels as you see of those darker colors continuing to carry eastward away from the bay area. and at the moment, our air quality is generally good, as evidenced by all those green dots around the bay area. however, there is

growing concern now about the wildfire outlook, and i'll show you why. up in the northern, northern most part of the state. now it's about a 10 to 20% chance of dry lightning developing over the weekend. now that's north of the bay area. but still, the reason for that is that we've got some subtropical moisture moving from the interior southwestern states into the bay area and up into northern california over the next several days, mainly toward the end of the week, friday, saturday and sunday. so should that moisture build up in the atmosphere and the atmosphere become unstable because of the activity of the sun in the at the heat of at the peak of heating in the afternoon hours, it could trigger enough instability to produce some dry lightning. so we'll keep an eye on that. at the moment, the probability seems low to moderate, but we'll keep uh- moderate. checking it, monitoring it for you. and i'll have the complete accuweather seven day forecast for us on abc seven news at four. kristen. >> all right. spencer. thank you. flames tore through a popular locally owned bookstore in oakland's rockridge neighborhood early this morning. take a look at this video shared

by the oakland fire department. you can see shelves of books just engulfed in flames. abc seven news reporter gloria rodriguez has more on how east bay booksellers is dealing with all of this damage. >> it's still in a state of shock, very much sort of just overwhelmed by the scene, just looking at it. i've i'm slowly feeling like i'm stepping into the actual moment. whereas for the past couple of hours, it's felt like watching a movie. >> a beloved oakland bookstore, east bay booksellers, is gone after an early morning fire ripped through the store. oakland's fire chief says the fire started at the college avenue store at about 530 tuesday morning, quickly growing to three alarms. it took at least 60 firefighters to battle the blaze, but the store is a total loss. it's sad. it's really sad, louise rothman reimer is with schultz collins investment counsel. they have an office above the bookstore with an art collection that was lost.

>> we were investment advisors. we had art that was made with or about money, and part of our collection is actually touring in and is in a museum in, myrtle beach, south carolina. but we still had quite a few pieces here at the office. so it's a really devastating to have lost a collection that we've been putting together for 30 years. >> college avenue was shut down for hours. the fire damaged at least one neighboring business and displaced five tenants, injuring one. >> it did auto expose to the to the adjacent building, causing minor damage. one one civilian was injured getting out of the building. minor injuries, was treated and released, and the owner of the bar next door, jordan waltz, tells me their kitchen is a little wet, but the building appears to be okay. >> in oakland. gloria rodriguez, abc seven news.

>> a massive win that is how oakland mayor shantel is describing the sale of the city's 50% stake in the coliseum complex to a private developer, the mayor, city administrator and a representative with the african american sports and entertainment group staged a ceremonial signing at city hall this morning. tao says the deal will lead to a multi-billion dollar investment in east oakland. it also helps the city close a massive budget deficit and avoid mass layoffs in its police and fire departments. >> what we've done today is we've changed oakland for the better because what we're doing is we're investing not in just today, but we are investing in an oakland for tomorrow. >> the sports and entertainment group's plan calls for transforming the 112 acre site into a hub for sports, entertainment, nightlife, hotels and housing. the group is still working with the oakland a's to buy out their 50% stake of the

site. a statewide effort launched today addresses two of the biggest shortages in california teachers and housing. today state superintendent of schools tony thurmond announced the plan during a virtual news conference. the idea is to create teacher housing at 50% below market rate by building 2.3 million housing units on land owned by school districts, some 7000 properties have been identified. >> i think everything that we're seeing from the data, from the research and from our experience is pointing to us that this is an opportunity and a strategy whose moment has come and it's time for us to move forward. >> thurmond says the program will include state incentives to help school districts pass local bonds to fund the housing. the next step is for august 14th, when housing experts will attend a summit to identify ways to help accelerate housing development. up next, san francisco takes action against the homeless crisis. the city cleared encampments this morning

as the mayor promised would happen in our media partner. the san francisco standard was there. they'll join us live to

promised by the city of san francisco and encouraged by governor newsom. they are actually happening. our media partner, the san francisco standard, got this exclusive video of a multi-agency encampment suite sweep that took place under the central freeway. it appears to show public works crews and police taking down tents and removing personal belongings. in some instances with struggling or shouting. the

standard has a full article on these developments. the headline declares aggressive homeless camp sweeps begin in san francisco. joining us live now with more on this is the reporter who was out there, david shostak. hi, david. >> hi. thanks for having me. all right. >> so i know you saw a lot today. tell us about the scope of this morning's sweeps. who took part when it had happened. where and how did you know to be out there? >> yeah. so i've covered a lot of these encampment resolutions or sweeps, depending who you're talking to. we'll call it by different names. but so i've seen a lot of these operations and today's was different with the speed that the city workers were going from encampment to encampment. usually they plan two of these operations a day, and they will spend 4 to 5 hours at a single site. today i watched the move from one block to the next, spending maybe an hour at each location and just

very rapidly throwing items in the trash and telling people that they needed to move. and basically, i knew to be there because i had a schedule of where the city was supposed to be doing these operations this morning, and i spotted them at a place that they weren't scheduled to be. and i knew that was unusual. >> oh, okay. >> so that meant what? they were moving so fast, they were able to cover additional spots that weren't originally on the schedule. >> so a fire department official at the scene told me they had finished their early morning operation ahead of schedule, so they just decided to start going down 13th street underneath the central freeway. and so that in itself is unusual because usually the city this this is scheduled in advance. and people living in these tents are notified, three days in advance. and that didn't happen today. >> well, are you saying that the homeless did not get a warning

this time? and that is a departure from the norm? you're saying? >> well, according to this fire official, that this was a more spontaneous operation. and due to the fact that it wasn't on the actual schedule, i didn't see any uh- notices up the homeless people i talked to said they weren't given any notice. so that's all the information i have currently. >> okay, let's just look at this video here, >> i think your coworker shot that, right. it looks like there's some resistance. and there was another part right there. i think, where they're sort of dragging that tent. you know, you called it aggressive in the headline. is this action that you didn't see before, you know, explain the qualitative difference between what you see here versus anything you've witnessed before. >> i certainly haven't seen something like that in a while, you know, the city used to be more aggressive on these things before there was a ruling that

or the injunction as people know it by that kind of restricted the city's ability to forcibly remove tents from the sidewalk. that was one of the more dramatic scenes i've seen in a couple of years in san francisco. not to say it hasn't happened before, but prior to the supreme court ruling that came through recently, people were often given ample time to move their stuff before, department of public works and police started. you know, more forcibly making the move. >> yeah. and that exchange that we were just looking at between a police officer and a man at the back of that pickup truck where it looked like they were throwing a lot of their personal belongings onto what was the exchange? you heard that. and it was kind of interesting. >> yeah. so you can hear it in some of the video that we captured where the police officers actually telling this man that, you know, these are the orders from the mayor, from the governor. this is how things are now. this is what it's come

to, that we need to enforce these laws. yeah. >> and this is the one that i'm talking about. i believe that's the point where they had that conversation right, and you hadn't heard anything like that before either. >> i mean, you hear all sorts of things, out there and, you know, police will use language that they may threaten to enforce a law or maybe enforcing a law. but again, i think this is the most, dramatic sweep i've in a couple of years. >> so what are groups like the coalition on homelessness saying and doing? i mean, are they alleging any wrongdoing? are they alleging that things went too far? what are they asking for? what's the reaction? >> yeah. so they are alleging that the city broke its own policies as well as its own laws related to clearings. the city has laws on the book that require it to provide notice. so if it didn't provide notice at

least 24 hours in advance, i believe then it was violating its own laws. in this in this procedure. and the city hasn't, pushed back on, the part of the story where we say that, you know, it doesn't seem that there was any notice given, they've only pushed back and said that, everybody was offered shelter. that's what they're saying currently. >> i'd be interested to hear if they might say, hey, look, we gave notice, like a week ago. the mayor promised aggressive sweeps coming this week, and that's notice enough? i don't know, but i'm waiting to hear that. but i but you mentioned the other point, which is, i guess you're supposed to offer shelter, right? and services. and was that done based on the what you saw and what people are telling you? >> yeah, people are telling me that they weren't offered shelter. the city is saying that they did offer everyone shelter, part of this new supreme court ruling and what it does is it allows the city and other cities to enforce laws without offering shelter. so it's the city

actually isn't beholden to that anymore. >> all right. david jostad, this is all fascinating. of course, it's happening in the context of local elections. we have the mayoral race and the national election, where kamala harris is the presumed democratic nominee and, you know, was da here. and, you know, california is often used by republicans to kind of say these are some of the policy failures. so we'll see how all this plays out and whether there are more. but david, thank you so much. and you can check out david's story and more of the standard's other original reporting on their website, sf standard.com. and our coverage of this breaking news story will continue on abc seven news at four. reporter luz pena is speaking with san francisco city officials about today's homeless sweeps, so you can see her full report at four. up next, the danger of deep fakes. they may pose the biggest threat this presidential election year, and the clock is ticking to figure out how to regulate them ♪ do what you want ♪

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sold on its site. even those products from third party sellers, which amazon says make up 60% of its total sales. the decision means amazon must issue recalls on any defective products, notify consumers and offer refunds. as many techno futurists predicted, the use of ai is already threatening the integrity of the election. recently, elon musk shared a generated video mimicking the voice of vice president kamala harris, making it sound like she set the post up like she said something negative about herself that she never actually said. abc seven news reporter tim johns has a closer look at the dangers and efforts to combat them. >> ai. kamala harris and your democrat candidate for president. >> this fake artificial intelligence generated video of kamala harris has been widely viewed online since being shared

on x by tech billionaire elon musk. the clip, to which we added this disclaimer, used a cloning tool to copy the voice of vice president harris and pretend she's saying things she's actually never said. the video has renewed concerns over the use of ai in politics, and has gotten the attention of several bay area lawmakers. i think it was really unfortunate, uh- and i argue, irresponsible of elon musk to share the obviously deceptive deepfake of vice president harris. assembly member marc berman has been championing more regulations on ai generated material in california for years. a few months ago, he introduced a bill in the state legislature that would force social media companies to regulate this type of content during election seasons to be able to identify this content. >> and then when they do either to block it entirely, if it's if it's extraordinarily nefarious and damaging, or to label it. >> berman isn't alone in his calls for more oversight, says tiffany lee. lee is an associate professor at the university of

san francisco and an expert in deepfake videos. >> but it's not just something that the platforms should do. the government should be taking some action, lee tells me. >> combating this type of content is about protecting election integrity, she says. in a healthy democracy, it's critical for people to be able to have confidence that the material they see is real. >> people might actually vote based on what they see in a deepfake video, even if it's completely inauthentic. and that's dangerous in and of itself. >> assembly member berman says he's hopeful his bill will become law sometime over the next few weeks, taking steps to protect everyone, no matter which side of the political spectrum they may fall. >> voters want to believe in the integrity of our elections and the integrity of our democracy. and so i think this is something that has remarkable bipartisan support. >> tim johns, abc seven news. >> next, a new way to explore the star wars galaxy. and it's coming soon right to your living room. a sneak peek coming up. and remember abc seven news is streaming 24 over seven. get the abc seven bay area app and join

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outlaws. in the game, players can explore the galaxy freely and live out their scoundrel fantasy. reporter george pennacchio has a preview, but it's a big galaxy out there and i'm gonna risk it all. >> star wars outlaws is the newest video game set within the iconic franchise. >> it's a golden age for the underworld. >> lucasfilm games hosted a special preview event giving fans the chance to explore the first open world star wars game.

>> we know fans have been clamoring for an open world star wars title for a long time, and it just was a perfect moment. essentially, the stars aligned for the right timing, the right partner, the right fantasy of the scoundrel fantasy. >> the outlaws game introduces new, never before seen characters, along with the return of plenty of familiar faces creating characters like caves. >> this thief, this lone wolf. he's just struggling to make ends meet and goes on this big galactic journey to pull off a heist. realizing that character is what star wars is all about, jay rincon is living out his star wars fantasy. >> he's an actor in the new video game be careful, tonk has a broker, not a friend. >> i played it for the first time the other night, and they had to actually tear me off a bit because everybody was leaving the building and i was still going. i had the headphones on. i would have stayed there. i didn't even know people were were leaving and they were shutting everything

down. yeah i can't wait to play it more. >> george pennacchio for abc news star wars outlaws releases everywhere august 30th disney is the parent company of lucas and abc seven. >> thousands of k-pop fans in the bay area are getting ready to see one of korea's biggest solo pop acts tonight. i love it say ho, i'm like five. >> you say ho and i fly. >> iu will perform at the oakland arena tonight. since she debuted in 2008, she's racked up a string of hits, including 31 number one singles in south korea. you can get tickets out here on resale sites for as little as $150. that's it for abc seven news at three. i'll tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. abc news learning tonight vice president kamala harris plans to hit several battleground states next week with her pick for running mate. so, how soon could she make her pick known? also tonight, simone biles and team usari