blown away. a blast rips through a home in hayward leaving fragmentis the wood scattered everywhere. >> fire investigators are now trying to determine what triggered that powerful and damaging explosion. the blast sent a man in that home flying. abc 7 news reporter matt keller is live at the scene on fairview road. matt? >> reporter: yeah, when you look at this home behind me, you may have a hard time believing what i'm going to tell you next. a man not only survived this explosion and fire, but walked

out of the home with minor injuries. this store used to be on this small house on fairview avenue in hayward, but just before 5:00 this morning, an explosion ripped it off its hinges and blew it 70 feet away. >> it was about 5:00 in the morning and heard a big bang. looked out the window and saw the fire at the house. just came out and started taking videos with my iphone. >> reporter: he captured the aftermath of that huge explosion. firefighters say the flames were fueled by natural gas. the meter was sparking. arcing power lines were also down. when daylight came, the damage became clear. the home's walls were moved off the foundation. windows of nearby homes and cars were blown out. roof shingles were hanging in a tree 30 feet away. amazingly the man sleeping inside at the time of the explosion still lives. he walked away with his talk. >> we finally got him on the stretcher and put him in the ambulance. he looked very dazed and confused. >> the man, identified as jeff,

was released from the hospital with some stitches to his leg and staples on his head. he came home briefly to talk with firefighters. he did not want to go on camera but said he was doing fine. everyone else who saw his home was amazed that he was alive. >> luck. luck. a lot of luck. that's incredible. it was a very violent blast. >> reporter: firefighters are still here. they say there was a gas leak but are trying to figure out where the leak was coming from and what sparked the explosion. matt keller, abc 7 news. matt, thank you. an oakland family was able to escape their early morning house fire but their two dogs did not survive. the fire raced through their home just before 3:00. the sound of the fire and the smell of heavy smoke woke up the couple. firefighters believe it was started by the stove, which the family was using to keep warm. two nearby homes were also damaged. developing news here. co-workers are talking to us about the well-liked emergency

medical technician killed in a fiery accident in livermore. he is being called dedicated and compassionate. alan wong is live at the ambulance company where he worked. alan? >> reporter: yeah, eric, every day the emts at royal ambulance come back here and debrief just so they can unload the trauma that they have experienced each day. well, yesterday they had a serious debriefing session after they found out they had one of their partners was killed in one of those many accidents they respond to. let me show you some cell phone video of that fiery crash involving 29-year-old reed whitaker, an emt here for the past two years. whitaker was off duty, sitting in backed-up traffic on 580 near livermore when a drunk driver slammed into the back of his vehicle. both cars burst into flames. whitaker was trapped inside and killed. he was also an emt trainer and worked at highland hospital as an e.r. tech. one of the things he and other

emts do to protect themselves is compartmentalize their emotions but it hasn't been easy here. >> i think obviously when somebody close to you is killed, whether you're an ems or any other industry, it really hits home and you're unable to have that type of detachment as maybe you do on a professional level. his loss is just tremendous for us. again, he was one of those people that everybody wanted to work with. >> reporter: that crash caused a huge backup on westbound 580. they arrested the other driver on suspicion of dui. he and a passenger escaped their burning humvee. they say that it's going to be very hard to try to compartme compartmentalize those emotions after going through this one. overnight royal ambulance posted a message about reed on

its facebook page. it reads in part, your compassion and dedication to helping others was inspiring and everyone loved having you as their partner. your smile will be missed but you will never be forgotten. in a few hours that message had been liked dozens of times. as you can see in a touching tribute, many of those people changing their facebook photo today to an emt logo with a black bar across it in honor of their lost friend, reed whitaker. happening now on the peninsula, a bizarre string of water main breaks in millbrae has left 120 homes without water. the breaks happened in several locations, including larkspur and ridgewood court, millbrae court and loyala drive. 1,000 homes were originally affected but now it's down to a fraction of that. public works crews are busy repairing the lines. the last hurrah of the cold snap is causing danger this morning, especially in the north

bay. black ice caused numerous accidents. matt keller has the story. >> reporter: as a novato driver scrapes ice from his wind shooeld he's well aware of the ice on school road. a motorcycle and a car wrecked. >> the rear end started coming around on me. i started correcting so i just laid it down. >> the bike slid about 62 feet. >> reporter: and that was the first part of the accident. >> another vehicle came down the road, went to swerve around the motorcyclist, went to a ditch and struck a tree. >> reporter: the driver and the motorcyclist, a former police officer, are okay. >> i was on my feet away from the bike. as he came around the corner, i was trying to stop her and that didn't work. >> reporter: on novato boulevard, the chp had to close the road at one point for this. a sand truck working to improve traction. >> the temperatures were right about freezing last night. in this particular area we had a lot of low-lying fog and

moisture on the roadway as a result, so it just looks like a lot of that moisture froze up and we had not just patches, but entire stretches of ice. >> reporter: he says there were eight to ten ice-related wrecks in just over four hours this morning. luckily, no one was seriously hurt. you've heard it before and you're going to hear it again, tips from the chp to drive in this weather. first of all, slow down and then if you do encounter black ice, don't brake hard, don't steer hard and don't think just because you have four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive you're going to be okay. if you hit that ice, you're going to slide. so how many more days can we expect the potential of black ice? here's mike with more. >> not quite as widespread as what we dealt with yesterday. back to you. >> mike, we're trying to get your microphone back up. we'll come back to you in a

little bit. in the meantime we'll move on to this story about the fbi just releasing new information this morning about one of northern california's most wanted criminals. they believe this man, daniel sandiego wanted in two bombings a decade ago maybe be overseas maybe working in tourism or speaking english. this is an age progression image of what the 35-year-old might look like now. the fbi gave abc 7 news this surveillance video which shows one of the 2003 blasts at the chiron corporation in emeryville and shackly cosmetics. they believe the companies were targeted because of their ties to an animal testing lab. there was a sighting of sandiego two years ago in massachusetts but were unable to substantiate it. he's been added to the bay area's most wanted website that was launched on tuesday. tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the deadly mass murder at a school in newtown, connecticut.

20 children and 6 adults were killed when 20-year-old adam lanza opened fire at sandy hook elementary last december 14th. the gunman then took his own life within a minute after police arrived. family members say they'll light a candle in memory of their loved ones. they ask people honor their victims by performing acts of kindness in their own communities. here in the bay area, a vigil to mark the anniversary will be held at san francisco city hall. it's happening at 1:00. san francisco mayor ed lee, leland yi and mark lenno or all expected to attend. in san francisco laurel dowel elementary school is closed because of an accident. a minivan hit the school leaving two with minor injuries and damage to the school. crews were able to cap the gas leak but are working today to repair the ruptured lines and restore electricity to the school. a pennsylvania man will serve 18 months in federal prison for trying to selling how-to information on hacking into classified websites,

including some in the bay area. 23-year-old andrew james miller was sentenced yesterday for hacking into numerous networks. in one case he remotely broke into computers at lawrence-livermore lab and left back door access that he planned to sell for $50,000. b.a.r.t. and its unions will be back at the bargaining table this afternoon. they'll try to iron out a disputed provision that gives transit workers six weeks of paid family leave. b.a.r.t. insists it was a mistake, but union leaders say a deal is a deal. also happening today, contract talks resume between a.c. transit and union drivers. the union and the district are nearing the end of a 60-day cooling off period in talks that began in march. today's contra costa times reports the situation is approaching a boiling point again. members have twice rejected contract offers reached in negotiations. coming up, the wedding journey you can take with neil

shone and his white house crashing fiancee this weekend, but it's not free. and the science behind shopping

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happening now, the holiday shopping season is in full season and so are tactics by retailers to get you to spend big money. a lot of it has to do with product placement. for example, experts say if

you're looking to buy a coat, stores usually place them in sets of three. the one on your left is usually cheaper, but the one in the middle is the one they want you to buy, the one they make the most money off of. another tactic is called heat mapping. once retailers know what's hot and selling, they sprinkle those items throughout the store to make sure you cover every square inch and hopefully will make an impulse buy. new this morning journey guitarist neil shone and michelle solahi are getting married. the couple is tying the knight in san francisco on sunday. you may remember her and her ex after they crashed a white house dinner. they are making the wedding a pay-per-view event. for $15 you can watch the wedding and see the celebs that attend and watch performances by

journey. the couple hopes to raise money for the typhoon relief in the philippines. new video of arnold schwarzenegger horsing around creating big buzz on youtube. the 66-year-old actor posted this video a couple days ago. he said he's making good on a dare to ride a toy horse while visiting the national finals rodeo in las vegas. he says he's not as gutsy as a real cowboy but when a lady called his bluff, he couldn't back down. the former california governor said it was all in good fun. well, mike is ahead with our forecast but we also had problems on the roads this morning. >> yeah, we definitely did. we had black ice. we'll take a look at what caused that and if it will repeat again tonight. you can see some of the haze hanging around. it is another spare the air day. we may have a string of more on the way. today is a record sixth consecutive plus a big warming trend. so a lot to talk about coming up in your accu-weather forecast.

and surveillance video, look at this, catches a big cprowlin the peninsula. and breaking news right now. as you see, there is a truck accident. this is on interstate 580. it looks like these trailers are stuck in the road and it's blocking traffic. only one lane getting through. we're not sure if that's going to continue for much longer. we'll have more on this accident, what caused it and ho

breaking news here. westbound 580 at hopyard, you

see an accident that involves at least two tractor-trailers and a third vehicle. one of the tractor-trailers is jack knifed and only one lane, as you see, is getting through. a sig alert is in effect and we're told the backup is proceeding past so avoid this area if you can. look for alternates and we'll tell you if there are any injuries coming up. meantime, take a look at this surveillance video of a mountain lion in a backyard in san mateo county. the animal was caught on home behind a home near mills estate park, in that millbrae area. it jumped a six-foot fence to get into the yard, which has a large koi pond. the mountain lion was last seen heading east from the property. >> six-foot fence, huh? >> i know. >> time to petition the city for a bigger fence. >> exactly. a little more sunshine for us, a little more warmth. bring it on. >> i really think today is kind

of a transition day. we still have a little fog around but hopefully we won't have conditions like we had this morning. here's the temperature at 5:00 this morning. we were really focused on the north bay. in fact i tweeted out about 4:30 this morning, we started the morning show talking about black ice. so if you get a chance, follow us and we were all over this thing as soon as we got out of the gate. it was 32 in novato, 29 in santa rosa, but look at the visibility at that time. it was two and a half miles in santa rosa and less than a quarter of a mile in novato so that was a lot of moisture hanging in the air. when the temperature is below freezing, that's what creates black ice. now our visibility, we're doing pretty good. it's a little low in oakland and hayward. that's where we're seeing most of the haze and leftover fog right now. all of our temperatures are well above freezing, as we look at a fairly dry live doppler 7 hd. here are those temperatures. we're running around 48 in

oaklan oakland. low 50s around concord, san francisco, and 55 at half moon bay. all right, i think the fog is confused as to what season it is. doesn't this look like summer with that finger of fog rolling across the golden gate? you can tell by the sun angle it's definitely not. temperatures getting close to average. it's our tenth spare the record and the record sixth consecutive. we'll be clear tonight, some frost inland. there's a small chance we may see black ice in the north day. warm and dry into next week. we could get near a few record highs. san francisco there kind of floating in the sea of fog. the poorest air quality is supposed to the santa clara valley and right now san jose and vallejo have the worst air quality. 60 in santa rosa and cloverdale. the rest of us in the middle to upper 50s. tonight's temperatures flirting with 50s.

upper 30s to 40s around most of the bay shore and 44 in san francisco for the warm spot. here's what's happening. couple of areas of high pressure will dominate our weather once again. this will push the jetstream to the north. we'll have a high develop over the great basin that will give us an offshore flow. that's why i think with that northeasterly win it could warm up. if you're going to the game, alex smith bringing the chiefs to take on the raiders, low to mid-60s there. if you're going up north or to the high country, sunshine, 42 today, but 54 degrees by sunday. you ought to be getting near record highs. don't forget, we'll talk about that drought. we're getting worse and worse and deeper and deeper into that drought. look at this accu-weather seven-day forecast. nothing but dry weather, low to mid-60s this weekend, low to upper 60s monday and tuesday. those will be the best two days if we see any records fall. >> all right, mike, thank you. what would you do with an extra $7,000 this holiday season? that's how much you could win

just for helping abc 7 news fight hunger in the bay area. when you click the give where you live button on our facebook page, we'll donate a dollar to the food banks for you and you might want 7,000 bucks. imagine the good you could do with that. we'll announce the winner on december 19th. so go to the abc 7 facebook page, help us give where you live and help spread the word so your friends can help too. still to

[s[man] no one told her,right?a. [son]hi! [mom screams]

to those who've encountered welcome to covered california. new, affordable health plans so you can be ready for whatever comes your way. enroll today at coveredca.com. coming up at 4:00, intriguing. could there be life on one of jupiter's moons? what nasa scientists think the blue spots may be. and at 5:00, major mixup. 2500 high school students are told they have been accepted to a university but it turns out it was all a big mistake. well, a big surprise overnight from beyonce. she released a new fifth album on itunes overnight with no warning and no promotion. >> i wanted people to hear the

song with the story that's in my head, because this is what makes it mine. that vision in my brain is what i wanted people to experience the first time. >> beyonce explained her reason behind the surprise release in this video on facebook and instagram. the self-titled album features 14 songs and 17 videos, including collaborations with her husband, jay z. the closing track even features daughter, blue ivy, in the video. >> and i believe it's called blue. from all of us here at abc 7 news, thanks for joining us. >> "who wants to be a millionaire is coming up next. hopefully that will be you with the mega millions drawing tonight. good luck. we'll leave you with this postcard picture of the golden gate bridge and the low clouds.

wanted to be here for your fist christmas? you see grandma lives waaaay down here, and you live way up here. brian, your cousin, he's a little bit older than you, he lives here, in chicago. and your aunt lisa lives here, in baltimore. uncle earnie? waaay out in hawaii. but don't you worry, we will always be together for christmas. [ male announcer ] being together is the best part of the holidays and cheerios is happy to be part of the family. you just ate dallas!

[dramatic music] ♪ >> hey! [cheers and applause] what's up, baby? what's up? hi, dog. how you doin'? what's up? what's up? what up, dog? what's up, man? what's up? ooh. >> yeah. >> what's up? [cheers and applause] yeah. hello, and welcome to millionaire. you know, there is nothing i love more than kicking things off with a show with somebody who's fun to play with and about to face some big money. >> yeah. >> going for her $100,000 question, y'all show some love for returning contestant liza darnell! [cheers and applause] liza! gettin' money. >> i'm ready. >> you got here, you got a lot of support here. i know that you got your mom and your aunt here. >> i do. >> they're here to back you up. what's going on? >> hey! >> you got them--