very rugged terrain and spread quite quickly. >> we've seen at least one structure burn and reports say at least six homes are threatened. we've also seen one recreational building and one out building on fire. you see the cal chopper hard at work. cal fire has deployed at least six aircraft to fight the flames. >> six fixed wing aircrafts to carry fire retardant. there's several chemical fire retardant drops from the aircraft that we're talking about battling this fire and trying to slow the path of this very fast-moving fire as they rush to try to get ground forces there to try to fight on the fire lines themselves. >> we've seen crews on the ground. there's several well-defined fire roads along the ridge line allowing crews to get close to the flames and one good bit of news is they are saying the soberanes fire is where cal fire can release some of the crews and send them up here to respond to this fire. >> that's great news because the

soberanes fire has burned for weeks and soaked up so many of the state's resources, in the only in terms of money but manpower. mount loma prieta is just under 3,800 feet higher, the tallest peak in the santa cruz mountain, visible from miles around, the site of several television transmission tires, including one for abc 7. >> on the phone with us right now is sergeant chris clark with the santa cruz county sheriff's office. sergeant, thanks for joining us and let's start with the evacuations in the area. hearing different areas evacuated. can you give us the latest in. >> thanks. we're asking for voluntary evacuation in the area on the summit as well as the mt. bocce right area. our deputies have assisted in that and we've set up an evacuation site that have chosen to evacuate at the high school at the gymnasium there. at the socal high gymnasium and voluntary evacuate for mt. bochy

road. >> sergeant chris clark on the known, appreciate you taking the time. any idea how long the evacuations will last? do you think people will be out of their homes for the night? >> at this point we're getting more details. it's kind of an evolving situation but we'll be sure to let you know as soon as we get you the information. >> what can you tell us about the power lines down right now. >> again, i'm not too familiar with that. and, again, we're asking for folks to evacuate if they can from those areas, and there's also road closures that the highway patrol is putting in place there. >> abbey figueroa from pg&e told us during the news at 4:00 there's one transmission line that's threatened but so far no one has lost power which is good news but as you suggest, kristen, that is something that they are going to be very concerned about to make sure that they have power and they need to cut it off if they need it for peege toe do that. >> absolutely. >> chris, what are your

priorities? what do you guys try to do first? >> at least point it's santa cruz safeguarding people and trying to get them out of harm's way with, you know, setting them up with a place to evacuate if they choose to leave their property and assisting in whatever way they can. >> we're hearing of more fire departments and crews arriving to the loma fire now. what is the response you're getting from neighboring agencies? >> i would imagine it's going to be a wholehearted effort absolutely to prevent and then stop the spread of this fire. i'm at c.t. english middle school off summit road and i can't give you a specific number of how many folks i see from my location, but i would imagine that they are giving this absolutely 100% of their effort. >> last question on this, chris. this -- we know this is rugged terrain. kristen talked about the fire roads that are in there.

still not easy to reach so how much of a challenge is this, the geography in. >> it's a rural area, summit road and small roads that kind of intersect with that off both sides of the summit. it's very rural terrain. >> thanks so much. sergeant chris clark with the santa cruz sheriff's office. >> this fire has really spread quickly despite the fact that the winds were relatively still this afternoon. >> that's been hot and although the temperature is coming down and apparently the humidity is inching up which is good news. meteorologist sandhya patel is following the latest. >> check out the smoke, a pretty good indication that the winds aren't terribly strong. yes, it's been hot there. in the low 90s. right now the conditions near the fire line, 87 degrees, so it is warm there. take a look. relative humidity 12%. it is slowly creeping up and southerly winds gusting to 10 pushing the smoke north ward

towards parts of the south bay and places like san jose so you might be seeing that smoke. here is a look at the winds. they are expected to remain light. generally under 10 miles an hour which should help the crews there. hour-by-hour temperature trend for that vicinity. 82 degrees at 6:00 p.m. and notice the temperatures sliding. at least the cooler weather will be coming in, and even our live doppler 7 is picking up some of that smoke on the radar beam there. that's the radar down there in the santa cruz mountains. here's a live look from the mt. tam cam, and you can see the plume of smoke. i've been getting reports on twitter from people saying they can see the smoke. they can see it actually spreading. obviously one of those touchy situations as the night goes on. it is going to be difficult because it is rugged terrain. we're talking about a drought. we're in the fifth year of the drought so really dry vegetation and dry brush and when you combine that with the low humidity in the area, we're not expecting the humidity to really rise rapidly, so that's going

nothing make it tough for those firefighters there. dan? >> thanks very much. great update on the conditions on the fire lines. let's take you back and look at live pictures from sky 7. this broke out at about 3:00, maybe a few minutes before 3:00 as a report of a structure fire. i came on the air with ama daetz at about ten till 4:00. at that time it was estimated to be about 75 acres and by the time we got on the air. fast forward two hours later and what we've watched is this thing really grow inside very quickly to more than 1,000 acres now so kristen, even thought the conditions in terms of the wind are fairly benign, it's the heat and the rugged terrain and the dry trees and grass in a are obviously making this thing very tough to contain quickly and it's spreading fast. >> absolutely. and i've been following the tweets on loma fire, and people are telling me they are seeing the smoke all the way down, the

state park and downtown san jose a lot of tweets from people there about the smoke and the latest road closures and want to give you an update as we to look at sky 7 over the fire. we have road closures at loma chiquita and cassel ho maed a mckeen and croy at uvis. mt. madonna and the poy line, that is, so you're seeing more and more road closures as the fire continues to spread. >> and it's not hard to imagine why people are seeing this from such great distances. as you know, kristen, this is burning on mount loma prieta and it's 3,800 feet high, the tallest peek in that area and then this fire with the enormous plume of smoke in the area and heat is forcing caltrans to run at lower speeds. at heat restriction is in effect

between redwood city and san jose. >> the hot weather and potential fire risk will force the closure of allen rock park tomorrow. again a hot day but in the as hot as today. we'll start the calling. we'll move on to other necessary and we'll say on top of this. on our newscast and fire still spreading in santa krus. we've been pending out push alerts and we do have debate niece to get to. trump and hillary clinton will eledge in the first high skiks presidential debeat and clinton's camp wants it and trump's people do not. abc 7 news reporter carolyn tyler joins us live outside of the a watch party sponsored by the commonwealth club will be

held. carol? >> a large crowd is expected to watch. here and as they skrultnize the presidential candidates they will be checking out the moderator to see how he handles inaccuracies. >> i can't even talk about the debate, sorry. >> i'm not even watching. >> it's too depress. >> reporter: more than 100 million americans are expecting to tune in for a debate in a may be unlike any other in a presidential campaign that has been rewritten the playbook. and in that new environment the role. moderator is getting a fresh look. is it simply to ask tough questions of hillary clinton and donald trump, or to also call them out on lies? >> and let the chips fall where they may. >> reporter: kgo radio political commentator john rothman has worked for both political parties and says the moderator should not be the fact checker non-does he believe it would make a difference. >> people are going to be looking at what they look like,

whether someone makes a mistake, whether hillary clinton coughs, whether donald trump erupts. the winner or loser is not based on content. the winner or loser is based on perception. >> reporter: micheely mcbride, a professor of politics at the university of san francisco, thinks the facts do matter. >> if someone is going to stand up there and say blatant untruth after blatant untruth after blatant untruth and that stands for an hour and a half, then there's a concern that actually voters are getting misinformed. >> reporter: but she believes a fact-checking moderator would interrupt the flow. >> i think they are just going to have to let it rest. >> reporter: whatever happens tonight to result in future changes for the presidential debate format n.san francisco, carolyn tie lire, abc 7 news. >> and a reminder we'll live stream the debate on our website. again, the debate begins at 6:00

p.m. and we'll, of course, have the live stream on the abc 7 news ab as well >> download it for free. going to be an interesting night. still ahead, learning from a disaster. submerged and in trouble. the important lesson first responders want to teach all of us. and another live look at -- sky 7 over the loma fire in the santa cruz mountains. you can see the heavy

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for a customer like whole foods, saving energy means helping our environment, and we can be a part of that. helping customers save energy is a very important part of what pg&e does. we can pass those savings on to the environment, the business, and the community. pg&e really is an expert in saving energy, and that partnership is extremely exciting. together, we're building a better california. officials in the north bay want all drivers to know how to rescue themselves and their families. the effort comes after two tragic accidents claimed the lives of four children this summer. abc 7 newspaper reporter jonathan bloom has the story.

>> reporter: divers in the water, a crowd on the shore, all waiting for this. the man at the wheel is a trained diver from the sheriff's department, but the driver of this truck wasn't after it landed in the russian river a month ago. she tried and failed to get her two kids out of the back seat. a week later this mom lost her two daughters when her car landed in the petaluma river. >> parents are worried if that happened to them how would they get how the? >> reporter: police and firefighters staged a demonstration. here two adults are in the front seat with two kid-sized dummies in the back. the adults take their seat belts off and roll out the windows and the driver jumps out and unbuckles the children and hands them to safety. >> if you don't have your windows down you're not going to get out. >> break the glass with a sharp object in the corner. there's one thing you should absolutely not reach for is your phone.

>> calling 911 is delaying your ability to get out. >> reporter: each second is precious with one adult and two kids. seat belt off, window down and rescuers say put the older child out the window. >> to me as a parent i was terrified of thinking of letting the older one go off. >> they will be able to keep the head above water whereas the infant will need our help to keep the head above water. >> the diver escaped with the babe second before the back seat was under water. >> hopefully when it happens, hopefully never, they have a better chance of making it out. >> let's continue to bring you live coverage of this fire burning now. more than 1,000 acres in the santa cruz mountains as you look live from sky 7. chief pablo beretta from the watsonville fire department is on the phone. chief, are you there? chief, can you hear us. >> yes. >> thanks for coming on. give us the quick update. what do you know? >> basically what we were doing

is on santa cruz county side we were sending resources to assist the fire at this time and we do have a cooperative response with santa cruz county and santa clara county unit, and the fire is up at the top of the mountain, very similar to the location that we had several years ago at summit fire. >> at this point where are you targeting your efforts most? >> honestly we don't have anything going on here in the city. as far as what i can see and hear on the radio, cal fire, it's their fire and they currently have aircraft, helicopters and airplanes, tankers flying over and fighting the fire, but at this time i don't have very specific details on the incident. >> okay. chief, give us a look over the next few hours what you hope to achieve there with the other officials who are dealing with this. give us kind of a sense of what the priorities are and what you

hope to accomplish before it gets dark. >> well, that santa cruz county fire agency will be supporting cal fire and helping in any way they can the residents. we're basically on standby to assist any way we need to. >> there's some worry that the fire is going to spread southeast. if that is the case, watsonville seems to be in the area that could be affected. so are there any measures that you might consider taking at this point? >> at this time for our city we're in the lower part of the valley or near the coast so we're not too affected by it, but what we will be doing is sending resources if they need it and we're ready at a moment's notice to help our neighbors out. >> chief pablo barreto from the watsonville fire department, thanks for coming on. all right. let's take a look at you continue to look at live 7 pictures of just this enormous

really amount of smoke that has continued like this for the past two-plus hours. staggering really just how much smoke something like this can produce, and because it's so still relatively speaking, winds are relatively calm, it's still hanging in the air. >> but will the winds stay that way? we understand humidity is on the rise and sandhya, that would be a good thing with firefighters. let's check in with her. >> absolutely, dan and kristen. the relative humidity continues to come up. it's at 13%, but we're not expecting the fog. it's a south southwest wind gusting to nine miles per hour and it's still pretty warm in the vicinity. here's a look at the heat advisory that's up until 8:00 p.m. tonight and covers the entire bay area except for solano county. take it easy out there. highs so far, numerous records to report. highs so for. 99 at kent field, that's a report and 95 move fit field and salinas 101. those are all records indicated

by the asterix. 91 so far in san francisco. pretty hot in concord. livermore, santa rosa, in the triple digits, so everyone is dealing with the heat, and that fire is getting picked up by our live doppler 7 on radar. that's the smoke that's showing up from our santa cruz camera. lots of sunshine and obviously they are dealing with some warm weather there. 84 in san francisco. in the 90s from oakland to mountianview and 96 in san jose and half moon bay you're still warm at 82 degrees. look at this dramatic picture and that's the loma prieta fire. you can see the smoke and 97 in santa rows az, still pretty hot ant concord ain the upper 80s. heat eases tomorrow. the third consecutive spare the air for your tuesday and much cooler by the end of the week. south beach camera looking at

the smoke and the air quality will not improve immediately. by wednesday we're talking about moderate air quality. here's what's going to happen. the reason firefighters won't get a big hand from mother nature. the fog will be slow to return. 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. it's only near point reines. we'll have to wait for it to start spreading along the coastline and by 11:00 p.m. we'll see fog moving in raising the humidity levels. tomorrow morning when you get going, mild, and most areas will start out in the 50s and 60s. mildest readings will be inland in the low to mid-60s and along the coastline you'll be in the 50s. highs for the tuesday, 21 degrees in san jose. it's still going to be hot in gilroy. 77 degrees. on the peninsula looking at mid to upper 80s from redwood city to palo alto. mild at the coast and cooler today in the low 70s. 15 degrees and the fog comes back at the coast. in the north bay 88 in napa and 86 san rafael and east bay,

oakland, berkeley so we take the edge off the eat a bit and inland areas still hot. 95 in livermore and concord. saturday there's a dramatic drop in temperatures. temperatures only in the 70s so much cooler, and then as you take a look at monday, this is might be something you look forward to. a slight chance of rain and contract doppler 7 and all the changes with our abc news app. the accuweather seven-day shows you the heat easing tomorrow and cooling trends on wednesday and in the low 90s inland. thursday in the 80s. friday, saturday, sunday and monday we'll drop you down to the 80s, so even cooler than average early next week with the 60s. once again a slight chance of rain on monday. it's not definitive but i'm just letting you know about that, dan and kristen. >> thanks, sandhya, very much. >> we'll give you another look at the loma fire as seen from santa cruz. imagine you're at the beach

frying to seek some heat relief and you see this ominous smoke from this fire that is just growing so quickly. a friend of mine who works as a firefighter in the san mateo area says that they would like to help and they can't because city engines can't get to that terrain. >> it's going to be a tough one. i puppet. there's a helicopter up there as well and they are rushing ground forces in, but it is rug

we want to continue our loma fire coverage now with our photographer ian babcock in santa cruz. >> ian, great reporting you're doing for us. >> hi, guys. thank you very much. sitting, you know, right over the beach, and it's such -- such a stark contrast of images that

we're seeing from -- that i'm seeing from here. judgment we've got a beautiful day in santa cruz. we had temperatures well into the 90s, just an amazing beach day, but with this huge black looming fire, you know, coming over the mountains from us here, it's just been quite a sight to behold here. >> i'll bet, ian. so ominous. imagine if you're sitting on the beach and imagine you came out to get the sun and now you're staring at this strange site. appreciate all you're doing in santa cruz. one of our quick phorographers. >> we've been talking during the break and just go the an outbreak saying it was 1,000 acres and now they are scaling back saying it has the potential of being. >> we still neat to tried to find out that start the fire. that's really the center of it.

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all right. live back now as we continue to cover this fire burning in the santa cruz mountains. you're looking at a fixed wing dumping retardant live from sky 7. they need a lot of those runs tonight to try to keep this thing from spreading any further. now estimated to be 400 to 500 acres bunchltd that's the new estimate. there's another plane chasing right behind it. >> into the meantime, as we also continue to look at the fire retardant being dropped on the area. want to let you know that we're getting word from pg&e that there appears to be a propane tank at the repeater site up there, and they are having trouble finding resources to handle that. obviously a very scary situation for everyone up there. that is why they are being asked to evacuate. there are evacuation areas and

evac agent centers sent up at socal high school right now and it all began with a home on loma chiquita road. that is where the fire began and spread. also. we have some chp road closures to tell you. >> the chp have closed these roads, mt. bache road at high landway and mt. bache road at loma prieta way and mt. madonna and pole line road closed as they try to assess the danger and get people out of the way. it's a remote area and not many houses up there but several have been threatened and a couple have burned, at least a couple of buildings that we know of. >> and while lives are absolutely the most important, there's a lot of communication equipment up there as well that's being threatened. as this continues. we'll be following it for you on abc 7 news. meantime, "world news tonight" with david muir is coming up next. i'm kristen sze. >> and i'm dan ashley. appreciate your time.

stay tuned now for presidential debate coverage. we'll be back. tonight, breaking news. hillary clinton and donald trump, the head-to-head match-up finally here. the first time for donald trump on a debate stage against just one other candidate. the stakes enormous for hillary clinton, too. trying to earn back trust. the race, a dead heat. we have inside reporting, what each candidate has in their arsenal, ready for tonight. also this evening, the rush hour shooting rampage. [ gunfire ] the suspect taking aim at drivers. nine people wounded. what was discovered inside his car. the flood emergency at this hour. thousands urged to evacuate. rivers rising. flash floods from texas to iowa. the system now moving east. the tragic death of a major league player and his friends. authorities tonight investigating. and we celebrate an american