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thank you for joining us. i'm jessica castro. >> i'm reggie aqui. we're covering an emergency in the north bay talking about at least five fires burning, and we want to get straight to the map that shows us where these fires are right now. i should emphasize these are the fires that we have confirmed. we know that there are possibly other fires burning. we are chasing that information. as soon as we get it we'll let you know. you can see the major fires we're now covering. including the ones that are in calistoga and santa rosa, the ones we've been talking about for much of the evening and then added to it these other fires you see. as a result of these fires there are now a number of evacuations that are happening. and there are some ways that you can keep in touch, of course -- there are some people who are just finding out. as we heard from the supervisor

in napa county if you feel uncomfortable, if you feel these fires are getting too close, please, evacuate. tell your neighbors, be in communication with each other, and head to an evacuation center or out of the area completely. there are a number of centers opened overnight. tiffany wilson is one of those. we'll talk about where these evacuation centers are. these are the five fires burning. this is the emergency right now to get folks out of these areas. this is lifesaving. police agencies are telling us if you are not in one of the affected areas you see on the map, for example, petaluma, san francisco, those are areas we know there's a lot of smoke. those are not on fire. the fire is blowing down as a result of heavy winds and that's why we're smelling so much smoke. your areas are not currently on fire.

going to go to my colleague jessica who is looking at some of the images and messages we're seeing on social media. >> i want to show you this video we just got a few minutes ago from one of our viewers saying this is so sad. woke up in the middle of the night and was evacuated. we have heard this play out over and over, hundreds of people evacuated in the middle of the night. that is the major concern with all of these fires right now that it is the middle of the night, that people are sleeping. it is hard to see the smoke, if that fire is making it to your area and to your home. i want to show you this from tim tusk. craziness in wine country. it certainly is. it's an emergency effort to get people out of their homes. we do want to check in with amy hollyfield. she is in santa rosa where some of those evacuations are happening right now. hi, amy. >> reporter: this has gotten much more urgent, jessica. look behind me, you can see the

fire right over that bush. there's obviously a tree or bushes on fire right there. we had some flames popping up right above it just seconds ago. i think they're flaring up now and we're standing in the parking lot of a hospital. so now we are seeing people running to get out of here. we saw some families running to pick up their patients and now someone coming out on a stretcher so looks like they're getting to the icu patients and getting them out which is quite an ordeal, obviously. they are very concerned about the safety of this hospital and that's why. do you see the fire over there? can you see it? and you see the people running with that stretcher. we've had families of patients coming here to pick up their loved ones but mostly it's been getting the patients out of here before people could even arrive to help them. so a city bus just departed here. it was full of patients they evacuated from kaiser permanente right alongside highway 101 in santa rosa. they just got a city bus out of

here but we see their waiting room is still full of people so they need to bring in another bus to get more people out of here. i know they're working on that and i'm sure their urgency has just increased because you can see the fire -- wow, there's two dogs coming out of the hospital. i have never seen that before. wow. we're evacuating all kinds of people. we have humans and four-legged victims running out of this hospital. >> amy, can you see that from your vantage point? >> that's what she was just mentioning. >> a question for you, are you seeing family members or friends running towards the hospital trying to find their loved ones or is it just hospital staff there helping the patients? >> reporter: well, as i mentioned, it's mostly happening in such a hurried pace that they're just getting patients out of here. i don't think family members are having time to get here. we've seen a couple arrive. i talked to one woman who is looking for her mother because

her mother was brought here because her heart condition was flaring up because of the smoke. so she came to the hospital. and now the hospital is being evacuated. she's looking for her mother. we've seen a couple of other people pull in to grab their loved ones. mostly they're getting patients out of here and that entire bus full of patients out of here. everyone is getting masks, too, taking as good care of them as they can in this very intense situation. we have seen loved ones arrive but mostly it's city officials and hospital officials taking care of these people and getting them out of here. >> what are we looking at? when we see the fire in our frame right now, is this an entrance to the hospital or exit or what road is that going toward? >> reporter: that's highway 101. that's highway 101 right there. a few live shots ago i was standing on highway 101 saying look at this fire, this is where it is.

this is the northbound side. as you can see it is creeping toward this hospital. this is the parking lot. we got the lobby here -- >> amy, what are the streets -- >> reporter: so now they're taking people in their personal cars. this is a nurse looking like she's pulled up. >> what is the situation to get out of there? how many roads are leading out of the hospital in the other direction away from where the flames are going? is it an easy exit? >> reporter: i have no idea. >> okay. >> reporter: i'm just standing in the parking lot. we had to take a maze of a way to get here because the highway isdown. >> do you feel safe to stay there right now? how do you feel standing there in the middle of all this chaos and seeing those flames? do you feel you are safe to stay there or do you feel the flames are coming at you. >> reporter: i do. i do.

no, i feel like we're okay. we are being very cautious and safe. there was a situation where we needed to turn around as desperately as we wanted to give a live report we had to get out of there. we are well aware when we need to get ourselves evacuated. i feel okay right now. we're far away from it. we have a big chunk of pavement between us and that fire, but i do understand why they want to get these people out of here because it does take some time. it does take some time to get these people out of here. >> and you mentioned a woman having difficulty breathing. that's why she went to the hospital and now the hospital is being evacuated. what is the air like where you are? earlier when you were near the highway i heard you having difficulty speaking because that smoke was so thick. what is it like in comparison right next to the hospital? >> reporter: there's a lot of smoke, but it's blowing right now away from us.

so we -- >> what is the yelling going on? >> reporter: we're having a security issue right now, reggie. i'm going to toss it back to you. let us go deal with this. there's a lot of emotions out here. >> and there's a fire truck that has now arrived.akes me feel aat little bit better although they have an uphill climb. that was amy hollyfield at the kaiser permanente medical center. the urgency has gone up dramatically over the past ten minutes. when we last saw her they were slowly getting people out in an orderly fashion, and now they are running. we're going to continue checking in with her to make sure everyone is okay and they're able to get people out. >> and that is the sense of panic so many people are waking up to, hundreds of people evacuated at this point. tiffany wilson is at the evacuation center in napa and, tiffany, how is it going there now? >> reporter: you mentioned hundreds of people evacuated. there are hundreds of people right here at the church behind me. they have filled up the parking

lot and that is why they are opening up another evacuation center. lee shaw, a chaplain in napa county, tell me why is this necessary? what are you seeing? >> well, tiffanha w herse at cr grateful for them opening their door here, this is getting full. wey h250 people h perero right now, but the parking lot is completely full. we've spilled over into one parking lot, maybe a third parking lot. we're opening up the junior college, o nextur evacuation center. things are getting full here. >> reporter: i understand you've been here since 11:00 last night talking to different evacuees. what can you tell me about the morale? >> i think the staff here is doing a great job. they have really good attitudes. you can tell in the faces as people -- there's tears in their eyes, they're crying. we have a lot of animals and

dogs. people are just doing the best they can. it's a struggle for them. this is a whole new thing. being evacuated from their home. they don't know if their home is still standing, if the thing is 2 inches tall from the fire. so it's a struggle for a lot of people here. they don't know what they're going to go home to. >> reporter: and that is what we've heard constantly, the dire request for information, anyone begging. do you know what happened to this area, what happened to that area. i understand your home right now doesn't have any power. >> yeah, and that's northwest into town. no power up in the dry creek area. that's no big deal compared to what everything else that's going on. >> reporter: again, can we go over the ewiltaf evacuation center and who should start going there? >> yeah, i would, anyone else being evacuated from montecito,

they're opening up the junior college. that's the next one. i would encourage people to go there next, at this time. we're getting pretty full here. i'd head that way. teep r ever ser:en something like this in yr hometown? >> back in the '80s we had some pretty big fires. maybe not quite this bad but we'll see. we're fortunate not to have a whole lot of crisis like this. this is really unique. really unique, yeah. i just want to say, too, put in a good word for -- so grateful for our first responders right now, our fire guys and all law enforcement, sheriff's department, police department, as well as our dispatchers doing a great job on the radio. i've been listening to them five or six hours. doing a great job. great job. >> reporter: lee, thank you so much for your help and your perspective and, again, anyone evacuating now who is watching, don't come here to cross walk church. it is getting full. instead head over to the napa

community college where they will have space and all of the supplies. you can take pets there as well. that's the situation here live. tiffany wilson, abc 7 news. back to you. >> okay, tiffany, thank you. that's what we anticipated earlier this morning. we knew that if that cross walk church was filled up they would open the third location. napa valley college would be the community college and that address is 22777 napaaljo highway right on the napa vallejo highway. i will tweet that out for folks that are trying to get to that place. >> i know a lot of people are concerned about what's going on at the hospital that is being evacuated in santa rosa. amy hollyfield live for us at kaiser permanente. amy, what do you know now? >> reporter: hi, reggie. i just asked them where are you taking these people, where can we tell people to go to find their loved ones. they said try -- they're going to try to get them to kaiser tera linda. they don't even know if they can

get there but that's their first goal. then they have their eye on elci allen middle school or high school -- pardon me, i can't remember. it was the second one. then he mentioned the veterans building. theerld -- my photographer is hearing. i said to them, that's three places, where do they go. tera linda is our first goal but the veterans building might be the place to go. i said do you want loved ones to come here, absolutely not. we want people out of here. don't come here to retrieve your loved ones, they're okay. the evacuation is going well. the hospital is not on fire. the fire department is here. they are being cautious and just getting them out of here to get them safe. those are the places you can try. we've had so many questions -- here comes another dramatic image of this -- okay, i can hear the guy in charge of transport yelling at someone on the phone disagreeing about where to take these people. so it's a very stressful situation as they try to plan this. and try to get these very ill

people out of here. this is heartbreaking. they are doing a wonderful job. everyone is calm, they're working so hard. also i know a lot of people are wondering, what's happening to homes, what's happening to wineries, and my answer is it's too soon to tell. right now it's just getting everyone to safety. i talked to a photographer with the press democrat. he just came from a neighborhood. he's here now getting these pictures. let me get out of the way as the ambulance comes through. he said he must have seen 60 homes on fire at least and he said that was here in santa rosa so this is hitting santa rosa so hard. just wanted to pass that along to you. i'm here at the hospital and unable to get to the neighborhoods yet. that's what i heard. >> an incredible number of homes. i'm sorry to hear that. thank you for the update. this is an emergency situation on many fronts.

as you heard amy say they're going to try -- the closest kaiser permanente center and if that isn't available they'll go to safe places at this point. >> it is heartbreaking to see the patients being moved out of the hospital, heartbreak to go hear the stories of people already evacuated this morning. there are so many people. amy is in santa rosa. that's just one area. we have at least five fires burning right now. we're getting some people on facebook and twitter. >> can i interrupt you real fast? some information from our producer. i'm sorry to do that. i want to let people know who are in the calistoga area, i think you probably assume this, no schools today for calistoga. and calistoga is one of the areas deeply affected by this fire. that was one of the first we reported on beginning last night. no schools, again, in calistoga. sorry to interrupt.

>> yeah, i was just saying we are working on information out of lake county currently to find oure aretf active fir tes burning there now but we have at least five fires burning in the north bay and so this evacuation is just crisis mode right now trying to get people out of their homes. we have no idea how many people. we have no idea the scope of the area that has burned down at this point. but we know that they are just trying to get everyone awake. it is the middle of the night for many people and get them out of their homes. >> absolutely. one of the things at issue for our folks this morning is the wind especially for the firefighters out there, mike. what are we seeing right now as far as wind speeds? is it coming down at all? >> not really. locally it could be in some isolated spots. the winds are still very strong and will remain strong the next couple of hours and the fire will create its own weather at times. as that rising air will create some locally chaotic winds, if you will. i'm sorry, the smoke in the

studio is really bad this morning. in fact, alexis and i are both live in the east bay and like a lot of you woke up because of the smoke and our eyes are itchy and throats are scratchy. it's the north bay. i'll get to those winds in a second. i want to make sure you stay inside if you n. look at this. here's the east bay hills. you can barely see the bay bridge because of the smoke. the smoke is in the purple. 227 in napa. our air quality index doesn't even go that high. it's unhealthy at 151. that gives you an idea just how bad it is outside let alone inside. so here are the winds up in the hills which triggered this entire event as early as wednesday and tuesday of last week that was going to develop. there's too much dead vegetation out there from the exceptionally wet winter we needed.

winds in the valley. 25 at santa rosa. 35 at fairfield. look where they're blowing. straight south and they're hitting 26 at concord. 24 in oakland. so if those embers do jump to the south they're going to have plenty of winds and those are bringing inin w plenty of n oxygen that will keep the fires going. they'll be fed above oxygen that will keep them going. this is the one the most bullish about tapering the winds earlier than we thought. 10 to 15 elsewhere. let's look at napa and it's really showing a drop-off in the next couple of hours from gusts at 26 miles an hour down to possibly 5 at 9:00. they can't get that air support

in there until the sun comes up at 7:12. all those in yellow is where we'll have the north to south winds gusting 30 to 50 miles per hour. some of those transformers blow, they could start some fires and so could some of those power outages or the power lines if they're still hot. that's some of the danger we're watching there. we have the red flag warning. this continues until at least 5:00 tomorrow morning. these watches and warnings issued by the national weather service. low humidity, 10% to 20%. the fire is easily started and spreading because of the gusty winds. winds will taper as we head to the morning. the whole setup was a dry cold front came through late

yesterday evening that dropped our humidity into the single digits and the air is always pretty breezy and that's what we're seeing. it's going to take the fastest winds with it. it's time to bring alexis in here because people are trying to evacuate, and you've been telling me about a couple of fires, new fires you've seen, and you're also kind of suffering a little bit from the smoke, too. oh, boy, yeah. it is terrible air quality even here in the studio, mike. i can't even imagine what it's like in the north bay this morning. i did want to start you off with this caltrans camera at 101 and state route 12. everyone coming over to the main line of southbound 101, it's gridlocked. everyone is at a standstill. we have a ton of road closures in the area. looks like someone getting impatient and cutting through to get onto the main lanes. can't stress this enough. use your patience as much as

possible. they have these road closures set up for your safety and they continue to grow. a ton of surface streets closed. i want to get to the major road closures. a full closure of 101 in santa rosa. so this is just north of the downtown area between bicentennial and mark west springs road. we talked to chp trying to confirm all lanes are closed northbound and southbound. they said as far as they know. i know they're having trouble setting up some of the closures, trying to get crews on the scene. a lot of those folks are evacuating their own homes. even the workers aren't able to get there to the scene because they're getting their families, pets, and loved ones out safely. state route 28 closed outside of calistoga at tubbs lane. state route 37 we got new information. this is still a sig alert. we did have the full closure due to a very large fire. they just extended that closure from 101 all the way over to

interstate 80 in the vallejo area. that is an extensive closure and that is likely going to stay that way the entire day and i quickly want to show you our bay bridge camera. if you look closely, that's all smoke. we're focusing on the north bay. reggie and jessica, i want to stress this. we're hearing from chp if you're not in mandatory evacuation, if you're not in danger, stay off the roads in the north bay. they are trying to keep it clear for everyone who does have to evacuate. if you don't have to leave do not do that. >> alexis, thank you. >> we had kaiser permanente being evacuated. we want to show you this. do we have that image? you see flashing lights there.

you see people wearing facemasks and we talked to a woman who was frantically trying to find her mother. >> my sister lives just off the highway and it sounds like she lost her house. she has my mom with her. she brought her to kaiser, i think it's this kaiser. now i just came here from san jose and was supposed to pick her up. >> reporter: why kaiser, why to a hospital? >> she had some stents put in and the smoke was really bad so she brought her over here. now i have to find them. >> we checked in with amy and they were getting more patients because this has gone from a bad situation to worse.

we have seen -- you can see in this video flames there right near the hospital. that's highway 101. if not just to a safe spot. santa rosa police department asking people to -- we have a mandatory evacuation area in santa rosa up on the screen for you. if you are an able-bodied adult that can make it to one of these shelters santa rosa police department put out a call for volunteers, evacuees at elci allen and cook middle school. any adult who can make it is asked to call a phone number and that phone number, i've tweet it had out but 707-543-4542.

again, 707-543-4542. they are asking for people to be able to go there. red cross has exhausted their volunteers in the area. >> i think it's important to read where these orders are because some of you are just tuning in before 5:00 a.m. cross creek road in santa rosa, sky farm drive, st. andrews g f drive, montecito heights, they need to evacuate now. north of fountaingrove parkway needs to evacuate. heading into sonoma county residents east of fulton road between guerneville and river road. circle oaks west to atlas peak. there are centers set up

throughout. there is now napa valley junior college open on highway 121. in addition to calistoga also open right now. cross walk community church as far as we know and napa is still accepting folks. something has changed in the last few minutes but it's getting full. we want to warn you that it may be better to go to a different evacuation center if you are thinking of going there. that's the one that first opened at crosswalk and has been on tv the most. we know it is open and running but there is more space at other shelters. >> napa valley college is your go-to if you are listening to this and going to evacuate. it would be that third location that opened up along the highway and they need people to go there rather than going to the cross walk community church. >> right. and this information i know is a lot of information is located, n your safety is paramount importance.

forged out of bravery, sacrifice, and duty. from all corners of the country, a family for life. ♪ but whether they served in lands far away or communities close to home, some of these men and women may face difficult times or even crisis. but sometimes reaching out for help can be the most

challenging and worthwhile mission of all. thankfully, friends, family, and communities are standing by their service members and veterans now more than ever. ♪ we're all in this together. when you recognize something isn't right, make the call to the veterans crisis line or military crisis line. during times of crisis, reach out and call. dial 1-800-273-8255 and press 1. it is 5:00 a.m. i'm reggie aqui. at least five fires burning as we speak. >> we want to show you where the fires are burning now. let's show you the map. all across the north bay, those fires are raging. some o