now from abc 7, live breaking news. >> good morning, 11:00 a.m., thanks for joining us again as we continue this coverage of the unbelievable fires now consuming much of the north bay. >> if you're just joining us, we've been covering this brea b breaking news since 11:00 last night. there are wildfires burning in at least five counties. here are the biggest fires. this is from sky 7. we're looking toward napa and sonoma counties, those are the hardest hit areas. right now, the tubbs fire in sonoma county, napa county border there, has scorched more than 35,000 acres, that is the largest one that firefighters are dealing with. at the moment, it is 0% contained. >> a.p. reporting from the state fire chief that 1,500 structures have been destroyed in napa and sonoma and other places now affected by the fires. in fact, sky 7 spotted at least 30 of them burning in eastern santa rosa. and people all over the bay

area, of course, can smell that fire. we're going to go now to our colleague laura anthony, she's been covering the silverado resort community where some homes are saved and many others are not. >> reporter: right, reggie. i would hate to guess at this point how many homes have been lost in here, but it's safe to say i would say dozens. look at this one behind me here, we're on stony mountain circle, just one of many unfortunately that are in his condition, still smoldering. every so often, jacob can show us in the distance, see a plume of black smoke. and, unfortunately, we're realizing that that's probably another home that's going up as we speak. there are firefighters in here, but it seems they're pretty much powerless to save the homes that are already burning. and they're really just focusing on trying to save the houses next to them here on stony mountain circle. we can show you this house right next to that one that was burned to the ground is still standing. we can only speculate it looks

like there was some effort here to take down the garage door. they punched some holes in the walls. the front door has some holes in it. this could be, perhaps, an effort by firefighters to try to make sure that anyone inside got out safely. the house, itself, as you can see, is safe, but this is really the only one in h this neighborhood on this street as we're standing across the street, two more big homes completely gone. and still smoldering. we see a car in the background that looks like it's just fine. but it's just an example of how random and happen hazard this event has been here in silverado country club. drive up hillcrest drive as you enter the country club, there's a beautiful golf course on the left. on the right we're seeing houses burning, infernos. firefighters are really just not doing anything, they're just trying to protect the home next to it. it's an ongoing situation and clearly one that is

what firefighters can handle at this point. live in napa, back to you guys. >> laura, thank you. throughout the morning firefighters have reiterated to us that their focus is on ensuring that there is no loss of life from these fires. and, of course, keeping everyone safe that those structures are a bit secondary at this point. and that is their focus. but we know that those are the homes of people, the memories of people that have gone up in flames. we want to check in now with abc 7 news reporter cornell bernard. he is in santa rosa. also very -- we know, many homes are damaged there. >> we've heard from some of the owners of those homes, cornell, what are you seeing now? >> reporter: yeah, guys, we are in the rincon valley neighborhood of santa rosa. this is eastern santa rosa. we're here on ranchette drive where home after home really on the right side of the road has been dededededededede

overnight. all that's left, brick chimneys and the flames you're seeing are ruptured gas lines. now, i have counted at least six or seven homes on ranchette that have been burned. the fear now up on the ridge, rincon ridge road, more homes are burning. perhaps at this moment. that is still unclear. the area, even to us, we are free to go pretty much everywhere at our own risk, but it is just too dangerous for even us to travel up there because power lines, electrical poles, are down, blocking our way. but as you can see, the spokes contin smoke continues to billow over rincon valley. beautiful section of santa rosa. even to the rear of us here, jack, if you can pan over, you know, we got -- we have active fire burning on all sides of us right now. still a very dicey situation. we've had neighbors that have been dousing the roofs of their homes with garden hoses. just trying to -- tryi ining to

preserve what they have. we talked to john graves. one of the more remarkable people that i have met in many, many years. john, again, we're so sorry about your home here. you got your first look just a few minutes ago. just tell me what's going through your mind and what the night was like. >> the tnight was a bit of a shock. my son banged on the back door at 1:00 and said you got to come out and see this. the hill's on fire. and lived here a long time. i've seen fires before. i didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal. boy, when i took a look, i knew we were in trouble. so we took about an hour to gather what we thought was important and as we were leaving, the flames were kissing the tops of the hillside on back of us. we were hoping it was going to shift and go another direction, but unfortunately, it didn't. and we got the news a couple hours later that it was -- it was burning.

>> reporter: that your home was burning. >> my home was burning, yeah. yeah, so it's -- it's a shock. yeah, we -- we're just going to put the pieces back together and rebuild. this is, you know, it looks horrible now, but this is really a beautiful spot. >> reporter: we know. >> it will grow back and our homes will come back and we'll, you know, we'll remember this day forever. >> reporter: like you said a few minutes ago, property can be replaced, but, you know, lives can't. everyone got out safely. >> right. >> reporter: that's the main part. right? >> right. >> reporter: your animals, too? >> my dog is fine, my wife and my grandsons and my daughter-in-law and -- we have a building downtown that was safe. we went down, that's our office. we stayed there. we're hoping for some better news than this. >> reporter: did firefighters or officers, police officers come to your door and say it's time to go? >> no, no, my son, like i said, woke us up. we didn't see any officials at all. and, but it -- we could tell.

you know, you've heard about the stories of other places where people wait too long and get trapped. and exiting brush creek road, it was really just a tree tunnel down there, so we got -- >> reporter: a traffic jam of others trying to leave? >> yeah, it was kind of, it was gridlock so we thought, well, that was the time to go. i don't really think we could have done that much if we stayed. you know, we have a couple garden hoses. but not the kind of water pressure to fight something like this. this was -- this was a big one. i've lived in san i remember r we had to evacuate this valley. but it wasn't like this. it -- this is -- this is a really a different story. and i felt so bad for the people on the west side of town because neighborhoods with 50, 100 homes, are all just like this. and that's rough. r >> reporter: we wish you the best. >> all right. >> reporter: thank you for talking to us. we're so sorry about your home here. >> all right. >> reporter: all right. just a remarkable man, remarkable story.

his son, john jr., john, you want to say anything to us? just describe the night. we're so sorry about your family home here. >> yeah, no, it was definitely a memorable night. we woke up to a tree falling two miles that way. and wanted to make sure dad was okay. i came over here and we just took a couple things and went to his office downtown and waited. we'll see what happens to my place. like he said, we'll build something new and make new memories. >> where do you live from here? >> where the blaze is right there. the winds are going that way a little. i'm looking good right now. i'm probably about a half mile, maybe quarter mile from there. so my three little boys and grandma are at his office just kind of waiting it out. >> reporter: can you believe this day? all the fire. the wind. >> no, the wind was the most shocking thing. it blew a tree down and ripped the cover off my hot tub around 1:00. that woke us up and got us checking out the window. glad everybody's safe. haven't heard of fatalities. hope it stays that way.

>> reporter: we're glad you're okay. >> thank you. >> reporter: we hope your home is, too. >> yeah, me, too. >> reporter: thank you so much. unfortunately, there's so many many homeowners that are not so lucky. a lot of homes have burned. we don't know how many in this particular area. but in bennett valley, it's about, what, jackie, five, ten-mile drive from where we are. more mandatory evacuations happening there. a lot of people, lot of homeowners waiting at a fire station on pins and needles. just trying to get any information about the status of their homes. again, we show this shot of john's place, john graves. and his family home here. along with six or seven others that are surrounding it. cars burned. belongings, obviously. we see a washer/dryer here. it is -- it is just terrible. i have never seen anything like this. we have traveled far today from glen ellen in sonoma county

where many neighborhoods have been devastated by fire and certainly hope the the the the firefighters are able to get an upper hand on the fire to stop anymore homes from getting burned. live in santa rosa, cornell bernard, abc 7 news. >> cornell, before we let you go, quickly, the devastation there is jaw-dropping, it is gut-wrenching. we know you've been speaking is to john who has been gracious enough to talk to us, but are there other people standing by there and is there still mandatory evacuation for that area? we heard you say that earlier. are police trying to evacuate people from that area right now? >> reporter: yeah, evacuation, a new evacuation order is in place. you know, police cannot force you to leave your home, but they can warn you. a lot of people choosing to stay around. most people i will have to say, jessica, have left in the last 20 minutes. last 30 minutes after that police officer came through. before our last live shot.

just announcing that it's time to go because there are active fires, like i said, burning on either side of us. up on the ridge and behind us as well. >> yeah. >> including structures that have burned. so, at this point, a lot of people have heeded that warning and have gotten out. those who -- those are staying in the neighborhood dousing their homes. >> okay. >> reporter: their roofs with fire -- with water. and they know the risks. they're going to hang around. >> okay, cornell, thank you, b please be careful yourself as well and the crews out there. >> what john said is really important to hear. no one was going to give him a personal invitation to leave his home in the middle of the night. he had to make that decision, i think he made the right one. he saved his family, he could not save his house but as he just told cornell, this is stuff that can be replaced. obviously his family cannot. so john, we wish you all the best. >> absolutely. we have seen devastating images, though, of not only people's

homes being burned down but businesses there in santa rosa as well. this is a picture from earlier this morning of a kmart in santa rosa that went up in flames. >> abc 7 news anchor live at the scene. there's nothing left behind you, is there? >> reporter: absolutely not, this part of santa rosa is a virtual ghost town. take a look behind me. you can see absolutely everything is charred and as we zoom in, you can also see remains of what appear to be shopping carts, completely blackened. there are still some hotspots. what's so scary about this situation is right about the time we were about to go live, we heard some small explosions coming from inside this structure so, of course, safety is an issue. this area is cordoned off. however, we are able to talk to some people who are able to witness what happened here in this shopping plaza that is just down the street.

probably less than a quarter mile from that mobile home park that we were at just moments ago where 13 homes were destroyed. now, if right now we could bring in dan o'rourke who owns a small business nearby here in santa rosa, and you were here early in the morning. what did you see? >> flames about 100 feet in the air. >> reporter: yeah, and you've lived in this area for decades. have you ever seen anything to this magnitude before? >> no, other than the '64 fire that came from calistoga and back, but this is just -- right downtown, nothing's been downtown. this structure here -- shame. but we'll rebuild. buddy's store over here that has a trader joe's, it's gone. my friend, jimmy wong up here, his house is gone.

hotel's gone. >> reporter: it's hard to wrap your head around the magnitude of this because we saw the hilton hotel which is just across the highway over there completely engulfed. not to mention, a mexican restaurant and a number of homes. and i know you're getting emotional because there are so many people that are affected that we just don't know about yet. >> yeah. i'm fortunate, our business right around the corner, it got saved. my niece, her apartment got burned up. and my other friend, their house got burned up right around the corner. so we're all in a state of devastation right now. >> reporter: is everybody safe? where from thhave they evacuate? >> some people went down to the vets building. my niece works for mattress firm. they won't to roanoke park. even there, they have the hills fire. t to them burning. >> reporter: a ppearst o the good news if there's any good news to be had, many people in the area know the severity of it, word

did spread extremely quickly. were able to evacuate. >> it did. everybody called everybody. we got calls on our phones at our homes toly i saw on the roads. yeah. it's a shame about this store. in its day, it was just a beauty. it's kind of gone downhill. now look at it. really see to sad to see this h >> reporter: there are residents slowly starting to trickle in and take photos keeping in mind, though, it's a very dangerous scene because we don't know about gas lines or live power lines. do you live in the area? >> no, i'm from arizona. i came to get a hoodie and i guess i'm not going to get it done. >> reporter: no, definitely not for a long time. over here, we ran into this man right here, you said that you live just a few blocks away and were woken up to the smell and the sights of fire. >> at 3:30 in the morning, my

brother came pounding atmy window and said we had to evacuate. we hurried up and turned on the news and luckily for us, i'm four streets over but they told us to only go to one street over at finley park. i told my family, that's only one street over, if they really want us out, that's pretty close, we sneed need to go a li further. i've been here over 40 years. i know the neighborhood like the back of my hand. i went to these housing projects. i tried to find my mom -- not my mom, my aunt's home. took me a second. i thought i really knew this area. i did find it. the only thing left was a basketball hoop. this is one of the biggest structures in santa rosa, kmart. i can't believe how it went up in flames. it's terrible, you know? see people over here, everybody is crying, people looking for their pets and lost people still. it's just what a couple hours into this and people are still -- people are devastated. >> reporter: some of the scenes have been so heartbreaking. i saw a mother and daughter carrying an ash-covered dog down

the street. >> right, like i said, you can't find it, people are looking for their pets even if they're deceased. lot of sympathy, lot of loss. things got lost over there. >> reporter: i see you've been riding your bike around the area. we're getting reports of fires at multiple businesses, not so mention certain neighborhoods. what else you seen? >> reporter: this part overall, hopper, the north side, it's just homes right now. residentials. this is only commercial build g ing i've seen -- actually, kmart, this is kmart, but we got applebee's, arby's and mcdonald's look like this building right now. >> reporter: someone just told any that the auto zone also was on fire. >> and that's what's crazy. when i knew auto zone caught on fire, i knew we were in trouble, that's literally is 15 houses away from my house. we got close right there. one of my friends called me, i think that was at, like p 1:00. she said, you know, auto zone, 7-eleven are on fire, get out of there. they know i live right there.

my brother came in a double lup hours and started knocking on the window. he lives on piner road. his apartment barely, barely made it. the whole naeighborhood-up in h flames, it's crazy. >> reporter: we wish you the 9 best of luck. reporting a story to this magnitude is difficult. it's all unfolding. no matter where you go, no matter which direction you are in, you will find something that looks along the lines of this. so, we are still getting more reports of damage and more flames that still have not been put out. over here, to my left, i know this is not the best shot, but you can see all of that dark smoke still billowing out over there. that was a gun shop. just about a quarter mile away where the residents nearby told me they heard pop, pop, pop. as all of that ammunition went off because of all of the flame the. so, we're going to soldier on and see what else we can find here. but for now, reporting live in santa rosa, abc 7 news.

>> is thank you. hard to see a massive store like that destroyed. >> other parts of that shopping center were fine. like, you could see a dollar tree in the background that didn't look like it was affect at all. >> we noticed that throughout the morning, larger areas, rural areas, where there are some homes that would be up in flame and see the area, even the trees around that home that were not on fire. so perhaps those embers far-reaching and just sparking up in some of those locations hit-or-miss. that gun shop dion memntioned i where amy hollyfield was early this morning and heard the popping noise. no doubt very scary for people in that area. >> just the fact it's come into the city. this is not something that -- i think in the past couple of years we've seen a number of fires at the north bay, but typically we haven't seen it going to a downtown part. that's what that man was saying that it's so shocking to see businesses that they've been to

for so many years now gone. >> right. we heard another man that cornell bernard talked to say we've always thought this might be a fire danger, that we might be in trouble, that our home would be evacuated, but we thought it would take so many homes and so many structures to burn through to finally get to our home that we didn't think it would be this -- it wouldn't come to this. that our home of 25 years would burn down. and that's what so many people are waking up to. >> that's happening. yeah. tiffany wilson is live for us at the crosswalk community church. she's been there for many hours now. and tiffany, i know a lot of these folks have been just standing around waiting to hear information that isn't coming very fast for them. >> reporte >> reporter: that's absolutely right, reggie. and as you mentioned, some of the fire burn areas are hit-or-miss and so they're holding on to hope that their house might be one of those misareas. as opposed to one of the hit areas. even when the neighborhoods are being reported, they're still

crossing their fingers. i want to tell you that the firefighter i just spoke to said this is absolutely the nightmare scenario and he only anticipates that it will get worse before it gets better. and, in fact, the conditions around us here at the evacuation center have gotten worse. there's a lot of ash falling. the smoke is pretty thick. but some good news for the first time in hours, we have seen a helicopter fly overhead. so many of these evacuees are hoping that that means aerial assistance from calfire will soon be dropping water, dropping fire retardant on these wildfires. now, not only are the evacuees here, but there are also a number of volunteers. christine harigan and her husband drove in from have lval with a truck full of supplies. you have deep roots in napa. tell me why do you feel you should drive here to help? >> my heart goes out to all the families that are here that are suffering, lost their homes, just lost everything. me and my husband, we've lived here since we were young kids

and we just kind of feel we need to do anything we can do to help. >> reporter: what did you bring? >> we brought cases of water, diapers, air mattress, blankets, pillows. >> reporter: and i understand you have family not only here in napa, but also in santa rosa. what has it been like trying to communicate with them throughout the day? >> reporter: it's been really hard. service has been really bad. just trying to get text messages through. i have family on the road, family that won't evacuate from santa rosa. it's just really tough. >> reporter: and i know your house, itself, was covered in ash in vallejo. what was the situation like as you were driving here into napa, what did you see? >> we couldn't really see much. a lot of smoke through the hills. lot of ash. we can tell it was a little hard to breathe. you can definitely inhale smoke on the way. we bought some masks. . we stopped, the stores just in case we needed it. >> reporter: you know, i know your heart goes out to all of these evacuees. what has your interaction been so far with the people you've met? >> everyone's been really great,

everyone's really friendly. everyone's stopping and doing what they can do to help everyone. >> reporter: christine, thank you. thanks to your husband for pitching in here. where you can. that has been the story that we have seen so many times through this morning. neighbors helping neighbors. hoe horn as one person was leaving their house trying to alert others in the neighborhood, waking them up overnight. sometimes that has meant dropping off baby formula and diapers and water here at the evacuation center. but, again, reggie, as you pointed out, so many of these evacuees desperate for information. that information really has been forthcoming. reggie and jessica, back to you. >> glad to hear you say there was a helicopter overhead. that gives me hope that perhaps that will be put to work soon. thank you so much, tiffany. >> yeah, right now they're trying to get aerial coverage of this fire, trying to drop water from the air because we know at least 50,000 acres are burning in the north bay right now. that's the latest number we have. and that was from a few hours

ago wi ago. >> which is beyond comprehension. amy hollyfild is showing us around other parts of santa rosa. she's been to neighborhoods that have been decimated. i see a home behind you that looks like it may have been saved? >> reporter: yes. that's not the end of it for some of these people. wait until you hear this, reggie. we just talked to a police officer from oakland who is here helping. he's looking out for looters. someone on this street, crimson street in the coffey park neighborhood, already says her home has been robbed. stuff had been stolen from her home. it has been looted. this is a street, crimson street, where some of the homes were saved. some of the firefighters from contra costa county came in hto help, took a stand on crimson street, said we're going to save some of these homes and they did. see where they stopp eped right there. here it comes.

gold ridge twin hill station. that's a new fire department pulling in. anyway, you can see where that home -- obviously they weren't able to stay. the sage green home one has no damage. that is where they were a ibl to take a stand. they said it was so difficult. fire was coming at them from every direction. they said they had ash in their face. they had all the smoke and very low water pressure. they seemed very impressed and surprised they were actually able to do it. they did have a hard stop right here just for us to hear that looters did make a stop through this neighborhood and then they -- we were, of course, incredulous and he said, nope, we even heard it from santa rosa police, looting is going on. so there are police officers, we saw tiberon police, oakland police officers, who are here in the area watching for that. let's take a look at the other side of crimson street. it's unbelievable. the difference from one side to the next. this is gone.

the major street is hopper, parallel to us, block after block after hopper and the cul-de-sacs off it, all the homes are gone. one contra cost ra firefighter said he won't be surprised if this is worse than the oakland fire. he thinks that's going to be the case. even firefighters shocked and stunned by what they're seeing out here. with calfire telling us this is the fire of a lifetime. just unlike anything they've ever seen before. so that is the latest where we are, coffey park, very hard-hit neighborhood, with neighbors on this side of the street, though, not knowing quite how to feel saying it's very emotional knowing their homes are okay, but their neighbors' aren't. >> amy? >> reporter: reggie, jessica? >> i thought i wasn't hearing you correctly at first then you repeated it. >> reporter: i know. i told you. you're not going to believe this. >> no, so they're going through that neighborhood trying to loot then you said there was also one other area where you heard there was looting? >> reporter: well, we said to

the oakland police officer a couple of times, are you sure that this can't be true? and he said, oh, yes, not only had he spoken to the resident on this street, but he had also confirmed through santa rosa police that they have reports as well. >> okay. >> reporter: of looters. >> i see. so that is -- >> wow. >> -- the worst. anyone who's doing that right now, honestly, cut it out. >> it makes my blood boil to think that they are pray preying on people who are evacuated from their homes without anything they can possibly do and going in there and trying to take advantage of this situation. amy, thank you for your report. another hard-hit area, amy was in santa rosa and that was the -- the tubbs fire that is burning in that area. another hard-hit area is napa. just east of napa. the city of napa. that is where with e find laura anthony. she's in napa county live near alta mesa and stone mountain

circle. what's the latest from you? >> reporter: right, hi, jessica. we've been talking about how this is a really fluid situation. we have a living example here. the house behind me is completely gone. it looks like the fire has moved through here. as we're standing here, look at this one. smoke started to come out from underneath. smoke now starting to come out from upstairs. we saw a santa lina fire rig going down the street. we flagged them down. they're now assessing the situation. they're in the front of the house. as we've been talking about all morning, obviously the priority in these situations is to protect life. while they're not jumping out to put out the fire, they are going to the front door to check and see if anybody is inside. unfortunately, this house may suffer the same fate of what we saw all morning. let's show you some video we shot this morning on hillcrest drive which is down in silverado country club proper. these are homes that were fully engulfed. as we were driving up the street. some houses just fine, next

house, fully engulfed. that is pretty much what we're seeing here. it's very random. vs. very haphazard. there are fire crews in here. as far as we can tell the priority is just to make sure people are safe and they've really been powerless to do a whole lot about these homes that are burning. as we speak, they're try to put water -- they're going to get water i think on this one. here's what some of the resid t residents had to say, one man in particular. >> nobody is coming in to put these fires out. there's one firefighter up th e thethere we saw with one truck and it's continuous burning down the street. all the homes from 2000 all the way up atlas peak are burnt to the ground. i counted over 60, 70 homes that are burnt right to the ground. so why they're letting it go this far and keep going, i have no idea. >> reporter: and here we are back live at the street up alta mesa circle. st. helena fire department did just roll up.

they're trying to get the fire hydrant going here. i think they're going to try to put some -- some water on this windows are starting to blow out of the house. we watched as a little bit of black smoke is coming out of the home. then it started coming out the upstairs window and now out the front of the home. it's really heartbreaking to watch this and this feeling of helplessness. obviously we can't do much about it. even firefighters have been overwhelmed by this situation. we're live in silverado country club, highlands, laura anthony, nbc's news. >> thank you. that frustration from so many people not understanding why firefighters can't get to their homes. this has been going on for countless hours at this point. we have been on the air since 11:00 last night trying to get you the l