to drink tap water. fires caused damage to some of the storage tanks at pumping station. because of the damage can't assess the water quality and assure it's safe. do not drink is on in that area north of santa rosa. >> cal fire says 1,500 structures have been destroyed. aside from homes, fountain grove inn, hilton sonoma wine country hotel, k-mart in santa rosa. >> kohl's on airway drive, weet t's restaurant, and oakmont of villa capri in santa rosa. few of the businesses that are

no more. >> we're continuing to update on our website, abc7news.com and our mobile app. look at that as you can. right now 14 fires in northern california are burned more than 70,000 acres. >> state and federal officials are coordinating emergency response from the state's operation center at mayberry air force base in sacramento. >> most of these fires have limited or no containment. rapidly burning fires. almost entire effort last night and early this morning was focused on evacuations and moving citizens out of harm's way. we're moving resources throughout the state. in addition to cal fire, engaged in the state's mutual aid system with hundreds of fire engines and departments across the state engaging in the fire fight.

resources from san diego to cis ku, need every resident to heed evacuation warnings and orders and move out immediately. >> near santa rosa hit hard. dozens of homes burnt to the ground there. >> dion lynn spoke with a man. >> i don't know what to say, incredibly devastating. a beautiful neighborhood, always has been. i feel so badly. feel so badly for my neighbors. it's difficult to feel lucky. i guess we're just blessed. it's amazing. >> you're probably one of the millions of people who has been

smelling smoke and noticing dirty air across the bay area because of the fire. >> look at that. >> hazy behind us, dramatically, even at 5:00 in the afternoon, it's not that dark out yet. >> looking at video abc7 shot along the martinez waterfront. kind of like san francisco, smoke fills the air, looking north to benittia there and one resident tells us the smell of smoke woke her up in the middle of the night. >> we looked outside, saw it was not in martinez, then i picked up phone to look at alerts, then knew what was going on in napa and santa rosa. >> looking at what people in walnut creek see looking at mt. diablo. offering tips to reduce exposure to the smoky air, limit outdoor activity, set air conditioner in

home, office and car to recirculate indoor air and minimize exposure to outside smoke. >> 10:00 this morning, laura anthony a live shot near the silverado resort in napa. multiple homes burning. >> there's a news briefing. we want you to listen in and hear what is said from authorities. they're getting ready to speak with us. we understood they were speak. they're not just yet. but gatheri firefighters, mis agencies, first responders, and city and county officials to update the media, we're going to bring it to you live as soon as it happens. >> may get new figures shortly. >> we expect. figures we're working on. 1,500 homes, 70,000 acres,

outdated. >> intention is getting people to safety, secondarily may be now updating figures. we'll wait to hear on that. meantime, podium. >> welcome to the 5:00 press briefing for the tubbs fire. have everyone come in to talk about their section of the fire, then afterwards take some questions. between ten questions and afterwards can take up other questions with the individuals if you want. start off with santa rosa chief. >> i'm tony gazner, chief for city of santa rosa. 7:00, 7:30, multiple fires throughout the city, drained our esources quickly. and had mutual aid come in and

then tubbs fire coming in, realized with the wind we were battling on our own fires this this fire would come into santa rosa. did what we could. ordered up mutual aid early, we -- we ordered up mutual aid early, established a unified command with cdf or cal fire. set up our staging area in k-mart parking lot in city of santa rosa. didn't take long before we realized that was not a good spot. moved to our fire station 3. had thee immediate need strike teams. 25 other strike teams inbound. and it was all we could do to put engines in the right place. had every resource in the county, recalled every firefighter in the city of santa rosa, and used every resource to

the best of our ability. but with that kind of wind, that fire, not sure when it started but blew into santa rosa around midnight, little bit earlier, by morning time, fire about 25 to 30,000 acres. came in hard. very windy, dry wind and taxing for the entire city. so with that i'm going to turn it over to cal fire's incident commander, he's going to talk about what they're going to do. thank you. >> incident commander cal fire, management team one. activated approximately 1:00 in the morning to come down and support the incidents in sonoma and napa county through the night. ultimately this morning we were

assigned the responsibility of command. in conjunction with unified command and santa rosa city fire and chief gozer in in a unified effort to command the incident. current situation is 25 to 30,000 acres, 0% contained. done a magnitude of damage and still working to put damage assessment teams together and getting them out to accurately document the amount of damage that we have. had a great effort throughout the night from fire agencies in sonoma county and local fire agencies and mutual aid system from local, state and federal fire departments up and down the state of

cal fire would like to urge you and public to help us with any new fire starts, to ensure we don't get any. as you can see, conditions are severe up and down the state. resources are spread thin with the massive number of fires we have up and down the state. thank you. >> i'm rod d. of the sheriff's office in the county. started last night. supporting fire and evacuations. had deputies on mark west pinned down with civilians, couldn't get out and fire went around them. harrowing to them. to the public, please stay off the roads and evacuated areas. will be making arrests if there

are looters, seeing that problem and will enforce the law. stay out of the burned areas and evacuated areas. bear with us, lot of highly trained first responders trying to keep people safe. actively trying to rescue people now. that's the stage. seven confirmed deaths related to the fire so far. that's going to change. just too early to get into a lot of the spots. don't expect it to stay that way very long. any questions that i can answer? we're not going to let anybody into the burn areas. every area we control, going to keep everybody out of to keep it safe and frankly most of it is hot. >> what areas did you find fatalities? >> i don't know. >> evacuating people now? >> when he left the main office, still doing evacuations in south county. >> notified on phones?

>> phone calls and deputies knocking on doors. >> and we're going to take questions afterwards. chp is up. >> good evening. mike pelosi, commander for chp in sonoma county. just like to say our heart goes out to friends and family of those who lost their lives and their homes. devastating thing to see what is going on out there. last night we started answering calls for service east side of the county near the highway 12 area and continued to do so through the morning hours. we brought in extra personnel from all over the bay area to help assist with road closures and calls for service and evacuations and medical aid and all the things you can think of, aircraft to view things from the sky and get better perspective. it's been difficult for

everybody. our allied agency partners in both fire and police have been outstanding and can't thank them enough. they're true professionals. we're trying to keep it safe for everybody but please if you don't have to be out on the road, don't be. it's going to take a while for things to subside and roads to be safe again. closures are minimal but we had the major arteries closed, they're reopened most part but a lot going on. drive safe and within your means and don't drive on the roads unless you have to. thank you. with that, i'd like to introduce the acting chief for santa rosa pd, craig schwartz. >> good evening.

captain with the santa rosa police department, currently acting chief. as others have all said, this incident started p 17 hours ago when we first got notice the fires were moving rapidly into the city of santa rosa. since that time, santa rosa police department and fellow law enforcement officers throughout the county and region and firefighters have been engaged in continual evacuation and rescue efforts. those efforts are still ongoing. still have new fires flaring up within the city. and our officers are continuing to go around and evacuate people from the affected areas. when those people are unable to get out of the area, going into trying to perform rescues. it has been a horrific and terrifying night for a great

many people. and we ask that as we continue with these efforts, like the others have said, stay out of the mandatory evacuation areas for your own safety as well as safety of the first responders who have to go in to try to contain the fires and rescue people inside the areas. to that end, the city of santa rosa, through the city manager's authority under emergency declaration has enacted a curfew for the mandatory evacuation zones from 6:45 p.m., sunset, until sunrise. anybody who is out in those hours in the mandatory evacuation zones will be subject to stop and potentially arrest if they refuse to either go back inside or leave the areas. in this case would have to leave, mandatory evacuation zone. for safety of the people in that area and safety of the first

responders and allowing us to get through and get the situation under control as efficiently as possible. with that introduce the santa rosa city manager sean mcglen. >> good evening, i just want to take a chance to thank the citizens of the city of santa rosa for the resiliency they've shown in this very trying and difficult time. also to acknowledge the astonishing work that our public safety team has done over the last 17 hours. when i stepped into the situation at about 3:00 this morning, we had to declare a local state of emergency, shortly thereafter, the county declared a state of emergency, and then we had the governor declare a state of emergency for the county. and would be remiss without

acknowledging all the hard work and support we're getting from across the state as people come here and deploy and assist us in this very difficult and trying time. but i will tell you, the men and women of the city of santa rosa are committed to seeing this through and helping everyone they can. and what i would say is, urge the citizens of the city of santa rosa to go to our website. srcity.org and connect with us as we get information out about this dynamic and ever-changing situation. turn over the podium to the mayor, chris coursy. >> first of all, acknowledge that i'm as frustrated as all of you at the scarcity of information that we have at this point. i want to know how many people have died, how many people have been injured, how many people are in shelters, how many people

have been evacuated, how many structures have been lost. it's frustrating. on the other hand, last 17 to 18 hours, personnel have been out there saving lives. that's got to come first. will be time later on to measure up the damage and count the numbers. i want to just say my heart goes out to everyone who has suffered loss in the last day or i'm lucky. house is fine, family is fine, my city is not. going to take a long time for us to recover from what happened today. really glad to have support of local, county, state and federal partners. we're going to need you as we go through this difficult time. also want to say that santa rosa

is a strong city. we're resilient city, indivisible city and will need to hang together as we go through this. thank you. next up, board of supervisors chair woman shirley zain. >> thank you. along with me is supervisor david rabbit. i want to assure our residents it's been all hands on deck since 4:00 in the morning when we opened and began to operate our emergency operations center. the amount of people that have come together to work on this is truly amazing. and i will also tell you time devastated in terms of what i've seen. it is beyond belief. and as the mayor said, i think a lot of us in elected office are frustrated right now because we

so want to care and minister to the people we love and serve. i did spend some time at evacuee centers today, this morning and this afternoon. special interest and concern to me is many seniors evacuated from assisted living and skilled nursing who need medication, additional oxygen tanks and have other fragile medical needs. i will also tell you i spoke with the senator harris's office this morning about some of those needs. i am very encouraged that the state and federal government is here being represented and that they understand the devastation we've experienced. and we are a resilient county, we will come back from this. right now we need to grieve because the loss is significant.

and we promise you we will try and get you as much information as we can through multiple means. now introduce my colleague, supervisor rabbit. >> shoutout to brave men and women manning the lines and battling the flames and thank the men and women protecting them and property in law enforcement and emergency technicians. and as mentioned earlier, resiliency is amazing. at shelters in pet luma and cars were lined up with goods. people want to step up. look forward to rebuilding and moving forward together with help of state and federal partners. very much appreciate that. thank you. >> now i'd like to introduce our congressman mike thompson.

>> i represent part of sonoma county. huffman represents other part in united states congress and jim wood, our assemblyman. your state and federal partners will be working overtime to make sure we're there to help in any way and every way we can. as you've already heard, governor's declared a state of emergency. that's been forwarded to the federal government. it rests with fema right now. my office has been pushing them to make the declaration. so far they've approved federal fire assistant grants to help a great deal. as this progresses i fully expect we'll be getting assistance from fema in public assistance, which is going to be very important for state and local government partners, and individual assistance,

assistance for those individuals who have suffered a loss of property. also will be i'm assuming low interest loans that will be available. i was in the helicopter today, sonoma county sheriff's department helicopter, took a number of photographs, all sent to fema and white house to make sure that they know how serious this is. and how devastated our community is. and i look forward to continuing to work with the community and special thanks to all the firefighters and all the sheriffs and police officers, they've been doing a fantastic job along with all the hoc government employees who have just been working 24/7 on this and all the fantastic volunteers, thank you. >> we'll take a few questions. direct who you would like to

speak to. >> any idea what started the fire? >> still under investigation. once we have the information, get it out to you. less than 17 hours, have investigators out there to determine the cause. >> can't tell you anything more about the deaths, only recovered seven. >> in rubble? in -- >> in hot spots of the fire. >> remote areas? >> getting reports of people in neighborhoods and couple of possible burglary calls, starting to field that. add this too, 200 people working for sheriff's office, law enforcement officers and 80 to 90 sheriff's office employees and getting support from other

law enforcement places, we're locking down the neighborhoods. >> homes? businesses? >> homes and businesses, just had a couple of calls alameda, san francisco sent 100. alameda so, san mateo, roughly 20 agencies sent people for us today. far -- san francisco, san mateo i don't know. found seven 0 far. >> active rescues right now? >> just evacuations. >> calls for evacuations? >> i can cover some of that. before we came over, we had officers conducting evacuations and rescues in fountain grove neighborhoods and spring lake village on montgomery drive,

east end of town of the most of the evacuation and rescue efforts taking place later in afternoon were still in fountain grove area. that's also the site of some of the most harrowing rescues last night. where officers were going in and reporting they were surrounded by flames and having a hard time getting out. as well as some of the mobile home complexes along the highway 101 corridor. >> how did they get out? drive through flames? >> i don't know. just know they all got out. in many cases able to get victims into their cars and transport to evacuation centers or hospitals. >> rescues now -- >> i couldn't tell you for certain. in a few cases believe that to be true. don't know about all of them.

>> what part of santa rosa -- >> primarily fountain grove neighborhoods. were doing evacuations recently in spring lake village on montgomery drive by spring lake but mostly the hills around fountain grove parkway. >> what capacity are the shelters? is there enough space? >> we have a number of shelters open. current currently evacuated to veterans memorial building close to her. finley center on west side of town and accepted gracious offers of help from santa rosa city school district and taken people to elsie island high school, cook middle school. gotten aid from sebastopol and taken people to analy high

school and grande in petaluma. some at capacity and others have room. i don't have that count for you. i'm told during the evacuations for the city of santa rosa that we have evacuated somewhere north of 5,000 people. i don't know the exact number. suspicion is it will be significantly higher than that, looking at geography we've had to evacuate. >> at some point turn from search and rescue to search and recovery, do you envision significant portion to that? people reported missing? >> that has into the yet come into our minds. just getting people out to safety. >> still firefighters at burn saying didn't have water or manpower for certain scenarios.

>> that i would have to leave to them. >> repeat the question? >> firefighters said they had no choice but let homes burn because didn't have enough resources. >> as you know, all of this occurred close to the same time last night across seven counties. large fires all wind-driven with winds up to 50 miles an hour pushed at the same time. resources were scattered to respond to all. difficult to send a concentration of resources to one area. yes resources out yesterday worked through the night and through the day today while still getting in resources from the state. >> can you describe the criteria, this building let it go, this try to save? what evaluations go into the decision making process?

>> there's not a decision, let it go or save it, it's a question of firefighter safety. is it safe to get in and commit to that structure and let the fire come and burn around them and still be able to get out? that's why the defensible space and your driveway maintenance is so important. firefighters can get out and safely exit the building once they protect it. >> also heard that aircraft would be used as soon as daylight started in these fires. can you describe that a little bit. tell us what was used and where? >> number of large -- what we call vlat, very large air tankers ordered. shared resource across all the fires in the area. it is based on priority, on the risks that are being faced right now. those resources are shifted from one fire to the other, not just

assigned to one incident to stay. may share those resources with other fires in sonoma and napa county. >> finally criteria for that, who decides who gets resource? describe the criteria that goes in to deciding which communities get it and which don't? >> regional operations center decides priority for the incidents, where the resources go and how they're prioritized and sent to the incidents? >> what do they look it? >> first and foremost life safety. is there homes, people in the way of the incident or just vegetation? those types of criteria they're looking at when they assign resources. >> firefighting efforts in challenging areas -- >> as it's been covered, really multiprong