breaking news. >> breaking news. another wildfire breaks out forcing evacuations, this time it is burning in the santa cruz mountains. good morning, it is tuesday, october 17th. >> it is 4:30. natasha has the day off. we have been on the air covering the bear fire since 4:00 this morning and our live team coverage continues right now. here is what we know, the fire started around 11:00 p.m. near bear creek canyon and deer creek roads in the boulder creek area. >> right now there are evacuation orders for several roads in the area. they are on your screen. deer creek road, rons road, dons road, lost valley road, favre ridge and oak ridge. cal fire says if you feel like you are in danger you need to leave right now. >>en a evacuation center is open at boulder creek elementary

school in boulder creek. that's where evacuees are already heading, we are told there are 150 so far, that fire they have knocked on some doors, they're trying to get people out and get them to that school. >> the wind is a concern this morning. if there are any out there, let's check in with mike nicco on the forecast. >> jessica, reggie, that was a good if there are any winds out there, that was a good statement there, jessica. hi, everybody, let me start off by saying this is not and will not be a repeat of what we dealt with in the north bay. we just do not have the environmental weather or wind conditions to do it. right now there are no wind, but the temperature up at about 1600 to 1800 feet it's 69 degrees, a little warm, humidity is about 23% so it is bone dry out there. what you're seeing right now is this is a chimney kind of fire. it is climbing up the valley walls due to the chimney effect because the hot air rises and as the hot air rises it dries out the registration above it and that makes the ignition a lot

easier. here is what's going to happen this afternoon, we will get a breeze, it will come out of the northwest and blow at 9, so like lexington hills, the summit, 17 we will probably get a little smoky this afternoon. temperature will be 84, going to be warmer and humidity will be 22%. i'm not saying this isn't a big fire, it is impressive enough that it's showing up on our doppler radar there on mt. umunhum, that is the radar picking up the smoke and the embers from the fire, but without any wind those embers aren't ridge jumping, they aren't leaving the parent fire. they get cold or they get cooler than the environmental air and then they fall right back down into the that valley. so that valley will be on fire, but the likelihood of it spreading just not really that great. so one last thing i want to talk about, the air quality. now, it's going to be very bad right in that area and when the winds start to blow out of the northwest it will push it more towards gilroy, morgan hill, san

martin, watsonville in that area during the afternoon hours. our poorest air quality right now in the north bay, the rest of us are moderate, whether it's the coast and central bay, inland east bay, south central bay or the santa clara valley but the southern santa clara valley probably will have less in the way of good air quality because of that smoke that will start moving from northwest to southeast later on. i can't emphasize enough, it has its challenges because of the roads, because of the lack of population, but this will not be a repeat of the north bay. >> that certainly is good news, mike. we want to talk a little bit about road closures with this as well. i will take you in on our traffic maps and show you where this is. we've been talking to matt keller who is getting really close to the scene here, he has been calling in on the phone. this is really not a hugely densely residential area, but there are a lot of folks who live here, but these are really

some mountainous roads between the boulder creek area and the summit. between state route 9 and state route 17. he mentioned a little earlier this morning there is a lot of construction of course we just had all of those slides last winter with the rainy season. i actually do have a little bit of new information from chp, they started getting calls about a house fire around 10:30 last night and that is what spread to the vegetation and that is what we're dealing with right now. they have shut down the construction on state route 9. so caltrans picked that up at alba, they have that roadway back open. for folks trying to evacuate that is not going to be a concern for you on state route 9, you should be able to get through there freely, those crews picked up early in morning. we do have additional closures in the area as well. bear creek which is sort of a main road through this stretch is closed at state route 9 and again at hawk ridge. i don't have any full closures of highway 17 if you're going to head over that way, we are seeing a little bit of red and yellow there on our traffic flows and that is due to overnight construction. for sure if you're going to be

on bear creek canyon road, deer creek road, rons road, dons road, lost valley road, favre ridge or oak ridge those are the areas you want to use caution and get out of there. you shouldn't have major problems evacuating, we do have a lot of one-lane roads and again very mountainous roads but if you live in the area you obviously know that. caltrans and chp trying to make it easier for you, too, picking up that construction ahead of schedule. back to you. abc 7 news reporter matt keller has been giving us a lot of new information about what is happening there. he is on the phone with us. matt, last we talked to you you were able to confirm that there is some damage already to a structure. >> reporter: yes, that's what we're hearing, that there is at least one home that was damaged or a structure that has been damaged in this fire. we're also getting word that we are going door to door now and knocking on doors, trying to get everybody out in that area. there are homes obviously in that area and there are people who live in the area, it's mountain living so it's not like, you know, the traditional

neighborhood you think of in the city, but there are people who obviously live up in this area. this is in the los cumbras area. they're evacuating people down to boulder creek element school so boulder creek is safe for now. they're trying to get people who are deeper into the santa cruz mountains out of that area. the roads are the big issue. it's good to hear that they've stopped the construction on highway 9 because a lot of the roads back here when you're driving in the santa cruz mountains in the middle of the night there is so much construction going on from all the damage from the winter storms. people are having to deal with deciding whether or not they will take one road that has been blocked off. i know that, what was it [ inaudible ] -- what road was that? upper bear creek road had some issues because of the winter

storm, so sometimes when you are up here in the mountains you normally have two ways to get out and because of all the construction and all the damage from the storms, some people only have one way to get out. so sometimes it's much more important to listen to those evacuation orders because if you have a chance to get out of a road you never know when that's going to be blocked off. >> matt, you mentioned there were a couple agencies assisting with evacuations right now and i know you're very familiar with the area, so can you paint us a picture as to what that might look like, especially as those homes are pretty far away from each other and also what those buildings do look like in the area. >> well, you've got the santa cruz county sheriff's office, you have the santa clara county sheriff's office and also the chp. so all three of those agencies are familiar with the santa cruz mountains, they all have jurisdiction up here in one way or another. so they are familiar with the area up here. getting the homes up here can be difficult, even getting up driveways. if you are off the road going up

a driveway can be difficult to get up to because it can be a long ways away from the main road. so as they're driving up bear creek road or any of these other roads, even though they have a home -- the homes on the left and on the right of them, it's going to take a lot more time than going -- you know, walking in a neighborhood. they are going to have to drive up to there, knock on the door and obviously it's very dark up here, there's not lights and things sort of for people to see so this might be kind of scary for some people getting knocks in the door in the mountains at 4:30 in the mountain. so that's obviously something people should be aware of that that's happening right now. >> matt keller on the phone for us live, feeding us new information about this fire that continues to burn in the santa cruz mountains. we will be checking in with you throughout the morning. we will turn to the containment figures from the north bay wildfires this morning. progress in mendocino and lake count crease, the red wood fire now 55% contained and the sulfur fire is 90% contained.

the atlas fire 70% containment, the tubbs fire at 75% and the nuns fire 53% containment, finally the pocket fire at 45%. >> some con between river rock casino and chalk hill road, east shiloh road, west of fourth street east and grecky road and all the city of sonoma and county areas north of east napa and west napa street are now open. cal fire and sonoma county officials say they are confident in the progress firefighters are making there, but if your house is in an area that is still evacuated it could be a few weeks before you can go home. >> we do have areas out there that are still evacuated and as soon as we can mitigate the threats of that by putting good control line on these fires and making sure that we are not putting people back into their

homes and having to pull them back out the next day is eliminated. we will get those repopulated as well. >> in sonoma county the death toll remains at 23. there are still about 80 people listed as missing. the sheriff warns the death toll could increase as searches of burned neighborhoods continue. also in sonoma county four of seven post offices that were closed temporarily will reopen today. the offices in vine burring and boyce hot spring both open at 8:30 and the ver know post office opens at 9:30 chblngts the sun in sonoma opens at noon today. several schools in the fire zone are still closed, napa valley unified schools are set to reopen tomorrow. sonoma county schools will begin reopening between monday and thursday of next week. sonoma state resumes classes tomorrow. santa rosa junior college will

open on monday, napa valley college shelters will close today and the school will resume classes on monday. >> now your accuweather forecast with mike nicco. >> let's take a look at what's going to happen for the rest of us then we will get back to the fire in the santa cruz mountains. our winds pretty calm this morning. any smoke out of the north bay you can see the winds are just a breath but they're blowing from north to south and the greatest amount of smoke right now is hanging around the napa valley and over towards solano county. we have poor air quality for you while the rest are moderate. if you look at the visibility it's not too bad, just about everywhere except for maybe right around novato. a little more smoke right there, than maybe anywhere else. let's move on and let's talk about what to expect today as we look at the ferry building this morning, notice the winds, not all that great right now. and they are not going to be for the better part of today.

temperaturewise we're going to be around 51 to 57. a little warmer this morning than it was this time yesterday morning. we have high clouds and once that sun comes up at 7:20 the high clouds and sunshine will mix for 65 at the coast at noon, 73 to 78 around the bay and inn hand and those temperatures pretty close to average. we still have several hours of warming to go so we will hit 62 at the coast as localized sea breeze will kick in. 77 around the bay to 84 inland. as we're seeing the sunset, 56 at the coast, 67 around the bay, 71 inland at 7:00. >> that's your 12-hour day planner. let's take a look at what's going on with our fire. we still have pretty much the same conditions, no wind, tremendous, a little warm, especially up in the elevations above 1500 feet, 69 and humidity is kind of dry. during the afternoon hours 84 degrees, humidity remains dry, the winds start blowing northwest to southeast at about 9 miles per hour. that may help spread the fire a little bit, but right now it's

just a valley fire that is going to stay in that valley because there is no wind. you can see it on radar and our air quality once again poorest up in the north bay right now, the rest of us moderate. we will keep an eye on the santa clara valley because the smoke from this fire will be moving your way as we head into the afternoon hours. we have rain on the way, we will talk about that coming up next. a live look at the bay bridge toll plaza so you can see a little bit of that haze out there this morning, maybe a little bit of a stack up this those cash lanes as well, but we should have 40 minutes to go before we get those metering lights flipped on. we also briefly had a big problem on 880 southbound lanes just north of state route 84 that has cleared but i do want to touch on the fire once again and that is to the east of boulder creek to the west of the summit, a couple more closures just in from chp. they are saying now that bear creek is closed at dear creek canyon and that is a hard

closure so it looks like you will not be able to get through there. we're also hearing about full closure bear creek at state certainly get out of the area if you can, if you don't feel like you're safe, and then i did pass this note along a few minutes ago but caltrans did pick up some construction they had overnight on state route 9. so that is no longer an issue, either. we will take a look at drive times coming up in a few minutes. >> okay. alexis, thank you. we will have more on that fire in the santa cruz mountains, also have more on the north bay also have more on the north bay fire zone and the accident

hmm. [cell phone beeps] hey! [police whistle blows] [horns honking] woman: hey! [bicycle bell rings] turn here. there. excuse me. uh. uh. [indistinct announcement on p.a. system]

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before they even turn into cancer. if you're over 50, get screened for colorectal cancer. screening saves lives. the bear fire burning in the santa cruz mountains, the fire started at 11:00 last night near beer creek canyon and deer creek roads. there are evacuation orders for several roads in that area and we have posted those roads on our website abc7news.com. we do want to stress those evacuations are not mandatory right now. cal fire says if you feel unsafe you should leave your home. in fact, they are going door to door, evacuating about 150 residents right now. an evacuation center has been opened at boulder creek elementary this morning in boulder creek. >> we will continue to follow

that fire but we want to turn our attention back to the north bay where those fires are still raging and the death of a private contractor a water tender driver marking its first fatality among the crews that were working in the front lines of the north bay fires. >> the driver of the truck died yesterday morning after his rig overturned on its way down the oakville grade at the nuns fire. the cab landed upside down on the side of a hill just below the roadway, the empty water tank became detached. the driver's id has not been released. based on the log information on the cab this rig traveled from red bluff to help with the napa valley firefighting. when our neighbors in need abc 7 shows up. 7 on your side's michael finny will be at north bay evacuation centers today to help people affected by wildfires. you can come see him at the sonoma county fairgrounds in santa rosa at 10:00 this morning. for a list of all locations go to abc7news.com/7 on your side. yesterday we were telling you about that farm day that be

would be a little bit of an aberration. >> good morning. hi, everybody. let's look into the future and that rain we've talked about, first we're watching a blob of clouds down to our south, even a little cluster of thunderstorms there. we don't see the thunderstorms but we will see increasing clouds day and that may shave a degree or two off from yesterday's highs but temperatures today will still be a little bit above average. there's two air masses or at least two cloud decks i want to talk about. first one is that one that's long and thinly stretched that's a cold front that's going to stay to the north and lose most of its energy to the north, but what it does is it opens the door for our next storm and this storm is the one that's going to come in thursday into friday, it's still slowing just a little bit, and bring us our chance of rain and our return to autumn temperatures. let's jump right on in here and you can see that thursday at

7:00 in the evening we are going to see some of that rain moving into lake and mendocino counties. it's light rain, just shades of green, and then as it slides into the north bay it starts to move into part of the heart -- part of the bay, at least the heart of the bay by midnight, it's still very light rain. as we head towards the morning commute we could wake up to slick streets and drizzle to light rain continuing, but notice how it quickly falls apart by 9:00, at least our part of it. if you're heading to the sierra you can see the green turn to pink which is a wintry mix to white which is snow and then by noon it is all over. so we could possibly get a quarter of an inch in some of our healthier amounts in the north bay, the rest of us more than likely less than a tenth of an inch to possibly nothing down in the south bay. you know the way it is in october, it's hard to get rain in the south bay.

we will put a 1 on it because for sure it's going to happen and it will affect some of us thursday night into friday morning, especially during the friday morning commute. look what it does to our temperatures, 60s in the coast, 70s around the bay, 80s inland today and tomorrow. friday 50s at the coast, mid to upper 60s around the bay and we will see a warming trend with total sunshine and a warm weekend coming up sunday and monday. that's your accuweather seven-day forecast. how about the commute? >> we are starting off fairly quiet this morning. here is a live look at our san matteo bridge camera. westbound 92 doing just fine here. very slight volumes as you would expect at 4:51 in the morning. i don't have any manager crashes, either. we briefly had a collision on southbound 880 near alvarado boulevard but that is long gone at this point. i did want to give you an update on transit in the north bay here this morning. we are slowly getting back to normal. smart train is offering regular free service through wednesday,

they will continue service after that but it may not be free. as soon as we get a confirmation i will update you on that. golden gate transit back to our regular schedule, piner and industrial are open and sonoma county transit back to normal weekend service. it will be free service until further notice. we will have another traffic update coming up in a few minutes. we have an update to a story we first brought you over the weekend. the oakland a's are collecting items to donate to a young fan, big fan, who lost his memorabilia in the north bay fires. >> it was a terrible loss for him and his family, but so many people have come forward to try and help this kid out. this is nine-year-old lauren smith and he really did have quite the a's collection and as jessica said he lost it all last week. the a's tweeted if you'd like to donate baseball memorabilia to our pal lauren please send items to the address below and we will make sure they get to him. a dozen teams including the giants have replied and are sending lauren some gear. >> that's awesome.

>> that is so cool. i should mention since we did this story this has gone crazy online and it was actually part of twitter moments yesterday. so a lot of people are seeing lauren's story and we're just so glad that he is able to get a little bit of what he lost back. >> well deserved. >> well deserved. good for

my name is eddie metcalf. i enjoworking in my yard and you know, i can't. i can't do that any more,'cuz i'm missing most of my lung. they did a cat scan of my kidneys, no more kidney stones. that's the good news. "but, we found a spot on your lung." that frankly scared the "hell" out of me. i hadn't smoked in 22 years. how could this happen to me? he said, "well, you know about radon gas?" we'll... you know, i heard about it. he said, "well, the second leading cause of cancer" "in america is radon, 22,000 people a year die from this."

i literally left the doctor's office, got a test kit, put it in my house, and our result was 39.8. the upper limit is 4. we got to get this fixed. that was on a monday, and on wednesday, our mitigation system was up and running. well, i think everybody should have their house tested. we'd never know. we'd still be living there. i could get another tumor from it. right now, it's changing my life. we are following breaking news of a fire in the santa cruz mountains this morning. here is what we know so far, the fire started around 11:00 last

night near bear creek canyon and deer creek canyon roads in the boulder creek area. >> right now there are evacuation orders for several roads in the area, you see them on your screen, deer creek, rons road, dons road, lost valley road, favre ridge, oak ridge. cal fire says if you feel like you are in danger you need to leave now. they have been knocking on doors to get about 150 people out and we are told that about 100 structures are currently threatened. one has already burned down. if you do need to leave your home an evacuation center has been opened up at boulder creek elementary school in boulder creek, you can go there right now that is available to those folks and the big concern with the north bay fires was the wind. let's check in with mike and see how the conditions are there this morning. you've been telling us that there is virtually no wind. >> virtually no wind everywhere, whether it's the north bay fires or the santa cruz fires. i want to talk about air quality. those winds will remain light throughout most of the day today so the firefighters have a

fighting chance. today and tomorrow the north bay is supposed to have poor air quality, normally that triggers a spare the air, for some reason we are not under a spare the air alert. i tweeted the bay area air quality management agency last night i haven't heard back from them. 70s around the bay today, 80s inland. for on the fire and rain coming up. i will a talk about road closure around that bear fire as well. the santa cruz mountains the fire is on bear creek canyon road but we do have a full closure of bear creek which is a little more major road in a few areas, deer creek canyon and that is because the fire crews were having trouble getting equipment in and out, traffic was too heavy in the area, also shut down at hawk ridge and state route 9. they did pick up construction early on state route 9 to help with evacuations. next at 5:00 a.m., we continue to monitor that fire now in the santa cruz mountains. it is forcing evacuations. >> our live team coverage continues next. plus, we're also live at sutter

al, that's a hospital that was as you can see in the direct path of one of the north bay fires. the move happening

skroo now from abc 7, live breaking news. >> good morning, it's 5:00 a.m. tuesday, october 17th. i'm reggie aqui. >> and i'm jessic castro. we continue monitoring breaking news as a fire is spreading in the santa cruz mountains. fire started around 11:00 near bear creek and deer creek roads in the boulder creek area. >> cal fire