>> announcer: building a better bay area for a safe and secure future, this is abc7 news. hi there, i'm kristen sze. welcome to our daily program called "getting answers." right now, we're going to get answers on the scu lightning complex fire taking you right now. >> structures that remain at this time and scu lightning complex remains between the third largest fire in california history. let's get started with operational brief from our section chief, tim ernst. >> good afternoon, everybody. my name is tim ernst. operation for team six.

as we talked about yesterday, there's a lot of busyness on the map and i want to really quickly review some of the things we talked about yesterday. remembering ten days ago, 18 to 20 different fires. you can see on the map, identifiers where all the fires were. all of these separate fires have been contained and no longer pose any threat. several fires burned together adds we talked about. we had split that into two separate zones. those separate zones now split or have joined together into one fire. this is all now being held as one large fire. a lot of good work has happened in the last 24 hours and we talked yesterday about the difference between looking at red line on a map and black line. black line being an area of the fire perimeter that's been contained. we no longer see a threat before movement of the fire. you'll see we have black line all the way up this east side of the fire and north top of the one piece of the fire. that is great news and really provides a lot more safety for

that whole area. we're continuing to work to increase that black line around the fire. we also talked about the presence of dozer line to slow the spread of the fire. as you can see here on the whole western flight, and down a number of the ridges that we plan to use to hold as contingency lines. this entire west flank remains the priority of the incident because the increased threat along the infrastructure risks. currently have three or four areas, fire activity. other than that, this fire, a lot of good work happened and a lot of good things slowly start to contain it. the areas we still have seeing a lot of activity, the very top of the fire here in what we call division quebec. we have firefighters working there now with fire fighting aircraft, as we move on down the line, we have a lot of fire activity still happening down

here in what we call division november. we currently have tankers dropping retardant on those areas. to flank that fire away from those areas of risk. that concludes my presentation. thank you very much. >> good afternoon. i'm jake hess, the agency administrator for the scu complex and the california fire chief here in the santa clara unit. first off, i want to start off with a huge thank you to the cooperating agencies. as you see standing next to me, we have a lot of different patches. we have different law and fire departments, fire agencies who have been engaged on this

incident since day one. the cooperation is instrumental for the success of the incident. i also want to take a moment about the private landowners and encourage the folks with the meetings. those are important to us would love to have them here to engage with them and make sure their needs are being met. the number one priority and we've said this from day one is life safety. that's public and firefighter life safety. we have been messaging out to our troops that trading a firefighter's life for a piece of brush or a tree grass is unacceptable situation. so talk a little bit about the evacuation process. the evacuation orders are in for

seven counties, essentially. we are being mindful of the impacts those are to the civilians. we will keep those orders and warnings in place no longer than we absolutely have to. we understand that it's an inconvenience and we do have our liaison officers that are engaged with our local fire agencies ensuring those folks who have special needs, ranch owners, targets of opportunity for us to meet with them, whether it's getting feed, water in for their livestock. that is incredibly important to us. please continue coming to our cooperator meetings. also, state parks. california state parks, representatives that have been indebted with us with cal fire team 6 and myself as the administrator regarding co-state park. those folks are here.

they have a voice at the table. they have decisions, people are engaged with them daily and we do have troops and mechanized equipment in and on the park and actively in the fire line to stop this fire. i wanted to close with, we're at the point now, day 10 or 11 of this incident where we're starting to collaborate with cal fire teams, our cooperators with short-term goals, medium term goals and long-term goals. we're having to staff up and have that marathon long view that we're going to be here for a long time. some of those long-term goals that we're targeting, we are having to staff up and have those conversations right now so we can get out ahead of this. a lot of that has to do with private landowners, fire suppression repair, henrico park and those public and private

landowners. with that, we are setting up and upstaffing appropriately and i really appreciate everybody's coordination and i cannot thank all of the individual agencies. private, public agencies that have been here. thank you. >> i'm wearing two hats today. first, the fremont fire chief and the second is the president of the alameda county fire chief's association. on behalf of the mayor, the council, city manager's office, men and women of fremont fire department, fremont citizens, we want to thank partners in local jurisdictions as well as cal fire, offer them our sincere thanks and gratitude for the appreciation of their efforts in

keeping this thing out of fremont. we've been part of this since last sunday and the most overused word in 2020, unprecedented. unprecedented storms, unprecedented fuels, unprecedented fire loads. our mutual aid partners, local and through cal fire, kept this out of fremont city limits and for that, we are deeply appreciative. to our souths, we ask that you remain diligent and prepared. be prepared by signing up readyforwildfire.org and sign up for the cal fire updates. we ask that you be patient. as chief has said, we'll roll back the orders as soon as we know that it's safe for you guys to repopulate. be you're not a social media person like i am, do all the sign-ups and the media outlets. ts

it's a marathon, not a sprint and we're making great progress. we couldn't do it alone. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm captain chris, the commander of the california highway patrol in the dublin area. the california highway patrol's mission is to provide the highest level of safety, service and security to the people. we have chp officers assigned to various traffic control points in al mameda county, santa clar county. these officers on extended shifts and there to provide safety to the public. we're very sympathetic to the impact that these traffic control points have on residents, ranchers, businesses and i assure you, a lot of discussion and thought goes into where these control points are at and how they'll be in place, when safe to do so, we'll relax our restrictions. that's the end of my report. >> good afternoon. i'm sergeant ray kelly. there's quite a bit of smoke in the air but the optimism in the

air feels a little bit better today in alameda county and we're thankful to the efforts of our fire teams working on this. we maintain a pretty diligent footprint up in the eastern part of the county working with those ranchers up there in the remote areas. we brought in a tremendous amount of resources. a lot of the livestock and the animals up there have been brought here to the fairgrounds for safety. continue to work on that problem and those issues. i think things feel a little better than they did in the last couple of days, so that's very thankful for our residents speaking of alameda county even though some of our adjacent counties have concerns and are still being greatly impacted. we're going to continue to do what we're doing. wanted to be mindful we're hearing false reports about looting and that type of behavior going on. we've not had any reports of looting, not encountered anybody doing that kind of activity and should someone want to come into our county and engage in that

type of activity, it will not be hard for us to figure out who those individuals are. we're mindful of that but don't want to add to the fear and concern that there is any looting out there. we have no reports of that and there have been no events consistent with any type of looting behavior and there's no intelligence that anything like that is going on. so just wanted to clear that up for the community and ask everybody, please, in alameda county, sign up for acalert.org to directly reach out to you as an opt-in member. thank you. >> the areas that are affected by scu, i've invited mayor john marshawn at the desk today. first and foremost, i want my constituents to know that i've been in contact, daily contact with the state's emergency

operation's director, and received updates about whether we have yet qualified for the fema disaster relief. our area has not yet. areas around it have and as we watch threats to structures and life in the area, he will stay in touch with me about that. there's also fire management grants as well that we may soon be eligible for but he and i, in speaking about that, also want to thank first responders on the ground. this is a hell of a year. you have a pandemic, fire season starting earlier than expected. record temperatures and winds. so grateful to the firefighters on the front lines with fewer resources this year than they've had in years past and also for local law enforcement who are playing a joint coordinated role with them, and surely does help a lot. so i want to thank the sheriff running the oes out in dublin to make sure our local law enforcement can support cal fire. so just a thank you to everyone, but also, encouraging citizens as i've mentioned before by

command staff to follow the alerts, to have your go-bags ready and look at whether you're in a warning posture and just assure you we'll get through this. we have the best in the state. other states who have stepped up and thanks to the states who have come in to provide us with additional resources. we're not asking you to do this because it's easy. we're asking you to do this because it's hard. but we know the resilience of the people in the area and we can gethrough this. thank you very much. >> before the final speaker, remind everyone of the format. questions and answers after the final speaker and additionally, press conference in spanish. our next speaker is going to be our incident commander. chief jeff ike. >> good afternoon. first of all, i'd like to thank my colleagues on both sides of me. excellent provided information and it's greatly appreciated.

on behalf of all the public and the great people of the state, thank you for a very informative press conference. i think my colleagues covered it very well. simultaneous repopulatiorepopul. as a fire business for 27 years not only my career but the career of many. i assure you, we stand together and we'll get through this but i want to be right up front. we are in for the long haul. we'll stand together and get through this. i have a couple of messages i want to get out. any public agency or private

agency, if you need information, come to the alameda county fair grounds and please attend our cooperator's meeting. those in california that are affected by this incident or just areas around the fire. if your needs are not being met, please reach out to the agencies all up here next to me. reach out to all the information on readyforwildfire.org and please reach out to us. whether you call in to the call center, we have folks 24 hours a day that are ready to take your calls and pass on the information to all these folks that are up here next to me so we can meet your needs and i

want to reemphasize, it's our job to meet your needs and keep you safe and we're committed to doing that. thank you. >> you've been watching cal fire update coming to you from alameda county. this is about the scu lightning complex fire. real quickly, they talked about how these fires have now merged into one giant fire covering 364,000 acres so far. but good news, in containment, that's up with favorable weather. 15% contained now. 18 structures destroyed, although you might not think that's a lot, 20,000 more still in danger. though they're gaining ground, they're going to be in this for the long haul, for weeks to come possibly. before a short break, quickly, i want to update you on the czu lightning complex fire, also a very situation there. and the biggest news is that all ev evacuation warnings have been

lift lifted affected immediately but as you heard from the press conference, they're going to have to prep the area. it's a process to get people back to repopulate.

welcome back. day two of the republican national convention and california republicans are paying close attention. main grievances against the democratically led state, highlighted on the national stage. joining us to talk about it, melissa melendez, senator, thank you for taking the time. >> you bet. it's my pleasure to speak with you. >> i know you watch the convention speeches on opening night and then you tweeted this reaction which i would like to share. you said the democratic convention was full of guilt, shame and criticism of america with the help of hollywood

elites. it's full of pride in america with people who help chose america. explain why you see it that way. >> you know. i watched both conventions and i didn't watch them both in entirety. i had the multitasking to do but i did watch them and i was disappointed that the democratic convention seemed to have an overall theme of blame america whereas the republican national convention was more pride in america. certainly not suggesting we don't have anything we need to work on and improve upon but we should be proud of, you know, the country we are and the country we've become and the country we strive to be. so it was very uplifting. it was really very, very pleased with how it went down.

>> they were quick to improve race relations. you point to some facts? >> facts refeuting that? >> the critics say the facts say otherwise but perhaps you're looking at maybe some other evidence that do suggest and do confirm what the administration was trying to paint yesterday in the speeches about that, jumping on the pandemic response and was working all along to improve race relations. >> i think the president has worked very hard at race relations in this country and an effective job. that's evidenced by the people who spoke in support of him, not just people who are famous but just average people in the community.

and given circumstances, it would be a difficult job for anybody in the presidency to deal with this type of global pandemic but i will say, i think he did a remarkable job of getting the industry mobilized to do the things they need to do to make sure people have the equipment they needed, they're working on a vaccine and i will also note that i think it's about 25% of covid deaths all happened in new york. that is large ly because of wha happened in the nursing home, but 25% is a pretty high number. so i just wondered if would say, is this the governor of new york? was he not prepared or the president's fault? i would argue it's probably falling on the governor of new york. >> california now surpassed new york in terms of number of confirmed cases. we do have the biggest population, but you have been critical of governor gavin

newsom and his response to covid. in what ways do you think he's failed the state in californians? >> we certainly have some transparency issues in california, and as you know, director of health quit, resigned. they're not being very open about that. the second in command also quit. he said two other people in his administration, top level officials, resigned. so something is going on within his administration. not exactly sure what, but there's probably a reason why people are leaving. and again, in the beginning, i was very supportive of the governor in his response and how he said he would handle it, and i think he tried his best. i'm just not certain that his best is now good enough because we have the economy still shut down and struggling, who are trying to get unemployment but can't get it because edd

they're not answering 60% of the calls they get and then only 8:00 until noon. that's only four hours, millions of people calling. it's a bit of a mess. i'm willing to help them as my colleague. both sides of the aisle, to weigh in but largely, he has cut us out of the process. >> i also want to ask you, you know, you're talking about trying to make a difference in your chamber as a republican but of course, california is overwhelmingly democratic. legislature, three times as many democrats. as such, what do you think, how could you effect change in the way you think it should happen? and then do you see anything changing as far as the blue state/red state politics of the state? >> well, you know, i think people are under the impression that democrats and republicans never agree on anything, but

that's really, i would say most of the bills we vote on are bipartisan. but people only hear about the ones we're bickering about but we do work well together most of the time. policy issues aside, we'll probably never agree on some of those things. but we have been working in partnership. to help them, so it's not all cats and dogs fighting up here but we certainly do have our challenges and we certainly have our disagreements. but at least the republican caucus. >> if it was black and white instead of good and evil, we may be better off. thank you for taking the time. >> thank you so much. >> take care. we'll take a short

all right. check in now with spencer christian over on our facebook live stream during the break, you already started to talk about the wind conditions. sounds better for firefighters but walk us through what we can >> kristen, let me start with the air quality since you bring that up. spare the air alert. poor air quality in effect. worst over the next two days, in the east bay and santa clara valley. here's another graphic just to indicate how the poor air quality conditions are. indicates poor air quality, the red, unhealthy. you can see out in the south bay and up on the peninsula, the bay shoreline. east bay.

it's all poor air quality but as we go northward, we see a little green in santa rosa and then the improvement is happening because along the coastline because of the onshore wind flow that we have. i'll give you another quick look at that. the wind is blowing yonshore, it's a slow push for those seeing the smoke pass overhead. nune nonetheless, the air quality will improve starting at the coast and then moving inland and eastward. >> seeing some comments of disappointment that people thought the air quality would be good thursday but now pushed back to friday, right? >> another day to suffer a little bit, yeah. >> all right. and then can we talk about the we?e fighting in this coming >> the relative humidity has been increasing, that's good. a lot of moisture that helps with the fire fighting effort but the wind continues to be gusty. >> spencer, thank you so much. great information for us. thank you for joining us as well today on this interactive show, "getting answers." as you know, we're here every

day on air and live stream answering your questions, so keep them coming. "world news tonight" is up next tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. hurricane laura gaining strength. about to slam into the u.s. potentially as a major category 3 hurricane. the deadly hurricane taking aim at texas and louisiana. expected to make landfall tomorrow as that cat 3. winds up5 miles per hour. states of emergency already in place tonight. massive evacuations under way for more than 500,000 people. meteorologist rob marciano in the storm zone with the newest timing and track tonight. new images of the police shooting of jacob blake. what it shows beforehand. the family tonight saying blake was shot seven times in the back. reaching into his suv, his three young sons in the backseat. his parents emotional today, saying their son is now paralyzed from the waist down.

and the family now pleading for an end to the violent protests.