next at 5:00, the glass fire intensifies and so does the battle over trying to fight it. there are new evacuations tonight. meanwhile, a million dollar telescope in pieces as firefighters do what they can to protect a major observatory. others are also packed up and ready to go. and the worsening air quality is going to stick around longer than we thought. >> announcer: building a better bay area for a safe and secure future, this is abc7 news. we're following several stories right now. the smoky skies and another day of bad air, and now a spare the air alert is extended until next week. a red flag warning is in effect as cal fire tries to stop the glass fire from the air. firefighters are watching for

potentially violent winds. >> the fight to save homes in the glass fire remains a challenge. last night san jose firefighters had to battle for water when there weren't any fire hydrants available. but one of the main hot zones right now is in the napa community of angwin. firefighters are working overtime there. good evening. i'm am ma date. >> i'm dan ashley. thank you for joining us. let's get to kate larsen. she's live in napa county. kate. >> reporter: dan, ama, we're up in angwin, and you can see we're actually on a winery. this is shaughnessy estate winery, and fire got dangerously close to this area here today. in fact, we're going to pan back at this house where you can see a vallejo fire engine is there. they have been protecting this home here all day. joining me live right now is kevin brown with the vallejo fire department. kevin, like us, this is your

fourth day. on tuesday, fire burned through this area. no real structure destruction, but with the wind today, it became a problem. >> that's correct, kate. today in our morning briefing, what we were informed was that the temperature was going to rise again. relative humidity was going to drop. the winds were going to change in a direction not in our favor. for that reason, the area that had a dirty burn earlier has now reburned again and has impinged along bell canyon road. we've spent the last several hours prepping and defending these homes. we had air support as well and that's what made the difference. >> reporter: we have cell phone video of helicopters dropping water buckets directly over this house. you think it really saved it. if you guys weren't here, if the air support wasn't here, it could be gone. >> that's correct. we've been working on this home proper probably four hours now. a lot of chainsaw work. the fire was gaining speed.

they put two helicopters above, gave us the ability to get the upper hand. >> reporter: everyone was stressed out by monday and tuesday. then by tuesday night, wednesday, everyone was sort of taking a sigh of leif, learning that their homes were okay and the wind picked up overnight and brought it right back into this area. instead of burning itself out, it just found the spots that hadn't been touched yet. >> that's correct. as i referred to earlier, a dirty burn, what that is when it burns certain areas but plenty of fuel still available to burn. when that change in wind direction, it pushes it back in an area that has available fuel. >> reporter: we've been up here the last couple hours. there hasn't been wind, maybe a touch of breeze. what do you think for the rest of the night? >> the winds have been blowing up canyon through most of the day, which is the direction that we've watched this fire push. now what we're going to prepare for as we have nightfall come, it's going to push back down the canyon. the fire is going do change directions one more time. fire at night usually tends to

move slower because the winds are lesser. even though we prepped this area very well, we're going to keep a close eye on that and prepare for the fire to come from a new direction again. >> reporter: thank you for all your hard work. vallejo fire department has been working so hard to keep all of these structures safe and secure. of course we'll be here throughout the night and bring you more at 6:00 and 11:00. live in angwin, i'm kate larsen, abc7 news. back to you. >> kate, thank you for that update. the glass fire is now into its third day of destruction. cal fire confirms at least 143 buildings have burned. another 24,000 structures are threatened. the fire has burned more than 56,000 acres and is stilt just 5% contained. abc7 news reporter wayne freedman has more. >> reporter: for firefighters this might be the hardest part, mentally at least -- the waiting. here's how the fire service spent this morning and early afternoon, a couple thousand feet above the sonoma valley.

they made primary and then backup plans. >> they're an old fire road. >> reporter: this, the lull before a potential firestorm driven by winds that did begin to materialize from the northeast. >> those winds that come across the land and not across the ocean are usually warmer and drier. >> reporter: it's what this area doesn't need on yet another red flag day. 14,000 people remain evacuated with some memories more vivid than others. douglas pane remembers a ridge behind his house. >> the trees on top of the mountain used to be 100 feet tall. this ball of fire that went through was 500 feet tall, astronomical. >> reporter: astronomy motivated these people too. saving astronomy actually. >> this is our 20-inch research-grade telescope. >> reporter: it came from the robert ferguson observatory, 2,600 feet above kenwood in sugarloaf ridge state park. fire burned to the fringes here sunday night.

this team pulled the instrument this morning and hauled it away for safekeeping. >> it would be bad enough to lose the facility to a fire, but the equipment as well. the equipment's worth more than the building. >> reporter: one telescope saved. an entire region on edge. in sonoma county, wayne freedman, abc7 news. now we want to bring in abc7 news meteorologist sandhya patel for what's happening right now with fire conditions. >> sandhya. >> yeah. ama and dan, let's take a look at the conditions right now. it is hot there near the glass fire. 90 degrees. humidity is 19%. fortunately the winds are still light right now west-southwest to 2, gusting to 7. as we take a look at the winds over the hills, they're not that strong, but it's the wind direction that is concerning. relative humidity has dropped down to 10% at knoxville creek. you combine that with dry vegetation and this wind direction drying out the atmosphere even more, and the

fire danger is elevated. red flag warning until 6:00 a.m. saturday. gusting winds, dry fuels, any fires that develop will spread rapidly. as you take a look at the hour by hour winds, they're picking up tonight over 20 miles an hour as we head into tomorrow. in the morning still a little breezy but really tomorrow night we're expecting wind gusts as high as 30 miles an hour. heat is another big issue. we have plenty of 90s in our y bayside and inland communities right now. heat advisory until 8:00 p.m. tomorrow. there is a risk of heat illnesses. i'll be back with a look at when you will experience some major changes coming right up. ama and dan. >> sandhya, thanks very much. the red flag warning that sandhya's talking about has residents of the east bay hills on edge. abc7 news reporter lauren martinez shows you how they're preparing. >> reporter: this woman just evacuated from sonoma to the berkeley hills, so the last thing she wanted to hear is to evacuate again because of a

fire. berkeley hills residents are under a red flag warning until 6:00 p.m. friday. >> we get three alerts, i think, at least. >> reporter: we met with longtime residents tom and his wife, who are not only signed up for emergency alerts -- >> here's the instructions what to do. >> reporter:- they're prepared to evacuate. >> as soon as we get home, i'm turning the car backwards into the driveway so it can be pointing out. >> reporter: because the streets are so narrow, the city is asking berkeley hills residents to park in their garage or driveway to emergency vehicles can get through just in case. >> just wish us luck. that's all. >> reporter: the city says berkeley hills residents need to be ready to evacuate by car or by foot. in some neighborhoods, it will be faster to use footpaths like this one than city streets. >> i have actually explored all of them to see how to get down the hill. >> reporter: barbara bloomer showed us her go backpacked in the back of her car. >> you want to feel how heavy it is? >> reporter: she's not sure how long she can remain in these hills. >> for this season, i'm always

very nervous, and i don't know how much longer i want to live like this. it's getting worse and worse. >> reporter: in berkeley, lauren martinez, abc7 news. still ahead, the shifting covid-19 testing. the new effort to reduce the racial disparity and how kids are getting checked for the first time. plus the artist who is feeting prejudice by using his own face in his work. proposition 16 takes on discrimination. some women make as little as 42% of what a man makes. voting yes on prop 16 helps us fix that. it's supported by leaders like kamala harris and opposed by those who have always opposed equality. we either fall from grace or we rise. together. proposition 16 provides equal opportunities, levelling the playing field for all of us. vote yes on prop 16.

after proceeding with caution, alameda county's health officer will allow more businesses to reopen for indoor activities and give the green light for elementary schools to hold in-person classes. starting october 9th, museums, zoos, gyms, and libraries can welcome guests and patrons indoors but at extremely limited capacity. on october 13th, elementary schools that are approved by the county may hold in-person classes. alameda county moved down a notch on the state's covid-19

ranking september 22nd, allowing for more reopenings. as for indoor dining, theaters, and worship, the county says it will wait another four to six weeks to see how things go. let's move now to the push in san francisco to reduce the positivity rate in neighborhoods that have higher than normal cases of covid. today for the first time, children there were allowed to be tested. abc7 news reporter lyanne melendez explains why it is important to include them. >> reporter: 11-year-old josani had no hesitation in being tested for covid-19. >> it hurts a little bit but you got to get it over with. >> reporter: her cousin wanted to get tested because she divides her time living with two families. >> i travel from city to city, and i just go a lot of places and i'm not used to staying home all the time. >> reporter: their aunt says a few months ago she tried to get a test for her son through their private doctor. >> they were asking questions like, why? for what? so they're like, if he doesn't

have symptoms, he can't get a test. so having this opportunity for younger kids is super, assumer important. >> reporter: this testing site at 701 alabama street in the mission district is a collaboration between the san francisco department of public health and the latino task force. testing is free, no questions asked. >> these are multi-generational households that live together and we know the young ones are also in that same household. >> reporter: the state is trying to reduce the number of infections among certain groups like african-americans, latinos, and pacific islanders. all counties must now meet california's new health equity metric before moving to the next color tier. basically the new metric says that a county like san francisco has to prove that the positivity rate in a neighborhood like the mission is not lagging behind the overall rate in this county. the positivity rate here in the mission has been four times higher than the entire city rate. >> if they want to get to this 50% opening of things and people

want to get back to some level of normalcy, they will have to prioritize investing in underinvested neighborhoods and the most marginalized to ensure that they are also safe. >> reporter: the new equity metric goes into effect on october 6. lyanne melendez, abc7 news. an artist is doing what he can to examine race and stereotypes. his work is prompted by a common question, where are you from? anchor david ono from our sister station kabc has the story of roger shimamura. ♪ >> reporter: this is the face of roger shimamura, an artist, whose story is his face. to understand his art, you have to know where he's been. a man who has dealt with the same question a thousand times. >> where are you from? i said, i'm from seattle. and he said, no, that's not what i mean. and i knew exactly what he was trying to get at. as it turns out, that was a very

important conversation, perhaps one of the most important in my career. >> reporter: suddenly he wanted his art to reflect his life. dealing with a country that has not been welcoming to someone who looks like him. >> because of that, i think that has given him the opportunity to really create that community dialogue through his work. and roger has approached it with a sincerity that a lot of artists don't get away with. >> reporter: using his own face, he gives us glipss of what he faced starting as a toddler. in 1942, shimamur a's family was among 120,000 innocent people of japanese descent locked up behind barbed wire. >> just miserable living conditions. it's almost like why are we here, it's so miserable. >> roosevelt with a stroke of the pen, with his signature, changed the history of a people in the united states, most of

whom were citizens, forever. it changed how they thought of themselves not just as americans, but now isolated as looking like the enemy. >> reporter: it was blatant racial profiling. if america is a melting pot of the world, then what does it matter what we look like? >> george washington crossing the delaware or shimamura crossing the delaware. i love it. >> it came from the insanity of trying to imagine what history might have been like if george washington was japanese-american and how history would have had to have been so different to enable that to happen. >> reporter: he uses bold imagery to tear down racism, fighting stereotypes that portray people of color as foreign. when an asian-american looks in the mirror, they see someone as american as liz taylor or marilyn monroe. what they don't see are these exaggerated cartoon faces. >> every image here was actually used in some publication. none of these were made up.

some of the most horrible stereotypical images from world war ii. >> reporter: by doing so, he allows us to feel the shame that his family felt. stereotyping is a key ingredient in a racist world. it created the fear that caused roger to be incarcerated at only 3 years old. today stereotyping is behind hateful terms like "kung flu," muslims are terrorists. go back to where you came from. and it's the reason black lives matter. >> black lives matter! >> it's really disappointing to see that after all these years, something comes in society that shows that maybe nothing has changed at all, that no one has learned anything. it's so frustrating because there's so much to say. there's so much i feel that i find that it's easiest for me to

say nothing. what it does is it stokes a fire in terms of going back to the easel and doing more paintings. >> reporter: so here he sits in his studio in lawrence, kansas, fighting back. >> i've had a lot of people come through the show who were definitely taken aback by a lot of imagery, and they felt that the imagery was over the top. this is too much. their own propensity for racism, it's there. >> painting introduces a person of muslim faith behind the barbed wire with a japanese-american woman all of a sudden opens the door to all kinds of possibilities. >> so it's kind of a brave thing, i think, for him to place himself in the middle of all of this fury and humor and come out with pieces that speak to people in a very personal way regardless of whether his face is in the middle of them or not. i think it's incredibly brave,

incredibly brave. >> reporter: this is the face of roger shimamura. the closer you look at him, the more you'll see yourself. david ono, abc7 news. >> incredible artwork and so important as well. still ahead, our deteriorating air quality. taking california for a ride. companies like uber, lyft, doordash. breaking state employment laws for years. now these multi-billion-dollar companies wrote deceptive prop 22 to buy themselves a new law. to deny drivers the rights they deserve. no sick leave. no workers' comp. no unemployment benefits. vote no on the deceptive

uber, lyft, doordash prop 22. one ride california doesn't want to take. the unfair money bail system. he, accused of rape. while he, accused of stealing $5. the stanford rapist could afford bail; got out the same day. the senior citizen could not; forced to wait in jail nearly a year. voting yes on prop 25 ends this failed system, replacing it with one based on public safety. because the size of your wallet shouldn't determine whether or not you're in jail. vote yes on prop 25 to end money bail.

how do you save a rustic building from a wildfire? you wrap it in something that looks like aluminum foil. check this out. that's what the forest service did with the kern canyon ranger station. it's actually called a structure wrap, an aluminum barrier that resists burning embers and high heat. >> announcer: now your accuweather forecast with sandhya patel. hi there, everyone. that's a pretty cool idea. let's take a look at a live picture right now from our emeryville camera. downtown oakland is just faded in the smoky conditions that we

are experiencing right now. san francisco, mid-70s. 85 in oakland. it's still hot around san jose and gilroy and mountain view, in the 90s. look at this from our kgo roof camera. the sun has been dimmed by the smoke. 91 in santa rosa. 96 in fairfield and in livermore. it has been a hot one for many parts of the bay area away from the coast. visibility is being impacted. san carlos just over two miles right now and just over a mile in santa rosa. here's the air quality. it's bad. i mean you're in the red from napa to fairfield. unhealthy air quality. ukiah, very hazardous. stay indoors. concord, livermore, san francisco, all unhealthy. san jose and redwood city, poor for sensitive groups. best to avoid the smoke. close your windows and doors. put your ac on recirculate if you do have one. the smoke is going to be with us right on through tomorrow evening. then we start to see some signs of change, a little shift in the wind. tomorrow night may temporarily improve the air quality but

unfortunately as we head into the weekend, looks like some of that smoke is still going to linger across parts of the bay area both saturday and sunday, although sunday looks better. a spare the air alert extended through tuesday. you will notice poor to unhealthy air quality over the next several days. including the weekend. visible pictures showing you the canopy of smoke from the august complex fire and the glass fires right over our region, which is why you're seeing this view from our san jose camera. dry, gusty through the hills through early saturday. much cooler weather this weekend but the smoke impacts continuing. gusty winds overnight tonight, especially in the north bay hills. that red flag warning was extended until saturday morning for the hills. temperatures in the morning mainly 60s, 70s, a few 50s near the coast with limited fog there coastside. afternoon highs, 95 in san jose and the south bay. 98 gilroy.

on the peninsula, 92 in palo alto. a little touch of fog there daly city. north bay, 94. 98 in santa rosa. 88 in oakland. 93 fremont. 100 in pleasanton. 101 in concord. accuweather seven-day forecast. intense heat, fire danger tomorrow. we do see cooler, refreshing change for the weekend. and as we head into next week, hopefully better air quality. >> definitely we hope for that. thank you, sandhya. well, it was do or die for the oakland a's playoff chances today, and traffic and air pollution will be even worse after the pandemic. that's why we support measure rr to keep caltrain running.

which is at risk of shutdown because of the crisis. to keep millions of cars off our roads, to reduce air pollution and fight climate change. and measure rr helps essential workers like me get to work and keep our communities healthy. relieve traffic. reduce pollution. rescue caltrain. [all] yes on measure rr. proposition 16 takes some women make as little as 42% of what a man makes. voting yes on prop 16 helps us fix that.

it's supported by leaders like kamala harris and opposed by those who have always opposed equality. we either fall from grace or we rise. together. proposition 16 provides equal opportunities, levelling the playing field for all of us. vote yes on prop 16. coming up on abc7 news at 6:00, another push to vote. this time from former president barack obama at a virtual conference hosted by a san francisco tech company. and every registered voter in california will receive a mail-in ballot. we're going to break down what you need to know to make sure your vote is counted. that's all coming up in half an hour on abc7 news at 6:00. but finally here, it is celebration time, ama, in oakland. the a's are advancing in the american league playoffs for the first time in 14 years after a 6-4 win today over the chicago white sox at the coliseum.

>> yes. a's closer liam hendriks shot the door on the sox. the victory breaks a long, painful drought for the green and gold. they lost their last six playoff seri series. that's all behind them now. >> i need a nap. three 12:00 games in a row with around 50 pitches yesterday. yeah, it was -- it was tough. it's been hot out here. it's been humid. it's been a roller coaster of emotions. >> the a's now advance to the american league division series against the rival houston astros. game one is monday inside the playoff bubble in los angeles. ama, this is pretty good news, especially since the warriors left oakland, the raiders left oakland. we've got the a's. >> yes, absolutely. all right. thank you so much for joining us tonight. i'm ama daetz. world news tonight with david muir is next. >> and i'm dan ashley.

for sandhya patel, all of us here, we appreciate your time. they do one of the most difficult jobs there is, even in normal times. our frontline health care workers. and when these heroes lack the resources they need, that risky job gets ten times harder. prop fifteen makes corporations pay their fair share. to invest in our communities, in our clinics, in the essential workers who treat everyone- rich, poor, and in-between. whether it's this pandemic or the next health crisis, vote yes on prop fifteen. for all of us.

tonight, the white house answering questions, pressed on the president's claims on voting. tonight, the images coming in, the long lines of early voting already under way in this country. president trump and his claims about voting by mail. the white house is grilled today. where is this river where ballots were supposedly found? how they answer. governors in several states pushing back on voter intimidation, saying early voting and mail-in voting is safe. and breaking late this afternoon, the governor of texas and his controversial move, vastly cutting down on the number of locations for handing in your mail-in ballots. jon karl standing by. the coronavirus surging in the u.s. tonight, the images here. the hospitals now full in wisconsin. front line workers sounding the alarm. president trump now moving one lo his rallies to a different