announcer: building a better bay area -- moving forward, finding solutions. this>> gn. you a live on abc seven. we are asking experts your questions every day at 3:00 to get answers for you in real time. today, we are covering the wildfires impacting california forests and our air quality. the oak fire near yosemite growing to 17,000 acres over the weekend. we will speak with a professor of fire science about how mega fires are morphing california forest into something we won't recognize. also the founder of after the fire usa joins us with the need for people impacted by wildfires, how they are helping communities recover and what you

need to know what it comes to being prepared. but first, to the massive oak fire burning near yosemite national park. thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate. oak fire begin friday afternoon and continues to grow. joining us live now are urologists mike nicco with the air quality concerns. we will get to mike and a few moments. first, we start with calfire public information officer, jonathan pierce. thank you for being here. jonathan: thank you for having me. karina: it has been a busy monday to start the week. let's talk about the progress on the oak fire. firefighters did manage to save the small community of mariposa pines, but there's a lot of work to be done. can you give us an update on how much the fire has burned so far and where we are in containment? jonathan: at 16,000 acres, seven hundred 91. we are sitting at 10% containment.

karina: wellies talk about how the weather impacts the fire efforts. how is the weather playing in this today? jonathan: but weather is similar to what we've been seeing, with poor rh recovery over the night. karina: i know you have a variety of methods to track the fire and fight fires. i know you have drones that can help in situations like this. have you brought in more resources in addition to the 2500 fire personnel working the fire that have been for the weekend? jonathan: absolutely. absent -- every day, more resources continue to rise. that number as of 7 a.m. this morning was 2548. karina: a lot of boots on the ground working the fire, but talk about the efforts we've seen in the sky. we have planes come helicopters, may be of the technology you are using to fight the fire, kind of

go over that because there are allotments put into this other than what we see in the video. jonathan: in this fire, we have 17 helicopters, other air resources have been assigned about the duration of the fire, so we have large air tankers and even very large air tankers. we use aircraft for gathering sensory data, so that gives us an idea of where the fire is burning more aggressively. karina: a lot of resources needed and thankfully a lot of resources arriving day by day. we know there are thousands of people who have already been evacuated. what are the latest evacuation orders for the area and what you expect today or tomorrow? jonathan: as of this morning, the number of evacuated peoples was re-thousand -- was 3700 whalen.

the local sheriff's department as well as the fire officials in charge are constantly analyzing what the fire is doing in various parts in the various geographic areas of the fire. so as it is safe to return residents to their homes, they are looking to do so. karina: we are going to bring in mike nicco. because we are talking about air quality and weather conditions. i know you have been tracking this nonstop. especially with this oak fire growing, talk about what you are seeing. mike: i'm seeing a lot of smoke. it's mostly up in the sierra and those firefighters will be dealing with that. i was going to ask if i could what he was seeing as far as the burn scars. is that going to help the former burn that was up there, maybe help slow things down? are the thunderstorms in the forecast, with the rain be enough to help temp and down some of this or is that something you don't count on? jonathan: i don't count on

anything. fire that occurred in 2018, there will be some regrowth over those four years but that should not be as much fuel loading as we are seeing with the oak fire conditions so that should help with fire suppression. in reference to the thunderstorms, there are lots of different variables that could happen, but we are hoping for higher rh recoveries over the night associated with the moisture in that system. mike: i read that no one has been injured battling this fire. i find that very impressive and hopefully true considering the terrain you are dealing with and all the aircraft out there at one time. jonathan: that is currently the most up-to-date stats i have, so that is a very good thing. karina: we know this is a busy time for yosemite.

a lot of people go there for a vacation and you are evacuating people from the area. what can you tell anybody that might have plans to go there this upcoming weekend or plans to go in the future? jonathan: i would definitely check with yosemite national park before you leave on the status of the parks closures or open areas before you plan a trip to the park. karina: some good advice there. thank you so much for joining us. we are going to check back in with you and keep you updated. we appreciate your time and best of luck to the guys out there and the women fighting this wildfire, the eau claire near yosemite. mike, i know you are tracking this, so let's go over the air quality and when we are going to see some of the smoke cleared the bay area. mike: we see some of the smoke and it has been in the higher elevations, which is fantastic for us. if we can take the graphics -- or i will tell you every single

reporting station the bay areas green right now. we have been blessed by the marine layer. it has kept us out of this heat wave that has been taking over parts of the country. the entire month of july, we have been close to average two or we should be for this time of year. however, if you move over to the sierra, this is where the pup -- where the smoke is being pumped through those higher elevations and settling into the valleys at night. we have a purple and yosemite which is very unhealthy, which means it's terrible for anybody under any condition of health to crave that smoke. we are seeing a little bit of mixing because when air heats up during the day or the ground heats the air, it makes it rise and thins it out a little bit. every time we wake up, the satellite is going to lick terrible because the smoke is going to be stagnant and then it will start to thin out as we head into the afternoon hours. you can see it is hazy off in the distance past mount diablo

as we look from the east bay hills and that's the middle and upper level of smoke. but we have that marine layer at 1800 to 2000 feet ringing in cleaner air off the ocean and that's going to be the case all the way through at least thursday. here's a look at the smoke bottleneck. i've overlaid two different products and that's why you are seeing a lot of orange. that's the middle and upper level smoke. but where you see it over the sierra, where it's a rainbow color, that is the lower level smoke and that is what the folks are breathing. watch as we had through 5:00 this evening into the overnight hours -- there's a lot of orange , especially in the east bay and north bay. all that low level smoke stays over the sierra and that will continue into tomorrow and more than likely the next several days. we do have a chance of thunderstorms coming our way and dry lightning -- i like to call it dry thunderstorms, is a small

possibility but not a great chance. it would be like a 10% chance mainly in the east bay and in the north bay, but that is something we will talk about in the forecast coming up at 4:00. right now, we are focused on the smoke and we are doing ok. karina: that is some good news there. i know you will be tracking this at 4, 5, and 6:00 this evening. we have heard reports from firefighters of the oak fire doing things they have never seen before and seeing things -- a look at why

karina: as we just heard and as we have been covering at abc 7, the oak fire has destroyed

several buildings, including some homes. we are family or with the scenario following the north bay firestorm of the 17 that wiped out entire neighborhoods. joining us live right now is jennifer great thompson with after the fire usa. thank you so much for being here. first question is why did you start after the fire usa? jennifer: we started as a response to the 2017 wildfires. we are survivors. i live in sonoma county and we underwent a horrific disaster. we needed more navigational assistance than was out there because our disaster was unprecedented. ever since then, we have been paying it forward with newly fire-affected communities. karina: it's unfortunate to hear. you have gone through it yourself, so you know that just as anyone else that has gone through something this devastating, going through a wildfire, losing homes, losing items in your homes, talk about what you needed the most when it

came to the immediate, the day after the fire and maybe weeks after that maybe you didn't even realize as a homeowner. jennifer: i didn't actually use -- didn't actually lose my home but i work for the county of sonoma and are director and -- of programs did lose her home. we lost 8900 structures. there were those who lost their homes and we prioritized them but everyone in the community is effected and devastated by a wildfire. you experience community trauma and because our wildfire was so unprecedented, there weren't all the responses and protocols in place to navigate this over the days and months to come, so it was a huge challenge. we are very fortunate in sonoma county. we are a very well resourced

county. we are about 95% rebuilt after nearly five years. our fifth anniversary is coming up on october 8. but we are an anomaly in the space of wildfires. i've worked in 18 mega fires since hours alone in 2017. we are in the area of mega fires and what communities need is a sense of hope. they need to know we have been there and you can get to the other side. we have adaptable tools and systems that we can coach them. our model appends on our ability to coach local leaders so every community needs, regardless of where they are from, is they need support from local leadership to navigate their recovery, to know what comes next. you go into the initial shock phase and everyone is there and there is a huge sense of shared loss. then it settles in and as soon as it settles in, the attention

fades as the people who lost everything really need the most support. most people don't even begin the process of rebuilding until a year or two years post-disaster. our commitment is for the long term. we realized the value of our model in 2018 when the camp fire happened and the woolsey fire happened. 13 months to the day after, that's when we started working in other communities and sharing our lessons learned. our biggest superpower is we can walk into a community and we can listen. when we listen, we found out about what that community needs and we can demystify how do you apply for fema? how do you get individual assistance? what triggers that? these are not obvious to anyone going through it, no matter how skilled you are a public service. that is one of the things we provide, to show up for local leaders and make sure they have

the capacity and support they need in order to recover, rebuild and reimagine. karina: i have to ask how long does it take to rebuild? it's not some thing that gets done overnight. weeks, months -- talk about that rebuilding process. jennifer: this is one of the great inequities in disaster. there are certain communities that are very well resourced sonoma county. the fact that we are 95% rebuilt in five years as a complete anomaly. it doesn't work that way most of the time. in really rural communities, they need a little more help to figure out their capacity because their problems are different. there are issues with septic. paradise for example, is an entire town and everything in the city was built on septic. how do you come back in a way that is ecologically sound but also more resilient for what's going to happen next? the answers are particular to

the community, which is why going in and listening to the people who know their community so well is really important. fema is set up to serve about 330 million people. but wildfires, they are learning their way through it and i appreciate that, but we are hern the distance between the people on the front lines, the fire survivors, and those crafting policy, philanthropy, and even in the private sector. but how can they be of service in that community in a way that's relevant to their recovery? one of the big challenges is it really depends on the community and what they need at that time. that's our specialty and we are good at going in and being able to listen and partner with them and stay for the long term. one of the things i hope people see is equity looks so different depending on the community you are serving. if you want to help the

community rebuild, it's important to look at who lived there before. are they insured? we have a lot of people in rural communities like we are seeing right now, you are going to have multi generational housing that is often uninsured, not under, but will have no insurance whatsoever. that's an opportunity for philanthropy to lean all the way in but also an opportunity to help communities that have notb- home-hardening, so they have a chance to survive these mega fires. karina: you do amazing work. can you talk about a specific project you have taken on recently? jennifer: recently, we have been working with the marshall fire in boulder county, a suburban fire that broke out on december 30. they had about 10 months of drought, no snow, and it was a grassland fire that was ignited and within 12 hours did half $1

billion worth of damage. that's direct damage, not even secondary impact and smoke damage. they had a cyclone bomb the next day. so a lot of these climate-based disasters are showing themselves in highly destructive ways. we've been working with the marshall fire communities about 30 days post-disaster. we do after action reports. because we are a nonprofit, we are able to go in and do an honest assessment of everything that's happening because we have a bunch in a particular group and we are rooting for all of them and that seems to make a huge difference. we are continuing to work in central oregon, santa cruz, the complex fires. we love working here in our backyard in the north bay. we have two navigate some of the issues with the couch fire. we do a lot of different things but we are always working with our communities and staying with them for the long haul.

earlier today, i was on the phone with the group from canada who want to look at our models to figure out how it might work there as well. karina: thank you so much for what you do. we really appreciate it and we i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. the three what? the three ps? what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54 and was a smoker, but quit. what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65, retired, and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80 and i'm on a fixed income.

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karina: welcome back. not only do we have to navigate through covid 19 still, but monkeypox continues to spread. kumasi aaron talked about both topics with ucsf infectious disease specialist on our streaming show at seven. they talked about covid. >> one measure of that that is always top of mine's hospitalization. what are you seeing and how do we compare with the rest of the country? >> it is still a slow burn but nothing compared to january. we've been increasing cases for many weeks if not months. hospitalizations are pretty much in control.

maybe a slight uptick but about 50% of patients coming in are not sick with covid. they are incidentally with covid. there are fewer in the icu. i think three today and the four ucsf hospitals. kumasi: are we on par with the rest of the country when it comes to that? >> i think we are doing better. there are some parts of the country where deaths are growing -- where deaths are going up. overall, debts are going up 40%. it is nothing to ignore, that's for sure. more than 400 deaths, that should be in the single or double digits. we have the technology to not have anyone die. kumasi: i know another concern throughout all of this has been long covid. has there been any new data about how people are impacted by

this and say you got long covid early on, are you finding that is clearing up? >> we have been getting more and more data around long covid, how long it lasts, not indefinitely for most people. maybe 20% to 40% might have symptoms beyond a year, but many people recover. it takes a while and that takes a big chunk of people's livelihoods and family life. but not indefinitely. there's probably going to be 5% of people who are continuing to feel the pressure, the brain fog. if you think about 100 million americans, that means maybe 5 million americans will probably be debilitated for a long time. packs livid, vaccines, drive the virus in the bloodstream down and lower the risk of long covid. kumasi: let's talk more about

tax low bid. president biden is taking packs loaded. is that -- ask livid. is it about timing? >> it's the juice with the squeeze. if you are older, if you are unvaccinated, it's worthwhile. if you have comorbidities, definitely if you are commune compromised. -- immune compromised. but if you are asked -- if you are vaccinated and boosted, but in some cases, it causes a rebound. a young person may find yourself at home for an additional five days. kumasi: let's talk about monkeypox. we did a story and it talked about we are seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to monkeypox. how are you feeling about it? are you confident it could be

contained given the response we've seen so far? >> i'm not that confident it will be contained in a short time. i think there's going to be a lot of pain in the next few weeks if not months. that's because not enough people are doing tests, we don't have enough vaccines, although we are prided -- prioritizing first vaccines to immunize as many people as possible. therapeutics are really clunky to give. you need to fill out a lot of paperwork. kumasi: what advice would you have two people -- maybe they are lining up trying to get this vaccine, what would you say? >> i would say first of all, don't worry. i know it's easy to say because it's not a deadly disease. it does cause a lot of pain. but if you get exposed to a known or suspected case, you will be prioritized for vaccines. they are getting vaccines every weekend when you get a vaccine, unlike covid, it can stop you

progressing to disease. we are in a different place from early days of covid but it's still going to be very rocky as we navigate the next few weeks. kumasi: thank you for helping us throughout all of this. i appreciate we can count on you for this. karina: getting answers continues in just a moment, but first, a reminder you can get our live newscast, breaking news come weather and more with their abc 7 bay area streaming tv app. it's available on apple tv, android tv, fire tv and roku.

karina: we want to say thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show, getting answers. we will be here every weekday at

3:00 on air and lifestream answering your questions. world news tonight with david mirror is up next. tonight, the airport shooting scare in dallas. the terrifying moments inside the terminal. police responding to calls of an active shooter at dallas love field. authorities say a woman armed with a handgun opening fire. travelers running for safety. some taking cover. the faa issuing a ground stop for hours. there is news coming in tonight about the alleged shooter. also tonight, the severe storm threat across several major cities in the east at this hour. washington, d.c., philadelphia, new york, and boston. the empire state building struck by lightning. heavy rain, hail, possible tornadoes tonight. watches from d.c. all the way up to new england. rob marciano timing it out. the breaking inside just as we come on tonight. the aerials now coming in. the fire burning outside dallas

where there