coit. she left money to build the monument in tribute to the fire department. beautiful. >> see you at 6:00. adcast tonight, state of emergency, thousands ordered to evacuate as wildfires explode across southern california. dozens of homes going up in flames at the start of a very dangerous time ahead. race against time to reach hundreds of miners trapped deep underground, and tonight, a violent uproar at the scene of an awful disaster. our own richard engel is there. hallowed ground. before it opens to the public, we have a powerful first look tonight inside the 9/11 museum with the woman whose job it was to bring it altogether. and grace under fire. she left hollywood behind for life as a princess but what was going on in the world we couldn't see? tonight, why grace kelly's children are coming to her defense. "nightly news" begins now.

>> from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is "nbc nightly news" with brian williams. good evening. as we look to an emergency in the west tonight, consider these numbers, 100-degree temperatures, 3% humidity, give or take and 50-mile an hour winds. as one fire commander in carlsbad, california put it today, we've been dealt a bad hand. as viewers watched today on live television, fires have exploded around them in southern california galloping across the land, jumping across canyons faster than firefighters can run and fueled by some of the worst possible conditions. tonight entire neighborhoods and lives have been put on hold, traffic diverted and the marines landed on the beach in hoover craft to fight a fire on their own base. we begin tonight in southern california, joe fryer is in carlsbad, joe, good evening. >> reporter: good evening,

brian. a thick layer of smoke covers carlsbad and you can see they resources are stretched thin, because north of san diego, there are now seven fires burning tonight. it didn't take long for the flames to devour homes in carlsbad, california. efforts to protect this home, useless for this owner. >> i tried to make it but naturally, who cares, right now, the house is gone. >> reporter: the massive fire is forcing mandatory evacuations in houses, apartments and schools and knocking out power and filling the air with smoke. flames are popping up across carlsbad, fuelled by very dry brush and strong gusts of wind. added high temps and low humidities, fire officials already knew a long day was on the horizon, around the same time another fire, 25 miles away

at camp pendleton, where crews on a hovercraft joined the fight, while crews continue to battle a 1,600-acre fire that started yesterday in san diego. >> weather conditions right now give us grave concern. >> reporter: the fire went through canyons dancing dangerously close to homes forcing thousands to evacuate. >> our home is right where the fire started. we didn't have a lot of time to prepare for anything, no warning. >> reporter: with no buildings destroyed, evacuation orders were lifted but today many returned home, only to witness more close calls. san diego's fire chief says the wind-driven outbreaks are highly unusual for may. are you getting nervous about what this fire season is going to be like? >> i think i'm perpetually nervous, as is every other fire professional in southern california. >> reporter: the dry, hot, santa ana winds are not typical. >> these winds are way out of season. this is the second one in two weeks. this is an october weather phenomenon. so i think we're resetting the rules for this.

>> reporter: instead of rain, there are only clouds of smoke, with acres of fire and now homes lost. one fire might be heading towards a nuclear power plant that is no longer active. here in carlsbad, firefighters believe they have the upper hand, but say it could take days to fully control the fire. brian? >> joe fryer starting us off tonight in carlsbad, california, joe, thanks. news of a still developing story tonight overseas, a desperate effort to save hundreds of mine workers tonight trapped underground after an explosion in turkey. the official death toll is now close to 300. some of the grief there has turned to anger aimed at the government. our chief foreign correspondent richard engel is there for us tonight. richard, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. as you can see, there is not a lot of activity here and that is because the rescue effort is actually been suspended for the night. this mine is still on fire. the hope is, come morning the

flames will have died down to a point they can continue digging, but brian, i must say, there is not a lot of hope here of finding any survivors. they emerged slowly, the dead carried out. the survivors, lucky to be alive. the explosion happened last night during a shift change, killing hundreds, cutting power down in the mine, the fire still burned. with toxic gas so thick, the security camera footage appears hazy. rescuers pumped in fresh air and desperately tried to find anyone alive, but hope is fading, and relatives of the missing are demanding answers. i don't know what's happening, this miner's wife says. is he wounded? is he missing? i haven't heard anything. the prime minister rushed to the scene but seemed tone deaf to the tragedy.

accidents happen, he said. he became the focus of relatives' anger. murderer, they said. his car was surrounded by a kicking, rock throwing mob. after he was gone, protesters clashed with police. the anger quickly spread to other parts of turkey. in ankara, fires and tear gas. in istanbul riot police using water cannons and plastic bullets on protesters, demanding that the prime minister step down. the mine disaster, perhaps the worst in this country's history is fueling a challenge to the government itself. last night, brian, people in this country were hopefully watching this mine. now they are watching the streets to see how violent the reaction will be to this horrible disaster. >> richard engel, live report from turkey for us tonight. richard, thanks. the world health organization said today its concerns about this new mers

virus increased significantly, and for the second day now, u.s. air travelers are being alerted with signs posted at major airports. tonight our team goes inside the emergency operation center at the centers for disease control. we get our report tonight from our chief medical editor, dr. nancy snyderman in atlanta. >> reporter: the cdc is on a heightened state of alert after two confirmed cases of mers, one in indiana, one in florida. the race is on to trace hundreds of people who may have been exposed. >> this is detective work because we have to find information from a variety of sources. we have to make sure it's accurate, and then we have to provide that information as rapidly as possible. >> reporter: a package arrives, fluid samples from a patient and health care workers in florida, a special protocol sends this package right to the lab. >> basically a matter of ten minutes from it arriving at the campus to getting in the hands of the laboratory. >> reporter: cdc teams are

working around the clock, reaching out to hospitals and state health departments, on the alert for any potential hot spots. is it fair to say there is more still we don't know than we do know? >> we're learning more every day. we've got a team in saudi arabia. working with them now to understand better how it's happening. >> reporter: the netherlands today confirmed a case of merss, now in 18 countries around the world. with 571 confirmed cases, 171 people are dead, most still in the arabian peninsula. for now, public health officials say the majority of cases are from direct contact in hospitals, but still there are concerns. >> we're not going to build a moat around the u.s. we're connected by the air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat. >> reporter: middle east respiratory syndrome can mimic the symptoms of influenza, but flu season is over, so anyone with a cough, fever, shortness of breath, who has traveled outside of the united states,

particularly to the middle east, should report to their physician and be screened for the mers virus. brian? >> dr. nancy snyderman, cdc headquarters in atlanta tonight. thanks for your reporting. we're learning a lot more about a growing scandal involving patient waiting lists. the secretary of veterans affairs, eric shinseki, is expected to testify about it tomorrow in congress. we get our report tonight from kelly o'donnell in phoenix. >> reporter: a marathon four-hour gathering of veterans. >> we don't trust the va, we're scared. >> reporter: stretched late into tuesday night. >> you can't do veterans like this. you can't treat veterans like this. >> reporter: just the second day on the job for new boss at the phoenix va medical center steven young who faced deep anger over the patient waiting list scandal. is this fixable? >> i think everything is fixable. it's just going to take energy, it's going to take focus, and i think that's exactly what we want to do. >> reporter: in a new development, nbc news reviewed a

2010 internal memo where va officials ordered immediate action to stop staffers from falsifying appointment dates to make patient wait times seem shorter. the memo shows that senior officials knew of a number of schemes used by local vas to report dramatically shorter wait times to headquarters where appointments were tracked. retired marine troy bermish scheduled patients at the phoenix va for about one year. he says he was trained on the va's electronic appointment system but told by supervisors to only use paper. >> that was how they taught us, so that's how i thought it was supposed to be done. and that was it. >> reporter: procedure? >> yeah. >> reporter: but bermish believes old school paper pushing was to keep washington from knowing how long it really took for patients to see their doctors. >> if we don't use the electronic wait list, then it can't be tracked. >> reporter: today the veterans administration is not

commenting, pending the outcome of an inspector general's investigation. kelly o'donnell, nbc news, phoenix. and still ahead on our broadcast tonight, our very first look inside the new national 9/11 museum. our guided tour from the woman in charge of bringing it all together.

tomorrow here in new york, president obama will dedicate the national 9/11 museum. visitors are in for what one writer called a punch to the gut and after getting a preview of our own, we can confirm that. unlike other museums, there are boxes of tissues located throughout the exhibits and visitors will indeed need them. >> reporter: it's almost overwhelming, just like that day was, and museum visitors should be prepared for how powerful it all is all over again. it's a story, a remembrance that

starts at 8:46 a.m., the first impact when the world ended for so many people. it's taken over a decade and while a tall new building towers over this site, the remembrance takes place below, the twin memorial pools at ground level and the new museum underground, seven stories down. alice greenwald is the woman in charge of this big, yet delicate yet gargantuan project. come in and we're met with a powerful visual. our guided-tour started with the first thing you see, a battered and rusted remnant of the old structure, the parts of the exterior spine of the world trade center shaped like tuning forks, known as try tridents. it's a towering and striking remembrance. >> we put them together based on the original construction stance that were still on the steel. >> reporter: preparations for president obama's visit tomorrow are going on alongside what is

perhaps the most striking feature of the museum. at the very bottom, the wall build for the foundation of the world trade center designed to hold back the hudson river back when this was a construction site in the 1960s. the wall suffered cracks and leaks after the impact of the attack, but it held. had this wall not held, we would be talking about something entirely different in lower manhattan. >> a much greater tragedy. >> reporter: this is about holding, the country held. and then there are the exhibits, all artifacts big and small. the megaphone made famous by the president standing on a pile of rubble. >> and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. >> reporter: the so-called survivor stairs where so many people ran to escape that day, the massive broadcast antenna from the roof. see ladder three, and a barely recognizable artifact from a

fire department that lost 343 of its bravest in one day. >> every one of the firefighters who rode on this truck to the world trade center who responded that day perished. >> reporter: some of the items are so personal, to the haunting, the recorded voices of victims mostly on voice mails leaving behind their last words and donated by the families. among them, brian sweeney on board flight 175 out of boston and fearing the worst calling home with an incredible, almost methodical calm to his voice. >> this is brian, i'm a plane that's been hijacked. things don't look good. i just want you to know, i absolutely love you. >> reporter: his widow, julie swooe knee roth, is proud to have donated what was her last memory of her husband. >> this might sound odd to some people but i'm glad i didn't answer the phone because i have his voice and his message and

his calmness and his thohts and his love for me and his love for his family forever. >> reporter: how often do you cry? >> such a good question. you know, i think we do steel ourselves, those of us who work on this day in, day out, and every once in awhile you see something or you listen to some of the audio and you are back in that place. >> reporter: it's all here, they are all here, the nearly 3,000 people who died in new york, washington and pennsylvania, a remembrance so bracing and powerful there are exit doors along the way for those who don't wish to continue. this is a tough experience. >> it is a tough experience. it's museum about loss, pain, terrorism, it's a museum about history, but it's also about the resilience we have in ourselves, not just as individual human beings, but as a society, to rebuild, to recover, to renew, to go forward, and to always

remember as we do so. >> it is indeed a tough experience. the president will get a private tour tomorrow and at first, only members of victims' families and first responders will be allowed to tour the new museum before it opens to the general public starting next week. we're back with more news right after this.

shades of the old political warrior were on of bill clinton were on display today under fire today firing back at rove after comments he made about hillary clinton's health, using phrase brain damage while questioning whether she suffers any lingering effects from the concussion she suffered after a fall back in 2012. >> first they said she faked her concussion, and now they say she's auditioning for a part on "the walking dead."

whatever it takes. look, she works out every week. she is strong. she's doing great. as far as i can tell, she's in better shape than i am. she certainly seems to have more stamina now, and there's nothing to it. it -- i didn't even -- i was sort of dumbfounded. they went to all this trouble to say that she had staged what was a terrible concussion that required six months of very serious work to get over. something she never lowballed with the american people, never tried to pretend didn't happen. now they say she's really got brain damage. if she does, i must be in really tough shape because she's still quicker than i am. >> former president predicted the attacks on his wife were just starting and he added you just can't be too upset about it, of course, following his own

advice is something else entirely. chris christie talked about his future today. the new jersey governor confirmed he is thinking about running for president. as for the ongoing dual investigations over last year's lane closures at the g.w. bridge in new york, christie told a conference in washington he predicts the controversy will be a footnote by the time the 2016 presidential campaign arrives. in great britain, the phone hacking trial continues. today a man named clive goodman testified, he's the former royal family editor for "news of the world." he said before he was arrested, he hacked the cell phone of kate middleton 155 times, starting back in '05, when she was, "a figure of increasing importance." he said he hacked into prince william and harry's voice mail. murdoch since shut down the news of the world. when we come back here this evening, she was one of the most

beloved women in the world, now all these years later, controversy swirling around grace kelly's life story.

finally tonight, the film festival kicked off in france about a film legend, grace kelly

who went on of course to become princess grace of monaco and who remains long after her death a fascinating and beloved figure. as for the film itself, that may be a different story. our report tonight from nbc's keir simmons. ♪ >> reporter: she was one of the greatest beauties hollywood has ever known. >> tonight you'll see one of the river ya's most fascinating sights. >> reporter: sharing the screen with great men but at the height of her fame, grace walked away sailed away, to marry a prince, a fairytale wedding and happy ending, or so everyone hoped. they first met here at the film festival almost 60 years ago in this romantic setting, grace kelly's life changed forever. here today the premiere of a new film about princess grace starring nicole kidman that

gives a fictionalized account of an unhappy princess in a gilded cage. the portrayal created a fire storm and infuriated princess grace's children, albert, stephanie, and caroline. her biographer says the film got it wrong. >> politics the way the movie depicts it, no, never in a million years. grace was grace. that's all she had to be. >> reporter: princess grace who died in a car crash in 1982, would have welcomed all the attention. >> my private life was very much my own, and now my private life is very public. >> reporter: meanwhile, the movie is getting slammed. one critic saying, it's so wooden, it's a fire risk. a reminder, as if one would need it, there is only one grace kelly. >> i don't want to be worshipped. i want to be loved. >> reporter: keir simmons, nbc news, france. and that's our broadcast on a wednesday night. thank you for being here with us.

i'm brian williams. we, of course, hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. good night. right now at 6:00, you see the dramatic pictures here, a major fire marching through dry brush and devouring everything in its path. thousands of people have been evacuated, many homes already burned. >> i'm jessica aguirre. we begin with that breaking news. a third day of sweltering heat and a send day of wildfires in san diego county. firefighters are stretched thin struggling to put out six wildfires that have popped up just since last night. and bay area firefighters are on their way to help san diego out.

the worst of the fires is the point see etta fire. we're covering the record heat and its impact for you. nbc bay area's chief meteorologist jeff ranieri is tracking the temperatures. but we again live in carlsbad on those fire lines. >> reporter: i have to tell you, within the last half hour, things have gone from bad to worse. two more fires have kicked up. another fire here in carlsbad appears to have reignited. we just saw fire engines race by us. and i want to call attention to the fire going on over my shoulder, that is to the east of us in san marcos. typically we like to see white smoke. that indicates crews are getting the upper hand. that smoke is thick, black. we heard a caller saying he saw a mansion go