more than 20,000 people have been evacuated. more than 220,000 acres. that's about 345 square miles have burned. 69 of the cell towers that were knocked down out of service have been restored. a little bit of a silver lining. >> a lot of people have moved from that. that was another thing, you know, getting those emergencies out. the warnings out to a lot of people. they have those cell phones. and so with those cell taurus being back up.

yes, we have -- we have mandatory evacuations right now for the sonoma valley area and the santa rosa area, and i can give you those locations real quick where the evacuations are. >> yes, please. >> yeah, okay. so, for sonoma valley, it's going to be 7th street east. >> uh-huh. >> from east napa street to denmark street. >> so this is the sonoma valley area.

i think this was one of the first evacuations that we had earlier this morning. can you tell us a little bit about where that is and we can put that map up on the screen. we have a little map made for that one. >> it's southeast of downtown sonoma, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and that's not as heavily populated, but the newer -- this is -- we're now showing the map on our screen. it's not as densely populated but you do believe that you've gotten everyone out of there, is that correct? >> yes, ma'am. we believe so, yes. >> but we -- >> we just have to remember that if we do request the evacuations, that we're hoping that people understand that the evacuation is not only for their safety but also for firefighters safety. >> and mark, talk to us about the conditions that are threatening this area. >> well, unfortunately, we have another red flag warning today. that was predicted last night, and any red flag situation, any time that we get fire moving in

a direction towards the community, it's in the best interest of the community that the incident commander, you know, request an evacuation because obviously with the winds, they're so unpredictable. >> and the flames have grown in this area in the last hour or so? we have a crew there, and they have shot video of some big flames. >> yeah. and that's, you know, the fire behavior is, you know, is in relationship to the train, obviously, but also the wind and that's one of the concerns that we have for today. >> and our other focus this morning is that other mandatory evacuation that came down just within the last hour, even more recent than that, is that correct? from kenwood to santa rosa? >> yeah. santa rosa valley area, yes. >> and talk to us -- i know we knew these wind gusts were going to pick up last night c.

can you talk to me about the prep work you did last night? >> absolutely. yeah, the preparation work is done, you know, regardless of a red flag or wind event, we still kind of do the same thing but you're on a little bit of a more heightened awareness when you know that you have a red flag or a wind event coming in. so the prep is the same, pretty much, but you just put that on the radar. >> so, when you know -- when you knew last night that we would have these wind concerns overnight and into this morning, can you get more manpower, or is it the same people who have been working all week already? >> yeah, you know, that's a great question, because yeah, there are being more resources ordered. however, we do what we can with what we have, and then at that point, if we do get -- if they do show up from wherever they're

coming from, then obviously they get put to work with the crews that are already out there. >> so kind of come one, come all, if anyone can come from other areas, they're welcome and you'll take them and put them to work. >> yes. yes, that's a nice way to put it. >> i know right now, talk to us about now. what happens now? because as this threat moves, the winds are picking uh, so of course that's a big push, you know, with this fire. explain to me, how do you all do that? do you put more manpower in these areas? >> well, that's right. it's pretty much choreographed at the same time. not at the same time. we get the evac order out as soon as we feel that it's necessary and then at that point the incident commander and the branch chief do have the option of moving people from areas that they aren't as active to more active areas. and then, that includes

aircraft, helicopters, anything that he sees as necessary to mitigate that problem. however, i don't know what the tactics are like out there right now. i'm not out there right now. but we will get briefed on that at 7:00 this morning. >> so at 7:00 this morning, there could potentially be more mandatory evacuations or precautionary evacuations, but you just don't know how the morning will pan out? >> that's correct. yes. >> and until -- >> until we get all that information back from the field also. >> and mark, how long have you been out here dealing with these fires, and how are you doing? >> well, i came -- actually, i came from the sequoia area and today is saturday on sunday? >> it's not surprising that you

don't know what day it is. >> you've been working these fires. i mean, how do you -- tell me how do you make it through? we haven't been able to talk to a will the of firefighters because they're busy, of course. just explain to me how you push through in dealing with this. >> well, you know, it's kind of interesting. i have an amazing support group at home where i'm from with my wife and my family and they understand that, you know, this is something that's a passion, and you kind of just put everything else aside, knowing that you're doing the benefit for the greater versus, you know, the single, i guess you could say, and it's what we do, and you know, we've been fortunate and privileged to be in this occupation and trained in this occupation and knowing that when it's all going bad, we kind of have an idea of how the solution should look, and we go out and, like i said, we've been fortunate and privileged to be trained up in it, and we just go do it. >> well, the rest of us are

fortunate and privileged that there are heroes like you all helping to save us. last night, the sonoma county sheriff released that dramatic body cam video of battling the fire in those very first minutes on sunday night. and it looked like hell. and it continues to look like -- >> yes. unfortunately, that's a firefighter' worst nightmare and i'm sure a police officer too. wind events are so unpredictable and they're almost impossible to stop. i was in the fire in 2002 in san diego and it was the same effect. you want to get everybody out of the way, including firefighters. because with a wind event, there's nothing in our arsenal, fire fighting or public safety-wise, that you can mitigate the hit of that fire. so you know it's coming and you just try to get out of the way. >> and that's why you were saying for people who are under

evacuation orders, please get out, not only for your safety but also for the firefighters' safety so they don't have to go into those areas. >> yes. and that's a wonderful message to get out and it's, you know, we understand -- our heart hurts too when we have to ask somebody to leave their property and everything that they've worked for and memories and all that, you know, all the stuff that goes with that. however, we know what the end result looks like. we know, unfortunately, what that tragedy is going to look like at the end of the day in th that event. so yes, you hit it right on the head. we're not trying to disrupt your life. we're trying to save your life. >> exactly. >> right. >> and we can't thank you all enough for what you're doing. >> absolutely. >> and for your time this morning, mark beverage from cal fire. >> yeah, as a son of a retired firefighter, thank you so much for the work you and all your fellow firefighters are doing out there for us. we really do appreciate that.

>> well, you're certainly welcome and thank you for having us on, and thanks for getting the word out. we really appreciate it. >> all right. >> thank you. >> thank you, mark beverage. it is 5:40 right now and we are going to send it over to sonoma valley at the site of the first mandatory evacuation that we talked about this morning. of course there have been multiple mandatory evacuations all week long, but this morning, there have been two, and where he is right now is the first mandatory evacuation in sonoma valley southeast of downtown. what are you seeing? >> reporter: yeah, you guys, this is all hands on deck, all fire resources are being direct to this area. i spoke with police just a short while ago. what they're telling me is that there are 30-foot flames less than half a mile from downtown sonoma. the area i'm standing on right now is east napa and macarthur at 7th street.

mandatory evacuations under way right now. it seems to be like a staging crew for fire crews. this is a rural area, about 30 to 50 homes with the wineries up the hill. right now you see crews on the ground, deputies have been going door to door telling people to va evacuate earlier. all week we've been talking to firefighters and first responders and say what makes these fires so difficult is how they have been jumping around. one street will go down quiet. you move to another street, homes on fire. it seems that the shift in winds have been picking up and pushing the fires to areas a lot faster than they predicted. some residents were caught in the shift earlier. we heard people screaming as they were trying to get out of the their house. the heat has been intense. i have the captain who's taking the time join me. i know you guys have had a busy morning. what are you guys dealing with

at this point? >> about 3:30 in the morning, the call came out from the division supervisor in sonoma looking for all available resources. fire began to make a run towards the town of sonoma on the northeast side. >> reporter: now, talk about the wind because we've been -- talk about the wind. we've been talking about the wind all morning. how that might be a factor, especially heading into the afternoon. >> so, i came over here from santa rosa, and what i observed was about a 20-mile-an-hour wind. there were ember casts and ash blowing. the fire is making a good run towards this area this afternoon. i believe the winds are forecast to subside slightly by the early afternoon hours, but we have crews in place ready to battle the fires that approaches down here. >> reporter: and the winds make it difficult not only as they push the fire but it makes the fire jump, which makes its unpredictable. how do you deal with that >> the wind is the biggest variable we have to deal with out here. the weather is constantly changing, something that we're being alert and on our toes over

and something we'll be observing throughout the day. it's status normal and nothing we're not used to. >> reporter: and you mentioned that this is all hands on deck. you guys are trying to get resources here. how do you coordinate that? where are you calling crews to come in from? >> so we have a staging area in santa rosa where crews were bedded down for the night. there were crews on the line and all around the fire overnight. they woke up crews who were on their rest cycle to come out. it's a very fast operation, simple as picking up the radio and calling for help and as soon as they can mobilize, they're en route. >> reporter: how many more crews do you expect you'll need. >> i don't know how many they called for and how many they'll send but i personally observed about four or five strike teams so about 20 engines headed this way. >> reporter: aside from the winds, some of the biggest challenges you're facing right now. >> one of the things we're asking for is compliance with the evacuation order. evacuation orders are there for your safety.

if anyone tells you to leave, it's a good idea to leave and be compliant. keep the roads open. that's one of the biggest challenges we face is maneuvering these large pieces of fire apparatus around so we'll work with you if you work with us. >> captain, i appreciate your time. i appreciate you taking time to talk with us. there you have it. again, this is a residential area under mandatory evacuation. police have been telling me those of you who are in sonoma, if you are evacuating, best is to get to petaluma, se abbas poll or roehnert park. >> this is calistoga road for anyone who needs alternate transportation. buses for those in evacuated areas. buses are staged at the safeway at highway 12, calistoga, for anyone who needs transportation. >> yeah, the evacuation as well,

we want to reiterate is highway 12, adobe canyon road to calistoga road. we're talking about kenwood to the eastern side of santa rosa. this includes multiple neighborhoods. we want to go over those quickly for you. mount hawk, sky hawk, oak mont, rincon valley. we are told that everyone needs to take highway 12 west and then head south on 101. head as far north as petaluma, sebastipol, it is so unpredictable at this hour with the winds picking up and fire all around. again, this is kenwood to santa rosa and for people who don't have cars, marcus was just going over, there are buses available for people to take. >> yeah. that's staged at the safeway. this is at highway 12 or

calistoga road and that's for anyone who needs alternate transportation because they want to make sure that everyone gets to safety, and a big part of this has been the winds. the winds this morning. we want to go to vianey arana, who has been tracking this all morning. you were telling us about this and here it is now. >> it is and unfortunately not much relief in sight for several hours. currently, at this hour, it's about 5:46 a.m. since 5:30, we've seen consistent winds in napa at about 29 miles per hour and sno sonoma right in between also experiencing gusts between 20 and 25 miles per hour. near the fairfield area, we've seen gusts. what's the difference between a sustained wind and a gust? the sustained wind means it's constant, it's constantly blowing. gust is a moment when a gust comes through and blows things out of the area which is what

really brings the concern for those flying embers and i want to take you through that future cast timeline. it's going to stick around for the next couple hours so let's talk about those wind gusts. mt. diablo seeing the strongest of the gusts at about 51 miles per hour. the napa, sonoma area right now where they're evacuating all those folks in sonoma, they're still experiencing some gusty conditions and sustained winds between 15 miles per hour and 20 miles per hour in some areas. so let's talk about this, oh, so important timeline, because this is going to play a very big role as they continue to fight a ton of these fires within the next couple of hours. look at this. we're still at about 22 miles per hour in napa, fairfield, 33 miles per hour and then if we fast forward through the 6:00 a.m. hour, we continue to see those gusts really blowing at about 24, 25, 30-plus miles per hour. we have a number of active fires still currently burning so when

you look at this map and you see the amount of fires still burning, now i know a couple of these, that they have paired them up into one fire to try to contain it as a whole, but if you look at this fire and these maps, if you are located just south of any of these fires at the current moment, you need to remain on high alert. now i know they are already starting to evacuate folks in the sonoma area and again if you're just now tuning in, just now waking up, head on over to nbcbayarea.com, also twitter and facebook if you have access to wi-fi. we did tweet out the link on the latest evacuations in that area. and if you look at the map, all of that fire that's still actively burning with those winds blowing from the north northeast, what is that going to do? it's only going to kick those embers south and it's going to bring the possibility of that fire really spreading. you've already heard those fires have grown within a matter of seconds as those winds continue to gust, which means if you can see -- if you're from your home, if you're sitting right now at home and you look outside of

your window or you step outside of your home and you can see the fires just off to the north in the mountain areas and you know you're just south of those areas, you need to stay alert and be ready to go at any given moment because as that wind continues to blow, we're talking about that wind staying within that range at least through the 9:00, 10:00 a.m. hour and then the threat of the relatively low humidity kicks in at about 10:30, 11:00 a.m., so right now we're still at the 20%, 30% mark range but those embers may move south and that immediately puts you in harm's way. take care of your family. take care of yourself. call your friends. reach out to your neighbor. if you know you have elderly neighbors, go knock on their door, wake them up, because these fires have that threat. now i'm going to go ahead and step out so you can really look at this map because this is the red flag warning map. now this was issued since last night and we've been tweeting it, posting it everywhere. you can go ahead and retweet. i just posted new information on

facebook and twitter. if you have access to facebook or twitter or wi-fi, i'm going to step out so you can pay attention to this map. if you're tuning in, all of the red highlighted areas, regardless of if there's an active fire burning or not, the wind conditions and the weather conditions specifically in those highlighted areas are going to bring an elevated risk of fire danger. what does that mean? that means that it is already causing fire danger and it's already burning or it has the potential to spark up a fire. that means if those embers spread to those areas that don't have any fires right now, the wind conditions in that area make it perfectly to quickly spread especially with the gusts above the hill at about 1,000 feet. we're looking at the biggest threat because that's where we're seeing the gustiest of conditions. if you look at this map, if you're just now joining us, pay attention to this map. if you are in any of the highlighted areas, you're under a red flag warning. that doesn't necessarily mean that the fire's going to spread in that direction.

i don't want you to think that. i don't want you to think that the highlighted areas mean the fire's going to spread. it simply means if it's not already burning, the fire conditions and the weather conditions in the highlighted areas have a major fire threat so you need to stay on high alert, even if you're just south, even if your area isn't highlighted but you're just south of those fires, you're not in the clear, at least for the next couple hours because i want to take you now to the humidity and the wind speeds for the next couple of hours. typically overnight, we like to see that recovery in humidity. we see a little bit of that humidity recover so we get a nice build-up of air mass, the temperatures cool down. that plays a nice little role but as the winds kick up, it really dries out that air mass and it drops that relative humidity down so right now napa is at 33%, santa rosa's at 45%. but look at this time bar. let's pay attention to this time bar up here. 6:30 a.m. , 9:30 a.m., look how

much that drops. 9:00, 10:00 a.m. hour, we're expecting those winds to peak, especially for the fairfield area and look at fairfield, 19%, santa rosa 29%, novato 22%, and then it gets only worse as we head into the later portion of tonight so it's not probably until 4:00 or 5:00 when we'll start seeing a change in the winds but that relative humidity sticks at about 11% in napa so anything that has not burned, we're looking at dangerously fire elevated conditions because of all of that dry brush that still sits directly around that fire and then you pair that up with 11% humidity in areas like napa, santa rosa, 18%, novato, 15%, fairfield, 15%, so napa, sonoma, all of these areas still nowhere in the clear of the threat of that fire. i'll send things back to you. >> all right, thanks. we've been talking about sonoma,

santa rosa, these evacuations but we of course cannot forget about napa. fires continue to burn near some of the world famous wineries. distt was around this time yesterday when our crew at the winery saw a flare-up from a north ce. this is one of several wineries in that area. "today in the bay's" laura malpert is live along highway 29 north of yountville. laura, what have you been able to see this morning? >> reporter: well, as you said, out of napa county, at the bottom of oakville gray, and as you can see behind me, the area is blocked off by highway patrol. and over here, you can see the reddish orange hue. those are flames coming down the hill. i can tell you, it has been a long night here, a lot of people didn't get much sleep. residents and firefighters have been on edge, afraid that the winds would pick up and that's exactly what it seems like they are doing. they picked up. they seem to be spreading the

flames and the flames are coming down the hill toward highway 29. again, everybody was on high alert all night, waiting for this to happen. and it did. firefighters tell me at some point, it felt like 40-mile-per-hour winds. they say the roads in this area are narrow and they are not safe. firefighters tell me they have two strike teams, several hand crews, and four dozers just in this small area alone, but again, they were starting to come down the hill. they were telling everybody to get out. you know, they are prepared, and they are ready to go at a moment's notice, but if the winds become erratic, which it seems like they are, they have to retreat and there is very little they can do, so again, they are starting to come down the hill right now, but telling us to get out of the area or at least they're keeping us from going anywhere closer. as soon as they get their next orders, we will let you know. reporting live from napa county,

laura malpert, back to you. right now, we want to take you to some pictures from one of our production -- aaron in the production here. his parents along highway 12, they are in oakmont and this is a picture that looks like maybe from outside of the homes and if you can see the top right of your screen, that's out west. you can see those flames in the distance. this is -- looks like maybe from a porch camera there, and you can just see the smoke and the glare of those flames. that's closer to the right side of your screen up top, and that's what you're looking at. and this is just to show you just how these flames are getting so close to so many homes. now, oakmon was a part of that mandatory evacuation we received. >> just in about the last hour, this mandatory evacuation from kenwood in the east to east santa rosa in the west. it includes highway 12 from adobe canyon road to calistoga

road and it includes this neighborhood, oak month, mount hawk, sky hawk, rincon valley all the way to santa rosa. i hope aaron's parents are evacuating. i hope they will be safe. these are all areas to the south and to the north of highway 12. so, that entire area, hundreds of homes. the sonoma county sheriff's office tells us they think thousands of people are now in this evacuation order just in the last hour, assume ago ling f people are asleep but they are starting to send people door to door to knock and make sure everyone is out of that area. if for some reason you know people who don't have a car, who can't get out, there are buses staged at highway 12 at the safeway. and they can take people out to safety. but if you can get out on your own, you're advised to go as far south as novato. they want people out of the area this morning. >> we want to remind people too,

about nixle. this is the way you can get the updates to your specific neighborhood. you can text your zip code to 888777. again, this is nixle. it gives you those alerts right there in your neighborhood. text your zip code to 888777. this morning, we are getting an inside look at the effort to evacuate all of these people. - ase body camera footage comes from sonoma county sheriffs deputies and here's part of it. firs a look. >> sir! you got to go. >> this was sunday night as flames first erupted. you can even see the ride through the smoke and fire right there. the sheriff says this footage, of course, shocked him as it is for many of us as we see some of us for the first time. >> i saw some video footage from it and couldn't believe how fast it was and what was going on. it really tells the story of how dangerous and how difficult the an wt was, and i got to get

people understand that this is a dangerous event. >> dangerous indeed and you can are h more of this video on our website. that's nbcbayarea.com. now, among the biggest questions neighbors are asking is, is my home okay? many people still don't know that question right now. te bay area data scientist in the area created a new tool that helps determine if your home was destroyed. if you want to see this interactive map for yourself, we've actually been able to use fron one. you can go to our website, nbcbayarea.com, we've posted it right on the front page there. it's really useful and you can really get a zoom in on exactly your home too. >> yeah. exactly. we hope you'll go there on nbcbayarea.com. we have lists of all of the mandatory evacuations, the advisory evacuations. we have the evacuation centers there, everything you need is a one-stop shop on that nbcbayarea.com home page. >> and you can also follow us on

twitter. and new evacuations overnight. here's the latest information. >> santa rosa and kenwood, we have been on air for the last hour telling you about this. we came on air just after 5:00 a.m. when this news broke from the sonoma county sheriff's office and cal fire. this is a mandatory evacuation from adobe canyon road in kenwood all the way to santa rosa, calistoga road. that's all areas north and south of highway 12 there. people need to get out. they need to take highway 12 west to 101 south and the sheriff's office wants people to go as far south as novato, petaluma, they want everyone out of the area. >> and they also have buses there at a safeway on highway 12 for anyone having trouble gting o -- getting out of the area so that's another thing that you need to be mindful of. they're trying to get everyone

out and make sure everyone has proper transportation to get to those areas. >> that's at the safeway on highway 12 and calistoga road. also for people who can't get out of the area, they're urging you to call 911. if you foresee that you will have trouble, you can also call the emergency line set up by the county, 707-565-3856. and this now is a map of a different -- i'm sorry. this is the mandatory evacuation -sonomnwood to santa rosa. and i missed the beat but here we go back to the mandatory evacuation from about three hours ago. it's still in place. in fact, it's getting more dangerous as the hours progress. this is outside of downtown sonoma. >> this is sonoma valley is what they're calling this area. as you can see, it's near sonoma valley hospital but the hospital is not a threat. we want to let people know. that is not part of that evacuation order but just a reference of where it is. this is video we shot from overnight in that area of sonoma

valley as crews were going to that area to evacuate people. they say this area wasn't as populated as the second mandatory evacuation, but in the sonoma valley area, they say about 50 to 100 homes in that area. they wanted to get everyone out. this is 7th street east of east napa street to denmark street, north side of denmark street from 7th street east to napa road, 8th street east north of denmark road and east macarthur street, east of 7th street east and this is also hamblin road. >> we have a crew here at east mcarthur and 7th and they got these 30-foot flames. so, the timeline that we experienced was this evacuation for sonoma came into play around, what was that, 3:00 a.m. >> yeah. >> and they said we think we got everyone out. it's a more rural, unincorporated part of sonoma.

50 to 100 people, homes, and businesses, mixed use area. >> very calm about that at that hour. >> very calm about that. and then we sent a crew there, and flames. 30-foot flames just out of nowhere and it just goes to show how quickly things can change. let's go to anser hassen. it seemed calm a few hours ago and now it's a completely different scene. anser, what are you seeing? >> reporter: yeah, these winds making this a very unpredictable situation. i'm being told this is called all hands on deck. all fire crews have been direct to this area. i spoke to police a short while ago. they said 20 to 30-foot flames just half a mile from downtown sonoma. mandatory evacuation orders are in place. right now we're at napa and east 8th street, a residential area. fire crews staging here. this neighborhood, as i said, under mandatory evacuation. now this particular area is called sonoma valley.

this is a rural area with about 30 to 50 homes. there are wineries up the hill. right now, crews are on the ground. we hear planes up in the air. earlier, deputies went door to door, telling people to get out. all week, we've been reporting firefighters and first responders saying what's making these wildfires so difficult is how the fire keeps jumping around and the wind pushing the fires in different directions. it seems that the wind shifts have been picking up and the speeds, pushing the fires to different areas, much faster than they predicted. we spoke to one family this morning who have been -- who's packed their rv and ready to go. they told us the biggest issue has been the emotional and physical stress of this situation. we're told residents were caught in the shifting winds, and we heard earlier today, a family crying and screaming as they were being told to evacuate. and it's -- excuse me -- as you can imagine, the wind is tand t

smoke out here continues to build. there's ash and smoke all throughout and what's interesting is these neighborhoods -- excuse me, i got to move here out of the fire crew's way. what we've been seeing is you go down one street, completely quiet. you go to another, and there's homes on fire. so again this, area, very unpredictable at this time. and we're also told that crews were woken up early this morning out of their rest cycle, many of them en route to this area, four to five strike teams and about 20 engines heading this way. you can see fire crews staging this area, also up above. those of you who have been told to evacuate, we're being told that the best locations are petaluma, sebastopol, and roernt park. also the marin county fairgrounds. and also as we've been reporting, buses and coaches have been set up to transport people who may be having difficulty getting out of the area. i'll send it back to you guys. >> anser, we want to keep you

there for a second if you can stay with us. i know you keep having to move because it's such an active scene. but you were talking about how there are some homes untouched and then you look at the next street over and there are homes literally on fire. and that just goes to reinforce that if there's an evacuation, people need to get out because the situation can change in an instant. >> yeah, absolutely. the unpredictability of this fire has been, as we heard from the captain who talked to us earlier, a big problem. also, when we were driving through, we talked to some chp officers who have been manning the roads. they say some families didn't want to leave, and they were staying here at their own risk. even though deputies have been going door to door and firefighters, first responders saying the number one priority is to keep people alive and keep people safe and they're really asking people to cooperate and to evacuate if they're told to do so. >> and those 30-foot flames that you were seeing, checked in with you in the last half hour, have

those been battled at all? >> well, it's hard to see now. if you take a look, well, from our vantage point, it might be tough to see, but through those thick trees over there, you can see the flames. we have not been able to cross. earlier, we were in an area where we could see the flames as they were approaching the neighborhood, then fire crews told us we had to evacuate as well. now, this new location that we're at, which is napa street and 8th street, it's tough to see the flames, but if you can look through those trees up there, that orange glow has not gotten any less. so, the fire is either maintaining where it's at or intensifying for sure, but we know that fire crews that are out there, but again, as the fire comes closer to these residential areas, we've been told to evacuate. no one's allowed to go back there so it's tough to see but the you look right now, as we talk, you see that fire, that glow, it's getting more intense

as we are seeing live right now. so, i think that's your answer. >> and anser, if you could talk to us just a about the atmosphere out there. i know you've been out there all week. and just from, you know, just the stance of firefighters who are trying to evacuate people, from those families who are being forced to leave their homes. what is it like out there, the emotion of it all? >> reporter: it runs the gamut of emotions. you have fire crews. you can see the look on their face, the fire marks on their -- smoke on their body, on their uniforms. we spoke to a resident earlier, hoping we can bring his sound to you later on but he was almost in tears. that particular resident that we spoke to, this was his third evacuation order that he was under. he hasn't had to leave yet, but he said the emotional and the physical stress on him and his family has been the toughest part of this situation.

>> kr0i6r7b89i can only imagine. couer hassan, thank you so much for that update. we want to go now to deputy brandon jones from the sonoma county sheriff's office. once again, deputy, thank you for joining us on the phone. we've spoken with you a few times already this morning, and i think what hit me the most was that the first time we spoke with you, there was some optimism and the last time we spoke with you, you said it's turned disappointing. >> yeah. unfortunately, we had been making such good progress all through yesterday, and all through the early part of this morning, and these two flare-ups that we're trying to combat, it's just so frustrating. our fire assets are just tirelessly working to put this thing out. all of the police officers and deputy sheriffs up there who have been doing such a phenomenal job of evacuating people and protecting their homes and it's just so frustrating to finally get some headway and then end up having a step back again.

but the darkness is always -- the night's always dark before the dawn so we're hoping we're going to be done quick. >> that's nice optimism that you're keeping. just for anyone who's just joining us, you have crews, of course, they've been battling fires all week. but there are two new main concerns, one is in sonoma, and one is between kenwood and santa rosa. >> absolutely. the sonoma evacuation went out earlier this evening. we sent deputies and allied agency officers out there to conduct the evacuations. that was a reasonably small area with a lower amount of structures and the evacuations went well from all reports i was getting on the scene. this new one out on highway 12 is problematic. it's in a little bit of a more populated area. the bulk of oakmont should already be under evacuation from santa rosa which would have been the immediate population threat if it wasn't evacuated.

but the information i'm getting is that fire popped up pretty quick so we have sent just a small army of deputies and officers out there to just make sure everybody else is out, everybody else is safe. i know there's fire assets rushing out there to try and combat that fire right away. we're urging everybody to please evacuate westbound on highway 12 into santa rosa and then get on the 101 and start heading south. we're working on getting additional shelters to cover any extra people who are being evacuated by this and we do want to point out, if you need transportation assistance, please call 565-3856. we will come and get you. we have buses staged at the safeway at calistoga and highway 12. we're doing anything we can to accommodate any kind of resident that's out there and all of their challenges. >> talk to us, deputy jones, about the communication that you all have when you all learned that, okay, now we need to move this neighborhood or we need to

move this community. how -- talk to us about that communication. how do you all do that and how is it sent out to everyone? >> so, we have -- we've, from the very onset of this spientir disaster, we created an emergency operation center and we have all sorts of county departments, including fire assets and law and public health, all sorts of county representatives, they're all here under one building, so the informationi information sharing is fluid. when something goes out, we don't need to make a bunch of phone calls. we don't need to send a bunch of e-mails. we're all right here so we can all start deploying the various resources and assets we have lined up. we have fire contacts here, cal fire is here as well. and the -- one of the most -- ways to make this the most efficient as possible is to simplify the communication. so it's really nice to have everybody here so we can immediately start putting stuff out to help people. >> because this is when seconds

count. >> yeah, absolutely. i can't help be but impressed by how efficient this system has been this week, and especially this morning, seeing how quickly you've all gotten back to us about the ever-changing situation, because we're facing the winds this morning. it's kind of like groundhog day of last sunday, and i want to go back to the evacuations, deputy jones. you want people to go as far south as petaluma, even novato, is that right? you really want people to evacuate. >> so, our big problem right now is santa rosa has lots of evacuees from sunday and monday, and we need to make sure that we're not evacuating people multiple times, and that ended up being somewhat of a problem at the very beginning because some of our residents were only evacuating a block or two away, and we need them out. we need you to go to where we have the resources to help. so that's why we're motivating

everybody to don't merely evacuate to the next neighborhood over. please keep going. go past all the shelters that are full in santa rosa. we're getting shelters lined up. we already have shelters on order down south. please start heading there so we can start taking care of you. >> and also want to remind people of nixle, that alert that you have, the zip code to 888777. that's a great tool that you all are using. >> absolutely. we cannot press that enough. the sheriff's office uses nixle all the time. it's a phenomenal tool. we've been using nixle throughout this entire endeavor, and going out of our way to just make sure everybody's informed. we like everybody to be prepared. and as such, we've had a relatively smooth operation and having to move all of these people. nixle, the sheriff's office facebook page, the sheriff's office twitter, the county of sonoma facebook page, twitter, we're doing everything we can to keep people informed. please stay abreast of what's

going on. we're communicating with people on those applications as well on a regular basis. we want our people to be informed. we want them to be ready. so that way, if for some reason we have to issue that horrible call, that it goes smooth, it goes quick and everybody stays safe. >> well, it truly is impressive how you've reached out to your residents and been there for them. thank you so much, deputy jones, for being with us once again this morning. >> it's my pleasure. and you know, for the rest of the bay area, sonoma county, a lot of our emergency responders are residents here so this is our community and our homes too and we're fighting like we would -- we would fight anywhere else but as hard as we possibly can. this is our families, our friends, our home, and we're going to win. >> you are and our hearts are with you, deputy jones. thank you so much. >> thank you. we want to send it over to vianey arana. she's been watching, all night long, we have the warnings that these winds would pick up this morning and like clock work, here they are, the gusts and

that's making things even manufacture dangerous. >> it is and you've seen how  quickly these fires spread because of the winds. the weather plays a large role in how quickly these fires can be contained and spread and here's a current look at the current wind gusts right now. in napa, we're looking at 26 miles per hour. down into that sonoma area, the winds are blowing north right now, the arrow right here that you see, that shows you the direction of where the wind is blowing. if you could see, it's blowing north, but then we've also got a couple of areas blowing northeast, and we're going see a slight shift in the wind pattern but santa rosa's at about 17 miles per hour right now. and we're going to continue to see those sustained winds between 10 and 18 miles per hour but it's the gusts that really concern us, because those can kick up, up to 30-plus miles per hour. and then those embers can quickly spread south as that wint wind continues to blow from the north. i want to take you through a timeline because a lot of people are wondering, how long is this wind going to be sticking around, what can we expect for

the next couple hours. the truth of the matter is that humidity's also going to play a huge role. so here's a look right now at the north bay humidity. look at this timeline. we do typically see humidity recover overnight so we saw a bit of that recovery overnight but look at how quickly this starts to decrease as those winds continue to pick up. it dries out that air mass and that relative humidity quickly dries out, 44% by 8:00 a.m. and you can quickly see that declining to about 22% by noon. 17% by 1:00 and i was looking ahead at some of the models, and we're even looking at 10% into later portion of tonight. now let's talk about that temperature trend because it's a combination of winds, humidity, and warmer temperatures. the north bay temperature trend right now, those cooler temperatures in that kind of recovering humidity all help in aiding the fight against that fire and that's what we saw yesterday. that's what the firefighters were dealing with, which is why they were able to gain such great ground and such containment but as you've heard,

we've seen it from a nurnl mber officials, they said the winds are spreading those fires that they worked on so hard last night and here's the reason why the fires are spreading so quickly. we see the 40s and look at those temperatures start to increase. we see those jumping into the upper 60s by 11:00 a.m. for the north bay and look at by 12:00 and 1:00, right around your lunch hour, we're talking about upper 70s and 80s. we were tracking warmer temperatures for this weekend. that's exactly what's going to happen. so you pair that up with strong, gusty conditions, low humidity and hot temperatures and that's honestly the perfect disaster. unfortunately, expected wind gusts, if i fast forward this timeline to about 8:30, look at this, napa, 38-mile-per-hour wind gusts. now where you see these kind of colors changing, these are the higher elevation areas and that's typically where it gets the gustiest. we saw mt. diablo saw gusts of 55-plus miles per hour. santa rosa, 26. i want to push your attention also down toward san francisco.

even in san francisco along the coastline, the offshore winds really kind of started sitting over the north bay and sonoma wildfires. we saw those offshore winds move in and the direction of the arrows shows you in what direction the winds are blowing. by 8:30, continues to blow from the northeast, half moon bay, 22 miles per hour, even down your redwood city, we're talking about 31 miles per hour winds and look at 10:00 a.m. still in the 38-mile range in napa. 38 miles per hour, santa rosa, 26 miles per hour and the winds will continue to blow from the north northeast which is why they keep telling all these people that are evacuating to go as far south as possible because that wind continues to blow from the north northeast and that's what quickly spreads that fire. one ember can jump a highway, a street, and then create a whole new fire. all it takes is a jump of one ember. look at the shift of the wind by 11:30, kind of tightens up, napa, 26 miles per hour, santa

rosa, 22 miles per hour, and san francisco starts seeing those winds pick up too. when can we expect relief? as i mentioned, if you've been tuning in and joining us, by about 4:00, 5:00, we start to see a decrease in those wind speeds. also not just the gusts but also the sustained winds and napa, look at this. 13 miles per hour. santa rosa, about 8 miles per hour. however, even though the wind gusts begin to die down, the relatively humidity begins to decrease. so we see dryer conditions in the forecast and then thankfully by 10:00, napa, down to 6 miles per hour. so, we have a long road ahead before we really see a decline in those wind speeds. unfortunately, it's going to be a big wind event for the next several hours. much like last sunday. last sunday, we saw gusty conditions for at least five to six hours after that initial fire broke out and that's what we're expecting today by about 10:00 p.m., that's when we'll see the calmest of the winds but that relative humidity will once

again decline so that's still going to keep us on high alert. let's talk about the active fires. we still have a number of active fires burning. this is the latest acreage of last night. unfortunately, as the winds kick up, i wouldn't be surprised if a number of these acres spread and got a little bit bigger within the past maybe two hours that we've been on air. as of right now, if you're looking at this map, looking at all these fires burning, pay attention because if you're just south of any of these, you're at risk of those embers kind of burning towards your direction. so let's talk about the new wind change. the new wind change happening right now. be prepared. we cannot emphasize this enough. call your friends, call your family, it's 6:20 so i'm hoping more folks are awake and tuning in now but if they're not and you know they might not be awake, those gusts are blowing so if you can see fires to the north, we've been showing you videos of people on their porches shooting the camera, pointing the camera towards the mountains and you can really see the fire.

if that's your home, if you can see it from your window or you're outside and you can see it from your porch or wherever you are, you're too close for comfort. you must stay alert because those em berz will move south and the number one threat is going to be for the hills but again, they're really asking folks to evacuate as far down south as possible because a number of those evacuation centers are already loaded. now, look at this red flag warning map. another thing that you really need to look out for, the highlighted areas. now, this has been in place since last night and it will continue to be in place through 11:00 p.m. tonight . the reason for that is even though we'll see a decline in wind speeds, the relative low humidity and the increase in temperature is going to put us at risk. the highlighted areas, the red flag warning basically means that the weather conditions in that area, the highlighted areas, has an elevated risk of fire danger, which means it's easier for a fire to spark out in any of the highlighted areas.

however, for confusion, i don't want to confuse people. it does not mean that that is where the fires will spread from the north bay. so do not get that confused. i had somebody on twitter ask me exactly what that meant. it does not mean this is where the fires will spread. it simply means that if not already burning in that area, the conditions for the highlighted areas, unfortunately, have the perfect combination to quickly start and spread a fire. so again, just be cautious. be aware. i cannot emphasize this enough. i will be constantly tweeting a lot of these maps and wind speeds so you can share them with family and friends so they can also be on high alert. i'll send it back to you guys and i'll be back with an update. we want to get you caught up with everything where we stand at this hour so update you on .. 17 peall state of things. this is a map showing the named fires. the tubbs fire is already the ontaliest fire in state's orked y. 17 people have been killed during that fire. cal fire says that it is making progress on containment. we have worked on this graphic

throughout the night and you can see right here, to give you a sense of the containment levels, is 10las fire is at 45% containment. that is a good thing. the tubbs fire, 44% contained. the nuns fire is 10% contained and the pockets fire is 5% contained. >> here are the newest details 0-tall of the north bay fires combined. at least 36 people are confirmed dead. more than 20,000 people have been evacuated. 220,000 acres, that's 345 square miles have burned. 69 of the 77 cell towers that had been knocked out of service have been restored so that's one piece of good news in all of this is hopefully the missing persons numbers will go down as people can text and get back online and get in touch with people. also hopefully people can find out where they can evacuate to. >> right. >> find out more information now that those cell towers are back

in action. >> right. and they're really working and of course we're doing a lot of things in sonoma. that's where those two most recent mandatory evacuations have been going on. but we want to go also to napa. this is where we find our nbc bay area's laura malpert. she is there this morning and laura, talk to us about what's going on where you are right now. . >> reporter: really wewell, i a bottom of oakville grade and just seconds ago, we saw national guard leaving so you know it's bad up there. you can see the highway patrol has this road blocked off and i will show you why. take a look over there. the nuns fire has crested over the ridge and it is burning down the hill toward highway 29. you can see the flames, the reddish orange hue is not what you want to see. firefighters, again, are abandoning their posts in that area. the area has l bealready been evacuated and they are definitely not letting anyone else in. you know, all night long,

firefighters and residents have been braceing for this. they've been afraid that the winds were going to pick up and spread the flames and spread the embers and that's what's happening. i just felt a strong wind gust right now. at one point, firefighters said they felt possibly up to 40-mile-per-hour winds. i with one man who was helping his friends who own property here near the winery. take a listen to what he has to say. >> it's beyond imaginable at this point. i mean, so many losses of houses and life at this point, and a lot of animals are up here, friends have a ranch up here. we don't know if they've gotten their animals out in time. it's just going to be a huge ordeal for a lot of people in valley for quite a long time. >> reporter: it is devastating, and very sad. that man owns property about five, six miles away, and you know, he's worried about his friends. he believes they probably lost

their property up the hill. he is hopeful that his property will be spared. he is hopeful that these vineyards will create a natural break and will keep the fire from spreading even more, but you never know. you know, firefighters prepare. they are ready to go. but if the winds become very erratic, sometimes they have no choice but to retreat and to get out. we will be here as long as it is safe and we will let you know as soon as they know what their next orders are, and we will give you updates all morning long. reporting live from napa, laura malpert, back to you. >> laura, thank you for that. the nuns fire has grown to become this monster because it was the patrick fire, the adobe fire and now it's all merged into one massive fire. rmatave crews on both sides of it. and part of it is in napa county and we want to go to the chief information officer for napa county. she joins us live now on the

phone. we spoke to you about an hour ago. thank you again for joining us. is there anything new or my hope is that everything is the same as last time we spoke with you? >> good morning. thank you so much for having me. yeah, at this point, we haven't really seen too much of a change since the last time we spoke. in fact, just outside here, the emergency operations center in napa county, at the sheriff's office, we saw stars and the moon to want, which is very different than what we were seeing earlier this week. >> a welcome sight. that means clear enough skies to see the moon and the stars. >> absolutely. and all week, we've had a lot of ash raining down and kind of this choking fog of haze and smoke and i did not smell that as much this morning so that's very much welcomed. >> and we have a bit of calm there in napa. can you talk about the

firefighters' efforts as they try to tackle as much as they can of the nuns fire? >> the firefighters here in napa county and those who have come from across the state and the country to assist us in battling these fires, we thank them so very much for their service. they work tirelessly so make sure that our community is safe. and we are so appreciative of their presence here because it means our community's safety and so just to have them here has been such a welcome sight. >> the nuns fire is only 10% contained this morning. of course, it's better than 0% contained. it's a good thing that there's any containment at all. but there's still a long way to go. and do you have your -- do you have a message for your residents who maybe haven't been affected by the evacuations yet but now that we're facing the wind this morning, things could change. what do you have to say to your residents? >> so i think a message of

emergency preparedness is always key, making sure that if you are in an advisory evacuation area, meaning you are near a location that could take a sudden turn at any moment, that you're prepared, that you have your bags packed, that you have important documents in order, just to make sure that in case of the emergency, if the winds do change and the evacuation area does change, that you're prepared to leave at a moment's notice. we're really, really focused on the safety of our residents right now and so we just want to make sure that message gets across. >> just want to talk about, you know, throughout the day, we don't know what would happen as far as, you know, mandatory evacuations, but for those families who may be able to return to their homes soon, we don't know when that is for any of them, but when they do, are there just things that they should be mindful of? >> absolutely. any time that you go back to an area post a wildfire of any

kind, you really want to make sure that you're being very careful when you are doing clean-up. so, wearing long sleeves, mask, goggles, construction boots, just making sure that you're protecting your body. and from a public health messaging standpoint, we really want to make sure that if you have food that has been refrigerated that has been exposed to the smoke and flames or that it's just been exposed for a while, don't eat it. throw it away. we really want to make sure that folks are safe. >> and i just want to thank you for what -- we want to thank you for your time and highlight just how good things are looking right now in napa as opposed to sonoma. we talked to them. they have two brand-new mandatory evacuations this morning. it's an unfortunate scenario there. but we hope that the morning will continue to go so well for you in napa. in the sense that nothing new

arises. >> thank you so much. we also feel the same, and our hearts go out to our neighboring counties. we know the struggle, and we are here with you. >> kristi jordan, chief information officer for napa county, thank you for your time. we'll touch because with you in just a little bit. we want you all to know that we are staying on top of this on air right now and we are staying on top of it online. you can go to nbcbayarea.com. there you will find all the information about the evacuations, the evacuation centers, as well as updated information on the north bay fires. also, on media, @nbcbayarea. it is 6:31 on your saturday morning. good morning to you, thanks for joining us. >> we have new evacuations from overnight and here are the latest. santa rosa and kenwood. now, this is an area, the most recent new evacuation that we have this morning. >> yeah. this happened, oh gosh, about

two hours ago. the assumption was a lot of people were asleep. this involves hundreds of homes, potentially thousands of people between kenwood and westminister santa rosa. east santa rosa. all along highway 12, south and north of highway 12 from adobe canyon road to calistoga road, people are advised to get out, take highway 12 west and then 101 south and they want people to head as far down south as novato, petaluma. they want people out of the santa rosa area. don't just go one town over. don't go one block over from the evacuation area. get out of town. ne now, this is the second mandatory evacuation that we've had this morning. this is the first one that you're seeing right here. this is the sonoma valley area and this area includes 7th street east from ooeast 87th street to denmark. 8th street east north of denmark

road, in this area, not too far from the downtown area of sonoma where we saw some fire. one of our crews, anser hassan, he was in that area. some of those flames 30 feet in the area, they said those flames were going up. >> yeah, this was -- it's hard to say, six days of seeing this, it's hard to say anything is surprising anymore, but this was a surprise because around 3:00, 3:30 this morning, it's all a blur, isn't it, but a few hours ago, sonoma county sheriff's office told us that this was a mandatory evacuation area and it wasn't -- you know, everything is serious but it wasn't as concerning because it's an unincorporated part of sonoma. less populated. maybe 50 homes. some businesses as well. >> secure. >> they thought they had it under control. got everyone out. well, fast forward two hours,

these 30-foot flames just came out of nowhere. >> right. >> and our crews were seeing this about a half mile from downtown sonoma. and just shows how serious this wind event overnight has dramatically changed the game this morning. >> it really has been, and as we were saying, the crews are out there, anser hassan is actually there now live for us and he has been out there speaking with firefighters. we also spoke with some of those who had to evacuate their homes and anser i know you said this was really a tough and emotional time for many of those families. >> reporter: yeah, marcus, but right now, i want to show you, earlier, we've been out here for about an hour monitoring the situation. earlier behind me was an orange glow. now you can see it is bright red. those are flames that are approaching the city of sonoma. we've been told upwards of 30-foot flames. crews were woken up that were on the rest cycle. they're now en route. four or five strike teams shl, about 20 engines heading over.

this is all hands on deck. all firefighters and crews being sent to this area. right now, i'm at east napa street and 8th street. this is a residential area. the neighborhood's been under mandatory evacuation. it's like a rural area with 30 to 50 homes and the wineries that were up the hill likely have been burned, but right now, there are crews on the ground. we see planes up in the air. earlier, deputies went door to door, telling people to get out as the fire continued to grow and move to this area. we spoke with the captain with cal fire a short while ago. he says, as you mentioned, one of the things that's been making this so difficult is the unpredictability of this wind and how it is jumping around. we've gone up some streets. they've been completely quiet. we've been on other streets, homes completely engulfed in flames. we spoke to one family this morning who packed up their rv and were ready to go. he told us the biggest issue has been dealing with the emotional

and physical stress of this entire situation over the past week. here's what he had to say. >> i think everybody's doing the best they can do down here, so everybody's ready to go if they have to go. they're doing everything that they're being asked to do, i think. so i think they're cooperating. it's stressful. >> reporter: but i mean, for you, personally, you and your family. >> well, we've -- we have an rv in there, inn, ayou know, and w all hooked up. this will be the third time that we've had to load everything up and unload everything. >> reporter: now, as you can see, definitely been taking an emotional toll. that family member that we spoke with, he, his wife, his daughter, her husband, and a 2-month-old were packed and ready to go. he said this was the third evacuation order that he was waiting for but he says today is likely the day that he will move. if you can see live right now, that's the glow behind us over this residential area that's been evacuated and that continues to intensify. those are the flames that are

approaching the city of sonoma, and again, sonoma county officials have been ordering everybody who is evacuating to get to either sebastopol, roehnert park, or petaluma where facilities have been set up and also transportation systems put in place to get people there who may not have transportation otherwise. send it back to you. >> anser, thank you for this updated report. we do want to ask you, you can't see, they had to move you because you were so close to those flames. there's that orange glow beyond the trees. are you noticing any more chaos, for lack of a better term, or does it seem like they have been able to set up a perimeter and get that part of the fire under control? >> reporter: earlier today, it seems like people have been evacuating. the roads are quiet. i believe the power's been turned off to this area because the flames are coming so close.

for the fire crews, it has been just absolute chaos. we've been in another area earlier near some residential homes. once the fire intensified in that area, we were told to move and more fire crews were coming in. in fact, the fire crews that were staged out here, they've been sent in, so for the fire team, the people who are on the other side, where we've been evacuated from, it is the front line. it is all hands on deck in those areas. and that fire, as it intensifies and gets closer to the city. >> the city of sonoma. anser hassan, we hope you stay safe out there this morning for us. we also want to pass along this information that we're just receiving that in sonoma county, they're actually from the federal, state, county and city officials there, will actually hold a meeting for people this morning. this will be an emergency meeting and this way you can find out information. this is also about fema assistance, how to access your mail if you're not home, you're

evacuated. also setting up insurance because that's a lot of things people are going to have to deal with. they know people have questions. this is happening today at 2:30 at santa rosa high school. again, this is where people in sonoma can actually get information about what's going on not only in their neighborhood but throughout the county as well as accessing your e-mail, setting up insurance, talking to insurance agencies, also dealing with the assistance that we will be getting from fema. so, again, i just want to remind people of that, if you're able to get out to that, this is going to be today at 2:30 at santa rosa high school. >> it's probably hard for a lot of people to even imagine getting to that point right now, some people are just trying to evacuate with the shirt on their backs. this morning, now with this new evacuation area from kenwood to santa rosa, thousands of people potentially affected. >> absolutely. >> but if you are able to get to that meeting, it would be beneficial for people, people who maybe don't have insurance. >> right. >> people who don't have

homeowners' insurance or are renting a place and don't have renters' insurance. the idea of the meeting is to help you find a path, find some solutions. >> yeah. >> a lot of people are just lost right now. >> they're lost with a lot of questions. a lot of people have been evacuated from their homes as early as sunday whi. we've been talking about it. some people may be in shelters or with family and they have so many questions and we only can imagine how many questions people have who are being affected by the fires there in the north bay. this is a way to get answers to questions. this is going to be today at 2:30. this is going to happen at santa rosa high school. again, you can get information about this fema assistance that's coming to the area, how to access your mail, for a lot of people whose homes aren't there anymore, insurance, and the critical documents that you will need to get from insurance to fema, what you will need to be able to display to people, also maybe getting identification because i've

heard of some families that were -- had to leave the home and didn't even have their i.d. so this could be a trying situation. we want to continue with this coverage now. of course the winds are definitely a big part of the fire spreading. we want to head over to vianey arana, who has been tracking this all morning and you said we're not even finished with those winds. they could increase more this morning. >> definitely. we haven't seen the peak of the winds. we're still seeing those gusty conditions in the napa area. this is the current wind gusts right now in napa, 26 miles per hour, santa rosa, 17 miles per hour and the fairfield area, all of this area, gusts up to 30-plus miles per hour, which is why we've seen fires quickly spread and you saw anser, our reporter was out there and he says he could see them just over the hill and this is exactly what we're talking about when they're blowing in from the northeast, they can quickly blow and spread those embers south so please, folks, again, keep that in mind. i want to take you through a timeline, when are the winds going to weaken, what can we

expect in terms of the humidity, the temperatures and when can we possibly see some relief from the winds. north bay humidity right now, let me put it to you like this. 40% or higher helps. well, that's going to decrease. all of that air mass that was sitting over the bay area with the increase in those offshore winds is going to dry out that humidity and it's going to drop in the north bay. right now we were still favorable in terms of the humidity but not the winds and the humidity is expected to go down to about 16% by 1:00. now, the good news about that relati relative humidity, even though it's so low, by 2:00 p.m. and forward, we can expect to see some of those winds tapering off. however, the temperatures, they've been fairly cool overnight in the 40s and 50s and then if we fast forward through 12:00 and 1:00, right around the time when we'll see that lowest relative humidity, we're talking about temperatures in the upper 70s and 80s. with the new change and expected wind gusts, i'm going to take you through this timeline.

you can see the timing and the date and this is the stamp for the next couple hours. fast forward through 10:00 a.m. and unfortunately 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. is when we'll see those gusts peaking. napa, 38-mile-per-hour gusts, santa rosa, 26-mile-per-hour gusts so this is when we'll see the strongest of the gusts coming into play, even down near san francisco as those offshore winds continue and come in, even gusty along the coastline. so right between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. is when we can expect to see some of the strong, gustier conditions. if you pay attention to these tiny arrows, that means the direction of where the wind is expected to blow in. so by about 11:30, you notice those gusts peak between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. and that time stamp of 11:30, about 26 miles per hour so that's when we'll start seeing a decrease in those wind gusts which will definitely be very important in the fight against this fire. after 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 p.m., we start seeing those taper off nicely. look at napa, 13 miles per hour, santa rosa 8 miles per hour, and

then it will quickly die down to pretty much nonexistent in terms of a wind event at about 10:00 p.m., look at this, 6 miles per hour in napa, santa rosa at about 2 miles per hour. however, we're still seeing those gusty conditions right now and the national weather service just released this information of the latest wind gusts in mt. diablo, they have now tracked or actually clokd 61-mile-per-hour gusts in that area. bodega bay, just off the coastline, 43-mile-per-hour gusts and rose peak, 35-mile-per-hour gusts which is why this is such a dangerous situation because when you look at this map of all the active fires burning, now, a couple of these have now been grouped into one and that's for easier containment on the fire fighting end. however, i want to show you the map of all the fires burning because if you're just south of any of these fires, the threat of that wind will kick in because of the embers. a new wind change that's happening right now, if you can see any of those fires to the north, we've seen a couple of videos of people taking videos outside the windows, even our

reporter right now, anser, out in the area, if you can see the flames out of to the hillside, outside of your window, if you're on your porch, if your friends are sending you videos and pulling over to the side of the road to take videos, you're too close for comfort. that spread will quickly come and the embers may move south and you've seen it can hop over highways and freeways. the number one threat will be at the hillside about 1,000 feet. i have tweeted all of this information out. if you have questions, whether they are in english or in spanish, if you have questions in spanish or concerns in spanish, i can answer that for you. just send me a tweet. a message on facebook, instagram, twitter, anything that you need. i want to pull your attention toward this red flag warning map because by about 11:00 p.m., is when we're expecting this red flag warning to expire. now the gusts are expected to taper off at about 2:00 p.m. but because we're keeping that relative low humidity, we're still going to be on high fire alert. what does this map mean? i'm going to step out again so you can see the highlighted areas. the red map and the red zones, this isn't a map of evacuation

so don't get confused. this red flag warning map basically means that the highlighted yar highlighted areas, if not already a fire there, has the perfect weather conditions for a fire to spark up or quickly spread which means they're seeing relatively low humidity, gusty conditions and some hotter temperatures. that's what this map means. if you're in any of these highlighted areas or you have family or friends in these highlighted areas, whether there's a fire or not, you need to stay on alert because the conditions are expected to say relatively windy and let's take a look through that humidity. as i mentioned, it typically recovers overnight, that humidity, 35% right now in napa but if i fast forward this timeline, right when the winds are peaking between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m., look at the relatively humidity in napa. 14%. fairfield, 18%. and this is when the wind gusts are expected to peak at about 35-plus miles per hour. so, between the 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. hour is when we can expect to see some of the worst of the conditions that we have seen so far. already seeing the conditions changing and the reason why

they're keeping that red flag warning in place, even though the winds are expected to aper off at about 2:00 p.m. is for this reason. by 3:00 p.m., look at napa. 8% relative humidity. fairfield, 11% relative humidity and if you're looking at the bar up here, the colors give you a perspective of the elevated fire danger. so anything highlighted in red is at extreme high fire danger. anything in the orange is peaking towards high. and if you notice napa and fairfield, even parts of the santa rosa area, you're looking at high fire danger regardless of when the wind taper off because of the conditions. now, as we head into the 5:00, 6:00 hour, the conditions will definitely start to become a little bit better, a lot more favorable when fighting this fire. the reason for that, the winds will taper off and we'll see a boost in the humidity. by 7:00 p.m., we start going up in that relative humidity. we see that air mass building again and you're looking at 32% humidity in napa, fairfield,

17%, oakland, and along the coastline. we need to get through these next couple of hours before we start having that wind kind of working in our favor. i want to bring you a little bit of relief and a little bit of good news. i want to take you ahead at this outlook. we've got some pretty major changes ahead judging by our models and it's going to come in the way of some much-needed rain. so possibly as early as thursday and into friday and even carry on over into the week, we've got this system that will possibly track in and it's going to bring in possibly a quarter inch possible for the north bay mountains and hills. it's going to be mother nature's own way of kind of putting out these fires. so, we've got to make it through these next couple of hours. of course we're hoping that these fires can be contained much before that. we would hope that this rain would come earlier but right now the models are showing earliest arrival as of thursday. so we're talking right now, sitting at saturday. we've still got to be sunday, monday, tuesday, and as we head into wednesday.

as we head into tuesday, this system that's going to start coming in is going to better our a air quality. so a lot of that dense smoke that's been sitting over the bay area will start to clear out not until tuesday. we've got to get to these next couple of hours but there is some relief in sight in the form of some timer winds later tonight and also an increase and a recovery in that humidity but rereal we really got to keep folks alert. we do want to remind everybody that down at the calom of your screen, we have the current evacuations. there are two new evacuations that have gone into play the last three hours this morning. those are all along the bottom of your screen. we will detail those and get to those in just a minute. but first, we want to go to jonathan cox from cal fire. he joins us live on the phone right now. jonathan, thank you for joining us. we want to -- >> thank you. >> we want to ask you what the latest information you have is. the wind has picked up and

changed the scenario in sonoma and santa rosa. do you have any other news? >> yeah, that's right. so, the -- i think you covered it pretty well. the fire's kind of got two front seat on it right now, north, kind of northeast side of the nuns fire is pushing in through that oakmont community and southeast or south side is pushing down and wind driven into the north side of the city of sonoma. right now, that's where our efforts are focused. we have a lot of firefighters in the area. we have night-flying helicopter that's actually working those fires and a lot of resources overnight were put in there and pretty aggressively. what's going on right now is we have the next day shift coming on, so in about three or four minutes, the operational briefing is going to start for several hundred additional firefighters to go out on the line and obviously those two areas are going to be our number one priority. that fire in the south side in the sonoma side is definitely a wind-driven event and our main concern is the structures that

are being impacted. >> and those hundreds of firefighters you have coming in, in the next few minutes, was that already in place, or is that because of the danger that this wind poses this morning? >> yeah, that's already in place. so our operational planning cycle is a 24-hour cycle that starts every morpning. the briefing is at 7:00. this is part of the normal operational process but due to the fact that we have some fairly high activity out there on the sonoma and santa rosa side, those will be the areas of greatest concern and focus and that's where ground and air resources will really be getting in and making some impact. >> and jonathan, dealing with the nuns fire, i know it has the smallest containment of all the fires. is this because it's more aggressive or can you explain that? >> yeah, absolutely. the nuns is a unique fire because it was first of all multiple fires that burned together at one point, four separate fires that burned into one larger fire and the

topographical features of where it's burning, the range between the petaluma, sonoma area although we have some santa rosa. so it's coming through some much partner kind of difficult terrain that is kind of reducing the containment on it or reducing our ability to contain it. and the fact that the tubbs fire -- wind-driven event through some -- from east to west. so, the focus right now is the nuns fire on the north and south side and additionally we will have resources on all the other fires throughout the day. >> and i want to talk about the atlas fire too, because that fire, as we've gotten recent updates on that, that it has grown from little more than 48,000 acres to 50,000 acres but the containment is still 45%. so, is that just the work that you all are doing to keep the containment at that same level? >> yes, the work we're doing to keep it at that same level and also we get more and more accurate every day as we have

very, very accurate mapping that comes out. each operational cycle, aircraft or crews on the ground. so there will be some more accurate numbers that will come out every day the further we go on, the more accurate we get with those acres and that could be a part of that. >> in terms of that accuracy, let me know eif i'm getting too ahead of this, but is there any projection of when you can get better containment on these fires? >> so, we are working just ti tirelessly right now. we're overnight, thousands of firefighters on these fires right now. and the sheer size of this disaster is fairly unreal. so over 220,000 acres on all these fires combined and if you think about an acre being a football field, you're talking about 220,000 football fields of fire impact in northern california at the moment.

so the sheer scope of this just makes the fact that it's taking a huge, multiagency mutual aid response from throughout the west to really -- it's a heavy lift. it's a major disaster. we are prioritizing our focus on life safety and evacuations and at the same time building up. it's a very coordinated multifaceted incident right now and we have additional crews coming in. >> and you all are working on -- i know last time we checked, it was 12-hour shifts on and off. >> yeah. so we have -- our crews are on 24-hour shifts so crews will be out on the line on 24s and then the next crews come in for another 24-hour shift. >> it's tremendous what you have ahead of you but also what you have behind you. your crews have done so much to keep this from spreading. of course, the concern this morning that we've been talking about is the wind. but we do hope you know there

are thousands of us out here who are indebted to all of you for being our heroes in this fire fight. thank you so much. >> yeah, we appreciate that. and i can speak for every firefighter that's out here. this is a mission-driven kind of purpose-driven event for everybody, and no one's going leave here until this thing is fully contained. >> all right. thank you so much for that, jonathan. and right now, we want to go to laura malpert. she's in napa county. dealing with the fire there. of course, you know, these fires are everywhere. >> yeah. and when we checked in with laura last, the fire was just starting to come over the ridge. laura, how is that looking now? now that the sun is starting to rise. >> reporter: it is still coming and you can see it pretty clearly now. i'm at the bottom of oak hill grade and you can see the fire coming down the hill. i can tell you oakville grade is now completely closed off. it is covered on both sides,

fire is on both sides of oakville grade and it is heading south. just a short chiel ago, we saw the national guard leave and tankers and if you see the national guard leave in tankers, you know it is really bad. you see that reddish orange hue and you can see the smoke now. the nuns fire has definitely crested and it seems to be come down pretty quickly toward highway 29 and south. residents tell me it has been calm for a few days, but the winds picked up overnight. they were afraid that was going to happen. you know, a lot of people didn't get much sleep. the firefighters and the residents here have been on edge all night. they were afraid this was going to happen. and many did. they were keeping an eye on the winds and the flames. and earlier, about an hour or so ago, i talked with firefighters up the road. they were on stand by. they tell me they had two strike teams. they had several hand crews and four dozers and they were in a holding pattern waiting to see

what the winds would do and sure enough, the winds picked up and they had to get out. and they're definitely not letting any more people in. i know this area has already been evacuated but i have seen a couple cars leave here just recently. i talked with one man who was helping friends who have property near the winery. he tells me he's been out here the past three or four nights keeping an eye on the fire. he's also been watering down his friends' property. take a listen to what he has to say. >> it's concerning, but it looks like the winds are keeping them heading south, the winds just picked up now. they're heading from the north to the south. hopefully they'll stay at that crest of the grade and we got the natural fire break with the vineyards here. so hopefully we'll just stick where they are and not move much past that. >> reporter: you know, back out

here live, you can see the fire coming down the hill and not too far away, kind of on the right-hand middle part of your screen, you see a white house there. you know, i'm not that close -- great of a judge of distance, but it looks to me to be fairly close. you know, and that man that you just heard from, he owns property about six miles away. he is hopeful that the vineyards here will create a natural break and keep the flames from spreading, but you never know. he says he's spent -- he hasn't seen as much air support out here as you would expect. he said he saw a couple tankers yesterday but for the three or four days before that, he says he didn't see anything. he said no doubt, though, that the resources are spread very thin. again, firefighters here near highway 29 and the robert mundave winery have been told to get out. they are waiting to get the next orders. they're waiting to see what the

winds are going to do. they've seemed to die down a little bit but every now and then we'll get a little gust and you can tell it's definitely creating a lot of work for those firefighters who have been working, some of them told me they have been working for 24 hours and they weren't sure when they were going to get their next break so i know they are very fatigued. and hopefully waiting for some more resources to arrive if at all possible. but we will be here and we will let you know what is going to happen. we'll keep an eye on this fire here coming down south towards 29. back to you. ease tra malpert there in napa county, thank you so much for that. and you know, as we were talking about it, we were seeing just how close those flames were to that home and she explained that that area hasn't been evacuated yet but they are on pins and needles right now just really waiting to see what will happen. now we will keep you updated on those evacuations right here on air as well as online. nbcbayarea.com, you can go there. of course we have our crews out on the scene and we will bring

the late the latest information and we have the mandatory evacuations, the new ones on the bottom of the screen right there scrolling. welcome. it is 7:00. welcome to your saturday morning. the nightmare continues as we eck outside in the north bay. the fires in some parts of the north bay gaining speed this morning with this wind event. evas get you up to speed this morning. i'm kira klapper. >> and i'm marcus washington and we want to tell you about these new evacuations overnight. most recently, santa rosa and kenwood. that is one of the mandatory evacuations taking place this morning. as you can see right there, from adobe canyon road and calistoga road. this is the area that they have told people to leave immediately, at least when they first came out with that it was around 5:00 this morning and they were telling people to leave. they said take westbound and then go to 101 and go