wildfire emergency. this morning, on "today in the bay," is on the front line of the caldor fire as it rips ever so close to lake tahoe, destroying buildings and uprooting lives. good morning. thanks so much for joining us. i'm marcus washington. >> i'm kris sanchez in for laura garcia. firefighters are still trying to prevent 200,000 acre wildfire from spreading into the south lake tahoe city limits. >> we want to go to "today in the bay's" bob redell standing by for us. bob, is the weather cooperating

so far this morning? >> reporter: maybe right now you could say it is, but it's not expected to as the sun comes up, we are still under a red flag warning for the tahoe region until 11:00 tonight and we could see wind gusts today ranging anywhere from 20 to 50 miles an hour. as i'm speaking i can actually feel a little breeze. we are here along highway 50 on top of echo summit and as you look down on the caldor fire, you can see that the fire is burning in the canyon below. we're about a 15-minute drive from south lake tahoe. if you look at the direction of the smoke it's moving to the left side of your tv screen. unfortunately that is towards the south shore of lake tahoe. south lake tahoe evacuated monday and last night authorities issued new evacuation orders for the nevada side of the lake. the concern continues to be the direction of the fire that could wind up on the back side of the popular heavenly ski resort. the people have evacuated and are scared they might not have a

home to come back to. >> it would be nice to have one more night in our house and hopefully it will be here when we come back. >> there's lots of families and years and memories. it's absolutely devastating. i don't know. we're all very close. >> we're just happy that we're all together and safe right now. >> reporter: the caldor fire as you mentioned has burned around 200,000 acres. it's destroyed almost 500 homes and threatening about 35,000 more structures. containment right now unfortunately just at 18%. again, the weather not expected to be cooperating for the firefighters who are out here trying to put this out behind me. reporting live here at top echo summit, bob redell, "today in the bay." >> just seeing the glow behind you, the fire is raging on right now. thank you. of course, these conditions are changing by the minute. we want to bring in sara bart,

the caldor fire public information officer. >> joining us via the phone. thank you for taking the time. what is the fire fight looking like this morning? >> so, you know, this morning they're definitely preparing for the high winds again and low relative humidity that was mentioned. it's another red flag warning, so they're going to be, you know, dealing with intense fire fighting today as well as they did yesterday. >> talk to us, we know that the firefighters are working so hard, they're working around the clock, talk to us about additional help that's coming in from across the country. do you expect more firefighters to come in or what are you expecting to help with this fire? >> so currently we're at 4,171 total personnel on the fires, 487 engines, and 78 hand crews, 95 dozers, and we're currently

the first priority in the -- in california for resources. they're definitely going to be coming to us, whatever is available to come. >> this time yesterday we were talking about some of the evacuations really leading into south lake tahoe city proper. now we know that those evacuations are extending beyond the state line. what is that like? how does that complicate your fire fight? >> it actually kind of helps us in a way because we want to get the people out of the way and out of the area. that way we have more time to do fire fighting techniques and prepare their homes in case they need to be protected and defended. so part of it is keeping them safe because there is an immediate threat to their lives, but another part is giving us the opportunity to get in and get more work done without having the presence of people around. >> have you all had any problems with the evacuations? have people been trying to stay or is everyone leaving?

>> from, you know, my -- from what i'm seeing throughout, it looks, you know, like a ghost town. i'm happy to see that so many people did leave and took the, you know, warning and the evacuation orders seriously because it really does make it a lot easier to focus primarily on fire fighting instead of having to save anyone if they're out there. >> as you mentioned those difficult wind conditions will continue, the gusting we were hearing from our meteorologists up to 50 miles per hour in some spots. >> yeah. so it's going to be a really low relative humidity and higher winds. that's kind of defiance the red flag. the probability of ignition is in the 90% and it's just, you know, old steel out there and with those conditions, it's really easy for things to catch with the embers flying and that is kind of what we've been seeing. you know, just mentally prepare

the people that are evacuated for things to get a little bit worse before they can get better with these winds continuing on. >> you said 90% probability of ignition. what does that mean for regular joe? >> so if an ember flies off the fire and lands an area of unburned fuel it's a 90% probability that it will catch and start a spot fire. >> that is a terrifying prospect. >> absolutely. >> sara barth with the caldor fire public information officering thank you so much for joining us this morning. >> we want to get to meteorologist kari hall. you heard sara talking about the wind conditions and how difficult that's making that fire fight. >> during the early morning hours that's prime time for these firefighters to try to get more containment. in a typical weather situation, it's cooler, the winds are lighter and humidity higher. that's not what we've seen lately as we've seen even the fire spreading with very

favorable weather conditions. a closer look at what has burned with the yellow fire detection centers and what is still burning right now as we see the red fire detection sensors as we see it's moving very close to south lake tahoe, now entering into the basin, continuing to move closer to south lake tahoe and with these weather conditions, it will unfortunately provide more air flow into this fire and allow for it to grow more explosively as we go into this afternoon. really concerning conditions here as this red flag warning continues. we'll also talk about the wind and what's causing that coming up in a few minutes. >> thank you. you know those evacuation orders are changing by the hour and we are staying on top of it to get a detailed map of the impact of neighborhoods you can go right now to nbcbayarea.com. all right. more breaking news out of the state of texas this morning, waking up to a few law banning most abortions.

this after the u.s. supreme court let a midnight deadline come and go without acting on an emergency appeal by abortion clinics. the new law is called the most restrictive abortion rights since rover sus wade made it legal nearly 50 years ago. it allows people to sue over abortion done after doctors can detect signs of a fetal heartbeat usually around six weeks which opponents point out is often before a woman knows she's pregnant for sure. at least 12 states have enacted bans on abortion early on in pregnancy. all were blocked before they took effect. it is day two of the trial of elizabeth holmes, the founder of theranos. 37-year-old stanford dropout was met by a crush of media yesterday as she showed up to court in san jose. i was there, she didn't have anything to say. she is accused of defrauding investors, putting the lives of patients in danger as well. potential jurors were questioned and that will continue today. holmes is expected to testify

that her former boyfriend and fellow theranos executive ramesh balwani abused her leading to the company issues. we're learning about the extent of death and devastating following hurricane ida wreaking havoc on parts of the south. at least four deaths are being attributeds to the storm. residents across louisiana picking up the pieces and this drone video you see right here, this is of the devastation about an hour outside of new orleans. roads there also flooded by that heavy rain, the storm surge. look at that. louisiana's governor urging residents to stay put in those shelters, not to go back to what's left of their homes until essential services can be restored. >> if you have already evacuated, do not return here or elsewhere in southeast louisiana until the office of emergency preparedness tells you it's ready to receive you. the schools are not open, the businesses are not open, the hospitals are slammed. there's not water in your home and not going to be electricity.

>> the governor has activated the national guard and the troops are headed to southeast louisiana. we want to go to meteorologist kari hall. we're tracking weather here, but know you're tracking ida as well. a lot of times when we see deaths related to a hurricane, it's happening after the storm passes. >> yeah. unfortunately that is the most dangerous time and people need to stay away from the areas even though it's really hard. we take a look at the remnants of ida as it does continue to produce a lot of really heavy rain as it continues to move over parts of west virginia towards pennsylvania and they're going to be seeing the rain moving into new york as well. as we look a little bit closer to home we're seeing some showers across the desert southwest into southern california where flash flooding remains a threat with the remnants of a tropical system that moved in there. here we're all dry. we're going to have some nice weather and cooler temperatures and we'll talk more about the winds and what's ahead in a few minutes. mike, you're tracking what is and what isn't working. >> whaez working is our morning

team. that's great news over here. traffic flows smoothly and what isn't working is the team that closes highway 84. that's not registering with a closure overnight, but what is working is this crew -- well, there you go. they changed. it just happened in the last 45 seconds. they just cleared the sensors which means the crew must be clearing on the caltrans grid. from the overnight construction. that's great. that's the latest update. the very latest update. green sensors around. back to you. >> all right. thanks, mike. coming up here on "today in the bay," staying home. another major bay area tech company extending its work-from-home policy. how long workers are told to stay away. >> alexa, can you speak louder. amazon making changes to its voice assistant and why it's been a long time coming. taking a live look at the bay bridge toll plaza as we get started with the day. of course traffic always changing as you just saw with mike's report. he will keep us up to date on what's happening this morning.

we have you covered on the news. more ahead on "today in the bay."

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. it is 4:44. your wednesday morning, as you're heading out the door in the east bay let's check out martinez. right now at 58 degrees. we're going to see our temperatures starting out nice and cool and a slow warmup today as we'll enjoy some of the coolest temperatures of the week. it's about to heat up and we'll talk about that and the forecast coming up. a looks the at san mateo bridge. 92 moves smoothly. the commute direction builds on

the right side. the westbound direction over the high rise a smooth flow on both sides of the bay. we'll track it all and let's check in with business and seema. >> good morning. i'm seema mody from cnbc. wall street set to open higher after stocks slipped yesterday to wrap up august but the s&p 500 still notching a seventh straight month of gains up about 3%. nasdaq higher by 4%. some analysts are on the lookout for a possible sell-off in september given that we haven't had a significant one since last october. september has historically been the worst month for the market going back to world war ii with an average decline of about a half a percent. in focus today a report on hiring in the private sector, data on manufacturing and construction spending and auto sales. google delaying its return to office plans through january due to the ongoing uncertainty caused by the delta variant in many parts of the world. google had delayed the return from september to october. it was one of the first companies to ask employees to

work from home last year. amazon is working to resolve a big frustration with smart speakers. it's launching a feature called adaptive volume which will make alexa respond loud fer it detects you're in a noisy environment. the motive is aimed at making sure you can hear alexa's responses over any background noise such as a dishwasher, people talking or music playing on another device. >> can you hear it over the children? that's really the true test. we'll have to see. >> that's the question. >> thank you. >> all right. thanks, seema. >> coming up here on "today in the bay," smoke moving away from the bay area. we're waking up to fog. kari is going to track it all for us coming up. >> pulling ahead, less than two weeks until the recall election, governor newsom could be leading in the polls. we'll look at the latest numbers and which opponent is leading the pack.

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and here we go on this wednesday morning. getting started with your day. taking a live look at the golden gate bridge this morning. i love the shot because it has both weather and traffic in it. >> oh. >> two of our favorite things. >> boom. >> we're happy to see that fog, kari. might make it easier to breathe around here. >> we've seen the temperatures cooling off and, of course, these cameras are so important to just see what's going on. it's really helped us out during the fire. looking at what's burning and not burning in the sierra. this is a look at our sierra at

tahoe camera and we can see the flames here. that's one of the ski lifts and the camera points down at the ground. we are seeing flames kind of coming up the hill there and we'll see how this progresses through the morning. we were hoping that flames would slow down a bit as we've seen so much of our landscape charred. this is a look at how many acres have burned so far this season. it goes year by year. what's about average is 750,000 acres. we've seen over the past several years with climate change a lot more of california burned every single year and then looking at 2020 that was a record season where 4.25 million acres burned. right now we're at 1.8 million. as we continue to see the caldor fire growing very large. we'll start to see some of that smoke coming in. this also coming from the dixie fire into the north bay today. notice how much of the rest of the bay area this afternoon is pretty clear so we're not

looking at the smoke returning until late tonight into the day tomorrow. it does look like we'll see that smoke coming back very soon. today for most of us will be the day to get outside and enjoy more time out there as our temperatures will be much cooler, reaching into the upper 70s in some of our usual hot spots. we'll see still some of those 60s near the coast. as we check out morgan hill today headed towards the upper 70s and another day like that tomorrow. but it will be moderate with the air quality and then it turns hot for our labor day weekend. temperatures peaking on sunday reaching into the low 90s. some spots will be into the mid 90s maybe upper 90s on sunday. labor day looking hot as it usually does reaching into the mid 90s for the inland areas. for san francisco, nice and cool here as we see that fog remaining near the coast. mike, you're checking out the view of the bay bridge. >> it's a stunning view, but also because we had a string of flashing lights going eastbound toward the oakland side off the

bay bridge. there was no incidents reported and no interrupts to the flow. both directions moving slowly. we're checking out the news desk to see if there's anything of note. it may have been a caravan of some sort. we'll check on that. looking at the rest of the east bay, contra costa county the early drive fine out of antioch and brentwood, discovery bay, going down vasco road. you're at speed all the way down past the county line. yesterday we had slowing and traffic control early. no problems this morning there or for the rest of your view. back to you. >> thanks, mike. with just under two weeks until election day, new polling numbers are favoring governor newsom in the recall push. a survey poll shows that more than half of the votes will be no on the recall and that's 51% compared to 43% supporting. now for replacement contenders larry elder is the only republican tracking double digits support there with 27%. john cox and kevin pathrat are

second. if you have questions about the recall ballot we have answers. scott mcgrew putting together an explainer on how to complete that ballot. you can find that information on our website nbcbayarea.com/recall or on newsom recall in the trending bar at the top of the home page. this just in, new developments in usa gymnastics and that larry nassar sexual abuse scandal. the organization and hundreds of women who claimed they were abused by nasir reportedly reached a $425 million settlement. that settlement proposal was filed in u.s. bankruptcy court and could put an end to years of litigation. it is unclear how much each survivor would receive. that proposal has to be approved by survivors and creditors. usa gymnastics believes this plan will be confirmed later this year. coming up on "today in the bay," keeping tahoe blue, a reminder about our climate in crisis and why experts say the

smoke could change the color of that famous lake. but first, nbc bay area and telemundo are honoring local animal heros for the clear the shelters positively good award. go to nbcbayarea.com/positively good to learn more and submit your nominee today. >> happening now, santa clara county moving forward with the first of its kind recovery center. it will help survivors are of violent crimes and traumatic events like wildfires and floods. this comes thigh months after the mass shooting at the vta rail yard that left nine dead. county supervisors approved that proposal that provided trauma-related services to the vta employees and their families. we'll be right back.

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breaking update on the caldor fire. the fire has burned nearly 200,000 acres or 311 square miles. to put it in bay area perspective, larger than san jose, oakland and san francisco and walnut creek all combined. containment inched up to 18% overnight. but already 675 structures are gone. evacuation orders are now in effect on the nevada side of the lake and several resorts are potentially in the fire's path. experts are asking if lake tahoe's water clarity may be impacted long termpy the climate in crisis. some were asking the question before the devastating caldor fire but now concerns are higher with smoke and ash clouding the lake's iconic blue waters. lake tahoe ones of the deepest in the world but more debris and sentiment is actually no doubt going to end up in the water

before all is said and done. one uc davis expert tells "the examiner" he believes there's no chance of green lake water but say the impact may be felt for several years now. 4:57. so much more ahead for you this mork on "today in the bay," multiple breaking news stories. "today in the bay" is live at the front line of the caldor fire bringing you those live reports all morning. plus, abortion is essentially banned outright in texas. why the new state law overnight could change the right for women to choose all over the country.

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breaking at 5:00, closing in on south lake tahoe. the caldor fire sending thousands from their homes as it blows towards homes and the shoreline. "today in the bay" live on the frontlines following every step of the way. breaking this morning, an uncertain future for a woman's right to choose. a new abortion ban taking effect in texas overnight and why with the supreme court's response this may impact women nationwide. this is "today in the bay." and a good wednesday morning to you. thanks so much for making us a part of your morning. i'm marcus washington. >> i'm kris sanchez. laura has the day off. we begin with the desperate battle that firefighters are waging in south lake tahoe to try to save homes as that caldor

fire moves in. >> we sent