for the effort. we heard from one man today who lost his home in altadena. also lost the house. i lost my house. i'm just in shock still. yeah. did you return home yesterday for the first time, or did you hope to return home? i never left. i saw everything go down. i lost everything, burned down clothes, my e-bikes, my car, my truck. so many people are in that boat. the good news tonight, though, and there is some good news. several of those smaller fires are contained. or firefighters have at least stopped the forward progress. you see the map here. crews are finally reporting some small gains on the two big fires, the palisades fire and the eaton fire, which is near pasadena. yet the largest of those fires, the palisades fire, has wiped out neighborhoods between santa monica and malibu. the video today just shows the scale of

struction. those huge flames and plumes of smoke still burning from the palisades fire. after four days. containment only at 8%. it's burned more than 20,000 acres and 5000 structures. to the east, the eaton fire is not far behind. it has scorched over 13,000 acres so far. containment there even lower 3%. nbc bay area's velena jones has more from altadena. we're in altadena, where the eaton fire has completely destroyed this community. you can see the damage left behind. those flames homes completely, completely leveled to the ground. but some homes still remain. tonight you can see one off in the distance there. that car still there. but for many in this area, that is not the story. many homes look like the ones that you can see right here leveled to the ground. we have another home on the opposite side of the street. it's the same story there. we see what

used to be a boat here, completely gone. you can kind of make out some of the things left behind. we've seen chimneys left standing, but everything else gone. some of the gates and things are also left behind. but this is what the community is facing with many people have not been able to return home to even see this damage. we are talking to residents tonight who say they actually got a notification telling them that they would be able to come into this area and grab things and then leave, but that didn't happen. and so residents are frustrated not only because many of them have lost everything, but for the people who still have something to come back to, they haven't been able to come through the perimeter. we know the national guard is also here. looting has been a huge problem in this area, and so law enforcement is here to try to prevent that from continuing and adding even more

devastation on what the community is already dealing with. this is now a deadly fire. many people have died in this fire as well. residents say that there's just no words. when you look at this devastation. their community is gone. everything that makes up a community, we're talking about banks, schools, parks, all of that is gone. reporting in altadena, velena jones, nbc, bay area news. it is going to take years to rebuild. let's bring in our meteorologist, rob mayeda. you've been tracking those conditions. that red flag warning that's been in effect all week just expired. but they say the winds could pick back up this weekend. yeah. next 36 hours will be critical for that region. we did make the gains on those fires burning around the los angeles area. here is the key reason why calm light winds across the fire lines. there you can see the fire footprint. how far down into altadena this eaton fire did get. but there is the big change. wind speeds right now. relatively quiet there. similar conditions to the west out around the palisades

fire up around the santa monica mountains. still some wind speeds up to 20mph, but that's a lot different than the 50 to 60 mile per hour sustained winds we had just a couple of days ago. so conditions have settled down and we'll start the weekend with similar conditions. but watch what happens here as we head into sunday night. you saw the area there around the palisades fire just to the north, which is thousand oaks, ventura county. wind gusts getting back up to 50mph early on sunday morning. so those zones under the high wind watches across the mountains northwest of la. we will continue to see gusty conditions across the mountains around los angeles and our own wind advisory as we start off the weekend. the details on when the peak wind gusts arrive around the bay area. coming up in just a few minutes. thank you so much, rob. governor newsom is calling for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to local fire hydrants during the wildfires. he also wants water and fire leaders to look into reports of limited supplies from the santa ynez reservoir. in an open letter, governor newsom points

out those hydrants aren't designed to take on large wildfires. they're in urban areas, and the loss of pressure likely impaired the efforts to protect homes and evacuation routes. he wants a report on what went wrong and how to better prepare for the future. insurance is such a big part of all of this. california's insurance commissioner wants fire victims to get the benefits they are entitled to. ricardo lara announced today a moratorium preventing insurance companies from canceling or not renewing policies in wildfire impacted areas for the next year. this comes as insurers have dropped hundreds of thousands of policyholders across california in recent years, many of them here in the bay area. citing an increased wildfire risk. that means residents living in fire zones can be subject to sudden non-renewals, leaving them without insurance. if a wildfire hits. we shared our next fire story with our sister station in los angeles, because we wanted

the families there to hear firsthand from a fire survivor. here, she spoke with our consumer investigator, chris kamara, and offered her best advice for the long road ahead. you're in shock. holly webb lost her home in the 2017 wine country fires in northern california. so she's watching the l.l.a. firesrm with particular sympathy. oh, i feel so bad for all those people. i know what they're headed for. we asked holly what she recommends for people whose homes just burned down. the hardest part is trying to find a place to live. she says. your insurance company might be able to help you with that and help you pay for it. but holly says expect the process to be all business. hardly the touchy feely experience you might see in insurance companies tv commercials. the reality is it doesn't happen that way. holly says prepare for an insurance battle. yes, get a claim started quickly, but beware of a lowball offer up front to close your claim quickly. don't take it.

get a few contractors opinions first. here's something else to consider. people think, oh, your house burns down. you don't owe the mortgage anymore. well, no, that's not the truth. you do owe the mortgage. contact your bank to see about pausing payments. because holly says rebuilding took her 20 months to get all your money from your insurance policy. she says you might have to be insistent. be a squeaky wheel. ask a lot of questions. for example, even though the wildfire reduced holly's home to ash, she says her insurance company demanded a detailed that burned. they want every single thing you ever had. every cup and saucer, every spoon and fork. when you have to do that inventory thing, it just doesn't allow you to heal. use photos like the ones left on your phone to jog your memory. also, looking in your online shopping accounts history page might help. holly says her family's insurance tug of war was tough, but they endured. eventually you

come to terms with it, you move on, and with time you do feel better. one other thing holly shared is that today she has a go bag because in 2017 she didn't. she was caught when they came to the door and never again. she's ready to go and she encourages all of us to have a go bag or 2 or 3. i know i need to do that. i always say i'm going to do it. this is now's the time. it stood out yesterday. what she said emotionally, that's going to be the hard part. you can get all the paperwork done though. it's a it's a headache. but emotionally it's going to be really hard for everyone down in southern california. and i think we'll be able to band together as a state and get people through that. and we're going to continue sending messages from up here because we've been through it so many times down there to get our neighbors through this. it's a six hour drive, i get it, but they're still our neighbors. yeah. of course. thank you. chris. chris, welcome. well, tonight we are airing a special here on nbc. a deep dive into this firestorm. it's called the devastation in

l.a. fire and ash. make sure to watch it here on nbc bay area beginning at 10 p.m. and then we'll be on with more updates right after this special on our 11:00 news. we're going to move on to some other news. now. the fate of tiktok in american app stores was argued in front of the u.s. supreme court today, and now, 170 million users here in the u.s. will probably know in just days what happens next. our business and tech reporter following the story, scott budman, you were listening in, what is the latest? you know, it's interesting. no decision yet from the high court on what happens next with tiktok. but barring a last second stay, this could be the company's last stand before its parent company has to make a decision to sell to an american company or be banned from american app stores. on january 19th, just nine days away, here's how we got to this point. congress approved that ban due to concerns that tiktok is a national security risk. that's because it's owned by a chinese company, bytedance, which they believe is susceptible to the influence of the chinese government. today, tiktok argued that such a ban

would violate the first amendment rights of its millions of users, but it faces the rare combination of both democrats and republicans favoring a ban. court watchers say the questions from the justices today hint that they're leaning toward leaving that ban in place. here's a little of that. what happens after january 19th if you lose this case? can you just spell that out? at least as i understand it, we go dark. essentially, the platform shuts down unless there's a divestiture, unless there's a divestiture, there are first amendment concerns about taking down tiktok. one can the federal government do this? and two, are we adding a new power to the federal government where they can determine which platforms can andan't exist? okay, so if there is a ban that would go into effect on january 19th, what would happen? like i have tiktok on my phone already. would that just disappear or would just disappear from the app store? it wouould disapar from the app store, and google and apple have already been told if there is indeed a tiktok ban,

they cannot have the app in their app store for download. they cannot send bug fixes and updates like you get on your phone now. but the app still would exist, and we've seen that before with apps. but evenally, you know, they don't get updated and they sort of go old. but what might happen is you would at least have it and then it would be banned, but there still might be some negotiations. so who knows? okay, president elect trump says, hold off, let me be president first, get inaugurated and then step in. could this delay the decision? could that happen? it probably won't happen now. after all, the supreme court decided not to delay today, and president elect trump won't be president trump on january 19th, not until the next day. so the ban would take plac. if it takes place on the 19th, he steps in. there still would be time to reverse it. for all we know right now, there are behind the scenes dealings with a company. let's say maybe oracle that already has a stake and has a whole lot of money to try to buy tiktok from bytedance, but a whole lot of negotiations have to happen in a pretty short period of time,

right over the next nine days. yeah. okay. keep you posted. thank you. scott raj up next. people in la have now gotten two emergency alerts that were not meant for them. we take a look at how the system works and why it's not working. plus, making history in the south bay, the swearing in for the county's first ever vietnamese american supervisor. what she's saying about the job ahead. and right now in san francisco, we've got low clouds moving in. 54 degrees later tonight, though, we're watching the high winds, likely across the bay area mountains. the

minutes from now, santa clara county will swear in its first vietnamese american supervisor. nbc bay area's robert honda joins us from a community celebration underway for this milestone moment. the swearing in of betty jung as the district two santa clara county

supervisor launches a big year for the south bay's vietnamese american community, the largest group of its kind outside of vietnam itself. not only is jung the first vietnamese american county supervisor, but she takes office during the 50th anniversary of the fall of saigon. her family came here when the county declared itself as a refugee site in the 1970s. being born at the county hospital. growing up in county services, helping my family navigate those services as their family. as the family translator alongside my sisters, they did their part to being able to now not only serve at the county for the last decade, but then to be able to be the first supervisor. it is an opportunity to continue the work that has already been done. jung became a lawyer and a familiar face in the county, including spending time as a county spokesperson during the covid crisis. she is a wife and a mother of two. in the race for supervisor, she defeated another well-known vietnamese-american political figure, madison nguyen, and one community organizer notes that suggests

jung had to have broad support to win. she did not just rely on the vietnamese community the votes of the vietnamese. she has had to rely on other communities the caucasians, other asians, hispanics, you know, so it's an overall complete victory. others, including jung, agree. serving all my communities, serving my latino heritage and my vietnamese heritage and my east side heritage and my downtown heritage. the japantown heritage. this is really what district two produces. we had the first latina supervisor, and now we have the first vietnamese american supervisor. well, this celebration certainly reflects that diversity. but her first priorities in office reflect broad appeal. dealing with homelessness, boosting public safety, and creating more affordable housing in san jose. robert honda, nbc, bay area news. let's go back down to la. not just the destruction, but now the frustration. millions of people mistakenly received emergency alerts telling them to

evacuate. this happened twice. the second time it happened was this morning. yeah, the mistakes created panic that the county says it did quickly address. investigative reporter candice nguyen joins us with what went wrong and how the system is supposed to work. reporter l.a. county's director of emergency management says the cell phone alerts have already saved lives getting people to evacuate. but for millions of people, a couple of those alerts also created unnecessary chaos and some distrust in the alert system. friday morning, a tweet by the city of beverly hills saying, at 4 a.m, an evacuation alert went out. the county's office of emergency management confirming it was another error. the first errorr thursday. millions of people the office says received this alert on their phone, also by mistake, telling them to gather loved ones, pets and supplies and evacuate. about 15 minutes later. a message to

disregard. i can't express enough how sorry i am for this experience. first of all, i want to clarify this is not human driven. there is no one sitting at a desk right now initiating emergency alerts. kevin mcgowan, director of l.a. county's office of emergency management, says local authorities initiated the alert for the correct area. however, there was a system error that sent the emergency alert to the entire county. we have every technical specialist working to resolve this issue and to find the root cause. here's how these wireless emergency alerts, or wia's, are supposed to work. authorized national, state or local authority. send them through fema's warning system to a specific geographic zone affected by an emergency. meaning, if you're in that zone and have a wi capable phone, even if you're visiting from out of town, you're supposed to get that alert. overall, the

technology has gotten more precise over the years. when it first launched in 2012. the fcc says alerts were sentounty wide by 2019. they had to be sent to zones with no more than a 10th of a mile overshoot.he geo targeting of zones relies on new smartphone technology that improves every time most of us upgrade our devices. in 2023, about 83% of smartphones supported enhanced geo targeting. there is an extreme amount of frustration, anger, fear with regards to the erroneous messages. on friday, mcgowan said it is his top priority to find out what caused the tech error, begging people in la to still trust the system. i implore everyone to not disable the messages on your phone. this is extremely frustrating, painful and scary.

but these alert tools have saved lives during this emergency. mcgowan says the evacuation maps on alert la.org are accurate. most wireless carriers participate in these alerts, but technically it is voluntary. to be sure, check with your carrier. candice nguyen, nbc bay area. we investigate. candice. thank you. this is so much that we can learn. they can learn from us. we can learn from them. we're all in this together because this is going to happen repeatedly for our communities here. yeah. and unfortunately, the fire conditions are still ongoing down in southern california to pick up the next couple of days. we're going to watch the high wind watches again, perhaps the red flag warnings again to our south, because they've had a lot less rain compared to what we've seen here in the bay area. so even though we have a wind advisory that will return tonight for the hills of the north bay and east bay. you can thank the rain that we had throughout november and december. that is still kind of helped us out when it's come to fire danger. right now, 62

degrees in san jose as we did have highs in the mid 60s earlier. not much wind at all in dublin, but by tomorrow morning this is going to change around the diablo range as those wind speeds pick up 20 to 30mph to start the weekend. and there's a view of san rafael and traffic southbound 101 heading to san francisco. plan a little extra time there. 54 degrees into san rafael. and you see the low clouds in san francisco. a sign right now that we still have an onshore wind helping to bring in the low clouds. but things are going to change after midnight tonight. that is when the wind advisory goes into effect through about 10 a.m. on sunday, a mostly mountain wind event. that's where the top wind gusts will be similar to what we had earlier this week. then, once the skies clear out and the winds subside cold nights ahead, we're talking some 30s in the valleys early next week. so here are the areas under the wind advisory the north bay mountains, diablo range, east bay hills, santa cruz mountains. here's the timeline on the peak wind gusts after midnight tonight, 6 a.m. tomorrow. those areas in red and purple indicating wind gusts on the higher hills there of the north

bay and the inland east bay above 45mph. mostly a saturday event. then, as we head into sunday, the wind speeds start to back off as we wrap up the weekend. so the wind advisory starts things off on saturday, mostly 40s around noon we got sunny skies, dry conditions, those offshore breezes probably running for the chapstick. at times it's really dry as you get the humidity crashing down below 25% across those inland valleys. temperature wise though, pretty pleasant outside with numbers staying in the low to mid 60s this weekend. now keep in mind this is normally one of the wettest times of the year for the north bay. we usually average a quarter inch of rain per day. instead, we've got this blocking ridge of high pressure corresponding to the fire danger to the south, and the reason why there's really no rain in the forecast for southern california, or even here around the bay area moving forward through the next seven days. so a bit of a windy start for the weekend. hills and mountains gusty at times for saturday. less wind on sunday then once the skies clear. frost

advisories may return to the forecast monday and tuesday morning. stay tuned on that. still no rain in the forecast as we head into next weekend as well. and for down south southern california, it's been months. correct, correct. they've barely had any measurable rain since october. the last time they had significant rain last march. wow. that's why these fires are so big. they've bn below average.ee o

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retail theft ring will spend time behind bars. prosecutors say michelle mack paid about a dozen women to steal makeup and other goods from retailers across california, including here in the bay area. she would then resell that on amazon. i all, nearly 8 million bucks worth of beauty products were stolen. yesterday, mack was sentenced to five years in state prison. there is a new monkey in town over at the oakland zoo, and she is settling in just fine. police recently rescued this baby mexican spider monkey in central california. she was kept illegally and needed medical care. so the officers took her to the oakland zoo. today we learned the monkey's new name, eshoo les. the zoo says it's a nod to a preserve in southern mexico called montes azules. it's one of the many homes of the mexican spider monkey. her veterinarians say she is making steady progress. up next, are you ready to go back live to new york? snl announced its first new host of

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of 2025. dave chappelle will host when the show returns from its holiday break on january 18th. this will be his third time hosting, and he'll be joined by glorilla next week. timothy shamier little will pull double duty as host and musical guest. the actor played bob dylan in a complete unknown, and

he sang and played guitar for 40 songs in that movie after january. snl will take a brief break and then be back on sunday, february 16th for the 50th anniversary special tonight at 7:00. we continue to monitor the latest developments down in la. we're going to check in with our reporters. also, we break down what happens to thos ♪ tonight, the death toll rising from the wildfires in southern california as yet another inferno erupts in los angeles. more evacuations ordered as that new fire spreads. and stunning images revealing the utter devastation. more than 12,000 homes and buildings destroyed. at least 11 dead. more than 150,000 still under evacuation orders. plus, a fire fighting plane out of commission after striking a drone. the fbi investigating. and after her home was spared, actress jennifer garner speaking out, the friend she says she lost in the flames. our team across the fire zone. also tonig