tonight on kqed newsroom. the firefighters gained the upper hand on the kincade fire as thousands of evacuees return to their homes in sonoma county. also the impeachment inquiry into president trump enters a new phase with a key vote llon capitol as democrats go on the offensive. kincade has triggered air quality alerts for the bay area. we'll hear from an expe on how best to protect yourself. good evening and welcome to kqed newsroom i'm sara farmer. we begin with the fire in king county. the kincade fire was roughly

70% contained, burning more than 77,000 acres and destroyed more than 300 structures in sonoma county. residents began returning to their home on wednesday. many fled to evacuation centers in petaluma staying there for several days. some have lotheir homes, pets, or lost income from jobs or bunesses that had to close. joining me now terry who was forced to leave her home in windsor d martha bodell who had to temporarily close her business in santa clara and bewindsor use of the kincade fire. thank you both so much for joining me day especially considering what's going on in your lives. >> thank you. >> thank you for having us. >> and martha you own a business in sonoma county. you have offices in santa rosa and windsor. whatas e impact of the kincade fire on your ssbusi >> both businesses were shut down. effectively the power went ou first anthen we were evacuated from our windsor slab

sh, which is where we do all the slab fabrication and d it was also shut down for three days, four day, same reason for the evacuation and no power and i would think rely, it really uld hitchhike on the tubbs fire. this is two years into that, so we are installing homes that have been out s their ho for two years now in the end of the money and at the end of their homes at they have been renting to move in and so the emotional impact of delaying peoples jobs now may be longer. the financial impact is huge. we have 80 peoplewho work for us to not be able to pay for th week's wof work and i mean that isimpacting rent and impacting every kind of fine you could imagine in our ec payroll systemse we have not been able to do any kind of

okkeeping. so it really a trickle down theory. one thing that is misleadi is people talking on social media. not a big deal, you don't have power for a couple of days and it is not about that. people don't have money to restock their refrigerators and freezers again, the second time this has happened for us. but in terms of. >> and what is the impact like on your workers? and because workers were evacuated from their homes as well. >> and we had almost everybody who worked for us were 80% evacuated and 20% without power. so where do they go? and everyone has kids, other jobs, and now they have no money. >> and the impact, you know, just basic food that is doing bad and having replace that is sometimes the thinwe take

for granted and they don't have extra money to do that. >> yeah. you had evacuated on turday as wel and how did you find out w to evacuate? >> yeah. >> i mean what happened? >> it is all so surreal and seems like a regular saturday. i had coffee with friends and i went back to my place, getting ady to go to a service that i usually go to. and all of a sudden i'm standing out there in my drivew and the eriff deputy comes flying up the driveway. you know they are new since co 2017 that thty has installed, so you know it is an emergency. and the deputy came up to me and said you need to get out now and this is like at 10:00 in the morning and so i knew to taus it seriously. bein 2017 we were on some sort of an alert. but when they come up your

driveway and they say to get out that you do that. >> yes, please. right, absolutely. what's the hardest thing about being evacuated? >> the hardest thing for me was just not knowing when was going to ha i mean i d timeto think unlike they did in 2017 where ck and they just ran out their their house. i had time to think of grandma's pictures, definitely the dog and the cat. inand just ng about what are you going to go through? are we going to a have home to come back to? and how bad is that thing? >> well, you know, with this taping, there are still parts >> yes. power. >> without water. >> yes. >> per your experience, terry. when did the lights go back on for you and how is not ving power affecting your business? >> well basically i mean it

shut our fabrication shop down because we have rux ing through the internet with power and actually we are pretty dead in the water because they caught fire last night before last. and we have no internet in our shop. and so everything, all of our machines that have bebeen offli use of the power outage in the interface with italy and minnesota. and so we can't interface to get our machines reprogrammed to run them, to cut it and so we are doing as much as we can, dragging them by hand and trying to get, you know, is still impacting us. but it and so the amount of work that is going out is mayb i don't knowif we are getting them out to be honest. >> a what would you say the psychological effects fr the

tubs fire of 2017? and how did that affect you and how does that late to what's going on right now? >> i feel like noma county is a differt place since 2017. people are already psychologically, you know, they haven't even dealt th2017. a lot of people are in pret- traumatic disorder and then to put that on top of it lland for myself. i didn't have a home burned down, but many friends and family members thathave had and now they are being evacuated. everybody is traumatized in some way. it has affected everybody that community. when you throw, you know, another evacuation power outages, we are all wondering if that w the norm. do we need to go through it? we could do it one time maybe, but that's enough. it is too hard to psychologically gothrough this. >> i actually lived in napa in 17 and so i wasn't under that mandatory evacuation, but i had

to leave home. when you wake up in the morning and that sky is gold, you know, it makes me think about communication, right? how do you both fe&e about how officials and other first responders have communicated in the evacuation process? >> well, i feel that there were a lot of lessons learned from 2017. and that the county, they really were prepared. they've had two years to put in all kinds of an alert system and everybody has gotten on a text alert that we all get that we all learn after the fire and we all wanted to be connected because we weren't before. and that was a really good communication toolthat we were given alerts, every day, of course, we would like more and everybody wants one every hour, but we got them with the important information coming down, so i felt confident with that. as far as fe&e, i they

really tried to inform people and they were pretty alansparent. i was impressed with them when they actually said it was their fault. the ansmission line. that was transparency. i thiney learned some lessons too. >> yeah, i think they are trying tostep up their game. but martha, for you, i mean, you know, how do you move forward from '17 and '18 we had another fire. i mean they just keep coming. how do we all move forward with you and with your business and your workers? >> it is just like kerry was saying, it is just so emotional for people that i think really just understanding everyone has a story and understanding to be super patient with people. we have, you know, a lot people lose their temper, they lose, th are upset, crying. the elderly community especially is affected. i think with gpgng out, you know, many, we have huge

senior communities that are sitting there in the dark and the cold and n'maybe have cell phones. i mean it has been a lot for our community financially, emotionally on every level. >> yes, it sure is. >> thank you so much. i truly appreciate you both and i wish you the best in moving forward. but i'm glad you're safe. >> thank you so much. >> great be with you. >> thanks for having us. thank you. on thursday house democrats passed a resolution laying ou the rules and procedures to guide the impeachment process of umpresident it also lays out due process rights for the white house and marks a turning point in the probe with public hearings into president trump's request that ukraine investigate his political rivals. earlier this week decoted army officer and you crane testified on cahill. dman vindman is the first white house official to testify who listened in on the phone call president trump made to ukraine's leader asking him to

investigate joe biden. joining us now are kate and gos and ron elving, joining us via skype fromloashington, d.c. h >> hello. >> good to be with you. >> hello to you both. thank you. ron, let's start with you. this final week in october has been an intense week in politics and the case for impeachment. what are two of the biggest obstles democrats face with the impeachment viprocess forward? >> well two big obstacles, it's complicated and takes them li concentration and le attention and people may need to read things and things might need to be explained. people don't necessarily always have a lot of patients for that. they have other things to think liout in their s. the second biggest challenge isr getting hat will be a ferocious resistance from the republicans in the republic hearings and the people who are suppose to be in that room and people who are not suppose to be in that room wi be ying

in one way or another to distract from the proceedings and they will be trying to fill the air waves and the social media, the twitter verse with their denunciation of the entire process and that wilbe very distracting. >> and marisa your thoughts in >> yeah, i think . ron has it this is one of the reasons why i think democrats waited untiey this point. eel like the ukraine issue is easy to understand. that this is clear cut,that it is something that any avr age american whetthey understand the intricacies of the institution constitution r them to ask a foreign ome leader for help getting around the political opponent. but i think there's a lot of anger on the left that this didn't come sooner. on the right that itl.s happening at so one of the reasons they are doing it now, of course, to bring it out to the open and to really bring back some of those folks who have had, u know, who have been behind closed doors to make that i cas clear. ink to ron's point whether they will pay attention is the

other question we will continue to ask. >> rightabsolutely. >> andron, president trump and other republicans, they had really harsh words for army lonel alexander vindman. he's a decorated purple heart recipient. a military hero. and gop representave liz cheney spoke up for him and against his defamation g of character call shameful. what do you think is the significance of her defense of vindman and rithe s that conservatives will run by questioning the patriotism of someone like m? >> well the significance is you have to coast them before you get them to speak ill of the other republican or even to chastise the other publican. she's a highly partisan loyal person. she's, of course, the daughter oformer vice presidendick cheney. a member of congress and a member of the leadership in their owright. that is significant and a warning, i think, to her fellow republican and fellow conservatives not to go there. don't question the patriotism

of theseipeople. question interpretation. question their information. say maybe they re a secr democrat. but don't question their patriotism when they are wearing their decorations on their uniforms sitting before you and they ha rved so honorably for their country. >> right. do you feel she drew that line in the sand for the s other republic say hey, maybe we shouldn't cross this line >> and there are many ways to try to undermine the veracity or the credibility of her particular witness. this is just t the avenue that will be most fruitful for them. >> right, do you think impeachment will happen before the end of the year or in 2020? >> i think the house is trying very hard to get public hearings going in the month of november to have that house judiciary committee act in the month of december and possibly a even hahouse vote before christmas. difficult as holidays will y approach, so it is probably

more likely that will inhappen january and certainly the senate trial within following january, february. >> and what do you think, marisa, about the risks of nuary in 2020? cent into and how could that weigh negatively against democra? >> i mean it's an interesting question, right? on the one hand they want on people focusedthe primaries and the caucuses and the the other handcould argue that the worse it is for president trump. there's not a huge expectation that he would get convicted in the senate. so if you're in that moment, you know, as we will continue to approach mbin no of 2020 where this is still in the headlines, you know, i think ei could goer way. i also think from the democrats perspective, they th need and shouldn't sort of hold themselves to that artificial timeline. i mean the la thing that they want is for independence particularly, moderate democrats, even some republicans to feel this is g berushed through for political partisan reasons. so i think that they do need to

let themselves sort of take the facts where they lead them. >> and why do k you thspeaker pelosi was hesitant to bring a vote to the floor up to this point any wamany and what do you think her strategy inwas hat? >> i think partly she was, she didn't have to, so she didn't want to give the republicans that win. i think now in a certain point she's essentially saying hey, like let's call your bluff. if you guys are so concerned th abouprocess, let's figure out the process and you could do it it is the moment where they made that sense and if they do nt to have these hearings out in the open. and if they do want to draft those articles of impeachment, they were going to ve to take some sort of a vote eventually. i guess you could argue whether they could take it right now and sort of a dual purpose here, one calling the republicans a bluff because it's nan like they d their tune here and that it has been taken. but also that they will see of this is sort a turn in that

process that was going to happen in some point and as we were just talking about in some ways that may be better. >> all right,ron, what do you think fellow house minority leader, you know, yesterday he was saying thwere trying to impeach the president because they are scared they can't defeat him in the ballot box. how do you think the messaging will play into the voters in the election coming up in 2020? really want to defend what the president did. they don't really want to defend that telepho call. and they are going to say that is not impeachable. but the president will pref to call it a perfect phone call and says you may go on radior television anto read it all, the transcript, and maybe that you will do that. but generally speaking people say it is a acbetter than to say this is politics as

usual. you don't reallywant to get into the guts of the whole thing and let's just move on to that electi in november and to let that dynamic play out and lethat be the judgment on donald trump. >> so are we seeing a change in public opinion towards this one way or another? >> the country is perfectly split on this question and almost 49 to 47, 51 to 49. we are back and forthright around that 50-yard line and at any point. be a huge but then there really wasn't with rhard nixon either before he resigned and not until he was actually able to resign in support for his impeachment to go over 50%. with bill clinton, it never went above 30%. and so public opinion is a factor here. no question and the democrats have risks interms of what this does to their political procs in november of 2020, but you can't wait for the public opinion to tlead s. you have to follow the facts

úr ponsibility are. ' both of you feel like this could backfireand hu democrats in the election coming up? >> i mean i would say after 2020 or 2016 rather, who knows, right? i mean trump has done a very good job of whipping up the base and continuing to plant these and sow the seeds of wh doubt. you have now, republicans, even to their . are ppnot and in theory, they would support impeachment if this were, of course, mothe at. and they are still looking at those polls and they know how strong of a surrogate is and how many senators and congress people have lost when they came out against them on the republican side. so you know it's one of those things where like we are nein a moment here under trump that will make it really hard to predict. >> ron, do you think it will backfire? >> democrats have a lot at risk here. not only do they have a

confused field of candidates running against donald trump next year and people who don't really want to rest on the impeachment hearings, but also a number of vulnerable, let us say, democrats, sometng like 30 districts that voted for donald trump in 2016, so you e really asking those people to not only vote against that man thted for in 2016, but to vote for soa democrat. anthere is a real risk here as they need to turn up solid substantial stufif the democrats are going to d evail. >> anron from mpr and kqed, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. on thursday the bay area air quality management district issued a fourth consecutive spare the air day ert this week due to smoke from the kincade fire. wildfire smoke will contain the particular air waves, especially for childrenwith

illnesses and asthma. and while they uld help filter particles, it's important to know the right one and how to use it. joining me now is dr. john baum, a professor of medicine at uc san francisco. it's my pleasure. here. >> sir, there is a lot of smoke right now coming from the wilefires. will you walk us through what is inildfire smoke that could be harmful to our lungs and to our air waves? >> yes. and so wildfire smoke, i would like to say is somewhat similar already to tobacco smoke without the nicotine. erand so are fine particles that we would call soot. and some ich are highly irritating to the air waves. and then the are irritant gases as well. >> and so wildfire smoke could trigger these respiratory problems. a is thenew research then that we're inhaling and dealing

with a lot of fires right now. are we going to see increasing numbers and people with asthma and other problems? >> yes. we have very strong literature about the health effects wildfire smokeand so we will likely see hosplealizations for pewith asthma and other lung disease. what we have been learning more recently about the last few years, there is also a risk for people with preexisting heart disease. and so there is evidence from california. it was a joint study and california partment of public health and investigators th would show increased visits for problems like heart attacks and strokes. th an was not even as bad as the current problem. t >> and tis one of the

things that i find fascating that there are differences, right? and you have forest fires and then at home all the different materials and plastics that are super toxic. i mean they have higher rates of cancer. but for every day people who are inhaling these forest fires that seem to come every year. what is the difference really between being t where we are ight now and verses one your homes>> and if it is a for and no structures burn, then it is wood smoke and they have taken out neighborhoods in santa rosa or the town of and cars would burn, then the there are even nastier toxic materials than regular wood smoke. and the firefighters have to deal with this athe time,

are down and santa rosa from the coffey park neighborhood probably inhaled some nasty synthetic material smoke. >> and what can people do to protect themselves if they are outdoors? >> and they coulwear that 95 mask. i have one here. they could be put on, so they would sit ghtly. over the mouth and nose and there is actually a metal piece forming around your nose. and the protection depends on fitting well. so you know i have a d beand so there will be a little leakage around my face. >> what about kids though? you have littones and i always feel for them and because things don't fit them at do we do about our kids and what can we do? >> great estion. so for these to be effective,

they have to fit well. so unfortunately they are made for adults. even the small rsion doesn't really fit kids properly. t sois not officially approved, the use of 95 for kids, so th should stay inside. >> yes, for mebody like me with a beard, it fits pretty well. and i don't get that same one of these, but i would get some protection, so it is t weird to see that. >> you can get them at most e? hardware stores because people will use them for construction work. anyou can also get them off of amazon, another internet site. and thare often distributed for free by local jurisdictions. >> sir, it seems like wildfires are here to stay. what concerns do you have as a physician about the long-term effects these fires on our

environment now and for future generations to come >> it will be a problem. and with regards to the long- term health effects, we just don't have the data. but we're trying to learn about studying the firefighters y - because they have the most exposure. >> do you think we wi more cases of asthma in the tu ? >> and with the exacerbations of asthma related to these ldfires and ether the fire smoke can cause asthma is susceptible people. and that also needs to be studied. >> dr. baums, thank you so much. >> my pleasure. >> really appreciate yocoming in today. that'll do it for us. as always you can find re of our coverage on kqed.org/newsroom. thank you for joining us.

robert: congress, and a nation vided. >> it's a sad day because nobody comes to congress to impeach a president. no one. robert: an historic house week formalizes impeachment preedings against president trump. as evidence mounts about a possible quid o quond as more officialsre called to testify. the president and republicans respond wh fury. president trump: you can't who did president nothingg wrong. you can't impeach a president that has the greatest economy in the histo of our nation. >> trying to put a bow on a sham doesn't make it any less of a sham. >> this is "washington week." funding is provided by --