now at noon -- the former chinatown gang member involved in the federal investigation that included a state senator, allegations of murder for hire and gun running was back in court. two homes in danger of collapsing at any moment. after an early-morning fire in oakland, now 18 people are left looking for a place to live. what they are thankful they were able to recover from the burned debris. and the search is on for at least two robbers targeting pizza deliverymen in the south bay. we'll hear from one customer who helped one of them moments

after he was robbed. ktvu channel 2 news starts right now with breaking news. good afternoon. i'm tori campbell. breaking news out of san jose, where a fire is burning at a building on hamshire place. you can see quite a bit of smoke coming from that building. as they zoom in, you can see that it's turning white. there is a little bit of gray there. but it seems to be turning white, and smoke is still pouring out from the roof. the san jose fire department is at the scene. you can see one of the ladders there from one of the fire trucks on the street. it looks like a stream of water that's being poured onto the roof there as smoke is still billowing out. right now, the fire has reached two alarms. mark tamayo is here to let us know the weather conditions that firefighters are facing there. >> this is mostly in a neighborhood that's not a typical grass fire that we track. we've been tracking the weather

conditions. i've been watching the camera over the past 15, 20 minutes. there was a rapid growth of the fire probably within a 2, 3- minute window. the wind, you will see the smoke, it's growing straight up across most areas. as a result, it's a good sign that the winds are not extremely strong. that's good news with the firefight into the south bay. take a look at our mapping season, just to give you a better idea of the layout in this region. here is 85. here's 101. we'll come in closer. to the north of 85 here's hamshire place and i will circle the area indicating all of the homes in the area, there's quite a few homes in the neighborhood as you would expect. it's not that typical of a grass fire that backs up into the hills and open place but a typical neighborhood in the south bay. as consider as weather conditions, take a look at the current temperature, it's not extremely hot. right now the san jose airport reporting 74 degrees. relative humidity is up there quite a bit. 65%. we're not tracking extreme fire conditions.

as far as the wid, i mentioned the wind sheedz. you can see out towards the san jose airport, winds out of the northwest. last hour at 3 miles an hour. currently checking in at 3 miles an hour. hopefully that will help the firefighter fire crews. we'll update our local forecast coming up. >> and we'll continue to obviously keep an eye on that fire that's burning in san jose at a building on hamshire place near the almaden expressway. we'll have more information on ure website, and took and twitter. one of the main figures in the sting operation that led to the indictment of leland yee was back in court. brian flores was there as raymond "shrimp boy" chow faced his new charge of racketeering. brian joins us live. good afternoon, brian. >> reporter: tori, good afternoon to you. yeah, raymond "shrimp boy" chow along with five other defendants appeared in federal court this morning. they all pleaded not guilty to this racketeering charge the.

the attorney for chow says the case is weak and he's looking forward to his day in court. five defendants all wearing yellow jump suits appeared in federal court. the new charges filed last week say that leland yee, raymond chow and raymond chow led the enterprise of racketeering. the indictment said the two would exchange in bribery in exchange for favoritism in certain illegal actions. chow's lead attorney says the charges are nothing really new. he said the indictment shows a weakness against their client and that chow is looking forward to seth the record straight when he plans to testify. >> we understand when he was arrested he had $400 to $700 to his name. he lived with his girlfriend. you truly took a vow, you know, in essence of poverty. yes he was a gangster, so to speak, once.

he did his time. he had an epiphany and he straight and the government can't tolerate that he became popular in the community. >> this is an investigation that's gone completely awry. it went awry years ago. and what they are doing to my client by adding these racketeering charges is a sign of weekness and desperation to justify the -- weaks weakness desperations. >> reporter: reporters asked whether chow would be a government informant or perhaps seek a deal. his attorney said no, he will fight this to the end. he did not speak, however, about the 27 others about what they may do. one count of racketeering, we should add, can carry a 20-year prison sentence. as for senator leland yee, he plans to plead against the superseeding indictment

tomorrow morning. brian flores, ktvu channel 2 news. >> thank you. a fast-burning fire sent more than a dozen people into the streets in oakland early this morning. also did significant damage to two homes. ktvu's christien kafton was the first reporter on the scene this morning and joins us live to let us know what's happening there now. good afternoon,. >> reporter: good afternoon. the fire is out. the latest development are the red tags on the building they put up. those tags mean these buildings could collapse at any time. sparks and a downed power line greeted oakland fire crews. >> it was a charged power line. the sparks were coming off the power line. that made fighting the fire truly difficult. we had to make sure we isolated the power line and make sure they didn't getter in the power line. >> reporter: residents say the fire started in the upper unit of one building and 3:40 and spread quickly. freddie and jody jackson say their neighbor yelled down to them that the apartment was on

fire. >> we heard noise. i smelled smoke. we got up and then she started calling my husband, call the fire department! i immediately called 911. >> reporter: a pg&e crew worked to turn off the power so firefighters could work safely. fire crews had the fire under control by about 5:00 a.m. the fire damaged two buildings and left 18 people looking for a place to stay. this morning, families were briefly allowed inside to get clothes and family heirlooms. >> it's like a tradition for us, so we can look back and see how -- how good and healthy we were. >> reporter: are you happy you were able to save this. >> yes. this is like -- this is part of my life. >> reporter: the owner of the building where the fire started says firefighters tell her it all started in her building's upstairs unit. >> the lady said she was up. she said she was up, that she was cooking but she said she went from the kitchen to -- to

the bedroom and that the fire was in the bedroom. >> reporter: fire investigators will work to determine exactly what caused that fire and a structural engineer will have to determine if these buildings need to be demolished. we're live in oakland, back to you. >> thank you. sonoma county authorities are searching for an inmate who escaped from custody in santa rosa. the sonoma county sheriff's office says 41-year-old zephyr malic carter ran away from a work crew on monday. he was serving time for his role in a credit card fraud and identity theft ring involving fake credit cards that were used at the graton resort. authorities say carter has tieds to oakland and -- ties to oakland and hayward. a former teacher at concord woodside elementary school has taken the stand in his own defense in the molestation case against him. 46-year-old joseph martin has been on the stand since 9:00 a.m. in the courtroom. he's charged with 150 counts of

child molestation involving 14 former fourth and fifth-grade students. today in the martinez courtroom, he said his frequent back and chest patting of students was a way to calm down youngsters with attention deficit disorders or learning disabilities. the prosecutor is set to question him this afternoon. police are searching for two robbers targeting pizza deliverymen in sunnyvale. as janine de la vega reports, police now believe the two incidents are connected. >> reporter: a night of delivering pizzas took a wrong term. it was dark around 9:00 p.m. police say two men approached the man and demanded money. >> they had actually forced him into his car and then drove him to an area nearby where they took his wallet, cash and phone. >> reporter: an hour later, another domino's driver made a delivery close by on north

bayview. he was approached by an unknown man who wanted to take his car and money. scared, he ran back to the home where he just delivered pizza. >> he came running back to the door and told us my car got stolen. they have a gun. he told them get in the house. we called the police. >> reporter: police say they believe the same suspects committed both crimes. they happened within the same time frame, within a mile of each other, and the suspects operated in the same manner. >> both circumstances, a gun was mentioned. it is believed that something was pressed up against the first suspect which made him believe that they actually had a gun. >> reporter: it's unsettling r for people in the -- for people in the neighborhood. >> it's nerve wrarking knowing there's something out there doing those kind of things. >> reporter: police are not sure if the robbers will strike again but have increased patrols in the area. janine de la vega, ktvu channel 2 news. an alleged truck thief is in custody in san francisco

after a wild ride through a car wash this morning. this is surveillance video of the car wash on van ness near market showing the suspect and the red pickup truck plowing through the car detailing area. the incident sent people running and damaging vehicles. police say he stole the truck from a construction site at haight and laguna and drove the wrong way on streets, crashed the truck near city hall and was tackled by a firefighter who happened to be in the area. it appears no one was hurt in the incident. a major cleanup underway at ucla. we'll tell you how many gallons of water gushed out onto the campus when a century-old water pipe burst last night. more than $500,000 worth of equipment stolen out of a startup company in union city. how investigators say the thieves got into the building.

a major cleanup job is underway at ucla where a nearly century-old water pipe burst and sent over 8 million gallons of water through major parts of the campus. a huge guys geyser came out of campus. it was pouring downstairs through walkways parking lots and garages and drenching the

new poly pavilion. the basketball facility just wend $136 million in upgrades two years ago. >> crews worked to get the water out of these facilities last night. and we'll be making some damage assessment later today to see how soon we can get those back open. >> as some students ran from the water, others brut boogie boards which was discouraged by firefighters. investigator tried to drive out and needed rescuing. it took a while to shut down the water due to the complexity of the pipe system in the area. a high-tech startup in union city is calling a high- tech heist at an especially bad time for the company. sometime late monday or early yesterday, thieves cut a hole in the door and made off with three pallets of chargers worth $500,000. the company was scrambling to fill orders after a glowing review in the new york times on friday. and now customers have to wait

longer. >> to be hit here, it's not just the price, it's the reputation of the company. it's very difficult to have to talk to your customers and say, you know, you have to wait a little bit longer, especially as a small business is trying to grow. >> the stolen products are from the unu ultrapack series. they have insurance. they are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the thieves. the oakland police department is getting praise for complying with reforms ordered by a judge more than a decade ago. the court-appointed monitor released a report praising oakland for making progress toward completing 22 required changes. the reforms are part of a settlement in the riders police misconduct scandal. improvements include a better police review board analyzing information about the race of people stopped by police and a computer system that tracks officers and warns superiors about cases of excessive force. and today, oakland mayor jean quan is filing her official nomination papers for re-election with the city

clerk's office. later this afternoon, she plans to unveil a list of several hundred local community leaders and organizations endorsing her candidacy. she says the group includes a bld -- broad-based coalition of faith, labor and political leaders. the richmond city council has signed off on a plan for the chevron refinery. but not everyone is on board. dozens of people took to the microphone last night before the vote. the controversy has split the community with some people worried about fires and toxic emissions, while others in favor of chevron jobs and community investment. among the improvements are new emission limits, the replacement of aging pipes and more mon fers and sensors. some residents say they don't trust chevron. >> i feel like it's just a form of expansion and they are not doing anything for us. >> this project will generate about 100 construction jobs and probably -- 1100 construction and and probably more than that

in secondary jobs. >> the city council approved the plan 5-0 but the mayor and vice mayor abstained from voting. back now to our breaking news out of san jose where a fire is burning at a building on hamshire. this is a live picture from newschopper2. according to our crews on the ground, the fire has now been upgraded to five alarms. the san jose fire department is on the scene. you can see quite a bit of smoke pouring from the roof and a lot of fire crews there. a big presence at this location. again, this is a fire that's burning at a building on hamshire mace near the almaden expressway in san jose. it's now at five alarms. a lot of water being poured on the fire. as we go to mark tamayo, you notice the smoke was coming pretty much straight up. that should not be an issue for the weather. >> that's right, tori. take a look at the trees in that area.

they are not moving around that much. that links up nicely with the weather conditions in the south bay. winds only around 5, 6 miles an hour. here is another perspective with our south bay camera looking out toward that. it looks like the activity has been, in fact, maybe scaling back a little bit probably the help of all of the other extra crews arriving on the fire scene over the past few minutes. the weather, temperatures in the 70s. winds on the light side. pretty moist out there in tems of relative humidity, right around 65%. we do not have extreme fire conditions here in the bay area. as far as the fog, in fact, the fog, you can see banked up near the immediate coastline. still a few lingering showers out to the south and east the sierra. current numbers out there, we'll show you some cool ones. san francisco in the upper 50s. but a few spots downtown closer to the low to mid-60s. right around 63. that's one of the cooler temperatures in san francisco. san jose, 74. heating inland, currently in the upper 80s. the wind speeds, fairfield, 14 miles an hour and some more

neighborhoods for you, san jose there's that wind out of the northwest at 5. sfo, 16 miles an hour. later on today, especially after 4:00 into tonight, the wind speeds will crank up. could approach 25 miles an hour, even 30 right near the immediate coastline. here is our live camera coming up for you. i think we have our roof camera. there's that fog bank out in the distance, hugging the coastline. for tomorrow, some morning fog. it will be breezy. a bit of a cooling trend. some relief as far as the inland heat that moves in this weekend. here's our forecast model showing you the low clouds and fog near the coastline. they will gradually regroup once again late tonight into the morning. out towards the sierra, the chance of showers and scattered high clouds. possibly a few more showers developing by tomorrow afternoon. but our weather pattern, not changing too much. with that, the cool temperatures to the coast, the hot numbers inland and we'll scale back on the heat over the next few days. 100 in vacaville. santa rosa, 86. oak in the upper 70s. a lot of 90s out towards

livermore, pleasanton and danville. morgan hill, 94. close to 80 in santa cruz. a look ahead to your five-day forecast with your weekend always in view, we're approaching the weekend. not too much change for tomorrow. as you can see, we scale back on the heat, finally. mugginess, the humidity will move out of town. looks more like a typical weather pattern that you would see. >> i think a good of people are saying good riddance. well, gridlock and hour- long waits at levi stadium, what's being done today to try to come up with a solution to the traffic nightmare days before they host the first big game.

well, stocks are mixed right now. in the last hour, the federal reserve announced it's further slowing bond buying because it thinks the economy needs less help but it's offering no clear hint as to when it will start to raise the benchmark short- term interest rates. the dow is currently down 33. the nasdaq is up 17 and s&p is flat. twitter's stock price is currently up 21% after reporting both a healthy profit and a growth in users. the microblogging site says it has 271 million monthly users.

that's up 24% from a year ago. many investors had worried about continue growth for the company. amgen says it will lay off 2400 workers, but its bay area operations will actually expand. the company, which is based in thousand oaks, says it will close facilities in washington state and colorado. the drugmaker says it will expand operations in the biotech hubs of south san francisco and cambridge, massachusetts. the news comes as amgen announced adjusted quarterly income of $1.2 billion. problems became evident on friday during an open house for 28,000 season ticketholders at the levi stadium. many complained about gridlock conditions with reports of wait times up to an hour trying to get to the stadium.

the 9ers admit there is a problem and call the mess a learning experience. >> it wasn't a typical game-day operation. we had 8,000 stalls available. we will have 25,000 on game day. we'll have additional transit lines. >> the next traffic test is this saturday when levi stadium hosts the first ever sporting event, the san jose earthquakes soccer match. and what's a baseball game without peanuts and crackerjacks? if you ask the giants, it's allergy free. during the afternoon game with the pirates, fans with nut allergies can enjoy the game in a peanut-controlled area of the stadium. these allergies affect about 3 million americans. health officials estimate is00 people in the year -- 100 people in the country die because of allergies to peanuts. 2 investigates responded to

pacific park -- parking districts. how you can fight back tonight on channel 2 news at 5:00. thank you for making ktvu your choice for news. we're always here for you on ktvu.com and you can follow us on twitter and facebook. have a great day. at ikea, we don't just design furniture. we design good mornings.

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>> the following program contains actual video of real animal emergencies and is suitable for family viewing. coming next, saving an orphaned baby rhino. plus, a large tapir falls into a hole. and helping a pig in a pool. this is "animal rescue." [captioning made possible by telco productions, inc.]