recharge you need for the work anytime, anywhere, award anytime, anywhere, award-winning coverage you can count on, this is abc 13 news. >> mark: we are staying on top of breaking news tonight at 5:30. abc 13 live on the scene of a bad fire in brookneal. >> danner: courtney whedon is live outside of the old dan river plant off of 5 01 with everything that she is learning right now. >> reporter: danner, these flames are not letting up and the smell here is nearly unbearable. i talked to fire crews and they say they are wearing air masks to deal with e heavy smoke and they have to switch out team members every 30 minutes. a rough estimate fire crews are about 100 deep. they say that they are holding

the wind is causing new fires to start every few minutes. i have been here for a while and i hear popping every once in a while and i believe that is explosions happening. again, i do not know the cause of the fire. crews are expected to be out here for hours and maybe into tomorrow morning. >> danner: courtney, when you were heading out there, ate lot of bad traffic. 501 is the reed into brookneal. are crews cleaning up to theyy can do their work. >> reporter: i believe so. i talked to the fire crew that said 501 is closed down and they are directing traffic. >> danner: you said a little earlier wind is being a concernearlier wind is being a concern. it seems like going on the ladder to hit this from the top, have you heard anything of how the crew is approaching, how they put the fire out? >> reporter: all they are using right now is a plain ol' water. they say they can't do anything about the wind, and it is

fire. the wind is making new fires start every couple of minutes and hot spots everywhere. so all they can do it hold it down and hope for the best. >> mark: courtney, i heard you describe earlier a number fire departmentfire departments on the scene trying get a handle on this thing. who exactly is there fighting this? >> reporter: brook neal, evanton, gladys, about -- i think seven or eight fire departments are here. he said about 100 people are on the scene right now. i keep seeing new crews, concord, and just -- there is just a lot of people here right now. >> mark: and if the person can kind of pan up here so they can take a look at this fire. we have background information to share with but this plan in plan was part of tarquette woods flooring. they closed we believe in august of 2006. we are talking about a 354,000we are talking about a

lynchburg avenue on brook neal on 361 acres. this is a very large facility. >> when we talk about that amount of square footage and these fires popping up as courtney said in different spots, it can be a very toxic situation. we are staying on top of it. courtney, we will check with you why just a little bit. a live look in lynchburg where you can even see some of the smoke there in the distance. right there on the left-hand side of your screen, you can see that smoke trailing off in the distance. as we have been reporting and you heard, courtney whedon telling us that the wind is certainly a concern. >> danner: the black billowing smoke. let's talk about the wind. hopefully relief for the crews. >> reporter: winds will start to subside into the overnight hours for tonight. as long as the wind is here as courtney said, it will draw problems for fire crews. our hour-by-hour forecast. clear skies for the evening hours and a little more cloud cover will start to roll back

it will be a cold night out there for anyone out there fighting that fire as temperatures overnight tonight will be down into the teens. i got us to wonder if we see any of that smoke on satellite and radar. we have yet to be able to see any on the satellite but that fire marker indicatefire marker indicating of course where the fire is in brook neal. a chilly evening, 29 in lynchburg. the full forecast, mark, coming up in a little bit. >> mark: we will continue to stay on this breaking news out of brackneal in our newscast into 6:00, 7:00 and even 11:00. it took a minute for the cold to get dangerous. >> danner: you and i run to the road to take shelter, some have to face the cold to get a paycheck. we have more live from danville tonight. >> reporter: danner, i am so cold standing out in this weather right now. i cannot even imagine having to be out in this all day long. but there are some people out here who don't have that actionhere who don't have that

staying warm and cozy indoors isn't an option for these guys. >> what we are doing right is now just trying find a sewer line. >> reporter: whether it is scorching hot or frigid cold. this is davon johnson's life every day. no complaints here. >> it is wonderful. >> reporter: his 20th winter working outside, so he now how to prepare. >> i am wearing these work gloves. brown gloves. we work in these. keeps our hands warm. >> i wear my undergarment, my longjohns and several jackets. >> reporter: his partner robert weisel is not new to the chilly temperatures either. the longer you work outside, the more your body adjusts. >> it is cold to you all, but to us it ain't. it ain't that cold. i mean, we are used to it. >> reporter: but if you are new to working outside for long periods of time -- >> you come in, a nice, warm cup of hot chocolate, and just

that will make you feel good like i said, the hoodies, the jackets. >> reporter: outside for eight hours a day every day isn't easy at first, but it is all about positive thinking for these guys. >> you like cold weather, i mean, some people do, some people don't, but i love it. i mean, it's cold, but, hey, it comes with the territory. >> reporter: as our abc 13 weather experts have been saying, it is going be too very cold weekend. even colder than today. if you are not used to temperatures like this, try stay indoors as much as possible. you can get updates on your weather forecast on our web site at wset.com. live here in danville, valerie bragg, abc 13 news. >> mark: all right, valerie, thanks. we continue to follow that breaking news out of brook neal this afternoon on this massive fire that has taken place there. a number fire departmenting

this massive blaze at this 35 >> next "e.t." we are invited to the bachelor wedding. but is ben ready to say i do? >> let's celebrate.

exclusive.r withford, award-winning coverage you can count on. >> will: our tower camera. the fire. the breeze is blowing in a westerly fashion throughout and picks up the snow. a brisk wind out there. out in lynchburg, 29. our current temperature. very dry air mass in place and not good news for the firemen either. a negative 1 degree dew point

humidity at 28%. visibility wide open. and winds out of the west-northwest at 8 miles. other temperatures to speak of, pretty uniform. 13 in hot springs. 38 danville. 32 in farmville and it is 29 in charlottesville, and 20 right now in for beckley. continuously coming out of the west, breezes. northwest leerily fashion. 12 miles sustained in roanoke and 8 miles sustained in danville and this not exactly good news if you were fighting a fire out there. you factor in the temperature and the wind speed and the wind chill. this is what you get like for the exposed skin. 21 in lynchburg, and it feels like 1 below in ingles field. and early tomorrow morning, please bundle up. no clouds to speak of. we saw a lot of sunshine today. hope that didn't fool you with quite the chilly afternoon. and actually fairly quiet weather pattern right now across the southeast, but later on tonight, we will be watching an area of disturbance that

give the north carolina coast a little bit of brisk with winter. winter storm warnings and winter storm advisorywinter storm advisories up for areas of the coast. here is the reason why. a fairly quiet weather pattern. an area of low pressure develop late tonight and by early tomorrow morning, really blows up over the coast giving us some rain and even snowflakes. and nothing really for us except for a little bit extra cloud cover and maybe a few flurries floating around from time to time. quickly races up to the north. back in the sunshine for the day on saturday. and in our futurecast, and clear skies overnight tonight and early on. then the clouds will start to roll in. tomorrow generally cloudy day and maybe a temperature in floating around from time to time. primaryprimarily along and wet of i-81primarily along and wet of i-81. then those clouds go away for tomorrow night. partly cloudy skies. saturday, looking good. a lot of sunshine for the weekend activity and then we will be watching another little clipper system making its way from the west by monday, and

problem leading into the day on tuesday. george will have more on that coming up tonight at 6:00. in the meantime, we will talk temperatures, very cold up toward the north. a lot of cold air continuously funneling in. and keep the cool weather around and a couple blasts of cold air for saturday. and another blast from the beginning of next week. here is a look at high temperature over the next four days, 30s and 20s for highs. hope you like teens and single digits for lows on the way for the next four days. eight overnight saturday night and first thing. and dropping back down to the teens, a few 20s out there. tomorrow's daytime temperatures mid-30s to around 40. we are going it-to-go live to the phone to get more perspective on this fire in brookneal next as we are takebrookneal next as we are taking a live look.

on fire at thisyou. let's go now live to that fire burning right now in plant. we will take a live look now at what's going on. flames starting to shoot back up again as lots of crews were there on the ground. >> mark: right, and a lot of people who live and work in that area can see all of this

we want to go now to gale seamwe want to go now to gale seamster, the plant manager for the patrick henry memorial library there. thanks for being twhus evening. >> you are welcome. >> mark: what are you seeing from your vantage point? >> we are seeing a lot of black smoke. you have several buildings between us and the plant. and we have -- while we can see is black smoke. it was white at one time, and that looks like it is all black again. >> danner: from my vantage point over what i have been watching over the last hour on abc 13 news, it seems like in the last 30 minutes, it looks like it has gotten very dark and thick, that smoke has. let's go with the air quality right now. >> it is cold out there and you can smell smoke and like i said it has got black within the last while it has gotten black again. >> mark: gale, how long have you worked in that area? >> i have been here all of my life i lived here. >> mark: did you have family members who work there at the dan river plant and what year

>> i am not exact leer sure where it closed but my father worked at it. he has been there all his life and retired from that when it was burlington and all the rest of cloudman and all of the rest. so i am not sure when it closed. >> mark: this was the number one employer in the area. >> yes, it was. kind of like the big piece of history of brooksmael and has been closed am of years regardless. like putting a piece of your town's history go up in smoke. >> a big piece of history. the worked here probably most of their lives until it closed. >> mark: and this thing has been going for how long. >> we have been watching smoke hill. black-like smoke since 4:00 and when we first heard anything. we have been looking since right at 4:00 at it. we are next to the fire

so we heard all the trucks go by and they have made several trips and i am sure ha some trucks c come from the county down below us. have gone by here too. >> all right, gail seamster, the branch library down the road from dan river. we appreciate you tonight. >> danner: fluid, volatile situation going on in brookneal

the weath all right, for the fire fighters who are on the scene right now in brookneal, right now the wind is from the west. this is the view what it looks like from lynchburg looking toward the fire and you can see the smoke moving from right to left. and over the next few hours we see the wind becoming a bit more southwest. there it is out of the west and northwest at 8 miles per hour. it is extremely dry. we have very low humidity and

be that much more we are taking a live look in brook neal where several crews are on the scene at 501 spreading a massive blaze at this hour. >> mark: a number people in we have talked to have told us that this fire has been going strong for at least the last two hours, and a number of fire crews are on the scene there. this is a 350,000-square-foot facility that may be on fire.

there. a number fire departments from around the area. we will continue to follow the

bring this to you live on th count on, this is abc 13 news. >> noreen: we are on the scene of a very large fire in brookneal right now and we will take you live to that story, but first, we want to talk about the freezing developed weather. the temperatures have been in the 20s for much of the day and will reach the teens overnight. >> that's right. temperatures that fire fighters in brookneal are having to deal with. chief meteorologist george flickinger tracking the latest in the weather center. george. >> george: we are going to see the coldest weather of the season continuing to build into virginia aged by this weekend you will notice it clear in place. want to show what you it looks like now. this is also trying to look

the far left-hand side of the screen. getting harder to see just after sunset and this small area of gray on the eleven side of the screen, that is the smoke. the wind is still blowing out there and the wind will be weak. that will be good news for the fire fighters, and it will stay touch breeze the evening. in the west and northwest. and very cold out there. the temp at 27. we have a wind chill of 20 for this evening, we will continue falling below freezing. most all of us are below 32 now and by tomorrow morning, we will see temperatures into the teens. tonight's weather will be staying dry. we are tracking sleet and snow for next week. i will have the newest info on that winter precip coming up. to that breaking news we have been following since 5:00. unfolding right now brookneal. >> danner: our courtney whedon live at the fire at the dan river plant. it is raging now. it broke out two hours ago.