of serious crime on metro since 2008. some good news finally in all of this we first reported the attack on january 2nd at the metro center station. a couple attacks by a group of teenagers anywhere from 10 to 14 attacking that couple at about 9:30 in the evening as they returned home from watching a movie. we understand that metro transit police finally was able to id some of those teenagers involved in that group assault. not the perpetrators but they were part of that group but they were hoping that sometime in the coming days there will be an arrest. we were told by metro to be on the lookout of a bolo which would show those persons of interest by 4:00 today. we've yet to see those pictures. marina marraco, fox 5 local news. >> just one of the latest problems. metro has been plagued by a host of problems lately. >> now we're hearing from

metro's new gm as he gives a frank assessment to some local leaders. jennifer davis was there and she joins us with the story. >> reporter: paul became the general manager november 30th. he admits he is aware of some problems firsthand and he says he has been getting an earful from others about both the individual and systemic troubles that they are dealing with on the rails. >> i ride it every day. so about to work and through meetings. i came here today by metro. it's been tough. my experience the red line issue the other day. i was extremely frustrated myself. and there's a number of things that we're going to be doing as a result of that. >> reporter: talking about personally experiencing the effects of rail problems that plagued the red line last week. the new wmata gm also given an assessment of all the problems he's become aware of since

taking this job about six weeks ago. he says he spent the month of december talking with riders and hearing their frustrations from everything from malfunctioning escalators and elevators to train and rail problems, delays and public safety concerns. he says employees are embarrassed the system isn't performing well and he feels that too. >> there is a feeling of a lack of ability to deliver the basic service that we should be delivering. poor communication. a lock of transparency by the organization. and unfortunately, and as mentioned earlier, there's a fear out there for personal safety, in terms of some of the stuff that we do. but in terms of crime, in terms of terrorism. all those things are on our customers' minds. the bottom line is, you know, i think as an agency waive lost credibility to provide the high quality service that we are used to in the past. >> reporter: he says he does

believe he could get the be leaguered transit system to a better place. he wants more visibility on platforms so riders get information and reaspurns when something is happening. but he says he knees to finish his investigation. >> there is a lot to do. we didn't get here overnight and it will take a while to pull out of this dive. >> reporter: it will take us a while to pull out of this dive is what he says there at end. he also has told the metro board he does not want to raise fares or cut service right now. he says he just doesn't think it's the time to do that given the performance they've been giving recently. back to you guys. >> lots of problems. >> a man remain hospitalized tonight after police say he was shot while trying to break into a house on brinkly road in temple hills. >> the homeowner used a pistol to fire through the front door. paul wagner is live with that

story. hey, paul. >> reporter: it was just before 2:00 this morning when police say a man walked to the front door of a home here in the 3900 block of brinkley road. it's a brick, single-family home. when the person, according to police, began to pry open the front storm door. that's when police say a dog inside the home heard the commotion and began barking, alerting the couple who live there. the woman inside, police say, grabbed the phone and dialed 911. while the man grabbed a pistol and headed for the front door. outside a man had gotten through the storm door and was working on the solid wood front door when the homeowner with the pistol began yelling for the intruder to get away. >> he had a very large stick with him and he had used that to pry through the storm door and he still had it in his hand when he was fired upon through the front door. at this point we've been told by the homeowner that he advised

the suspect numerous times to get away from this door loudly and a way that he could hear through the door. >> reporter: there are still many questions in this case. police still have not identified this man who went up to the front door, although they're saying that the two did not know each other. neither the homeowner nor the person who was shot and found here just in front of the front door here on brinkley road just after 2:00 this morning. but charges are pending. we checked with the state's attorney's office they still have not received those charges and we don't know the name of the person who was shot. police are also saying that the gun was legally owned by the homeowner and this man was in his right to open fire. basically they say under state law, if he feels like he is in danger and he's going to protect his home and the people inside, he has the right to open fire. live in temple hills, paul wagner, fox 5 local news. >> today alexandria police announced two murder cases have

been solved. and in both cases authorities say the crimes are gang related. chief investigative reporter emily miller joins us live with the latest on that story. emily? >> reporter: the police are saying they did close two cases and both murders were stung by the ms 13 gangs. the victims were not in the gangs but the crimes were not random. the first one was in november it was in a playground called beverly park. it was a grusome crime. a woman was walking her dog when she saw a man's body under the bridge where he had been brutally slashed and killed. the victim was 24 years old. police said he was not in the gang but it was not random. today the police said they have arrested three people connected to the ms-13 gang. a 16-year-old girl is in custody and will face charges related to

the murder. a 17-year-old boy was charged today with murder. and one adult male will also be charged with the murder when he is extradited back here to alexandria from another state. on the second crime today was solved in december, 18 years old was found dead in four-mile-run park. another 18-year-old and a member of the ms-13 gang was arrested and charged for that murder. the police chief just told us that the ms-13 gang has gotten much more violent recently. so he has been using fbi and homeland security resources to solve these cases as they stretch into other states. and he says that he understands that the public is terrified of ms-13 and now that they're in their neighborhoods. >> all of this gang activity in the region, and many of you have reported on it recently in the last couple of years, the

intensity of the violence has risen a great deal in the last couple of years. we unfortunately had two of the victims here in alexandria die because of that violence. it goes beyond the family. they are our first concern. but also the community at large. the thing that happened in beverly park. one of the quietest neighborhoods all the way to four-mile-park which is a very nice park and is a very popular park. to have this happen in your community is devastating for them and they are fearful of that. >> reporter: the police chief would not give us a motive for either of these murders because he says that is going to come out in the coming court cases. and he also says that none of the victims and none of the various pekts were american citizens and none of them were in the country legally. emily miller, fox 5 local news. >> one of the sky fox pictures. this is breaking news right now

out of prince george's county. these are sky fox pictures of rescue crews on the scene of this car into a pond. the car almost fully submerged. this is a pond in the 7200 block of galavan street in lanham. it's unknown if anyone is inside of that car. the crews have been close some time surveying the land and the water around there. and you can see other personnel on the land. they have been there for some time. we're not quite sure when this car went into the water. but we do have obviously skyfox overhead watching this situation. we will continue to monitor this and do stay with fox 5. we'll bring you the latest as the breaking news develops and as we learn more details. >> let's head outside right now as we talk about the weather. it's been a chilly one, no doubt about that. this is the payoff of what we had to go through today that

brilliant sunset. >> it is gorgeous out there. loving the sunshine. and it's getting lighter and lighter. >> it is absolutely gorgeous and i've got to tell you a secret, laura and jim. i can no longer hear you. but i bet you're talking about that gorgeous sunset at 5:08, right? it is so pretty. i need to take a selfie with it. yeah, yeah. it's going to look good. wow, what a cold day we've gotten through guys. our temperature today, just wanted to show you at 32 degrees. this is the coldest we have been so far this season. i know i don't have to tell you that if you've been out sand about in it. dulles was only 30, bwi didn't crack the 30-degree mark. while you would think with a day like this it's going to be bitter cold tonight, it is but we're not going to get a whole lot colder than where we are right now because the wind is going to shift direction and it's going to come more out of the southwest. 29 at dulles, 25 at frederick.

so you know definitely not a warm day. the wind has gotten a lot better though. so while we still have wind chills in the upper teens, windchill should not be a factor for the rest of the night as we're going to see winds getting quite light. but we will be cold temperature about 28 degrees. we don't drop a whole lot at 9:00 to 28. by 11:0027, we bottom out right around 24 or 25 degrees. what to expect in the short term? i think we can warm things up just a little bit on thursday. maybe friday as well. and also a couple of things to keep a close eye on for the weekend. we'll be talking about that with your 7-day forecast coming up a little bit later. sorry i can't hear you. >> okay. coming up, beating the odds. >> a group of friends, a lot of people have been doing this, pathology the money together to buy powerball tickets. these people bought 35,000 tickets. how much did it enhance their chances of winning the jackpot?

>> did you know there was a way to unlock secret movies category on netflix. >> if you think millennials were a group of 20 and 30 somethings who would rather drink craft beer than get married, you might be wrong.

firefighters arrived on the scene to find heavy fire on all of the floors. the good news no one was hurt. the cause of this fire is now under investigation. at least three people including two high school students were killed and several others are now missing after an avalanche in the french alps. this happened on a closed ski run. around 60 people are involved in the search, including 30 mountain rescuers and search dogs. two police helicopters and an emergency rescue helicopter are also on the scene. >> the ten u.s. soldiers detained by iran are now free tonight. they were taken into custody

after two small boats drifted into iranian water. hours after they were released the government released footage and a video of one of those sailors apologizing. >> it was a mistake that our our fault and we apologize for our mistake. >> reporter: now, the u.s. officials say a mechanical issue could have led to the incident. a. >> a new book from pope francis is hitting book stores today. it's called "the name of god is mercy." it's a 100-page conversation with an italian journalist who explores the pontiff's views about mercy. he's talking about he meant when he made "who am i to judge" comment referring how the catholic church should treat people who are gay or lesbian. well you think your office pool is big tonight for the

powerball drawing? bet it doesn't come close to a group of friends in tampa, florida. >> they got $70,000 worth of tickets. >> that's a lot. >> for tonight's record-breaking $1.5 billion drawing. >> it all started as a simple facebook post saying that it cost $500 to enter. >> that's a lot in itself. >> that's a lot. and their odds of winning the jackpot now approximately 8,000 to 1. >> they lowered their odds. >> just a bit. >> by a lot. >> just imagine being the person behind them in line at the store it took the clerk three hours to print 35,000 of them. >> my first reaction is, that money could have gone to charity. >> it could have. >> it could have, but it did not. >> hopefully if they win, maybe they'll give some of that money to charity. just a thought i had that i wanted to share. what would you purchase.

>> i would donate it to charity. or happiness. that too. it could buy happiness. >> really truly. >> what would i do with it? >> i don't even think about it. >> you really haven't? >> no. i would pay down bills and there you have it. >> will and i were dreaming yesterday. i would travel. that's the first thing. >> that would be a good idea. >> and then charity. >> dr. joseph rock a psychologist at the cleveland clinic says there is no harm in fantasizing about what you would spend your winnings on. >> for imaging being on a vacation in the caribbean or winning this money and be able to spend it, it actually makes us feel better physically. different hormones are released, we feel better think about stuff like that. >> i did. i felt so much better after my conversation with will. and just now. >> i changed mine. a hot tub. the doctor says it's okay.

>> fantasize all you want. >> dr. rock says the key to having fun is to allow yourself to buy a ticket or two and dream all to keep your expectations about winning realistic. you may have seen a meme circulating on social media saying that americans could just divide up the power ball jackpot evenly and solve poverty. not quite. this meme was created while it was at $1.3 billion it says the knackpot equals 4.3 million for each person. the math is a little off as you maze have suspected here. it would actually come out to $4.33 per person and that's before taxes. the drawing for the 1.5 billion jackpot takes place tonight at 11:00 p.m. >> and just because it's on the internet does not mean it's true. case in point right there. >> the rams are making the move

back to los angeles after more than two decades. >> how this is affecting the social profile for one member of a major company. >> how about this, el chapo going from drug lord to fashion icon. >> and the season is over but there's still a big question about rg3. brody logan is on deck with sports. and one final update on that breaking news that we have been showing you. everything is clear. the rescuers are now out of the water there in lanham in the pond and we know that there were no people -- there was no one inside of that suv so it is a scene that is now clearing. the search is over, getting back to normal there. we'll be right back.

>> what is in a twitter name. what is the value is the

question. >> we break down the most interesting sports stories of the week into categories, who, what, when, where and why. first the who. laura sasskin, she is the director of communications for go-pro. she has the twitter la-ms. she has the twitter handle since 2008. she hasn't mentioned a price but selling your name on twitter is against the site's terms of service. a man named chase was paid $25,000 for his twitter handle by j.p. morgan chase. now, what local teams could you buy with tonight's $1.5 billion powerball jack pot? here are estimates of team

values from forbes. the redskins probably out of the question. they're valued at $2.8 billion. same with the nations. you have a little bit left over. and the first place cavs are worth an estimated 565 million. if you're bargain hunted, dc united just $140 million. you would think that would increase in value as their new stadium opens in 2019 so maybe if you're thinking forward in a little investment there. and then this sunday right here on fox 5. seahawks versus panthers. where? baltimore. the site of the mls super draft. expected to be the number one

overall pick. he left his home in ghana at 12 years old and plans to take any money he makes and help people back home in ghana. the chicago fire had the first pick in tomorrow's draft. and finally, the why. why do you think rg3 failed in dc. monday robert griffin iii scleend out his locker for possibly the final team. it seems so long ago october 2012 in less than four years he goes from that to possibly being cut. was it injured, was he not getting opportunity to succeed or is it just he's not that great of a quarterback. let us know on our facebook page. tell us what you think of the way griffin was treated by the redskins. we did facebook live video on sunday and a lot of people had opinions about this on both sides so it will be interesting to see what people think. really quickly, how much would you sell your twitter handles for? >> zero. it's priceless. >> it's not for sale? >> not for sale. >> what are you thinking?

>> i need say record sum. >> i would take the 25 grand if anyone out there is listening. >> still ahead, a fight over whether to shut down schools for the day. >> we'll tell you why some officials are concerned about the impact of the contentious presidential primary on students. >> plus a president called a moon shot to cure cancer in the state of the union. how vice president is planning to make that happen. >> there's a new study showing that millennials are way more like their parents than they would want to admit or you would expect.

you can see right now this is in prince george's county. this is a rescue going on right now with what appears to be an apartment complex that fire

fully involved in what appears to be at least from this perspective, at least a third or fourth floor. i don't know how far up they are. the apparatus is in place. they do have the ladder in place and you can see personnel there on the ladder itself. this is on chillam road over in prince george's county right now. what an operation that is. >> jim, it looks like it is on the fourth floor. and taking a closer look at the monitor, it looks like -- and we do have a rescue under way. there are two firefighters on -- well, at least one firefighter on that ladder. and it almost looks to me like we have children who they're trying to get into one of these beds to bring them down. i don't know if that other person with a hat on is a firefighter or a rescue personnel, but it doesn't look like it. it looks like maybe somebody from the apartment building. >> you can see some people going in and out of the entrance. laura mentioned that bed that they're going to carry up there. i'm looking in some of the windows nearby and you don't see

anybody, at least on the right side of the screen, nobody shattering anything trying to get south. they know where they're going, they know where there are people in this building right now. it seems contained to that one unit at least for the time being. for the time being you don't know how quickly it could spread. >> that is an intense fire. and you see the sparks coming out of that apartment building as flames just rip out of that fourth floor building. the smoke billowing from out of there. it looks it may have spread to the left-hand apartment building as well. >> and quickly, you can tell pretty much there's somebody there trying to climb down themselves at this point right now. you can imagine in a situation like this you want to make sure that you take it carefully. it's a 2-alarm fire at this point. it is on chillam road over in prince george's county. we don't know how many crews are there at this point. it's a 2-alarm fire so at this point they seem fairly confident in that area it looks like it's

going to remain contained. it all depends when this building was built and what materials are inside. >> i would imagine they have evacuated the building. given the temperatures outside too, they're dealing with an issue with that too. right now we have a rescue under way if you're just joining us. a rescue under way at an apartment complex in prince george's county. rescuers you can see this firefighter right now trying to bring a child down that ladder in a rescue bed of some sort. and then two adults there on the ladder, we believe those adults, i'm just assuming at this point, we don't have a lot of information, are from that apartment building. and it appeared that there was another younger person along with those two adults. >> when you think of the crews on the scene. it's 30 degrees, you're spraying down, obviously it's a little bit higher up there. for the firefighters involved too, you have the elements working against you a little bit

in that regard and you can see, oh, wow. now you're seeing debris from the roof coming down so it looks like it's kicking up. you can see it poking through some of the holes on the roof and some other holes popping up. new hampshire avenue in chillam, maryland. >> we're going to get someone with the fire department on to give us a little bit more information with what we're seeing. obviously there's a lot of fuel to this fire because flames are ripping through the fourth floor and just coming riit out of there. i think the concern is that it's going to spread and i would imagine that they would be concerned about explosions as well as you see some of these sparks flying out of there. >> it all depends -- man it's flaring up now. it all depends on the materials that are inside of that building. laura mentioned the risks for explosion. you think about electronics or other things that can contribute to that as you see another rescue under way right now.

they've been through this sort of thing before. you go through the training. uh-uh don't expect to have to utilize the training but look on the ground there. some of the flaming debris is not flaming out, it's flaring. look on the right side underneath the ladder there, you're going to have to tend to that. obviously the first priority is containing the fire at large. still very active at this point. >> mark brady is joining us on the phone to give us more insight with what we're dealing with. can you tell us what you know? >> we went up there right around 5:20 this afternoon. units arrived at this 4-story apartment building with heavy fire coming from a unit on that top floor with several rescues that needed to be made. a second alarm was struck. we have several firefighters from prince george's county and montgomery county on the scene battling this blaze. as you can see on the tv, fire is extending out of the apartment on to the balcony.

we have several concerns. the rescues are our number one priority but getting units up to that floor before it extends any further. >> at this point in terms of people inside, do we know at this point how many people are inside at this point? because we still see them popping up from here and there coming down the ladders. >> reporter: we -- weenl. >> we don't at this point. we do have search and rescue efforts at this point in time. people you see coming down from this ladder now are people that run out to their balconies. they couldn't get out through the interior stairwells. they do the next best thing.

>> why are we not seeing any water on the fire at this point? >> at this point all compression efforts are on the interior. we're fighting the fire from the exterior. to get any more out of control, we will use hose lines from the exterior, but at this point, our best offensive action is to go inside the building and extinguish it from the inside. >> to me, mark, it seems like from your crew's perspective, this can be fought from that perspective. you're not immediately concerned that by going inside they're in immediate danger. so at least you're confident to go inside and take care of it from that perspective. >> we're always concerned about having to go inside and fight a fire. but we have to get in there and perform these search and rescues for any possible victims that still could be inside and we need to do that from the interior. >> and how many apartments do you know are affected by this

right now? >> well this is on a far end of the building. we have one apartment that's well involved on this side as well as the other side of the building. fire coming out of that apartment as well. i would say up on that top floor you probably have anywhere between 4 and 6 apartments involved with fire. >> and do you know how many people are affected? i know -- how many people have been brought down on the ladder so far? >> well, i can see maybe three or four being brought. >> mark, you still with us? okay. i know we do have sue standing by. sue palka standing by to talk about weather conditions are certainly a factor here because the wind has been picking up throughout the evening. >> windy and cold from that perspective. sue, what's it looking like -- we'll get to sue in a moment. just to give you an update where this is. new hampshire road, chillam,

maryland, prince george's county. sue, 30 degrees right now, obviously some wind out there. how is this working in concert with the rescue effort there. >> actually i was just looking at states and over the last three hours, fortunately i know this is a terrible situation that we're watching here, but the winds have diminished quite a lot. right now winds are northwest at 8 miles an hour and for the last three hours those winds have generally been around 10 miles an hour. the air is very, very dry. the bigger problem is the air temperature is only 30 degrees there. this is the coldest day we've had so far this season. you can only imagine that people have been maybe running space heaters. the wind chill is about 22 degrees there. and actually chillam is not that far from reagan national and we are seeing a great drop in the wind. i can't imagine how difficult it must be to try to deal with this in these temperatures.

especially even an 8 mile an hour wind can be problematic. but it's way better than it warks even as early as about 2:00 this afternoon they were still getting gusts up to about 20 miles per hour there. forts nately for the firefighters one thing they're not having to deal with is those 30 mile an hour winds we had for much of the day. wind chill, 22 degrees. air is very dry. that will be the big concern with this. >> i wonder if there's any concern with using the water from the outside when it's this cold. or maybe not because the water pressure is so high. >> yeah, you know it's hard to know what they deal with. and that would probably be a good idea for us to get somebody who has had to fight a fire like this in extreme weather to know what they have to go through. but i can only imagine that this is one of those circumstances that they hate to have to deal with subfreezing temperatures. it's going to get colder every hour. we're expecting to drop to 28 degrees here in the next hour or two and it just makes it worse and it really looks like they've

got a long way to go before this is under control. >> you can see they're putting another ladder up in place. if you're watching this, if you're wondering why are they not fighting it from the outside. >> you might be able to make out the hose going through the front door right there. there is a hoe hose going through some other places. they're inside. these firefighters are on the fourth floor of this building. mark brady says it looks like at this point four to six units inside possibly affected. and laura, sue brought up that excellent point and it goes without saying in an apartment complex you're dealing with space heaters. we don't know what caused it, but that's something that we see an up tick this time of year when this gets cold. >> a lot of people leave their ovens open when it gets this cold. but again, we don't know what happened with this situation. we don't know what caused it. but this is a fourth floor apartment building where they have continued to make rescues of people who were not aebl to

get back into their apartments, who were trapped on their balconies and have been rescued coming down the ladder. we saw a child rescued just moments ago. this fire is so, so intense. and as you heard mark brady say a little while ago, it's just such a dangerous operation going on inside where there are firefighters fighting this from within. >> at this point it's a 2 alarm fire and skyfox is going to stay trained on that scene right there. but if you get a sense of where this building is, new hampshire road in chillum, maryland. you get a sense how big the complex is. traffic is still moving through the area and you have the gawker factor when you see the lights, the fire and the smoke, you want to stop and pause and officely other thoughts are with the people inside, but also with the all the fire crews in this weather dealing with this. new hampshire avenue, again, in

chillum chillum, maryland. >> i think rush hour this is going to be somewhere you want to try to find a way around if you're headed home tonight. at skyfox was pulling out, this is a 2-alarm fire so you've got lots of personnel on, you can see this here, on the scene. traffic moving very, very slowly by there. so you can imagine the backup at this point right now in the commute. >> all right. so once again, we are hoping to get mark brady back on because he was giving us really good information about what exactly was going on there. the good news is at least the rescue efforts that we saw from the exterior, people being brought down, what appeared to be children brought down. at this point we don't have any official word if there are the ladders out there, x but obviously that's a good indication that there's still a good amount of concern that that may be the case.

on a night like this too, considering how cold it is, people being forced out into the cold, we're hoping you have a lot of different humanitarian organizations, a lot of times you had the red cross showing up. they're always there in a case like this making sure that the people are well taken care of, and also the same with those firefighters. >> as i look at these pictures, jim and laura, i think about how strong the winds were 24 hours ago and what a nightmare that could have been. we were dealing with winds 30, 40 miles per hour. we had snow squalls coming on through. this is a terrible situation obviously. very grateful to see those winds have gotten a lot better as mentioned just a few minutes ago in case you're just joining us. we've been checking the weather conditions there. everybody is below freezing. most places did not get above 32 degrees. chillum is 30 degrees right now. we expect it to drop slowly as we go through the evening. winds are going to be shifting. they've been very strong and blustry most of the day and the

last three hours winds were considerably lighter. i don't know what time this started, i do know as we go back winds in this area right now are out of the northwest at 8. they'll shift later tonight. not expecting it to be a very breezy night. i don't expect temperatures to drop into the teens. but we will be heading down into the 20s in these areas. and jim as you were mentioning too, a lot of times when you get a very cold day like this, people are trying to find alternate sources of heat. we don't know that's what happened but definitely there is an uptick this time of year and this thing is extraordinary to watch. >> this start d at 5:20. that's when crews started getting on the scene. this has been going now for 26 minutes trying to fight this from the inside and outside. >> i will say since they started the exterior we're seeing more smoke but you're also seeing the flames i don't know if they've displated or if they're behind

that wall of smoke. still no indication if there were people inside or home people were left inside at this point but that rescue operation was certainly well under way when we joined this in progress oh, about 10, 15 minutes ago or so at this point. this is a 2-alarm fire at an apartment complex on new hampshire avenue in chillum, maryland. we checked in with the prince george's county first department. there were rescues in place out there. lots of apparatus. you're seeing a lot of work on the roads out there. many crews have shown up. again, the fortunate part is the fire, it started to raise, you got bigger and bigger, they started that exterior tack. for the most part when they got on scene, they went through the building, up the steps. obviously they felt safe enough, it's still a dangerous situation, but there's still a sense that they would be safe by going inside and attacking it

from there. it looks like from here that's a good sign that we've seen -- you still see some flames in there. certainly not as intense. four to six units impacted. no idea how this started and that's something we'll certainly hopefully get some information on. >> we do hope that everybody is okay in this. but they were able to rescue several people. we saw at least two adults coming down off the ladder and one child. at least two adults. 2-alarm fire as jim mentioned means more apparatus, more personnel were on this fire. very, very intense when we first started watching this. the crews got on the scene about 5:20. again, this is on new hampshire avenue. now we're seeing traffic at a complete standstill there on new hampshire avenue. this is of course during rush hour so you're going to want to stay out of this area if you normally take this route, you might want to find another route. thick smoke still coming from these apartment buildings, from this apartment building. this is in the fourth floor. this is where this fire is

centered in a fourth floor apartment building but we understand that four to six units are affected. we're seeing flashlights in this unit, so that is some good news that firefighters who were battling this from the inside have now been able to access that apartment where the fire appears, where the ground zero for that fire is. >> and when you look at the materials in this building, it looks like we're seeing wood up on top. you can see the brick on the side. it gives you at least a sense that this is a slightly older building. it's not very old, but sometimes when you're dealing with this, the materials used in the construction of the building factor into how you attack the fire, how you fight the fire. again, you see the flashlights you mentioned, but i certainly see it now that i've turned my head here. down below look at the bottom righthand corner you're looking at somebody with a flashlight going through each building. you would imagine if somebody

was outside you would try to get up to that window and flag on help down. you mentioned if it's four to six units impacted, i'm estimating there's a good 60, 80 to a hundred there. it's a pretty big complex. >> it's quite charge. and mark brady was saying there were different sides to it too. i don't think it's just this one building. they're going to be in there looking for these hot spots for many hours now i would assume they're going to be on scene for a while. the firefighters will stick around to make sure these hot spots are gone and especially if the winds pick up again. is sue still with us? >> actually, i was hoping i could jump in because you know one of the things they have to concern themselves with too when you fight a fire in the winter like this is the fact that a lot of this water may become ice later. and if not pretty quickly because of the dropping temperatures, again 30 degrees in chillum, expecting to drop

about 25 degrees overnight. and the big concern too putting out the fire is all the by standers who have to be off loaded from the building and may 23409 have had time to grab a coat. of course better to be farther away from this as possible. the wind has gten a lot better. i'm sure firefighters are prepared for this. but they do create a lot of issues, even with water supply. >> are we concerned about the wind picking up again later on? because those hot spots obviously firefighters are going to be keeping an eye on them but that's the concern that the hot spots could flare up again. >> we do not have stronger winds in the forecast tonight laura. i'm happy to tell you that we think the winds are going to continue to get lighter. this time last night we had wind individualsries for gusts at 50 miles per hour that verified all across the region. this could be a much worse scenario if we had been in this

environment just 24 hours ago. the winds down to 8 miles per hour. i think they'll continue to get light overnight and change direction a little bit too. that should not have any impact with a light wind. but temperature definitely the real challenge here tonight as they try to get this blaze under control. >> if you are a just joining us now. 5:52, this is a live look at an apartment complex fire. this is in adelphi, maryland. this is on new hampshire avenue. somebody is on that stretcher being taken out of the building. as you look at this fire for a good stretch, when they got the call at about 5:20, they initially went into an interior attack which means you did not see hoses spraying on the outside of the building. the firefighters were going on to the fourth floor of this building to attack this fire. probably in the last 10 minutes we saw them pull the exterior hoses out as well. it made a demonstrable difference in the intensity of

the flames that we saw from the outside. still you can see a good amount of fire coming from the outside of the building inside. and there's more of it there at this point. so still a lot of thick smoke. firefighters have conducted several rescue operations. we've seen several people brought down the ladders there. but at this point still no indication if there are people trapped inside. firefighters are going through the outside looking through exterior windows to see if that's a concern at this point. but it gives you a sense yes, it's just one building. yes, it's just 4 to 6 yungts affected. but when you look at that big picture view, you get a sense this is a very serious operation which they're embarking on again in adelphi, maryland. >> looking through probably at this point starting their

investigation to see what caused in and wanting to make sure that everybody did get out okay. they will be there investigating for some time. this started at 5:20. and there have been some rescues. somebody just pulling away on a stretcher. one person at least. no word on any injuries, on how many people have been rescued. but they are continuing to do a search in this building. we know at least four to six apartment units have been affected by this. i would imagine that the red cross is now by this point on or will be soon on the scene. and will be helping people look for a place to stay tonight. very cold night. many people from that building will need a place to stay. >> no doubt about that. and as the night goes on, because this is not clearing up any time soon, we do have crews on the way to the scene there to get you more information throughout the night. obviously because the question is a, how did this start.

and then b, is everybody safe. how many people were in there. we're staying on top of this obviously throughout the evening. we're on the air until 6:30. we'll keep you posted on fox5dc.com and we're back at 10:00 and 11:00 tonight. >> this is an apartment fire in adelphi, maryland started at 5:20 this evening. firefighters on the scene. this is a second alarm fire. new hampshire avenue is where this is all happening. so if you are just joining us and you're about to embark on your ride home or if your ride takes you through that area, you might want to avoid this because you can see traffic is very backed up. second alarm fire means a lot of personnel, a lot of fire personnel, a lot of apparatus. they are still going to be on the scene for quite some time as they investigate this fire which started in a fourth floor apartment unit there. four to six units affected. you can see the fire, the smoke coming from that unit and some hot spots there. >> i want to say obviously we've covered a lot of house fires.

the fact it's related to two alarms is a good sign. tisha lewis is at the scene now. we will be hearing from her shortly. in the meantime we're coming up to the 6:00 hour. we're back after this.

is. good evening, everyone. we want to bring you right back to the breaking news that we've been following now for about the past hour. this is happening. this apartment fire right now is happening in adelphi, maryland. this is the 9200 block of new hampshire avenue in adelphi maryland. skyfox live over the scene where you can see emergency firefighters going through the apartments that we saw just blazing a short time ago. >> the fire was quite an intense fire and as you see those live pictures from our helicopter you can see the firefighters walking

through adjacent units there as the investigation into this fire begins. we did see live during our 5:00 p.m. show some rescues going on. it appeared that at least two people were being rescued by fire apparatus, by a ladder that was put up to that building. one of the people just from looking at it, and it is dark out there, and it looked like one of the people may have been a child. we don't have any information yet on the conditions of the people removed from that apartment building. >> what we've been told is four to six units were affected. you can see some of the fire damage right now. you can see it's affecting the upper floors. we saw the flames coming through the roof. you can see sort of a blue light. i'm guessing those are firefighters who are searching through the building, asking, looking perhaps for anyone inside, trying to figure out what may have sparked this fire. we understand, if you can look there to your right, there are still some hospital spots to your right that they are working now to put out. again this fire happened t