. >> 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

courtney whedon is on the scenecourtney whedon is on the scene. we are lining up witnesses to this fire to give us more information as we get it. and we will get back to courtney as soon as we can. >>> temperatures below freezing all day long, and this weekend will be worse. meteorologists are calling for afor it to get down to 8 degreesfor it to get down to 8 degrees. this is dangerous cold, folks. so let's send it right to chief meteorologist george flickinger for the latest. >> george: danner, this is going to be the coldest weather we have seen so far this season moving into the heart of virginia. we stay below freezing all day today. right now we are in the 20s. the temp is 29. that light blue number, that's how combed it feels. right now feels like 21. around the rest of the area, lynchburg, roanoke, blacksburg, you stay below freezing. toward south side, temps in the upper 30s. and it feels that much colder. winds from the west. that fire you were seeing in the brookneal area. you can see where the wind was blowing that smoke from west to ea

courtney whedon sees how they stay warm at 11:00. they may have good advice for you. >>> well, this is usually the sign that mardi gras festivities in new orleans are finished. police did their traditional street sweep at midnight after it came to an end. new orleans mayor mitch landreu joined the officers on horsebackjoined the officers on horseback. it is symbolic because bars stay open. a million people come to new orleans for mardi gras. i have been to the new orleans area before mardi gras but never been there for mardi gras. i lived in louisiana for a while, and they -- the whole state shuts down for mardi gras. >> wind chills between >>> johnny depp's new movie playing donald trump. new janet jackson after her surgery. >> zoolander's 2, new york excl >> "e.t." >>> tonight, the new trump movie? johnny depp doing a dead-on donald impression. >> this is the second best selling book of all time. >> best selling book of all time. >> we go behind the truth as trump unleashes his secret weapon. pregnant daughter, ivanka trump. >> you

our courtney whedon was there and will have more at 11. >>> hundreds of soldiers from the national guard battalion will be going far from home later this year. >> mark: where they are going us about the upcoming deployme coverage you can count on. >>> right now, soldiers from lynchburg's national guard battalion are gearing up for active duty. >> mark: soldiers from the first battalion. those soldiers are prepping for a nine machine month deployment overseas. and what is their mission. >> they will replace the winchester based group for military central command operations in qatar, about 450 soldiers are being deployed. we caught up with some who have been through the drill before and some who have no idea what to expect. the soldiers of task force red dragon are on the move. formerly known as 116th infantry brigade combat team. the men and women of that first battalion will be the boots on the ground in qata r some time in may. until then, many drill it is go through and many preps to make before. for some, like specialist douglas harris, this is the first-time experience. >> actually m

. >> danner: our courtney whedon live at the fire at the dan river plant. it is raging now. it broke out two hours ago. >> we are here with matt vaugner are he is here taking pertures, he lives quarter mile away from this fire. how were you first alerted about this? >> i was at work and a little after 4:00 and someone came in and told us about it and started seeing all the fire trucks and the police cars and ambulances going down the road, and then i stepped outside and i saw what was the biggest smoke i ever seen in my life. a huge cloud. >> reporter: tell me, what does this mean to your community? [inaudible] >> noreen: all right, we are having trouble with that live shot. some technical difficulties. we will go back to courtney as soon as we can get that fixed. of course as the temperature goes down outside, we are hiking it up inside our home. if you were not cautious you could pave the way for a fire. we talked to experts warm and safe. toll stole live in danville. first, if you were using your fireplace for the first time this season. have is professionally inspected.

our courtney whedon is there on the scene. we will have the very latest developments at appomattox primary. we will bring that you at wset.com and here on the airat wset.com and here on the air. >>> george? >> george: yeah, danner, we were live on television giving you the severe warnings as it went through brookneal and the heart of the virginia. a summary of the storm reports nipwhere there is a little icon representing -- a small tree that you see right there. representing wind damage, so we had our first storm damage reported in pennsylvania county including danville right through here. you can see all the reports of the storm damage and hail reported near chatham. power lines down inpower lines down in pennsylvania county and storms made their way through south boston and the storm that the tornado warning really got going toward brookneal and to the north and east of brooknealthe north and east of brookneal. right there that tornado that is showing where the tornado crossed highway 460. the national weather service will