in isla vista, jennifer bjorkland, nbc bay area news. back to you. >> the events of last night's shooting happened in a span of about ten minutes. the first reports of shots fired came in at 9:27 p.m., and then three minutes later, there were more 911 calls. at that point, authorities also received a description of the gunman's car. then at 9:33, the man reportedly shot at deputies and deputies returned fire. the gunman was able to drive away. one minute later, another deputy reported seeing the gunman and shots were fired. and the gunman managed to get away again. then at 9:37, exactly ten minutes after the first 911 call, the gunman reportedly crashed his car. deputies say they found him dead in the car with a gunshot wound to the head. >> here's what we know about the alleged gunman. again, his name is elliot rodger and he's a 22-year-old student at santa barbara city college. his father peter rodger is an assistant director of "the hunger games" and in this youtube video he talks about his trouble with him and how he has never kissed

jennifer bjorkland, nbc news, santa barbara. >>> now to a whirlwind trip overseas. president obama just arrived back at andrews air force base after he secretly flew to afg n afghanistan sunday for a surprise visit with active duty troops. president obama also tipped his hand at what america's role will be moving forward in afghanistan, the site of this nation's longest war. nbc's tracie potts is in washington, d.c. he did not meet with president karzai, why not? >> reporter: they couldn't work it out. timewise the president was only on the ground for a few hours. he couldn't get to the presidential palace and probably security concerns about that as well. karzai wasn't coming to the air base where president obama was, so they ended up talking by phone. but the president said he did want to be there to thank the troops in person. >> i'm here on a single mission, and that is to thank you for your extraordinary service. >> reporter: he was on the ground just four hours and only spoke to afghan president hamid karzai by phone after taking off from bagram air base. pres

. >>> correspond jennifer bjorkland is in escondido . the path of the fire must have been quite fierce. >> you can. and one of the strike teams told me joie that you can tell exactly where the fire came from when you examine what it left behind. the tree behind me, all the leaves are faced in the same direction, the leaves are sucked towards the ition anything and are -- the ignition and are diswroo id there. there is still smoke rising even though a strike team and a mopup crew came through a couple of hours ago, turning over the logs, digging up the roots and putting flame retardant foam everywhere and water, digging holes and burying embers. just because whenever the wind kicks up every hot spot is in jeopardy of having an ember hitchhike and jump over onto another rooftop and then we have it all over again. as you can see there's still a lot of work to be done here in escondido. are you in a residential area? it's hard to tell after the burn that's gone through. >> it's a little bit rural, it is residential, it is in the canyons and

jennifer bjorkland is live just north of san diego where one of the fires is burning. jennifer at one point yesterday it seemed like they were gaining ground on these fires and seemed to explode to the point they couldn't be contained. >> yeah, peggy, the fire really was just raging yesterday and it was erratic. it was unpredictable as fires tend to be. the weather conditions, especially for this time of year, really, really have been, you know, handful for fire crews that are working on these fires that are burning over 14 square miles. as sun set on one of the warmest may days in southern california history, the unprecedented heat and dryness made for catastrophic fire weather. >> i never thought our house would be in danger like this. but it's really a scary. >> reporter: homeowners forced to evacuate as flames chase them out of their neighborhoods. some will have nothing to come home to, despite their best efforts to clear brush and be fire safe. >> i tried to make it as good as possible, but, naturally, who cares right now. house is gone. >> i've never seen anythin

chief meteorologist jeff ranieri is tracking the heat across the state, but we begin with jennifer bjorkland in san diego county. jennifer. >> reporter: raj, the firefighters are literally chasing embers as they jump, hop-scotch from treetop to rooftop, trying to put them out before they start new fires. there are almost too many fires to count. they're trying to keep track of those and tackle the bigger fires all at the same time. the low humidity, the high temperatures, and the wind, the wild card. that's the real predictor of what will happen here. from the air and on the ground, the battle to beat back the flames go on. >> as quickly as the sun came up, so did the smoke and the ability for active fire behaviors. >> reporter: active fires that charred this california landscape. >> yesterday was a difficult day throughout the county with the fire department responding to more than nine fires in san diego county. >> reporter: despite the hot dry windy conditions ripe for wildfires, they're not ruling out any precautions. >> we're going to try to find out its origin. >> reporter: fire offici

nbc's jennifer bjorkland is there. how did this day start?started late night around 9:30 and ended right behind me. you can see the car in question, crashed into another car with a wrecked bicycle nearby. a lot of very curious onlookers. the shooting started around 9:30. this student enclave of isla vista. one student told reporters he saw shots fired from that bmw. critically injuring another. heard shots and screams. another visibly shaken students told a reporter she was approached by the driver of a black bmw, flashed a handgun and asked her, hey, what's up. the student said she thought he was carrying some sort of air gun but she felt something buzz by her head and realized they were bullets. again, seven people dead, one of them, the alleged gunman. six others injured. it was just a really, really scary night here in isla vista. >> i realized that what was going on and i ran across the park and i kind of took cover there, and there's a few people that were -- that were with me on the other side, and -- >> do you see the car? >> yes, he

jennifer bjorkland has been following the story and joins us live this morning from carlsbad, good morningyou, jennifer. >> good morning, peggy. this morning we do have a little bit of good news on this fire. specifically this one in carlsbad. they have now declared 10% extra containment. so, 60% of this fire is now surrounded by secure fire lines. they have stopped the forward march of it, but not before it took with it eight homes. and as you can see from some of the pictures this morning, some of the live pictures from the air, there is still smoke rising from so many different areas here in san diego county. the resources are being split up accordingly and everybody is doing their best to get priority towards those fires that are threatening homes, but, again, a state of emergency has been declared in san diego county. the temperatures near 100 degrees and gusting winds were pushing the wildfires into more than 14 square miles. we do have reports of two firefighter injuries, minor injuries. one heat -related and one from smoke inhalation and no major, major injuries. 21,000 evacuation

. >> nbc's jennifer bjorkland is on the frontlines north of san diego with the latest. >> josh, we juststrike team come through to put out hot spots. we are near san marco, and pretty much escondido area. i want to show you one thing the firefighters showed me. you see the leaves on the oak trees are all pointed in the same direction. they tell us they point toward the fire. that's where the fire came from. it creates such a vortex and such a -- like its own pull that the leaves all turn towards the fire and then dry in that position. as they came through here and put out hot spots and got their axes and shovels and moved through. you can still see smoke risesing from the embers of these homes that were lost last night when the fear came through. they have already been through the day. they'll be through again and again until every last ember is stamped out because here is the problem. when you have an area this large that's burned and areas around it that vbt burned that are parched by california drought and low humidity which was in the low teens today and it was in the single digits

joining me now is nbc news correspondent jennifer bjorkland.the latest with the investigation on the ground? >> reporter: well, sheriffs investigators have 12 clirime scenes they have to comb through. a lot of information to gather and witnesses to interview. the most important part of the investigation is the why. they already know what happened. they already know who is responsible. but they need to do some investigation to figure out what could be done in the future to prevent these kinds of things from happening. and if anybody missed any warning signs along the way. so as you look through all these crime scenes, they know there were stabbings at the first three, those roommates. then the shootings. the weapons purchased legally. the contact with sheriffs investigators just a few weeks before this all happened. why were no more red flags raised? those are the questions that they're looking for answers to, melissa. >> jennifer, typically when this sort of thing happens in a community, there's just such a sense of sadness and heaviness. are y

let's get to thbs's jennifer bjorkland live in escondido. what's it looking like there now?more do we know about the cause of the fires? >> reporter: what it's looking like here is very good, craig. we are at base camp where they are demobilizing. you see few fire trucks. not because they are on the fire lines. they are getting to go home as well as some residents. the evacuation orders have been lifted. the causes of the fire under investigation. all of them except for the one fire, the bernardo fire which we know for good reasons were started by a backhoe operator who accidentally sparked the fire and it got away from him. that's the only one we have a cause for so far. looking ahead, the biggest problem firefighters are going to have is money. that's a big problem. you said the budget, again, is nearly half a billion dollars short for this year. the difference will have to be borrowed from money that's set up for other firefighting measures like brush fires and controlled burn. it's a conundrum since that keeps fires from run away many the first place. the forest service