(wind blowing) (somber music) - my neighbor knocked on my door very aggressively and said, "shirlee, get out here." and i said, "what's going on karen?" and she said, "santa rosa is burning down." (fire crackling) (wind gusting) i couldn't believe what i was seeing. we got into the helicopter and the winds were blowing 40 to 50 miles an hour. there was smoke and fire everywhere. all i could do was look and say to mike thompson, our congressmen, who had been in vietnam, "it looks like a war went on down there. it looks like a bomb." and he kept turning to me and saying, "yeah, that's what it looks like, but it's actually worse. hard to talk about still. those first few days were so hard. we didn't sleep much. we worked all the time. - the night of october 8th, we had a wind storm, and that wind storm led to 17 different fire starts across this landscape all around santa rosa. those 17 fires sort of rushed into each other and became two main large fire events. stop lights were out. the power was out. people did not know which direction to go. it was really chaotic. - [news reporter] th