Watch live: Three California fires burn out of control in LA, Orange and San Bernardino Counties

from 138 all the way back to town one long line wow where are you now Mr kesana I I'm in Pondville I got wow I got out because when I got there they would let me to my street which is uh on the west side of town the last the second to the last street so I went the backway knowing I could walk across the Ravine to get to my street when I did that so fireman sworn me and said you got to go and at that time I looked up the fire was on the rich across the street and the winds were really swirling and they said you got to go now and I ran back to my car got him in the car and hit a back but I Want To Praise those firemen they were all over the place and Mak sure the homes were protected as well as possible um um my neighbor sent me a link there was a fire at the bottom of the hill on Highway two at Flume which is one street over and that was all on fire and Mr Cala do you know whether your home is okay at this time yes I'm at home I have my security cameras on I'm checking them periodically and I see no action I see no fire Chuck in front of my house just tells me there's no fire around my house so that point at this point so that's good news that means the utilities are up at least the Wi-Fi is working and you can see your cameras are are showing you that the area around your house at least for now is safe right yes hopefully it's it's it stays that way I've been to two fighs and that's side of town and they knocked him out so quick so I have great praise for our firefighters who are protect our homes you can't save everybody but this is the worst I've been there for 12 years this is the worst I've ever seen how dark and red it just well we're sorry that you have to have to watch this uh Mr quesada but at least thank goodness that your your home is okay what about your neighbors can you see their homes around you is it your the area where you are that's been uh relatively safe yeah what I saw the only I saw was it on the hillsite next to the homes at the last Street and that was it and they the firefighters were looking North at the peak seeing if if the flame were coming over so that's when they tell me you got to get out of here you can't go to your house you got to go so uh the drive there was for not but I'm glad I got to see the street intact for now and uh they they're doing uh what they do absolutely are up there everybody's up there they got to tone uh I'm sorry the town Buton down uh we were when of the last people to leave but that line out of that town was long all from 138 all into town one line I think you said are you with your girlfriend yes well that's good all right so so uh Mr quesada then the good thing here is that your your home is still intact you got out and you are with somebody that you care about so you guys are together I'm wondering absolutely okay we just want to count those little blessings we can get them so just wanted to point that out uh to you was there any way that you could get something that you really needed I'm thinking in terms of medicine or really important papers is was that um something that was very important to you or or not well the few things I wanted to get I have real real tapes of my music from my entire life uh so I wanted to get those tapes out of there uh I wasn't able to do that and my uh uh almost new uh Canam motorcycle is in the garage I was trying to get that out too but it's still there so hopefully we'll be okay indeed well keep us posted Mr gasa you got it and God bless our firefighters absolutely oh thank you thank you very much well critical fire weather is with us at least through tomorrow and K Cal meter just dein tabed has our next weather forecast dein we left here last night didn't expect that this was going to happen today nope absolutely not I mean we are really none of us even in the last few hours we've seen these changes and here we are in Lake Elenor right and we are getting a look at the current conditions and as we do you'll see 83 degrees along the fire line so it's still really warm and remember we are tracking Three Fires at the moment but we are taking a look at the latest conditions in Lake elnor where wind is is calm and humidity is at 33% so of course with evacuations happening smoke continues to be a concern along with fire and people leaving the area for example we were just talking about residents in rightwood well I personally know a friend who just left rightwood went to Palm Springs to try to get away of course and vacate and evacuate and they're dealing with smoke in the Coachella Valley and pretty bad smoke so really anywhere you go in Southern California we're looking at really tough conditions even if you're not along the immediate fire line let's take a closer look at what's happening right here and you will see wind is mostly calm and it's slated to stay calm throughout the night for the most part rightwood we are seeing wind gust which is not good of course because that is really where we want to see calm conditions wind wise and right now we're at 19 miles hour I'm going to step off and show you relative humidity right now we're in the single digits in Malibu of course no fire to speak of and we want to keep it that way but we don't want singled digigit relative humidity we do want relative humidity to be in the double digits and generally speaking that is the case tonight we're at 36% for Big Bear and as we head to the IE you're going to see we're mostly in the 20 to 30% range air quality continues to be a big concern for all of us through the San Gabriel Valley the LA County mountains right there Orange County and all of the IE predominantly through Riverside County all Alo through san berino county the Coachella Valley we're looking at very poor air quality and that air quality alert has now been extended through tomorrow night so that Wildfire smoke is continuing to increase air pollution at least through then so certainly be careful if you plan to be outside as we take a look at your future cast right here you will see the heaviest smoke starting to come through the IE and continuing this has been the case the last couple of hours and it will continue to be the case as we head to the next couple of hours you you'll see the worst of the smoke through the Inland Empire and through our Santa Ana mountain and Foothill communities as well let's take a closer look at that Red Flag Warning yes it remains in effect for the LA County mountains but pretty much critical fire weather really stays with us through tomorrow night wind speeds calm with the exception of the high desert we're keeping our eyes on the high desert where we are looking at windy conditions for the next couple of days good news as far as the firefight goes and we always want to hear good news as temperature are really starting to cool they cooled today and they're going to continue to cool tomorrow you'll notice right here that we were about 10° cooler on average even more so Pasadena 21 degrees cooler this is really now compared to this time last night it's going to continue to cool we're looking at southerly winds that's your Marine layer that's going to come in and keep temperatures nice and cool compared to where we've been we're already in the 60s closer to the coast and as we head into the basin Orange County in the 70s far departure from the 80s and 90s we are seeing in the overnight hours the IE as we mentioned in the 80s tonight and we will start to see a little more cooling overnight Palm Springs though at a Hot 100 and yes we are looking at smoke through the Coachella Valley as we get look at my next weather 7-day forecast I just want to focus on that cool down and I just want to let you know a light at the end of the tunnel as far as critical fire weather goes it's going to be 10 to even 20 degrees below average for this time of year over the coming days so a huge drop in temperatures and we need that right about now Pat Juan back to you what a difference in temperatures Evelyn thank you so much well homes are also being destroyed by the airport fire tonight and our Lori parz is live on the Riverside County side of that fire in Lake Elenor and hopefully breathing a little better hey Lori y trying to at least the first thing I want to show you though is the uh Street behind us it might still be a little wet because just a few minutes ago air support did fly overhead and make a drop they were trying to get a hold of those Flames across the street there that were really uh flaring up and and and threatening to to go uh even larger onto some of the trees around there uh that same air support we watched really amazingly as it uh went over this house over here across the street here that uh caught fire about an hour ago and with amazing precision made two drops it circled around made a drop made circled back got water came back made another uh drop with amazing Precision right on top of that property unfortunately you know not enough to save it you can see really just the shell of that house remains uh looking up the hill really just the skeleton of the house but they did uh make the drop to try and get a hold of the fire you know this is really we are in the thick of it you know as many fires as I've covered I have to say this is about as close to the front lines as we have ever been um and watching these firefighters work has really been remarkable they are really on top of it uh to the right here you might be able to see a ground uh crew here we've been watching as they have been spraying water on some of the uh fires into this little Valley that keep um igniting and getting bigger and larger you might be able to hear all of these uh fire trucks that are going up and down this mountain again we are on the Ortega Highway just uh outside of Lake Elenor downtown we were heading up trying to get up uh to a neighborhood um El cariso Street where we understood that there were some fires uh that were burning down houses across the street you can see uh this Hillside which is ignited has also come um unbelievably close to a house over there it's kind of difficult to see because of all the smoke but maybe where you can see those emergency lights that's where uh more firefighters are stationed as they try and prevent the Flames from getting to a house that's up there we walked up there uh to see what we could see it was kind of difficult that property is is pretty steep so we couldn't really see much but we could see firefighters were in the backyard uh really uh on alert making sure that the Flames didn't get any closer to the house at least not yet but that sound and that sight of that air support is certainly very welcome this fire again uh this morning was about 8,000 acres and by tonight uh last check which I'm sure um it has grown since then but last check it was 19,000 Acres more than 19,000 Acres 500 plus firefighters 110 fire engines all assigned to this um and and they probably likely need more because their are there are fires everywhere we look around here um and it's just so expensive expansive growing so quickly that uh they really need all the help that they can get and it has been remarkable I will say again to really see them this close to see what they are trying to do to get control and to keep it we can understand why there are so many evacuations because even in the time that we have been here we've seen how unpredictable um and fickle this fire has been you know it we got here there was no fire over here now that's totally engulfed including that house we got here there was a little fire over here not much now this is totally engulfed I mean this is what these guys are going to have to deal with it's what they have been dealing with um since yesterday Orange County lawmakers uh did declare a state of emergency we understand now the governor um is uh also declaring a state of emergency which will of course open up other tools financial and other support um as they continue to try and battle this Blaze guys back to you indeed the firefight continues resources are strained and hopefully more help is on the way thank you Lori all right here's another live look at the airport fire this time from the Orange County side and we do have a Creer live on the ground in the Robinson Ranch neighborhood of Rancho Santa Margarita and you can see some Flames burning on a hillside above those homes I remember talking about this area yesterday when we were on the airan and and and Mike and um there were mandatory evacuations in place obviously people have have still left let's hope so because even just looking at those Flames they still look relatively close looks like they're far away right now but that could change at any moment and we were witnessing this yesterday as we saw it in Lor's report there very quick there a lot of changes yeah mhm yeah just that glow over the over the hillside has got to be concerning for homeowners and over over the course of two counties which is just is kind of you know crazy as well yeah and I was just looking at that shot I wonder if they have power in the area cuz I didn't see many lights on in that home yeah that's a very good possibility too we'll have to check with Southern California Edison and you guys we're also talking about the bridge fire which is burned in the Angeles National Forest uh and I want to show you some new video here uh from my computer we'll go to that really quick if we can this is from the Mountain High Ski Resort this is one of their cameras this is a chairlift right here uh and I want to show you this camera all of their cameras by the way are Now offline uh but you can see the intense Flames burning right up against the chairlift there I I noticed in one of the other videos that we were looking at as well uh you know Mountain High in the in the winter right if it's not if it's cold enough they can make snow right and that is done by by pumping water through these very good pumps look at the flames on the right side of the screen they're just really crazy uh they had those on uh obviously they're not trying to make snow but they're trying to do what they can to try to protect their equipment themselves from the Flames but I you know look at that Flames just ripping through and again I mean since you've been talking the Flames have gotten even bigger that's what's been remarkable and you know I had to check on these cameras to make sure it wasn't a time lapse you know cuz some of the other cameras are time-lapsed this is not a time-lapse camera these are just the intensity and the speed of these Flames that are just absolutely look at that incredible and how tall the flame lengths are oh my it's like they're creating their own fire which we know can happen right fire weather absolutely I mean just the the sheer force of it and you know look as much as you know the mountain high is trying and God bless them for doing it uh you know the the the snowmakers unfortunately are not going to be able to stop this this is what they've been worried about and again as I mentioned they've got a number of cameras there at Mountain High that are all offline and and we talk about the rightwood community um that is a community that relies on businesses like this this is a tourist destination the ski resort in particular is probably their largest tourist destination money maker and not only for them but for the airbnbs the small hotels the restaurants everything like that uh that relies so heavily on them now I also had a chance to speak with in the 7:00 hour I called a business up there a hotel uh just kind of looked at the map picked one and called it and she said look they've been evacuated they they got out actually before the evacuation warnings came in because they saw kind of the right on the wall here I I want you to take a listen to to what she had to say about the community of rightwood and about what this is going to mean for them as I am in the hospitality you know um vacation rental industry uh it's extremely heartbreaking because the reason I started the business was to share this town with other people yeah oh so yeah it's it's very heartbreaking yeah you can hear it in in her voice there you know she got out safely thankfully and like we heard from that other gentleman she was watching uh kind of what was going down on her security cameras at her properties at the time that we had talked to her in the 7:00 hour those things were okay but you just you look at some of these pictures these are this is also a new video into The Newsroom here of the fire burning in rightwood and and what firefighters are up against over there uh and it really it's it's it's very devastating especially for a community like that and and the impact it's going to have on the upcoming snow season right the because you have the chairlifts are down if the trees are burned I mean the beauty of being up there the beautiful community and I hate to be Debbie Downer but you know what we've been talking about even before um these fires started Insurance oh for goodness sakes and how insurance rates have have gone up um incredibly and looking at something like this you mean if you you own a home or business you've got to feel oh come on now I've got to catch a break well and you talk about the long lasting you know impacts of this too I mean you know this winter we're going to be talking about mudslides uh we're going to be talking about the potential the damage that rainfall is going to do to that Community it's just something when burn scars yeah when you have images like this I mean this is you know years if not longer that these guys are going to be having to deal with this K let's um refresh our viewers mins right now and even ours in terms of it's been difficult with air power yeah because of how blinding this smoke is yeah I mean look I mean Sky cow is certainly not a firefighting helicopter but I tried to get him uh around here to to the mountain high to the rightwood to the pinion area and we couldn't do it the smoke was just too intense uh we've seen that down in Lake Elenor as well where Lori was they the even the night dropping helicopters those are done using night Vis um but they can't see through smoke too dangerous right the smoke I mean we're you know we're we're thankful that there is no wind right but that or not a lot of wind but that lack of wind is also keeping the smoke in place and making it harder for those firefighting helicopters to uh really kind of do what they need to do in the and then we talk about at night time there is no you know aircraft uh fix wi aircraft that are able to be up there because of the danger at night so it's just it's a real tough situation all topography driven until you get into these valleys where you have the communities like rightwood and hopefully well we you know we have to bear it overnight yep until we could till the daylight comes and they can get uh some more Firepower out there in terms of uh uh water dropping CH Chopper fire whatever tools that are necessary that are able to fly and the fact that um has been talking about our temperatures going down that will be helpful for sure yeah certainly helpful and you know sun comes up and we will get those uh aircraft in the air but we're competing this is one of three major fires in our area and three of other major fires across Northern California and even Northern Nevada is dealing with a really big fire right now as well with those resources are getting pulled over there at Daybreak we're going to see a lot of damage from this fire for sure mhm okay guys well let's move on here to the San Bernardino Mountains where homes are burning in running Springs tonight and the Western half of Big Bear Lake is evacuating SC KCAL news reporter Nicole comto live and Running Springs with the latest Nicole you guys the line fire has been burning now for 6 days and fire Crews have been out here that entire time dealing with extreme heat out here over 100° on some days and super dry conditions look at how dry the grass is here this is just a little bit of the brush that we're dealing with you can also see down behind us in the hillside here the fire blazed right through this Canyon here in Running Springs earlier today and now these are all trees that are still smoldering unfortunately we did lose a home out here earlier this evening that was near Pine Cone Drive in the 3:30 and you can really just hear the winds in this video here that we're going to send you to to give you an idea of how intense it was the conditions that firefighters were dealing with earlier this evening take a listen and firefighters did make a stand in this neighborhood but unfortunately they couldn't save that home there from burning the line fire started Thursday in Highland now it's headed toward Big Bear Valley although calfire says it's not quite there yet so there's still quite a bit of distance between the flames in that area the line fire is about 32,000 acres in size so it grew again today 14% contained so they have made some progress but it's still really windy out here and that was the problem today with the wind pushing the fire to the North and the East and getting here to Running Springs they're currently about 65,000 structures threatened 9,000 people under evacuation orders and another 56,000 people under evacuation warnings that there was a Red Flag Warning today until 8:00 again the the low humidity the dry vegetation that's making it difficult for firefighters to contain to uh create control lines out here and protect homes we talked to a couple of homeowners just a short time ago about how fast this fire moved into Running Springs earlier this evening take a listen to them I was going to evacuate to Big Bear but now they shut that down the only way out of here from what I understand is Highway 18 and that's it it's crazy we have so many trees and some brush around the houses and with these hot Embers look out they evacuated us they were going to start stopping the fire on the end of our property we got to the bottom of the street it came ripping through here and we heard a couple bangs and we knew it was a house leveled it yeah all you see is posts up there so unfortunate to see when firefighters aren't able to get control of those Flames they did do a really good job of protecting Running Springs a lot of the town here is just coated with this pink fire retardant including much of the guard rails here along the 3:30 the town itself all the businesses here in Running Springs look really good so we want to let every know it's not like there's a lot of damage here to a lot of homes or a lot of businesses all we've seen so far is that one home that was completely destroyed but then just a ton of the you know beautiful landscape out here that's completely blackened now um a lot of guard rails along the 330 on the way up here the wooden parts of those were burned down so that will be a huge construction project once the fire has finished burning through here gin Newsome already declared of State a state of emergency in San Bernardino County several days ago so that allowed them to activate the National Guard in this area to help bring more Blackhawk helicopters to have just more boots on the ground to help sheriff's deputies too you know small mountain towns like this they don't like evacuating to begin with especially not when they're worried about their homes being safe they're always kind of worried about looting or anyone coming to look around in their neighborhood the sheriff's department says people don't have to worry about that they even have undercovered units out here making sure that none of that takes place and they say if it does people will be arrested and prosecuted accordingly another you know sad note another piece of Destruction we've seen out here posts online from people who uh are closely connected to the oldest continuous serving fire lookout in the San Bernardino National Forest which is the Keller Peak fire lookout that was destroyed in the Flames too today when they you know made that Northeastern push and made their way into Running Springs uh some of the resources from this fire we had a lot of a lot more aerial resources earlier today some of them have been sent over to the bridge fire just west of us here for tonight the ground Crews will really be monitoring the Flames out here and continuing to build containment Lines continuing to defend any homes and again they say that the fire is making its way into the area making its way toward Big Bear Valley so lots of people there in a portion of Big Bear Valley are now also under evacuation orders people there if you've been told to go fire officials say you should definitely leave now because if you've learned anything from what happened out here today these winds are really erratic when they pick up and they're uncertain you know where the fire is going to go next so if they're telling you it's coming into your neighborhood it's best to just leave now when it's still safe to do so we'll send it back to you in the studio some good advice sir Nicole thank you well critical fire weather will be with us at least through tomorrow and here's K Cal meter just Evin tap with our next weather forecast I can't wait to see those numbers though look better they're going to look a lot better Paton Juan temperatures are cooling drastically as we head to tomorrow and that is great news as far as the firefight is concerned even though we're still looking at critical fire conditions and red flag warnings in effect through tomorrow so we don't want to let our guards down and of course we're still contending with three fires burning through Southern California and again conditions will get better so that will certainly help in the firefight right now we're looking at 19 mph wind gusts for rightwood that is really the only spot looking at gusts of course rightwood we don't want to see that wind right now but it will get calmer overnight no other gusts to speak of of course it's a different story on the fire lines where we've been talking about fire creating its own forecast and it does because we have updraft wins downdraft wins and when that happens we start to get a little bit of rotation and that creates its own fire weather right there so sometimes when you look at a fire line you will see it does look windy and you start to see that rotation up above the ridgetops so at the moment again Lower elev anywhere around the fire it is calm and it is slated to stay calm at this point relative humidity a big piece of the pie because of course we want to see relative humidity in the double digits we don't want to see single digits and we certainly don't want to see teens so we're mostly out of double digits uh excuse me teens and single digits we are in the double digits tonight and we will see recoveries continue overnight as southerly winds move in and we're going to see a more moisture in the air these are your Marine sort of that Marine influence that comes in that's going to make us cooler and that's going to bring a little more moisture into the forecast as well so it'll help relative humidity and it will cool temperatures down we do have that air quality alert that's remaining in effect through tomorrow night it could get extended as these fires continue to burn we are looking at pretty bad air quality through parts of Orange County not all of Orange County but Parts at the moment we're looking at bad air quality through our Santa Ana mountain and Foothill community also through parts of the IE and the San Gabriel Valley and as winds continue to shift and smoke continues to move we could see spots get worse or get better depending on the winds where the winds are as we get a look at your future cast you will see right here we're looking at some of that thick smoke and the thickest smoke is still sitting through the IE and will continue to this is been the last couple of hours now as we continue into the next couple of hours it will continue to Trend in the IE red yep that means thick smoke and that's what we're going to continue to contend with through tomorrow red also means Red Flag Warning which is just critical fire danger it's hot dry and yes Breezy thankfully we're not looking at widespread wind advisories but we do have some going up tomorrow lasting through Thursday for the South Coast that's over Santa Barra County and for the high desert as well so we will continue to track the wind we're tracking cooler temperatures all already much cooler tonight compared to this time last night 16° cooler Burbank Pasadena 20 so you're you're really noticing temperatures cooler for the most part with the exception of Big Bear where we are slightly warmer tonight compared to this time last night temperatures all across town in the 60s and 70s again this is just so much cooler than where we've been and this is great news as far as the firefight is concerned so we will continue to stay positive as we move into the overnight hours and tomorrow at as that wind starts to come in that southerly surge the Marine layer and the cooler temperatures again not Gusty wind but a sea breeze that will keep things just a little cooler across the board even Inland still contending with warm weather tonight and as we get a look at that extended forecast for the weekend you will see temperatures taking quite the dip more of course on that extended forecast and we're going to continue to keep our eyes peeled on the fire lines I do want to give you a little piece leave you with a little nugget of good news we were talking about cooling through tomorrow but take a look this cool down will last for the next 6 to 10 days in fact by next week we could see numbers 10 to 20° below average with maybe just maybe a few showers at this point we will absolutely take that Pat Juan back to you you said it Evelyn thank you now to the bridge fire burning in the San Gabriel mountains now this fire just exploded in size tonight even more and it's now threatening the Reserve community of rightwood we've been showing you pictures but Cal assignment editor Mike Rogers Live at the desk he has new pictures of this fire yeah and actually Pat and ju excuse me they are live pictures our photographer just got up into the rightwood community I want to show you uh his live pictures there from the ground this is the community that has been uh under an evacuation order we're working on get those photos for you or those live pictures for you rather here in a minute but I do have another piece of brand new video that has come into The Newsroom uh this was sent to us by a viewer who uh was evacuated from the homes I want you to take a listen to this kind of chaotic [Music] scene emergency evacuation you can hear the messaging uh going on in that uh video this is what you remember Nicole comto had talked about this they equipped those patrol cars with those kind of specialized sirens and you can hear absolutely how loud that is especially in a canyon and it's just I I got to point out this is about 4 in the afternoon and how Eerie everything looks it's yeah you guys are right it's dark it's it's just so Smoky that's been like the real kind of common theme here we've got some other video uh that we can show you that's coming to The Newsroom tonight and unfortunately it does show uh those homes that have burned down unfortunately lots of structures uh in this kind of situation here in the rightwood area we of course as we've been talking about we'll have to kind of wait uh until tomorrow where we can get daylight hours kind of get a better grasp on exactly how much damage was done but look at that just this Inferno coming out of those uh buildings and those homes there uh as they you deal with all of this and of course we talked about the ski resort of of rightwood mountain high that appears to have some damage as well that we looked at from uh from their cameras too so just a really kind of incredible issue and situation going on up there we feel for the people up there of course we're hoping that a lot of people got evacuated out of that uh and not just in the rightwood community but even Beyond even to the north on the San Bernardino County side in the high desert there is also um you know evacuations up there so we're talking now even beyond the mountain that they are concerned about which is just kind of wild to think the progress uh that the fire has made there's no question about that and might just have to say you know if you've never I'm glad we have that video um if you've never heard that yourself you know it is really something to to hear those Sirens go through your neighborhood and and be on the loudspeaker telling you to evacuate immediately it is it is it is sobering and even those pictures of these flames you know that's a reminder that's what they don't want to see they don't want you to witness what could possibly happen in your neighborhood when it come around like that it looks calm right now it's just very smoky but looking at those Flames should be that's top of mine for them as well and look how much brush is close to this home here too which we've seen a lot of it over the last few weeks well and there's a reason they go around and still do this you know old school style I'll say where they take a patrol car through because uh all the cameras that we're using to monitor these have gone offline because of power outages or fire damage or what have you cell phone signals can go offline because of these issues so uh that's the good oldfashioned drive- through the neighborhood and blare the siren and and try to get people out of there and even if that that happens overnight yeah witness to that you wake up and hear something like that well that's that's letting you know okay it's time to go and hopefully everyone is kind of already you know heated the warning and gotten out of there and hopefully there's no surprises in the overnight hours yeah we do hope that you know as we talk to Evelyn more and more and and hear about the temperatures going down the Marine layer all that and we hope that that happens okay uh we want to show you what we've been talking about on our map here we have three major fires burning in our area that bridge fire in the San Gabriel mountains above Glendora um we've been talking about it just growing to 34,000 Acres tonight and it has burned all the way to rightwood as you saw pictures there we're also watching the line fire that's above Highland in the San Bernardino Mountains and they have evacuations in order tonight in the city of Big Bear Lake and the airport fire which began in trabo Canyon in Orange County has now burned across the tops of the Santa Ana mountains and it is burning homes in the lake elener area as we speak in Riverside County yeah homes and also as it came through the Cleveland National Forest also chewed up a California Conservation Corp uh area as well which just this whole thing has just been so surprising to see the amount of progress that the fire has made uh just yesterday this fire started in the 1:00 hour it has already chewed through a significant portion of the uh Cleveland National Forest as it pushes through now to the Riverside County site and I can tell you around 2:00 this afternoon uh 2 or 3:00 this afternoon is when we heard about the structure burning at the California Conservation Corps which is in the middle of the forest there and then it continued on and around 5:00 we had already heard that it was burning homes in the lake Elenor area which is so far from where this fire started which is what is kind of one of the most shocking things about this of just the sheer progress uh that these fires are able to make not only that fire that we're talking about in the uh airport fire in tribal Canyon the Glendora over at the bridge fire that has just chewed through a significant amount of area 30,000 plus acres for both the bridge fire and the line fire uh and then the airport fire of course chewing through a significant amount and I want to point out on the left there you see those Flames kind of shooting around that is from the lake Elenor side of the airport fire where uh it appeared maybe propane tanks were going up gas main lines going up as well so a lot of uh kind of significant uh issues for firefighters to deal with not only are they trying to get people out of there which we had heard that there were people that were unable to evacuate themselves that needed that help uh but then additionally to have to deal with these kind of Hazards uh that they're dealing with as well as we wrap up our 9:00 hour I want to give it over to Susie sa johy Glover joining us here uh for uh KCAL news at 10:00 now all right thank you Mike good evening everyone I'm Susie Su alongside Chanty Glover Mike Rogers on the desk and Desmond Shaw in Sky Cal tonight we have been covering these three major wildfires burning in Southern California all day here on KCAL and it has been a night of Rapid Fire growth uncontrolled and dense flames in LA orange and San Bernardino counties Crews stretch thin fighting three massive fires all at once and another night of intense fires here raging all across counties here in Southern California the airport fire spreading from trugo Canyon in Orange County now to Lake Elenor the line fire in San Bernardino County threatening Big Bear Lake tonight we do have live team coverage for you let's get right to assignment editor Mike Rogers following the bridge in the San Gabriel mountains Mike yeah Susie and chony just the sheer growth of that fire has really kind of been exceptional I want to start if we can with live pictures uh we just got a photographer up in that area who uh is kind of providing these live pictures and look at that you can actually see uh that fire burning this is right off of uh the uh Highway uh that goes through town there the Angeles National Forest or Angeles Crest Highway I should say that goes through town there uh and that's what they've been dealing with and that's what's unfortunately kind of put us in this predicament that we're in right now uh with these fires and there you go more live pictures here as it appears it might be a structure or an out building of some sort uh that is burning there and that is not the first time we've seen that we've seen those homes burning as well and what we've also seen if we can come to my computer really quick uh is this uh dramatic video from the ski resort look at that wall of flames that is just chewing through uh the ski resort there that is obviously a chairlift in the center of the screen uh Susie and johon I was noticing earlier when I was looking at these videos uh the resort tried to turn on their uh snowmaking machines obviously it's too hot to make snow but it does it by shooting water into the air and I saw that in some of their videos that they were trying to to deal with that uh we also talked with a a rightwood resident uh it's important to point out rightwood is a tourism town it's a tourism Economy based largely on this ski resort uh so the the the long lasting impacts uh will be here for sure in this situation and we talk to her about kind of what this means for this this uh town I am in the hospitality you know um vacation rental industry uh it's extremely heartbreaking because the reason I started the business was to share this town with other people yeah so yeah it's it's very heartbreaking yeah and you look at the wall of flames this is video from a little bit earlier uh that is is you know just kind of pouring through uh the the area here of the town of rightwood and I want to ask if we can go back to those live pictures really quickly I I just want to check in one more time this is kind of our first uh look at being able to get in there and and you see that just really incredible there is just fire everywhere uh here uh and unfortunately it has just made quite the Trek through uh the forest the Angeles National Forest and now we are watching things uh burn in this community this very uh kind of you know nice Community I I think this is a community that people go to to get away from the city right it's one of our gems that we have here uh where you don't have to go too too far to get out of the city and go experience some of the Forest uh same with Big Bear we unfortunately we're also dealing with that as well you guys so uh it's just there's a lot going on uh you feel for the people that are up there that are constantly dealing with this sus and chy yeah so heartbreaking to see that all right Mike thank you very much well homes also going up in flames in the airport fire our Lori Perez live tonight in the Riverside County side of the fire in Lake Elenor Lori yes we moved uh further up Highway uh the Ortega Highway because so we wanted to see what else we could see if for locals or anyone who's familiar with the area uh we're at the lookout Roadhouse and what a Vista it has tonight take a look at the mountain side behind me all of it just on fire anyone down below has to be looking up just in sheer amazement at the number of fires and the the extent of the fire here in the mountains and we we came up this way because we wanted to go head up towards uh El cariso road which is a neighborhood where we understand uh homes were burning earlier today and I'll tell you we did get up there and I feel like I got punched in the stomach we are going to go back there to get some video for you to show you what remains I know we do have some video from earlier today as the houses were burning tonight it is devastating just shells of houses uh one after the other throughout the entire neighborhood we were having some trouble with uh cell service so we had to come back down to do this live shot for you and found this unbel believable site uh where we are as well but uh really just remarkable teamwork going on here tonight as uh hundreds of firefighters are are stationed throughout this area trying to get a hold of this fire to keep it under control we have witnessed ourselves uh you know we were yards from a house that caught fire and within the hour it was gone we were we witnessed as fires popped up where there was no fire when we first arrived we witnessed as you know hillsides that were completely calm and and not on fire tonight are completely burned I mean this has really been um in the thick of it we have been able to get a a remarkable Viewpoint um really as close to the front lines as I have ever been watching these firefighters um tackle what is more more than 19,000 Acres now this airport fire it of course started on Monday uh OC officials declared a state of emergency I understand the government now has also which of course will open up other tools financial and otherwise to help assist um in the response to this um you know when we first arrived one of the things was it the smoke was so dense and thick that we really uh did not see any air support in the last hour we have seen that um begin again we've watched some remarkable uh Precision by the pilots of those planes really pinpointing um hotpots and and dropping the water right on top of it I mean it's just unbelievable and really interesting to see from So Close Up um and again then just all these firefighters uh trying to keep the Flames from um jumping the Ortega Highway again though they already did that uh earlier today they have a lot to do tonight um and uh we really give it to them for everything that they are trying to do again there are evacuations throughout Lake Elenor we certainly understand why that is because uh this fire right before our own eyes has been growing so exponentially uh a lot more uh work to do through tonight and certainly probably uh for days to come guys back to you Lori you were mentioning El cariso Road um since the 8:00 hour that many homes were burned along that road now you showed us at least two homes that were burning during your life Shots tonight unfortunately we saw that happening um were those homes along El cariso as well they were not so that was that spot where we were was um a little bit further down maybe about 3/4 of a mile or mile from El cariso um and those homes were kind of isolated it was actually just one home that caught fire and the other home uh nearly caught fire I mean the Flames were very very close but had not yet caught fire um in fact I can probably see it from here but it's hard to tell um we would have to go back down but again we did make our way up to that El cariso Road and oh Lori would would you say it's difficult to see would you say at least a dozen homes or more I know Lor's may be having some uh trouble hearing us because of the helicopters overhead um but she's been talking to us about how they have been back since smoke has been cleared Lori I just wanted to ask you when you were on El cariso Road I know it was so heartbreaking to see all the homes up there destroyed how many would you say could you count about I mean we had we were just actually on the street entering into the road so we hadn't even gone into the neighborhood yet and I mean I could see I mean the whole side of one street so maybe at least four or five houses in that one area where we were um and that but then we could see where things were still burning it kind of laid the outline of where the other houses were I mean a lot and really so emotional to see it really because as you said when you think about those is like this morning they had a house and now they don't it's just devastating it really is it is all right thank you so much our lari Paris there in Lake Elenor now we want to take you on the other side to the other side of this uh fire you see these homes not affected right now but we know so many families had to flee just in an instant uh as these fires continue to rage you see there in the distance uh that fire right there um just a little bit of flames you can see there in the dark uh tonight but we know the airport fire now um has grown to nearly 20,000 Acres uh of course evacuation warnings in a place in place still there tonight uh as uh Crews Tred to work to get this fire contained uh to keep it from uh spreading further as we've watched it grow and grow tonight uh Susie I remember when we first went to Lori earlier tonight um she was she was there on the side of the road and you could just see small flames and then then mediumsized flames and then we just watched a house just go up in Flames here in this area so much has been happening in the last few hours and this is um a live shot that you're looking at uh from the Orange County side in Rancho Santa Margarita in a neighborhood there and as we mentioned this airport fire started in Orange County and then jumped into the lake elnor area covering a lot of ground one thing if it's any kind of positive news that I'm noticing tonight is that this shot 2 hours ago during the 8:00 hour you can see a lot more Flames actual flamage so you know the fact that it's a little bit more small and um you know it just goes to show you first of all you know the work that firefighters are doing there out there tirelessly throughout the night in the air and on the ground trying to save these homes and especially in this heat of the weather that we've been dealing with lately and now to the San Bernardino Mountains where homes there are burning in Running Springs tonight and the Western half of Big Bear Lake is also evacuating tonight KCAL news reporter Nicole comto is live right now in Running Springs with the very latest from there Nicole yeah you guys you know everyone can see these three fires burning in our area now pretty much everyone can smell the smoke from them too but firefighters have been working up here in San Bernardino County for six straight days now battling the line fire dealing with incredibly hot conditions out here here over 100° dealing with thunderstorms eratic winds and super dry brush I mean this is like straw out here this was what was all the way down in this Canyon that completely burned down today when this fire moved through this area in Running Springs and now you can see that those are just pine trees down there still smoldering tonight unfortunately we did lose a home here today in Running Springs as the fire continued to move to the North and the East that was a home your pine cone Drive in the 3:30 listen to the winds in this video when you're seeing this home that burned down and that'll give you a good idea of what firefighters we're dealing with out here absolutely crazy conditions out here and you can see the air resources that they had to use to try to put these Flames out and prevent them from spreading to other homes and businesses the line fire started Thursday all the way out in Highland now it's making its way toward Big Bear although calfire says it still has quite a ways to burn to get to Big Bear Valley they do have people under evacuation orders though because they know they need to get out of there now while it's still safe to do so the line fire is now about 30 just a little bit under actually 33,000 acres in size and 14% contained so they have been able to make some good progress on it but the winds are just really unpredictable out here and that's what did some damage out here today there are currently about 65,000 structures they still believe are threatened by this fire 9,000 people under evacuation orders and 56 6,000 people more under evacuation warnings so many people in these Mountain communities affected by this fire it's continuing to grow in steep terrain calire says with very difficult access for them especially in the Big Bear area steep hills just making it really hard for them to put in control lines they tell us the fire has impacted key radio towers on Keller Peak including Burning Down the Keller Peak fire lookout which is the oldest continuous serving fire lookout in the San Bernardino National Forest here's some neighbors we spoke with earlier today who were in the process of evacuating I was going to evacuate to Big Bear but now they shut that down the only way out of here from what I understand is Highway 18 and that's it it's crazy we have so many trees and some brush around the houses and with these hot Embers look out they evacuated us they were going to start stopping the fire on the end of our property we got to the bottom of the street it came ripping through here and we heard a couple bangs and we knew it was a house it yeah all you see is posts up there so unfortunate that firefighters weren't able to save that home there they tried their hardest with aerial resources and with Crews on the ground and they've made a really big stand here in Running Springs you can see the fire retardant here on the guard rails behind me this is along the 330 this whole road is completely covered in fire retardant the town of Running Springs 2 behind us is also pink tonight which is a good sign it means that the businesses here are safe from what we've seen so far it only looks like that one home was destroyed out here we're not hearing about any any injuries I think there may have been a couple of minor firefighter injuries in the past couple of days but it sounds like most people in that neighborhood where the home burned down evacuated when they were supposed to they were able to get to safety Tuesday night tonight we're expecting even stronger winds to pick up with this fire which will create even lower humidity and unfortunately they're expecting more fire spread tonight the only good thing they have working in their favor is it's cooler up here in the mountains it's about 65° here right now so it's actually really cool and that's going to help firefighters get a little bit of relief as they're fighting this fire uh overnight Governor Gavin Newsome already declared a state of emergency up here a couple of days ago so the National Guard is already up here helping them with Blackhawk helicopters just with more boots on the ground too um the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department wanted to make sure they didn't have anyone coming up into these neighborhoods with evacuated homes and trying to steal anything trying to do any looting or breaking in they said they have undercover deputies out here making sure that that doesn't happen they say anyone caught doing so will be uh arrested and prosecuted so the sheriff wanting to make sure that everybody uh feels safe being able to go to a safer area and evacuate and we know that a lot of the resources from this fire earlier today were sent over to the bridge fire we are hearing at least one aerial crew back in this area right now but firefighters are stretched so thin between these Three Fires we have burning in our area right now they really have to move people and the air resources around to where you know there's the biggest threat to life and property and I think that's why we were seeing some of the resources moving over to the west of us to that fire they still know they have quite a ways for these Flames to make it to Big Bear Valley so hopefully overnight the cooler conditions will help out but they are expecting more fire spread in that area we'll send it back to you in the studio all right Nicole stock live in Running Springs tonight thank you so much for your updates throughout the evening tonight Nicole thank you well let's go back to our Mike Rogers is at the desk now Mike you have some new information on evacuation orders on the bridge fire right I I do but actually I I have some more breaking news that we just got from the San Marino County Sheriff's Office on Nicole's fire they have arrested a man for arson suspected of starting that fire the line fire is what they're calling it I'm just going to read this to you this just came in he's a 34-year-old man uh resident of norco they identified him as the person that they accuse of starting the fire in the area of Baseline Road in alpen Street in the city of Highland uh and as we Nicole mentioned back on September 5th he was arrested today uh located and arrested being held at the central Detention Center on arson in Li of $80,000 bail that they worked with calfire investigators and again uh this just came into The Newsroom San Marino County Sheriff's Department making an arrest accusing somebody in of arson uh and starting the line fire that fire that we've been telling you is now devastating that Community we coal is so I just wanted to make sure I got you that information uh I also want to go now to what we were talking about the bridge fire I want to show you some live pictures there from the bridge fire uh where we are unfortunately seeing structures burn this is uh live pictures again uh now 30,000 plus acres these live pictures are coming from the rightwood area our photographer Joe Ruiz there I want to point out a couple of things first of all the glow what's on fire look in his shot at all the Embers that are coming across the screen right there you've been seeing it every time I look at his picture and look as he gets really close to that pile whatever that is I can't even really tell what that is that is burning look at all the Embers that are coming off of that tree stump it actually looks like uh and that is exactly how these fires spread you have those they just get a bit of wind move on to the next piece of dry brush and just kind of Bounce from place to place to place to place to place uh very interesting that tree stump is putting off a lot of uh fire and Embers for just being a tree stump but you see fire officials there and again these are live pictures but yeah as I mentioned there are new evacuations I want to jump into my computer here because I want to show you uh where those evacuations are uh they are extended now mandatory evacuations uh what's crazy again to me that I've been saying but north of the Angeles National Forest now now we are seeing mandatory evacuations in the high desert of the antalope valley in sanino counties so the evacuation mandatory evacuations have now extended all the way up to the 138 uh Highway 138 there north of the Angeles Forest and then there are also new evacuation warnings on the home front side of this this is in the San Gabriel Valley uh we are now looking at evacuation warnings for uh the San Antonio Heights area Upland uh has excuse me some evacuation warnings as well so lots of areas now even on the southern front of this fire uh now under evacuations and I think we've got some more live pictures that we can go back to I've also oh you know what actually no I know what we want to show you uh there's video that we got here from a resident that lives in the rightwood area of when they were evacuated around 4:30 this afternoon and I want you to listen to how this is done and listen to uh kind of the chaos that this [Music] causes evacuation and you can hear them on the loudspeaker going through and doing these evacuations at San Marino sheriff's deputy this is on the rightwood side of it and you can uh hear them telling B to get out we talked about those Sirens I think Nicole talked about it either yesterday or the day before they're using those specialized kind of sirens to be really really loud and alert people and you know just kind of the good oldfashioned way of doing evacuations when we talk about fires you lose cell phone service you lose internet access you lose things other digital ways to be able to reach people in these situations so they are obviously doing this I call it the oldfashioned way but still obviously very fresh because they are going like this door to door uh and we've seen that so I want to go back out to those live pictures here uh really quick well you'll see that fire continuing to burn those Embers continuing to spread and unfortunately we are in a situation now where we know that we have lost homes lost structures uh as a result of the fire and what's going on so guys we're going to continue to follow this here from the desk our Joe Ruiz is going to continue to provide those live pictures there and you know once we've got more information check on those evacuation warnings again we'll be sure to get back to you all right very good Mike thank you so much and as we keep this picture from our photographer Joe Ruiz you can see those Embers that Mike was talking about just blowing around constantly wind gust a big factor for firefighters today fighting all of these fires throughout Southern California let's bring in our meteorologist Evelyn Taff now for a look at the conditions right now and I want to take you right to rightwood actually Susie and Chanty where we are looking at wind gusts at 18 mes hour in the area and of course on the fire line there it looks much gustier and it is much gustier of course that happens as fire creates its own weather on fire lines especially Wildfire you will see 18 m per hour wind gust again in rightwood and that's really the only spot believe it or not in Southern California looking at intense wind gust tonight wind is starting to calm down temperatures are starting to cool down so I'm here to tell you that things are improving at least from a meteorological standpoint as we get a look at relative humidity tonight you'll see 39% Claremont 25% s berino 35% Riverside so what you see in common here double digits and 20 to 30 % relative humidity which is good anywhere closer to the coast we're above that so what we don't want single digit relative humidity and that's not the case tonight teens as far as relative humidity goes and we're out of the teens for the most part with the exception of Lancaster in Palmdale but again relative humidity is improving as we get a little more moisture in the air and as that southerly surge comes in and brings in that Marine influence as the southern winds come in well air quality is going to change a little bit for us so right now we've got an alert through tomorrow but that seab breeze could help dissipate some of the bad air and with that we could see conditions improve or we could also see that air quality alert get extended things could go one of two ways at the moment right here though pretty much everybody through Orange County the IE parts of the San Gabriel Valley in the LA County mountains looking at poor air quality because of not one not two but three wildfires burning through Southern California and that Wildfire smoke is increasing air pollution so let's take a closer look at what's happening right here as far as air pollution goes you'll see the worst of it as we compare with the legend red and purple through the IE and continuing to really stay that way this has been the case throughout the evening and through tonight we're going to continue to see the worst air quality through the Santa Ana mountain and Foothill communities and through the IE especially through our Mountain communities as well no surprise that red flag warnings will remain in effect through Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. it's hot it's dry we're getting a little bit of a breeze but the good news is it's going to be cooler it's going to be calmer and relative humidity will come up a bit wind advisories posted for the high desert that could affect us but other than that we're still looking at winds sort of below advisory levels which is good as far as the firefight is concerned what else is good cooler temperatures in fact tonight we're 10 to some of us 20° cooler on average tonight compared to this time last night that's great news it's fantastic news and we're only getting cooler over the coming days so of course that will also Aid in the firefight the only exception for us Big Bear and of course we have our eyes on Big Bear tonight it is a little warmer tonight compared to this time last night but overall we will see cooler conditions want to run you through temperatures this evening and you will see a far departure from the last few days where we saw 70s 80s 90s at night we're mostly in the 60s and 70s through the Basin at the coast and in our Mountain communities we are also looking at cooler temperatures which is good news as the night goes on 70s in the Basin right now through Orange County 70s and 80s in the Inland Empire so temperatures finally starting to inch down a bit they'll continue to get cooler through the weekend average temperatures in the 80s and the Basin will be in the 70s so again this cooldown is not only going to last through the end of the week in the weekend it could last beyond that as we get look at our temperature Outlook I'm going to step off and show you the next 6 to 10 days we're looking to at rather near to slightly below average temperatures again also great news as we start to take a look at what's next your future cast showing you that seab breeze coming in why you'll see a little bit of that cloud cover forming that's that Marine layer and that Marine influence will also be important in cooling down the entire Southland and that's going to help in the firefight as well temperatures continuing to get cooler that Marine layer continuing to deepen through the end of the week otherwise not only are we expecting cooler temperatures but we could see a few showers by the weekend and next week again so different than what we've been contending with and what we're contending with tonight but we will take the cooler weather and of course we will take any wet weather we can get as we head into our extended forecast with that I want to get a look at your next weather 7-day forecast for the Basin in Orange County so we're in the 80s tomorrow getting down to the 70s everybody cooling across the board as we check in with the valleys 90s turning to the 80s and then back up to the 90s by Sunday as we check out the IE very important here we've been in the triple digits we're again tracking fire conditions we're at 90 tomorrow so we're out of the triple digits and eventually we'll be out of the 90s by Thursday Friday and Saturday and we continue to cool a bit as we head into next week for our desert communities the mountains and the beaches were also a lot cooler 70s at the coast 70s in the mountains again great news as far as far as the firefight is concerned because temperatures will just be so much milder we've been in the 90s in the mountains which is well above average we're going to be at average or even below average for the foreseeable future the deserts out of the triple digits in the '90s and then down to the 80s remember we do have wind advisories up in the analou valley in the high desert so keep that in mind as we move into the next couple of days but everybody else below advisory levels wind wise our biggest concern of course the firefight right now and air quality that smoke is continuing to travel into the IE into the Cella Valley as well and it could intensify a little bit for us in Orange County tomorrow we'll continue to track those air quality alerts and of course conditions on the fire line but for now I'll send it right back to you Susie and and thank you so much and now look at the three major fires burning in our area right now the bridge fire in the San Gabriel mountains above Glendora exploding to 34,000 Acres tonight and has burned all the way to rightwood we're also watching the line fire above Highland in the San Bernardino Mountains with evacuations ordered tonight in Big Bear Lake and the airport fire which began in Trabuco Canyon in Orange County has now burned across the tops of the Santa Ana mountains and also burning homes in the lake Elenor area in Riverside County our Desmond Shaw is up in Sky Cal tonight he continues our far watch right here our coverage Desmond what's the very latest from where you are chony and Susie we are taking the wide look here at the bridge fire whenever we have Nightfall and we have fires that are burning up in the mountains especially fires that been burning for a long time and kicking up a lot of smoke it really kind of limits what we can look at at night so we're giving you a wide shot of this fire which really as we now know does not even give us the full picture of the extent of this fire I'm going to put up our satellite overlay just to show you the steepest Peaks here in LA county Mount baly right back in there and the fire burning very near the top of Mount baly Peak at around uh 11,000 Peak and then 11,000 ft I should say you know when this fire broke out above the hills of Glendora it it could have just ended up being well dare I say a run-of the- millfire because we have had so many fires back off of San Gabriel Canyon Glendora Mountain Road Mount Baldi Road and you know when firefighters aren't tied up with other blazes they throw everything including the kitchen sink at it and they're able to knock it down in fact just a couple of months ago we were over a fire that broke out off of East Fork Road East of San Gabriel Canyon Road that looked really really scary in the first couple of hours it had the big typical plume that was shooting up 20,000 ft in the air and then with within 3 or 4 hours firefighters were able to knock that down that was not the case because I suspect they were so busy trying to Corral the line fire since that one had broken out late last week and I believe the bridge fire was sometime on Sunday and it was kind of a calculated decision especially because the line fire at the time was very close to Highland and this one was not terribly close to homes and because they were so busy with the line fire this one took off at a really alarming Pace I mean it really everything lined up in this Fire's favor the Steep hillsides the thick brush the extremely hot temperatures that we had over the weekend and now we're talking about a fire that has basically crossed the mountains and is burning on the back side of Bal Baldi and we're hearing about losses around rightwood possibly at Mountain High Ski Resort as well and that is the situation that firefighters are in right now with these three destructive blazes and now that we're at nightfall again this fire it's it's Advantage fire that it it's going to be able to spread unchecked because we can't have the air tankers in here at night so I'm showing you some of the Flames that are closest to homes right now on the the the South Side here kind of above the glandor and lever area they're still quite a ways away from the neighborhood as you can see right there but if there's any water drops taking place I think this is where they're going to be taking place we've seen a couple of them up on the south side of these mountains and it would be pretty difficult for the water dropping helicopters on the other side of the mountains around rightwood because of the smoke situation we tried to fly to that area before nightfall up around pear Blossom Highway at 10,000 ft we had smoke way above us and way below us it was settling down into the lower elevations of the pinion Hills and we were never able to see uh the the fire creeping into the rightwood community so this is the area where they're going to focus and just make sure that it doesn't move into any of those neighborhoods and then once we have sunup we should begin to see the air tankers coming to the scene but it's you know where are they going to go they have three ma major blazes to fight and in fact you know we can see the line fire here from some 50 Mi away here it is in the distance up in the the Foothills off of Highway 330 and that area that we now know is racing towards Big Bear so this is probably the most desperate situation that I've seen Southern California firefighters in in a very long time with you know both the the highest peak in LA County burning as well as in Orange County with the airport fire could end up being the situation in sou with s Mount San Gorgonio with the line fire that's the highest peak in all of Souther California so at least we're getting the weather starting to Cooper cooperate with firefighters but it's just going to take so much more work to Corral all of these fires and a lot of you know horrible air quality especially for the high desert we saw that settling in earlier this afternoon the lake elnor area we got stuck in that earlier when we were trying to look at that Blaze so just a an impossible situation for our local firefighters uh trying to battle three major destructive blazes this week send it back to you now in the studio all right Dez and we we've watched these Flames just grow and grow and grow and we're talking about in all three of these fires are you um surprised as to how fast uh these fires uh were able to grow and even affecting uh communities that are not in the mountains yeah so you know when when we saw we were first on the line fire I believe that was Friday night when or Thursday or Friday night when that broke out when it was about 100 acres and it was above Highland and even then I could kind of see that was developing we've got these hot temperatures we've got very steep slopes and all of these tree all these trees that that the fire could kind of like use like a ladder to just immediately race uphill and I was you know telling my friend who who has a home up in the San bardino National Forest to pay attention because even though this fire is still 20 or 30 miles away it could end up being a very different story in a couple of days and now here we are this one that's really surprised me though is the bridge fire because it really seems like in the last 24 hours and that's the blaze that I'm looking at right now here as Weir near the 210 605 interchange taking a look at this from a distance but this is the one that I think has shocked all of us today like I said we've seen so many fires look so serious in the beginning in the San Gabriel Canyon area in front of Mount baly but then they're able to get control of those very quickly and they just were not able to do that because they were so spread thin uh with these three blazes burning but even still letting this fire burn it is still shocking how quickly it spread especially today even without the aid of much wind and even today with considerably lower temperatures but the bridge fire has all of a sudden turned into a very very scary and very destructive Blaze that's for sure all right Desmond Shaw live in Sky Cal tonight thank you so much for that vantage point we're going to go back to Running Springs now with our Nicole Comstock at the latest breaking news that we're getting about the line fire is that a 34-year-old man from Norco has been arrested for arson for possibly starting this fire that person arrested at Baseline Road in alp street today let's talk to Nicole now Nicole you've been covering this fire all day and there have been heartbreaking news along the way yeah Susan this is such a frustrating development that investigators now believe this fire was started because of arson because someone out here set the fire firefighters have been out here for 6 days battling extremely hot conditions out here battling this fire back from thunderstorms erratic winds look at the brush they have out here this is like hey that's how dry it is to think that somebody started this fire super frustrating for the people that live down here the canyon below us here the fire just blasted through here in Running Springs earlier today now you can see the landscape is just charred and those are pine trees down there that continue to smolder tonight as the fire continues to move uh to the north and to the east driven primarily by wind tonight headed over to the Big Bear Valley area uh we do have some strong winds out here all day long as we mentioned if you take a look at this video here you can see that firefighters were really doing their best to make a stand in this neighborhood with aerial Resources with tons of Crews on the ground we're hearing over 2,000 firefighters out here battling the line fire but unfortunately we did see a home burn to the ground out here that home was near the 3:30 and pine cone Drive the line fire started Thursday in Highland it is now headed toward the Big Bear Valley area where there are currently evacuation orders the fire is about 33,000 acres in size and 14% contained this includes over 9,000 structures in homes that are under evacuation orders and 56,000 more under evacuation warnings so affecting an incredible amount of people many of whom who have decided to go to a safer location some who have stayed behind until they feel like it is absolutely necessary for them to leave as you mentioned Susie the San Bernardino County Sheriff now saying they have arrested man named Justin Wayne Hollenberg a 34-year-old of Norco for a suspicion of starting this fire which continues to grow tonight in steep terrain and very difficult access making it hard for firefighters to put in control lines we just spoke with a couple of residents this is what they had to say about how intense things got out here today I was going to evacuate to Big Bear but now they shut that down the only way out of here from what I understand is Highway 18 and that's it it's crazy we have so many trees and some brush around the houses and with these hot Embers look out they evacuated us they were going to start stopping the fire on the end of our property we got to the bottom of the street it came ripping through here and we heard a couple bangs and we knew it was a house leveled it yeah all you see is posts up there well firefighters have done a really good job of keeping the rest of running spring safe we can tell you that most of the town here most of the businesses down the main drag here are covered in this pink fire rarden that you see behind me on the guard rail here along the 330 they've done their best to make sure they can protect all the lives out here by evacuating people protect all the homes and structures that they can but along the 3:30 you know the fire burned right up to the road so a lot of these guard rails the the wooden portions on some of them are completely burned just down the hill from us so it's really devastating to see that and to see just these beautiful hillsides that people you know one of the reasons people want to live here in the mountains is it's so gorgeous but there's such a threat of fire in this area so you know again just devastating to see all of that damage frustrating to know now that investigators believe they have someone under arrest on suspicion of arson for potentially starting this fire the National Guard also out here helping San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies they brought some more aerial resources including some Blackhawk helicopters and More Boots on the ground they have deputies in this area someone undercover cars making sure that they don't have any looting in these homes with so many people under those evacuation orders again it just sounds like that one home has burned to the ground that home off of a pine cone Drive near the 330 so very very unfortunate situation for those homeowners but from people we spoke with in the neighborhood it does look like everyone made it out of that home and off of that street safely before those Flames made their way in we'll send it back to you in the studio all right thanks a lot Nicole and we want to go back now to Mike Rogers at the desk Mike you have new video in tonight from a camera in that area yeah that's right and we're also listening to I want to take you out to uh live pictures there our photographer Joe Riz is actually getting an interview excuse me with the fire department Pio so uh I'm kind of listening to that right now uh let's listen in for just a second to the canyon firefighters engage around homes with Point defense activities doing the best they can to protect homes and then they move ahead into the next neighborhood here in Wrightwood what's the fear for the residents going on here today so as we first came in here our priority was life safety and to that point we were doing rescue evacuations for some of our people that either are elderly and can't evacuate on their own but it was a concerted effort by both Sheriff departments and fire departments coming in here making contact with those residents loading them up into ambulances into Patrol vehicles and escorting them out of the area to safety is there inter U how many have any homes been been affected here so far any structures at this point we haven't yet had a chance to damage assessment is an important part of the incident right now our priority was life safety now that we've addressed the life safety issue we're now focused on property and infrastructure suppression once we've been able to accomplish that only then will we begin to be able to assess the damage that has taken place all right we've been listening there that's Eric Sherwin he is with the San Marino County Fire Department uh providing an update to our photographer Joe Ruiz who is there on the excuse me there on the ground and you guys you heard him talk about uh the immediate you know priority is life and that's what they had to do they had to get some people out of there uh that maybe didn't go right away or maybe couldn't go we also heard about that down in Riverside County I want to jump on uh to the phone now we actually have uh somebody who uh evacuated from the rightwood area is now at a hotel I understand uh do do you there are you with us on the phone there thank you brother good yeah all right we may be still trying to work to get that phone interview there but uh he was a person that is like many people that are in the rightwood area tonight that are uh kind of stuck in these in hotels dealing with what they're dealing with and I actually I really quickly want to come out to my computer here because I want to give you that updated evacu excuse me updated evacuation map where you see in the yellow here those are the voluntaries these are the red that are now extending all the way into the uh High Desert here and I want to just I I there's a tool on here and I want to of course it's not going to work now that I'm trying to do it live on TV uh that shows you just kind of the length of these evacuations we're talking about almost 25 miles from end to end of these evacuation orders that are just really uh now kind of devastating the community out here I want to go back if we can to Joe ruiz's live pictures there from the scene I just can't get over how kind of dramatic and how changing uh this all has been there you see them on the left side of your screen um as if Eric sh when they're giving us an update and you heard him talk and I'm glad Joe asked that question how many homes have been damaged they're not going to have any idea really until they can get some daylight on this and they can see exactly uh what's going on I I want to check in with the control room really quick do we have that phone interview or we still we do okay uh and I'm so sorry forgive me uh what was your name and you're from the rightwood area correct uh yeah my name is Gino Lewis and I live in rightwood Gino tell me how long have you been evacuated did you go on your own were you told to evacuate kind of walk us through how that went down yeah um I left I got an evacuation order on my phone which was strange cuz you know we knew the fire was close and everything but we hadn't even gotten a notice yet and um so you know I just grabbed my cat a few things as much as I could I think this was about probably about 4:45 um no it was a little bit after that maybe around 5 um and I got out of there as soon as I could and Gino you live in the rightwood area how long have you lived up there uh I've been living in Wrightwood for seven years and um we've seen our fair share of fires um and some really bad ones and this is definitely never seen anything like this yeah and I just want to ask you one more time you got that alert was it like through the Sheriff's Department was it just one of those emergency alerts that pop up on your phone yeah it was um I'm not sure who it was from but yeah it came on my phone and then um you know I go on Facebook after that and I saw everyone else you know kind of posting the same thing I don't know if it was from the sheriff or um the county or or who it came from but uh I was certainly grateful I got it yeah g tell me I mean how how are you feeling I mean this is obviously you're looking at what's going on on TV and on the internet I mean what just what what are your thoughts what are your feelings about what's going on um you know I've been better for sure I'm just trying to stay positive um you know I've been kind of keeping an eye on you know social media and stuff and I see the you know brave men and women out there fighting the fire for us and um you know just praying for them and you know praying for you know everyone who hopefully got out and you know hopefully just um you know just like everyone else just hoping for the best and knowing that it's probably you know not going to be that's not what's going to be the situation yeah and Gino tell me about the town of rightwood I mean this is obviously going to be devastating for that town um you know what are your thoughts about how this could all end up you know um I saw what happened in Paradise a few years ago and with how quickly the fire got to us I just hope and pray that it's not the same situation for us yeah do you know I'm to bring in Susie s johy Glover here at the anchor desk with me it's just you know it's devastating to hear he hear these residents talk about their experience guys it really is Gino thank you so much for joining us once again I imagine you are going through all kinds of emotions right now so thank you once again for joining us to share some information and your thoughts with us right now as we take a live look right now at pictures from your town of Wrightwood burning we saw earlier um some heartbreaking images um of flame damaging the uh Mountain High Resort trees on fire there I know you're very familiar with that area as you hear about these things happening so close to home what are your thoughts tonight you know just it's it is devastating um so far I'm just staying positive and you know luckily my house is still standing so just praying for you know I hate to be kind of selfish in a way but you know that at least you know I'm able to make make it through um but I know a lot of people have already lost their homes and um it's just very devastating and I know you know for me what the important thing for me was to get my cat out of there and I know there were people who probably couldn't get home to their pets or God forbid you know loved ones who may be stuck at home and um you know that's just really where I don't know what else you would be thinking in a time like this you know I know you're talking to us from the hotel and you were able to make it out have you been able to to um get in contact or speak with any of your neighbors tonight um you know just the ones I know through social media so far everyone that I know has gotten out um my nextdoor neighbor um just recently moved in and um I made sure to go you know knock on her door and she was getting out safely um so yeah luckily for me everyone that I know is safe and um and out of town all right that was Gino Lewis an evacuee for Brightwood tonight Gino we wish you all the best and we just thank you so much for sharing your time with us tonight at such a difficult time thank you thank you well with flames again running through tens of thousands of acres and temperature soaring as meteorologist Evelyn Taft has been talking about all night the bigger question are these wildfires getting worse year by year and this is what we found year over year in California the overall trend is way up since 1987 speaking here in 2020 actually at 4.3 million Acres then a drop for the next 3 years and then a dramatic climb in 2024 now the state already at 96,000 Acres burn there's a dramatic cost in dollars and cents here after 2000 Federal firefighting cost surpassed a billion dollars by 2010 it had past 2 billion and it peaked at nearly $4 billion in 2021 all right so let's bring in meteorologist Evelyn Taff for look at the conditions right now Evelyn yeah and we're going to take it right to Lake elor and of course we're looking at multiple locations all across Southern California tonight and I want to show you Lake Elenor has made some major improvements from earlier today we were in the 80s earlier tonight 85 Dees and take a look temperatures quickly dropping we're now in the 70s again it's still warm just not as warm is where we were 78° currently humidity doing okay at 41% it's gone up we were in the 20% range what we don't want humidity in the teens or the single digit so we're already seeing Improvement there 41% and wind in the lower elevations at a standstill that's good news of course on the fire lines though it's a very different story because fire and Wildfire especially creates its own forecast and that's where we could see gusts come in we want to check in with rightwood right now as well we're looking at windy conditions in rightwood 18 mph winds you will see 18 mph winds continuing uh in the area so of course rightwood is one of the communities that we are watching tonight and we are looking at some of the gustiest spots if not the only Gusty spot currently in Southern California in Wrightwood so we will continue to monitor conditions there relative humidity as a whole you will see we are in the double digits 39% for Big Bear of course we have eyes on Big Bear tonight as well 43% Hammet San berino 23% so generally speaking we we are in the double digits which is already good news little less though as we head to the high desert we in the teens we want to be out of the teens ultimately and we are looking at windy conditions coming up in the next couple of days in the high desert so we'll continue to monitor conditions there we're monitoring air quality tonight in fact air quality now is continuing to stay subpar we've got this air quality alert and effect through tomorrow night through the San Gabriel Valley the IE and Orange County and you'll see the worst of it currently we're going to take you through your future cast and show you where that is so this is the Wildfire smoke that's increasing air pollution for so many of us so even if you're not near the fire lines you may be experiencing poor air quality just because the wind is transporting again the bad air so let's take a look at your future cast right here and you will see some of the really worst Air at the moment in the iie that's right in the ie and continuing to stay that way over the next couple of hours you'll see the red on your screen showing you Thick Smoke and we're going to continue to see that at least through late tonight into tomorrow we do have extreme fire danger across Southern California through Wednesday so even though temperatures are getting cooler we're still looking at hot dry and sometimes Breezy conditions for some especially in the high desert we are expecting those winds to kick in tomorrow and last through Thursday otherwise winds are starting to calm down overnight temperatures are starting to cool down and we'll take it considering cooler temperatures will really help in this firefight you just saw temperatures much cooler tonight compared to this time last night numbers right now in the 50s 60s 7s a far departure from the 70s 80s and 90s we were seeing in the overnight hours so we're starting to settle in to really where we should be for this time of year with that Marine layer coming in and that breeze continuing to come in as well that seab breeze help us that southerly surge bringing down temperatures across all fire lines here in Southern California in the overnight hours and eventually we're going to end off with below average numbers this weekend you'll see just that in the Basin in fact the next 6 to 10 days as we get a look at your extended Outlook in your 7-day forecast right here we're expecting to be near or below average temperatures warm tomorrow but not as hot as where we've been we're going to continue to cool through the weekend and not only are we continuing to cool there's a slight chance of a shower won't be showing up on your 7-day forecast not enough chance to really trigger anything on the 7-Day there but we're eyeing it and really that's just welcome news we will take cool temperatures we will take any precipitation we can get for our desert communities 90s turning to 80s back up to 90s but we're out of the triple digits for the mountains we're in the 70s and for the beaches we're expecting to see 70s for the next seven days back to you guys all right thank you so much Evelyn we're going to go back to our uh phones now joining us now on the phone is Leah Potter another Resident evacuated from Wrightwood from the bridge fire Leah can you hear us yes hi I can hear you Leah thank you so much for joining us tonight you're welcome you don't need my social security number right no not that much okay tell us tell us less than that actually tell us about your day and when you were evacuated and how all happened um we were actually evacuated this uh early afternoon um we have been residents for about four to five years we've been through fires prior um this was something very different it was just it engulfed like red yellow orange like Skies within minutes it went from Blue Skies to just dark it was something that local residents of 30 years had never seen before wow got you and and and you say it was just the the look of it the flames and how fast it moved that's what made this fire so different from the uh past experiences you've had with fires well actually no the difference between this fire between uh compared to other fires was this one it it crept like up slow to where it was blue skies in the morning and then hours later it just got darker and darker and then before you know the whole entire as as a as opposed to like a flume of smoke the whole entire sky was just covered in orange and red ashes and smoke and you couldn't even breathe like it was just like and it was so what's the word Eerie quiet you go outside and it was just like not even a leaf blowing but ashes were falling and that's when I had asked my neighbor who had lived in rightwood for 30 plus years like what do you think we should do is everything okay and she was like no I haven't seen this like we we should go and that was prior to any evacuation warning which in rightwood we would always get an evacuation warning we'd hear helicopters we'd see Sirens it was quiet as as of like like nothing was going on and then before you know it we couldn't even see anything the smoke was hurting our lungs and we just decided to leave on our own oh and then we got an alert as we were packing up then we get an alert like mandatory evacuation and the roads were Bumper to Bumper and it was it was it was utter chaos I mean Leo we're talking about these evacuation orders going all the way up North to Highway 138 now you know our assignment editor was talking about a 25 M stretch of the evacuation orders what is going through your mind tonight as you are away from your home and unsure uncertain of where this fire is going honestly I'm worried about my chickens I I left my chickens like I I mean I I Tred to pack up all my animals as much as possible and my chickens are there I don't know you know I I packed up my cats my hamster and my chicken I I had to let them go cuz you were in such a hurry huh because you were in such a hurry yeah I mean yes I mean I my kids of course were number one priority and then my dogs and my cats my hamster but my chickens I I didn't know what to do you know I just I just had to I had to prioritize what to do and like I said you know it was there was no evacuation warning there was no um there was no police coming up and down the streets we just had to run for our lives wow and such a tough decision to make there hopefully the chickens will be okay uh can you just earlier we we were talking to people and they uh we had one resident there in Wrightwood who talked about how he um went to his neighbor's door and talked with her and he was reaching out to other neighbors on social media uh what was it like there in your immediate Community with your neighbors uh trying to get out of there safely um we all we all were in communication about because there like I said I I've had neighbors that have been there for 30 years for two years one six months but um and we kind of all just came together and said you know what like at this point no one's alerting us anymore like this isn't normal um so we all just kind of decided on our own went to leave it was kind of basically up to us because there was there was no there was no Direction there was no evacuation warning up until like I said we were already packed up and we were in bumper to bumper gridlocks is when we got the evacuation notice and like I said the skies were red orange like it looked like dark at like 4:00 in the afternoon it was like black all my lights were on my solar lights like I couldn't even see outside and barely breathe and yet there was no evacuation warning it was basically up to us to leave and I had to leave my chickens all right that was Leah Putter and evacuee from rightwood Leah thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you for your time and we wish you all the best let's check back in right now with our Desmond Shaw with a look at Mount baly area Desmond how does it look from Sky Cal uh not good at all here Susie and Chanty this is essentially Mount baly itself that is burning as I put put up the map overlay you can see there it is and but what's really scary about this is that it's kind of creeping down towards San Antonio Heights so this is going to be off of Mountain Avenue everything kind of to the east right here as I put up the map tracker here you can see some of the streets that we're talking about here and there are new evacuation orders going into effect on those streets in the San Antonio Heights neighborhood you see the firefighters racing up Mountain Avenue towards Mount baly Road and this is where we're seeing a lot of actually activity from the water dropping helicopters may see some uh flickering lights there's one right in there so they're going to do everything they can uh to douse these Flames that are creeping closer as fire loves to race uphill on steep slopes it likes to come downhill on the more gentle uh slopes and it's kind of using that to its Advantage this area here where the where the slopes are not quite as steep so it's creeping its way down into this neighborhood this is on the Southeastern flank of the bridge fire so no it's it's still a ways from homes but it's definitely turning into a scary situation here by the minute for folks living in the lowlands here in the San Antonio IES neighborhood off of the 210 Freeway and Mountain Avenue as I said at least as I as I said at least three water dropping helicopters uh on this one that uh we've seen but it's just kind of surreal to see all of these Flames up Mount baly and then the highest peak in Los Angeles County uh is probably going to see a really serious burn scar here and uh firefighters have really really got their their their hands cut out all their work cut out for them that is for sure going to send it back to you now in the studio anchors all right Desmond thank you so much uh we are going to start um uh Cal news we're going to start the news at 11:00 here but we have you covered we have you covered here as we cover all these uh fires that three major fires scorching our area we'll have the very latest coming up at 11: and we have breaking news at 11 a dangerous firefight crackling Flames flying Embers burning down homes in Lake [Music] Elenor homes and cars destroyed by ferocious flames and a fire Nat caught on video this as the airport fire rages through Lake Elenor more destructive Flames the bridge fire burning in the San Gabriel mountains exploding in size destroying everything in its path including homes and look at this more destructive Flames another home Burns To The Ground as the lwn fire rages through San San Bernardino County and all new tonight an arrest has been made in this fire good evening everyone and thanks for joining us I'm Pat Harvey and I'm johy Glover this is Kow news at 11: we're also on at CBS Los Angeles Channel 2 and if you're just joining us we have been tracking three major fires burning across SoCal we have live team coverage for you tonight we're covering all the fires which have all exploded in size burning through homes and forcing many more people to flee and one of the most shocking fires is the bridge fire it's burning in the San Gabriel mountains it has destroyed homes in Wrightwood let's get right to Mike Rogers at the desk Mike you have been tracking this dangerous and destructive fire let's play yeah Pat and johon this is live picture now from the bridge fire this is video uh from earlier where you see the homes burning structures burning really intense Inferno this fire has exploded in size up to 34,000 Acres mandatory evacuations in place now for the town of Wrightwood people have been uh as we've been telling you people have been evacuating all day I want to show you a piece of video here from when those people got that evacuation orders earlier [Music] that is is Sam County Sheriff's Office going from door too Street by Street asking people in the rightwood area to leave we've spoken with several residents there some say they didn't get a warning and chose to leave on their own others telling us they got an alert on their phone which told them to leave now the time of rightwood is small it's a tourism driven community and unfortunately tonight we have seen images of the ski resort up there burning we were able to talk to one resident who runs a a short-term rental property a small hotel up in that area who said this is just devastating for the community as I am in the hospitality you know um vacation rental industry uh it's extremely heartbreaking because the reason I started the business was to share this town with other people yeah so yeah it's it's very heartbreaking and you can hear it in her voice there just kind of the devastation uh that everyone is dealing with up there and and what's to come and they're thinking about what's to come and again this is just a towering Flames that have been pushing through that area all evening I want to come to my computer here I want to show you uh this is video from Mountain High their own webcams uh you can see here really kind of going up in Flames everything that they're dealing with uh very serious very tragic Sam County Fire gave us an update not long ago saying that their first priority was to get people out and make sure everybody was safe they say they completed that now their task is to try to deal with the Flames deal with the fire and of course they are fighting for resources uh just like everyone else is I just quickly want to show you this uh evacuation map of the area it has expanded including down here in LA county now Claremont Hills uh Upland also have uh evacuation warnings as the fire is starting to push back south from this side then to the north North just a huge chunk of land here to the north mandatory evacuations now for the analou valley both on the LA County side as well as the sordino site uh the pinion Hills neighborhood has evacuation warnings as well all of this white area uh all of these white dots those are buildings that's the rightwood community that unfortunately we already are seeing homes burn I want to take you back live now to those pictures though from the rightwood area where we are continuing to watch those Flames burn uh Pat and johy one thing that I noticed going through these pictures while we're watching these live images uh is the Embers that continue to push through the screen here you'll see them every so often as it catches the light those Embers are flying through the sky uh which of course is what causes the fire to continue to spread this is this tree stump that has been burning for a very long time now and as Joe Zooms in on it you can see all of the Embers that are coming out of the top of it and unfortunately that is how this fire continues to spread uh we won't know the significant damage of it really until tomorrow when then get eyes on the damage but again uh in the coming days once they put this fire out hopefully we'll get those aircraft back on it tomorrow to try to do some work yeah we certainly hope so and all that dry brush out there looking at those flames and how that wind can just you know drive those Embers uh over many many places oh yeah absolutely well we do know U Mike that homes are being incinerated tonight that's not an exaggeration in the airport fire kcals Lorie Paris live in Lake elener now and she has some stunning video to show us Lori that's right Pat we are live along uh the Ortega freeway above Lake Elenor that's where the fire has been overtaking the mountain side we have been here for about 4 hours and in that time we have watched as the Flames have really exploded sweeping across the terrain jumping the highway and eventually even overtaking an h a house on the ridge above us we can see the glow of fire Over The Ridges everywhere we are but to the left and up on the ridge you'll be able to see uh just the frame of a home where there once were walls where there once was someone's home that is unfortunately just one of many homes that have burned in this the airport fire that is now at more than 19,000 fires I want to show you that video now that might be difficult to watch it was certainly difficult for us to see with our own eyes we are looking at the El cariso neighborhood El cariso Street it is gone house after house we walked by shells of homes and cars and Gardens and driveways and gu and playscapes all the evidence of a community now burned to the ground it was like a movie it was hard to tell how many homes were gone um I mean really as far as I could see and tell all of them were gone back here live all along the sides of the freeway persistent fire is keeping firefighters busy the airport fire started Monday and exploded again to more than 19,000 Acres the governor is now declaring a state of emergency which will open up more tools financial and otherwise to help them respond to this airport fire more than 500 firefighters working on this but they have a long way to go I want to show you just how we are surrounded on all sides and they are as well of course by fire looking down this road here that's just an example of all up and down the Orga freeway there are fires burning and threatening to come back over the road and and spread even more so throughout the mountain side Pat back to you all right thank you uh so much Lori get one of your dozers on that spot right now and this is what the airport fire looked like earlier as it jumped the freeway into Lake Elenor you can see scattered patches of flames but then the fire grows completely burning through the grass and the trees and look at how powerful these Flames are this is from the airport fire you can just see there how strong the area is burning the Flames are taller than the trees out there and as the video keeps rolling the fire keeps getting stronger and take a look at this fire NATO caught on video it was captured in Lake Elenor and of course that is when you get um air dust that's all caught up in the the Flames already there and it just spins creating a fire Vortex if you will yeah Qui a sight there here's another live look at the airport fire from the Orange County side it's looks quiet out there and pretty dark uh we do have a crew live on the ground in the Robinson Ranch neighborhood of Rancho Santa Margarita and you can see Flames see right there the middle of that shot that's right on the ridge on the other side of those homes it looks far away but we know how fast that those Flames can spread and let's get to our Desmond Shaw he's live in Sky Cal over the mount baly area DZ yes so Pat we are over the Southeastern edge of the bridge fire here and you can see how it is kind of creeped down crept down away from Mount baly here's a satellite image just to show you that it is right in the shadow of Mount balum probably up on the highest slopes itself and so this came over from Glendora Canyon and as fire loves to race up the steep slopes it's not as effective when it tries to come down slopes but if the slopes are kind of gentle like they are in this section of the mountains it is able to kind of make its way down and that is why we now have Evac uations here at the basee of uh the San Antonio Heights neighborhood I'm going to put up the street overlay to show you the area that we're talking about here West 23rd Street Greystone Place Mountain Avenue these places kind of to the east of on either side really of Mountain Avenue it is time to look alive and gather your belongings and be ready to leave if the Flames get any closer a lot of emergency vehicles here racing up and down Mountain Road and uh and towards Mount baly Road for anyone that may still be coming down from the mountains there we have seen some water dropping helicopters that are trying to uh fight back those flames right here this may be an area where we see the air tankers come in at sunup and drop some fire retardant lines just to the north of the San Antonio Heights neighborhood to make sure that the Flames do not destroy any of the homes there so far folks that have been on the on the that have been south of the bridge fire have been in pretty good shape as far as as these Flames go but now that situation is kind of starting to turn for the San Antonio Heights neighborhood obviously we've been talking about Wrightwood and the devastation that they're now facing with this fire that has just grown insanely quickly this is just one flank of the fire earlier this evening we were showing you farther to the West uh where where the the the the Flames have been erupting here as I zoom back in you see another water dropping helicopter come in but again they can really just kind of try to fight the Flames back a little bit it will take the air tankers after sunup to really Corral and save this neighborhood prevent homes hopefully from going up and I'm going to pan over to the east right now because I can show you it looks like there's been a big flare up with the line fire as well we can see we we were able to see the line fire from as far west as Pasadena and here it is glowing in the distance in the San berardino National Forest there in the Foothills this big raging uh kind of Fireball that that just kicked up here within the last couple of moments so at one point we were able to see all Three Fires from Lake Paris and the the smoke that is was essentially joining together from the bridge fire to the line fire and then the line fire over to the airport fire we're now able to see the airport fire from this vantage point right now but two destructive fires on a couple of the highest peaks in Southern California Burning uh out of control it's going to be a a very long night morning just cannot come soon enough till we can get those takers back in the air uh Pat Mike and Chanty sent back to you now the studio all right thanks a lot Desmond and turning now to our weather and we know the weather when we when it comes to the Heat and the wind playing a major major role here in this firefight meteorologist Evelyn tapped here with the very latest tonight on our conditions yeah Pat johy we're going to get right to those conditions and let's take you to Lake elnor first and foremost where we saw mid 80s just about an hour or so ago so temperatures already dropping quickly that's good news 74 degrees right now in Lake Elenor humidity doing well at 50% what we don't want single digit relative humidity and relative humidity in the teens we're certainly out of the teens in the single digits and we're up to 50% earlier tonight we were in the 20% range so we're already seeing good recoveries otherwise wind in the lower elevations at a standstill but of course on the fire lines fire creates its own forecast its own wind so it is much gustier of course in the higher elevations but again mostly calm conditions wind wise and we're not expecting that wind to really pick up overnight rightwood we're checking in with you where temperature Tempur are cooling significantly tonight great news for the firefight 68° but of course we're still on alert with humidity at 177% so we are in the teens it's not ideal but it could be worse of course it could be better the wind is starting to come in from the southwest a southwesterly wind that's generally a cool wind it comes in from the ocean and we're going to start to see that Marine influence that's what's going to start to cool us down southwesterly winds currently at 11 mph sustained gust coming in at 18 mes hour and I'll tell you rightwood really the only place on the map looking at Gusty conditions in the area of course our eyes on rightwood tonight we've got mandatory evacuations and we are looking at Gusty conditions currently 18 mph winds pretty much everybody else as we get a look at the rest of the Southern California sort of uh map right here holistically speaking pretty much calm so that's good news relative humidity it's coming up for all of us that Marine influence is really starting to take hold 36% for Big Bear so that's good news the Coachella Valley in the double digits but in the teens along with the high desert and we do have voluntary evacuations through part of the high desert so we're keeping our eyes here not only is it dry but it's going to start to get windy we do have some wind advisories kicking in and speaking of advisories I do want to get a look at your air quality alerts they're posted through tomorrow night they've been extended originally we were looking at air quality alerts through through tonight but with the smoke from three wildfires now we're looking at increasing air pollution for Orange County san brino county Riverside County the Cella Valley looking at especially bad smoke tonight and the San Gabriel Valley through the LA County mountains as well so with that I do want to get a look at your future cast when it comes to that smoke and over the last couple of hours we've seen the worst of it through the Coachella Valley also through most of the IE as we take a look at the legend you'll see Thick Smoke is red or purple on the map and that's what we're seeing right there as we carry on through the night we're going to continue to see the thickest smoke really through the IE and continuing through our desert communities as well we do have red flag warnings in effect through Wednesday so yes critical fire weather stays with us even though temperatures will cool we'll start to see wind pick up in the high desert so we do have our eyes there Wednesday through Thursday at this point good news temperatures a lot cooler tonight compared to this time last night 15° cooler 20° cooler Big Bear a little warmer but that is the exception overall we are heading into a nice cooling Trend and that's great news as far as the firefight is concerned near to slightly below average temperatures for the next s days and really we'll go out on a limb and say the next 7 to 10 days you'll see temperatures warm tomorrow but already cooler and continuing to cool over the next few days there's also a slight chance of a shower and I know that doesn't really show up right here we're seeing sunshine and 80s but if we see that that's also wonderful news for the firefight so we are holding out hope for a little bit of that rain but certainly much cooler weather across all of Southern California Pat chony back to you Evelyn thank you and now to the sanburn Andino mountains homes are burning in Running Springs tonight and the Western half of Big Bear Lake is evacuating and that's where we find KK news reporter Nicole comto well she's live in ronning Springs with the very latest there Nicole well Pat and chony we are starting to get some dusty winds out here again tonight in Running Springs as we hear this disappointing news from the line fire that the sheriff says they have arrested someone for deliberately starting this fire 6 days ago all the way out in Highland it is now making its way toward Big Bear Valley and tonight as we mentioned winds pushing it to the North and to the east bringing it right here to Running Springs where it absolutely blasted uphill through this Canyon earlier this evening what you're looking at down there those are the trunks of pine trees still smoldering tonight now this entire area was scorched but then the fire kept on moving to the east in its path unfortunately we did lose a home here if you take a look at this video of the firefight in action here the home that was burned down was near Pine Cone drive and the 3:30 earlier this evening firefighters tried to make a stand in that neighborhood but unfortunately could not save that one home the line fire started Thursday in Highland land it's still quite a bit away from Big Bear Valley but as you guys mentioned earlier there are those mandatory evacuations for the Western portion of Big Bear the fire is now about 34,000 acres in size and 14% contains a massive fire started investigators Say by a man who they have arrested they have named him as Justin Wayne halstenberg a 34-year-old resident of norco they say he's been charged with arson and he is in custody tonight we don't know any other details about how the fire was started but they are saying they are looking for any information the public has about what happened at the time 65,000 people now affected by this fire that was started all those people under evacuation warnings or orders some of those people don't want to leave but calfire says they should here's why really scary we just packed up our cats about an hour ago and only because we were told to there was this place is owned and run by women and um it's there's three of us three women that are left standing and we're not as you can see we're not going anywhere my advice for people that don't want to leave is to get off the mountain nothing is worth it your lives your family's lives are not worth it it's just smarter to leave get off the mountain before uh it becomes an order it's better to do it early so unfortunately we did lose that one home here in Running Springs it doesn't sound like anyone was injured like most of those people evacuated when they were supposed to evacuate and they're all safe firefighters did do a good job of protecting a lot of other property out here there is fire retardant pain in all over the town here including lighting up this entire area off the 330 and the town all of the the little shops in town off this main strip those are all looking good they're all painted pink by the fire retardant so that'll be a bit of a mess to clean up once people are able to move back into this area uh but again firefighters are expecting the wind to continue pushing into this area overnight they're expecting more fire growth heading toward the Big Bear Valley area but the temperatures are cooling off overnight it's about 65 here now so they think that will probably help them out just a bit they do tell us that the fire unfortunately has also impacted some radio towers on Keller Peak including the Keller Peak fire lookout which is apparently the oldest continuous serving fire lookout in the entire San Bernardino National Forest lots of people on online commenting about how sad it is to lose a piece of local history like this and the governor has also uh declared this a state of emergency out here because of this fire days ago now which means the National Guard has been out here now for a day uh helping them with bringing extra air resources out here extra boots on the ground the sheriff also very adamant about the fact that they will not allow any looting to happen out here they say they have undercover deputies out here making sure they don't see anything like that we'll send a back to you in the studio all right Nicole thank you right now we have a bridge fire evacuee on the phone Jennifer Bros now Jennifer you you live in Wrightwood and we understand you had a friend who had been evacuated from Lake Arrowhead just a few days ago she was staying with you and now you are both evacuated I'm just going to say well I guess the good news is you're not alone both of you but but tell us what happened so my friend was evacuated from the line fire um she is currently under evacuation warning that the smoke was too bad for her and her pets to stay in their home they left came over to my house a couple of days ago and we felt okay I had called into the rightwood fire department uh asking about the bridge fire it was only under 5,000 Acres nobody seemed concerned and all of a sudden in an hour and a half it was 34,000 yeah and I turned around to go home and I wasn't able to make it home but thankfully my friend who was evacuated was there she was able to get our pets and get a couple of pieces of clothing and that's it um we're we're down the hill here over in Yuka and we're hopefully not going to be evacuated from Uka because the fire is coming down from Forest Falls as well got you and um tell us about the conditions you said you were not able to go back home and when your friend left the home after getting the the pets and whatever she could gather what were the conditions like at that point so I did make it up the 138 um visibility was mediocre on the 138 but on her way out she was sending me photos um it was brown and orange uh the air was thick and you could just see it was almost the color of Ash um it's pretty scary up there right now rightwood a really small town and everybody's absolutely terrified because we never got any Ready set go we just went from 4,777 Acres up to 34,000 plus acres in 1 hour and we're told to leave and there was there was nothing we had no warning and we're not really sure how it went from 5,000 acres to 35,000 acres in 1 hour and we're feeling a little bit nervous about how it happened well you know we've heard uh some stories tonight um that are are are not so nice Jennifer about how some of these buyers have started unfortunately um I want to make sure you hold on here because I'm going to ask our Mike Rogers he's at the desk right now Jennifer and her friend are in Uka um what does it look like there Mike well you know I was just actually kind of looking at that as Jennifer was talking and yeah yeah you know Yuka is okay at the moment but as as Jennifer mentioned the the line fire is um you know kind of burning back in towards that direction uh and actually the the area Forest Falls which if I if I'm correct I don't think it's terribly far from Yuka uh looks like they're under a mandatory evacuation order now as well actually it looks like that just popped up so uh yipa is is a bit of a distance Jennifer are you in kind of the middle of Uka are you more on the Northern end Jennifer are you still with us do we still have Jennifer on the phone oh okay who s may have lost her but okay that's why I wanted her to hear what you had to say that's why I asked you that question and hopefully um you know they said they didn't get a Ready Set goal and you know Pat I wanted to talk about that that's now the fourth person uh that has told us tonight in the rightwood area that this went from nothing to hurry up and get out now um which is which is unusual the fire albeit is is started Sunday it's not you know I I know that it made very significant growth uh over the last couple you know really today those last couple of hours but I I am a little surprised to hear a lot of people say that they didn't get uh a better heads up than okay now go there was no it doesn't sound like at least from their stories here evacuation warnings that were maybe in place prior to this it was just hurry up and get out well you know what um that being said then we hope that Jennifer and everyone else um that that's on the mountain is is is paying attention and hopefully trying to have some kind of um communication where they can see and hear what's going on and hopefully the sheriff's uh department is going around with the evacuation orders but if not like that gentleman that called and said he had Wi-Fi at his house he was able to see his home in Wrightwood even though he was in Palmdale so he had an idea he's watching what's going on so we certainly hope that uh Jennifer and everyone else and you Yuka and where is able to get some information I'm glad they got out and hopefully that uh things will calm down a bit tonight we hope yeah and really shows you kind of the magnitude of what we're dealing with that there are so many different areas of our region right now that are dealing with this and dealing with those fires and the resilience of we of the people we've talked to in rightwood uh really using Community Facebook groups right having somebody else go check and that's how they were making decisions that they should leave yeah we've heard from Neighbors who uh talked about how they were communicating on social media um helping other neighbors and a lot of the residents out there having to make some tough decisions tonight that's been a reoccurring theme as to we didn't get a a big warning we were just told to to leave one lady she said she had to uh decide whether to take her chickens or not and in that moment she had to leave the chickens behind well we've heard stories about this before we've seen uh folks that have barely been able to get their horses out when they when they needed to do that I'm just glad to hear about the face Facebook groups that people are still able to communicate that way receive text messages we hope and are able to just keep those lines of communication open and going okay guys we're going to get back to our um colleague uh Lori Perez who is in the middle of all this in Lake Elenor and uh Laura you have some more stunning video to show us and I imagine that uh you might have been able to hear about what we're talking about how people have said that you know things have happened in just minutes and they they had to leave really without warning that's how fast this fire is is M yeah that's EXA that's right that's exactly what I was going to say is you know listening to this and hearing about all these people having to leave you know with a moment's notice really just reinforces to me along with what we have witnessed with our own eyes tonight just how important it is for people to really listen uh to those evacuation orders and to get out when they tell you to get out because as you said we have some really stunning video to show you of the El cariso neighborhood which is about a mile up from where we're standing here along uh the Ortega Highway and if we can show you that video right now it might be difficult to show to see it was certainly difficult for us to watch um with our own eyes again it's El cariso Street it is gone house after house for as far as we could see we walked by shells of homes and cars and Gardens and playscapes and toys litter barbecues everything that you can imagine all evidence of a community now burned to the ground it was like a movie we said to each other it was hard to tell how many homes were gone I mean really as far as we could see as far as we were walking all the houses were gone um back here live all along the sides of this highway Flames are flaring up and persisting keeping firefighters busy the airport fire started on Monday and exploded today to more than 19,000 Acres there goes another fir Tru we do know that more than U 110 engines are assigned along with more than 500 firefighters the governor has declared a state of emergency or is now declaring a state of emergency which uh will certainly help in their response opening more tools up for them financial and otherwise um firefighters remain here stationed along the Ortega uh Highway and you might be able to hear here comes some air support uh that is doing if not water dropping we've also been seeing them do some some surveillance um just trying to keep an eye uh on where this massive fire it is but it is all around us on on the mountains all around us we have watched as it's grown from when we got here it was really just uh kind of confined to one side of the highway and then it jumped the highway and then it just swept across uh the terrain really overtaking everything all around us this is as close Pat Uh and chany to the front lines is I can say that I have been in a wildfire um we have stayed safe we've been paying attention and and talking communicating with the firefighters here making sure that we were safe um but we've been able to get a really remarkable um point of view in terms of seeing how they responded and how this fire really moves it has been so unpredictable it has been so quick and really uh just something to see tonight guys back to you you know what can ask you a question before we go to Evelyn uh Lori just in terms ter of of when or what it feels like out there tonight because we know that has a lot to do um or that can have a lot to do with with these in fighting fires a lot has to do with with our weather what are you experiencing yeah you know I was I was listening uh to Evelyn earlier talking about how hot it was and I was like she's so right I mean it had to be almost 90 de for most of the night while we were here I mean really sweltering along with all this equipment that we have on um but so uncomfortable and I'm sure that was fueling the fire um and allowing it to continue to grow we were hoping along with the firefighters that once the temperatures dropped that that would really help them to get control I I will tell you in the last hour or so we have felt a significant drop in the temperatures um and maybe that's helping I don't know we really haven't seen it around here at this point yet but um hopefully that will help them as this Fight Continues all right Lori thank you now we want to get right over to meteorologist Evelyn tap now and Evelyn we could certainly use this cool down yeah absolutely and I'm glad it's a little cooler for everybody out there Lori of course included and you will see yes we were saying 90s earlier than we were in the 80s you'll see now that Lake Elenor is at 74 degrees so we are looking at quite an improvement temperature- wise humidity up as well at 50% and wind pretty much at a standstill of course on the fire lines it's a very different story it is much windier once we get to the ridgetops rightwood we're checking in with you as well it is getting a lot cooler especially for our Mountain communities and we will take it 68° with humidity in the teens which is not ideal we don't want to see teens we prefer to see humidity up above 20% 30% in the double digits out of the teens the single digits but we are at 177% it could be worse but it certainly could be better I want to focus your attention on the Wind as well we're looking at a southwesterly wind coming in at 11 miles hour so a little bit of a breeze coming in for rightwood a gust at 18 mph I'll tell you rightwood is really the windiest spot in all of Southern California right now not ideal but that's really pretty decent considering we usually see wind events in Santana wind events where we see winds in the 20 30 40 50 plus m per hour range so I do want to mention though the wind is coming in from the southwest and that is a cooler wind that's actually generated from the ocean we call it a southerly surge it brings in the fog it brings in the cooler Marine air and that's what's going to cool us down from the mountains all the way to the coast over the coming days I do want to show you rightwood is really the only spot that's registering as far as wind gusts are concerned pretty much everybody else relatively calm speaking of relative relative humidity is up quite a bit from earlier tonight 50 60 70% for some big bear we have our eyes on you tonight 36% most of the IE in the 20 to 40% range rightwood again couple different reporting stations so one reporting station giving us 17% another giving us an observation of 25% which is a little better very dry in the high desert we're looking at teens and 20s there are some voluntary evacuations in the area and we're watching the high desert because it could get windier over the coming days otherwise air quality is a very big concern for a large portion of Southern California from the LA count County mountains rather to the San Gabriel Valley Community through the Inland Empire and Orange County looking at very poor air quality originally this was set to expire tonight it's now been extended through tomorrow and could continue to get extended since we have smoke from three different wildfires converging in the area right here so Wildfire smoke increasing and air pollution going up as well again from not one not two but three significant wildfires burning right now and I do want to get a look at your future cash showing you where the worst of the air quality is and you'll see the Cella Valley the IE a lot of people leaving rightwood going into the desert tonight well they're experiencing bad air quality at the moment and getting reports of that on the ground through the IE you're seeing a lot of red meaning Thick Smoke and even some purple as well so as we head into tomorrow we're going to continue to watch the air quality we're still watching critical fire conditions at least through tomorrow especially in the high desert where things could get Breezy so all eyes honor desert communities but really acoss all of Southern California as this firefight continues I will leave you with just a nugget of well good news temperatures Cooling and it's a significant cool down we're going to be below average for the next six to even 10 days I'm going to go out on a limb and say even past day seven we could continue to see that cooling Trend so that will certainly help we'll continue to keep you posted on conditions on the fire line and of course we'll continue to show you this cool down that should help in this firefight Pat chony back to you all right thanks so much EV that is U I'm sure uh welcoming news for everyone out there and look at this shot stay with KCAL news for updated information on these fires we're always streaming on KCAL news.com there you'll be also having updated evacuation [Music] orders and we have breaking news at 11 a dangerous firefight crackling Flames flying Embers burning down homes in Lake [Music] Elenor homes and cars destroyed by ferocious flames and a fire NATO caught on video this as the airport fire rages through Lake Elenor more destructive Flames the bridge fire burning in the San Gabriel mountains exploding in size destroying everything in it path including homes and look at this more destructive Flames another home Burns To The Ground as the line fire rages through Sanford San Bernardino County and all new tonight an arrest has been made in this fire good evening everyone and thanks for joining us I'm Pat Harvey and I'm chony Glover this is Kow news at 11 we're also on at CBS Los Angeles Channel 2 and if you're just joining us we have been tracking three major fires burning across SoCal we have live team coverage for you tonight we're covering all the fires which have all exploded in size burning through homes and forcing many more people to flee and one of the most shocking fires is the bridge fire it's burning in the San Gabriel mountains it has destroyed homes in Wrightwood let's get right to Mike Rogers at the desk Mike you have been tracking this dangerous and destructive Fire Let's Play Us yeah Pat and johon this is live pictures now from the bridge fire this is video uh from earlier where you see the homes burning structures burning really intense Inferno this fire has exploded in size up to 34,000 Acres mandatory evacuations in place now for the town of rightwood people have been uh as we've been telling you people have been evacuating all day I want to show you a piece of video here from when those people got that evacuation orders earlier [Music] that is the Sano County Sheriff's Office going from door too Street by Street asking people in the rightwood area to leave we've spoken with several residents there some say they didn't get a warning and chose to leave on their own others telling us they got an alert on their phone which told them to leave now the town of rightwood is small it's a tourism driven community and unfortunately tonight we have seen images of the ski resort up there burning we were able to talk to one resident who runs a a short-term rental property a small hotel up in that area who said this is just devastating for the community as I am in the hospitality you know um vacation rental industry it's extremely heartbreaking because the reason I started the business was to share this town with other people yeah so yeah it's it's very heartbreaking and you can hear it in her her voice there just kind of the devastation uh that everyone is dealing with up there's to come and they're thinking about what's to come and again this is just that towering Flames that have been pushing through that area all evening I want to come to my computer here I want to show you uh this is video from Mountain High their own webcams uh you can see here really kind of going up in Flames everything that they're dealing with uh very serious very tragic sanino County Fire gave us an update not long ago saying that their first priority was to get people out and make sure everybody was safe they say they completed that now they're task is to try to deal with the Flames deal with the fire and of course they are fighting for resources uh just like everyone else's I just quickly want to show you this uh evacuation map of the area it has expanded including down here in LA county now Claremont Hills uh Upland also have uh evacuation warnings as the fire is starting to push back south from this side then to the north just a huge chunk of land here to the north mandatory evacuations now for the analou valley both on the County side as well as the San Andino side uh the pinion Hills neighborhood has evacuation warnings as well all of this white area all of these white dots those are buildings that's the rightwood community that unfortunately we already are seeing homes burn I want to take you back live now to those pictures though from the rightwood area where we are continuing to watch those Flames burn uh Pat and chony one thing that I noticed going through these pictures while we're watching these live images uh is the Embers that continue to push through the screen here you'll see them every so often as it catches the light those Embers are flying through the sky uh which of course is what causes the fire to continue to spread this is this tree stump that has been burning for a very long time now and as Joe Zooms in on it you can see all of the Embers that are coming out of the top of it and unfortunately that is how this fire continues to spread uh we won't know the significant damage of it really until tomorrow when they can get eyes on the damage but again uh in the coming days once they put those fire out hopefully we'll get those aircraft back on it tomorrow to try to do some work yeah we certainly hope so in all that dry brush out there looking at those flames and how that wind can just you know drive those Embers uh over many many places oh yeah absolutely well we do know U Mike that homes are being incinerated tonight that's not an exaggeration in the airport fire K Cal's Lori Paris live in Lake elener now and she has some stunning video to show us Lori that's right Pat we are live along uh the Ortega freeway above Lake Elenor that's where the fire has been overtaking the mountain side we have been here for about 4 hours and in that time we have watched as the Flames have really exploded sweeping across the terrain jumping the highway and eventually even overtaking an h a house on the ridge above us we can see the glow of fire Over The Ridges everywhere we are but to the left and up on the ridge you'll be able to see uh just the frame of a home where there once were walls where there once was someone's home that is unfort fortunately just one of many homes that have burned in this the airport fire that is now at more than 19,000 fires I want to show you that video now that might be difficult to watch it was certainly difficult for us to see with our own eyes we are looking at the lariso neighborhood eliso street it is gone house after house we walked by shells of homes and cars and Gardens and driveways and G and playscapes all the evidence of a community now burn to the ground it was like a movie it was hard to tell how many homes were gone um I mean really as far as I could see and tell all of them were gone back here live all along the sides of the freeway persistent fire is keeping firefighters busy the airport fire started Monday and exploded again to more than 19,000 Acres the governor is now declaring a state of emergency which will open up more tools financial and otherwise to help them respond to this Airport fire more than 500 firefighters working on this but they have a long way to go I want to show you just how we are surrounded on all sides and they are as well of course by fire looking down this road here that's just an example of all up and down the Orga freeway there are fires burning and threatening to come back over the road and and spread even more so throughout the mountains side Pat back to you all right thank you uh so much Lori get one your Dowsers on that spot right now and this is what the airport fire looked like earlier as it jumped the freeway into Lake Elenor you can see scattered patches of flames but then the fire grows completely burning through the grass and the trees and look at how powerful these Flames are this is from the airport fire you could just see there how strong the area is burning the Flames are taller than the trees out there and as the video keeps rolling the fire keeps getting stronger and take a look at this fire NATO caught on video it was captured in Lake Elenor and of course that is when you get U air dust that's all caught up in the the Flames already there and it just spins creating a fire Vortex if you will yeah quite a sight there here's another live look at the airport fire from the Orange County side it's looks quiet out there and pretty dark uh we do have a crew live on the ground in the Robinson Ranch neighborhood of Rancho Santa Margarita and you can see Flames see right there the middle of that shot that's right on the ridge on the other side of those homes it looks far away but we know how fast that those Flames can spread and let's get to our Desmond Shaw he's live in Sky Cal over the mount Baldi area Dez yes so Pat we are over the Southeastern edge of the bridge fire here and you can see how it is kind of creeped down crept down away from Mount baly here's a satellite image just to show you that it is right in the shadow of Mount balum probably up on the highest slopes itself and so this came over from Glendora Canyon and as fire loves to race up the steep slopes it's not as effective when it tries to come down slopes but if the slopes are kind of gentle like they are in this section of the mountains it is able to kind of make its way down and that is why we now have evacuations here at the base of uh of the San Antonio Heights neighborhood I'm going to put up the street overlay to show you the area that we're talking about here West 23rd Street Greystone Place Mountain Avenue these places kind of to the east of on either side really of Mountain Avenue it is time to look alive and gather your belongings and be ready to leave if the Flames get any closer a lot of emergency vehicles here racing up and down Mountain Road and uh and towards Mount baly Road for anyone that may still be coming down from the mountains there we have seen some water dropping helicopters that are trying to uh fight back those flames right here this may be an area where we see the air tankers come in at sunup and drop some fire retardant lines just to the north of the San Antonio Heights neighborhood to make sure that the Flames do not destroy any of the homes there so far folks that have been on the on the that have been south of the bridge fire have been in pretty good shape as far as as these Flames go but now that situation is kind of starting to turn for the San Antonio Heights neighborhood obviously we've been talking about rightwood and the devastation that they're now facing with this fire that has has just grown insanely quickly this is just one flank of the fire earlier this evening we were showing you farther to the West uh where where the the the Flames have been erupting here as I zoom back in you see another water dropping helicopter come in but again they can really just kind of try to fight the Flames back a little bit it will take the air tankers after sun up to really Corral and save this neighborhood prevent any homes hopefully from going up and I'm going to pan over to the east right now because I can show you it looks like there's been a big flare up with the line fire as well we can see we we were able to see the line fire from as far west as Pasadena and here it is glowing in the distance in the San beradino National Forest there in the Foothills this big raging uh kind of Fireball that that just kicked up here within the last couple of moments so at one point we were able to see all Three Fires from Lake Paris and the the smoke that is was essentially joining together from the bridge fire to the line fire and then the line fire over to the airport fire we're not able to see the airport fire from this vantage point right now but two destructive fires on a couple of the highest peaks in Southern California Burning uh out of control it's going to be a a very long night morning just cannot come soon enough till we can get those takers back in the air uh Pat Mike and chony send back to you now in the studio all right thanks a lot Desmond [Music] [Music] [Music] the wind playing a major major role here in this firefight meteorologist Evelyn tapped here with the very latest tonight on our conditions yeah Pat chy we're going to get right to those conditions and let's take you to Lake elnor first and foremost where we saw mid 80s just about an hour or so ago so temperatures already dropping quickly that's good news 74 degrees right now in Lake Elenor humidity doing well at 50% what we don't want singled digit relative humidity and relative humidity in the teens we're certainly out of the teens in the single digits and we're up to 50% earlier tonight we were in the 20% range so we're already seeing good recovery otherwise wind in the lower elevations at a standstill but of course on the fire lines fire creates its own forecast its own wind so it is much gustier of course in the higher elevations but again mostly calm conditions wind wise and we're not expecting that wind to really pick up overnight rightwood we're checking in with you where temperatures are cooling significantly tonight great news for the firefight 68° but of course we're still on alert with humidity at 177% so we we are in the teens it's not ideal but it could be worse of course it could be better the wind is starting to come in from the southwest a southwesterly wind that's generally a cool wind it comes in from the ocean and we're going to start to see that Marine influence that's what's going to start to cool us down southwesterly winds currently at 11 miles per hour sustained gusts coming in at 18 miles per hour and I'll tell you rightwood really the only place on the map looking at Gusty conditions in the area of course our eyes on rightwood tonight we've got mandatory evacuations and we are looking at Gusty conditions currently 18 mph winds pretty much everybody else as we get a look at the rest of the Southern California sort of uh map right here holistically speaking pretty much calm so that's good news relative humidity it's coming up for all of us as that Marine influence is really starting to take hold 36% for Big Bear so that's good news the Coachella Valley in the double digits but in the teens along with the high Des and we do have voluntary evacuations through part of the high desert so we're keeping our eyes here not only is it dry but it's going to start to get windy we do have some wind advisories kicking in and speaking of advisories I do want to get a look at your air quality alerts they're posted through tomorrow night they've been extended originally we were looking at air quality alerts through tonight but with the smoke from three wildfires now we're looking at increasing air pollution for Orange County san bino county Riverside County the Cella Valley looking at especially bad smoke tonight in the San Gabriel Valley through the LA County mountains as well so with that I do want to get a look at your future cast when it comes to that smoke and over the last couple of hours we've seen the worst of it through the Coachella Valley also through most of the IE as we take a look at the legend you'll see Thick Smoke is red or purple on the map and that's what we're seeing right there as we carry on through the night we're going to continue to see the thickest smoke really through the IE and continuing through our desert communities as well we do have red flag warnings in effect through Wednesday so yes critical fire weather stays with us even though temperatures will cool we'll start to see wind pick up in the high desert so we do have our eyes there Wednesday through Thursday at this point good news temperatures a lot cooler tonight compared to this time last night 15° cooler 20° cooler Big Bear a little warmer but that is the exception overall we are heading into a nice cooling Trend and that's great news as far as the firefight is concerned near to slightly below average temperature for the next s days and really we'll go out on a limb and say the next 7 to 10 days you'll see temperatures warm tomorrow but already cooler and continuing to cool over the next few days there's also a slight chance of a shower and I know that doesn't really show up right here we're seeing sunshine and 80s but if we see that that's also wonderful news for the firefight so we are holding out hope for a little bit of that rain but certainly much cooler weather across all of Southern California Pat chony back to you Evelyn thank you and now to the San Bernardino Mountains homes are burning in Running Springs tonight and the Western half of Big Bear Lake is evacuating and that's where we find KKL news reporter Nicole comto well she's live and Running Springs with the very latest there Nicole well Pat and chony we are starting to get some dusty winds out here again tonight in Running Springs as we hear this disappointing news from the line that the sheriff says they have arrested someone for deliberately starting this fire 6 days ago all the way out in Highland it is now making its way toward Big Bear Valley and tonight as we mentioned winds pushing it to the North and to the east bringing it right here to Running Springs we an absolutely blasted uphill through this Canyon earlier this evening what you're looking at down there those are the trunks of pine trees still smoldering tonight now this entire area was scorched but then the fire kept on moving to the east in its path unfortunately we did lose a home here if you take a look at this video of the firefight in action here the home that was burned down was near Pine Cone drive and the 3:30 earlier this evening firefighters tried to make a stand in that neighborhood but unfortunately could not save that one home the line started Thursday in Highland it's still quite a bit away from Big Bear Valley but as you guys mentioned earlier there are those mandatory evacuations for the Western portion of Big Bear the fire is now now about 34,000 acres in size and 14% contained a massive fire started investigators Say by a man who they have arrested they have named him as Justin Wayne Hollenberg a 34-year-old resident of norco they say he's been charged with arson and he is in custody tonight we don't know any other details about how exactly the fire was started but they are saying they're looking for any information the public has about what happened at the time 65,000 people now affected by this fire that was started all those people under evacuation warnings or orders some of those people don't want to leave but calfire says they should here's why really scary we just packed up our cats about an hour ago and only because we were told to there was this place is owned and run by women and um it's there's three of us three women that are left standing and we're not as you can see we're not going anywhere my advice for people that don't want to leave is to get off the mountain nothing is worth it your lives your family's lives are not worth it it's just smarter to leave get off the mountain before uh it becomes an order it's better to do it early so unfortunately we did lose that one home here in Running Springs it doesn't sound like anyone was injured like most of those people evacuated when they were supposed to evacuate and they're all safe firefighters did do a good job of protecting a lot of other property out here there is fire retardant pain in all over the town here including lighting up this entire area off the 330 and the town all of the the little shops in town off this main strip those are all looking good they're all painted pink by the fire retardant so that'll be a bit of a mess to clean up once people are able to move back into this area uh but again firefighters are expecting the wind to continue pushing into this area overnight they're expecting more fire growth heading toward the Big Bear Valley area but the temperatures are cooling off overnight it's about 65 here now so they think that will probably help them out just a bit they do tell us that the fire unfortunately has also impacted some radio towers on Keller Peak including the Keller Peak fire lookout which is apparently the oldest continuous serving fire lookout in the entire San Bernardino National Forest lots of people online commenting about how sad it is to lose a piece of local history like this and the governor has also uh declared this a state of emergency out here because of this fire days ago now which means the National Guard has been out here now for a day uh helping them with bringing extra air resources out here extra boots on the ground the sheriff also very adamant about the fact that they will not allow any looting to happen out here they say they have undercover deputies out here making sure they don't see anything like that [Music] [Music] [Music] and you're right it can't get any meaner noall come on well the Upland High School football team is one of the top programs in the iie and J Hill joins us now with more on the Scots those fans when they're under grip of the grape oh it's worse they're all bad that's for sure all right my friends here we go the last time we were in Upland High School the football team received $47,000 from Honda after head coach Daryl Thomas was featured in a Super Bowl commercial now our Chris Harry went out to Upland to learn more about the Scots program Upland High School football's philosophy can be summed up in three words Pound The Rock so I read a story long time ago about a stone cutter and you're not going to cut the stone and crack the stone on the first swing the second swing maybe not even the the 200 swing but don't give up just keep pounding and pounding at the Rock and eventually that that rock is going to crack that's how we do it in a weight room that's how we approach our game just keep pounding away at the Rock even if things are going crazy things are happening hey PTR teaches you how to grow how to become a better man not only in football but in life and teaches you better life skills how to work hard the Scots work hard but they have plenty of talent too senior quarterback and wide receiver trust Castro is heading to USC next season how excited are you to finish this thing the right way I'm super excited I've been playing football my whole life and this is one of my like biggest opportunities in year I've been waiting for this my whole life doing this in your backyard is different what made USC the right school for you just coach Dante ly Coach B new staff coming in and Coach Lincoln especially they they all they're all family orent they made that a big part of when I went on my visit that family is a big part of USC and I just knew ever since they said that that it was the right spot for me but Castro hasn't let his future come before his pres I mean we always had the mentality and model like hey nobody cares keep working regardless of how many offic you got what you got accomplishment inside the classroom or on the field just keep working man he Le leads by example and the kids see that was you see one of the best players is busting their butt they're actually going to fall in line with that too we look towards him for sure uh in times we need him in times that we're down in times that times that like we don't have the energy to practice he's there to to Hype us all up what do you want to accomplish this season when it's all said and done before you enroll as a Trojan at first I want to go hopefully we go undefeated this season and then win Baseline league and then I want to see I my senior year whatever this season brings for Upland it comes back to those three words I just tell them all the time you just continue to Pound The Rock put your head down and just be humble and continue to pound let's get better and better we're going to have some adversity sometime this year don't know what it's going to be but we it's coming we just got to make head on the seeds that are planted now are hopefully in the future man when they're adults right going through life challenges they have a good understanding of everything of the adversity we put them through here to keep pounding through it in sports adversity is always coming that's for sure the dodes continue their Series against the Chicago Cubs tonight we'll have the highlights for you tonight at 11:00 and that's look at Sports for the 5:00 hour all right thank you Chim you [Music] got e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e 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