We start with our wildfire coverage across California. Firefighters are battling wildfires burning here at home and around the state. They're causing outages, damaging buildings and forcing evacuations. Windy, hot and dry conditions are also making it tough for firefighters. Meteorologist Brendan Minsch will have more on the fire danger in just a moment. But this map tells the story. We're tracking several fires right here in northern California. Hello everyone. This is a special edition of ABC 10 News. I'm Chris Thomas, I'm Laura Painter and we're coming to you early ahead of game five of the NBA finals airing right after this newscast. But I want to show you this. Firefighters are battling a grass fire in Sacramento County. As we speak. It's burning near Mather Airport not far from where another large fire burned more than 900 acres less than 24 hours ago. ABC Ten's Brandon Ritman is there live right now and Brandon, we can see that smoke behind you bring us up to speed. What do you know so far? So what we know is this is a wind driven fire primarily being driven by flashy fuels. We've got a lot of dry grass just right here where I'm standing. You can see what is burning this cheap grass, these dry grasses that burn out so easily that the fire really can just move at the exact same speed as the wind because that's how flashy these fuels are. I think wes is showing you some flames right now. Uh, just to get your bearings. We are just a little bit south of, uh, Mather Lake. Uh, there's a park area, it's not too far away from the airfield. And right now we're actually standing on an abandoned military bunker that is part of the old base. And so far as far as we can tell, no structures being lost here, at least that are obvious to us. But this fire is throwing up a big plume of white smoke which tends to be indicative of burning up vegetation and not particularly heavy vegetation. So that's good news. The bad news is we don't really have a handle on this fire. At this point. You can see Metro Fire has its helicopter with that snorkel hanging out from below so that it can go and do water drops out here as we've been here. The wind speeds been intensifying, which is not helping firefighters at all. If we can come back down to the ground level, we, you can see we're over here on the flank of the fire right now and we're watching as it gets into some of the vegetation that's a little bit thicker. We've got some, you know, bushes and trees and things, those are the things that are really starting to pop up and throw that little bit of black smoke, but we haven't seen sustained black smoke like you would expect to see if structures were going right now. Uh It's headed in the direction of uh sunrise. So really the goal right now is to be trying to contain it, to sort of the block that it's in if you will keep it from crossing any major roads, because if it does that uh from where I'm standing, in fact, wes if you can just kind of pan to the head of the fire, if we look over here just at the edge of the white smoke where you kind of start to see some power lines. Now we are seeing shr so there are people who are directly downwind of the head of this fire. The trouble is right now it's just moving almost as fast as the wind can carry it because of these light dry, flashy fuels, all that dead grass that you can see in the foreground of your shot. That is what's fueling this fire, the kind of thing that we tend to get down in the valley. And we had very fortunate weather conditions that gave us a lot of moisture up high in the mountains and that's great for the trees. But down here, it means a big crop that then dies once we get those hot temperatures, like we've been having over the last several weeks. And this unfortunately is what the result can be. It's a very fast moving fire that requires a sudden response. So we are nowhere near to mop up at this point right now. This is a running fire with an active head and we are watching it from the flank for a minute there, the wind direction made it look like we might have to abandon the spot right now. We are safe. But I do want you to know that we are prepared to jump in our car and get out of here at a moment's notice. We have a safe escape route. Yeah, Brandon, very difficult conditions for fire crews out there. We can see that smoke moving very quickly and we can hear the the wind very powerfully through your microphone. Be safe out. There will be following this very closely. Brandon. We're gonna be checking back with you very soon. Thank you. And we want to show you video just into our newsroom of a fire burning in Manteca right now. This is near mckinley and Bronson while we're told there are no current evacuations. There are buildings threatened Manteca. Police tell us they are putting people in the area on standby just in case this fire grows just in case the danger grows and they had to leave their home in a moment's notice. Stay with us. For updates on that one and we do have live team coverage all across the area as we speak. ABC Ten's, Luke Clary is tracking yet another fire tonight. He is live in Rio Linda where firefighters have been chasing several small grass fires in just the last few hours. Luke, what's the latest there? Hey, Laura Chris, in contrast to the fire that Brandon Ritman is monitoring over there in Rancho Cordova. This fire in Rio Linda is pretty well knocked down. We see a number of engines still here and crews doing just mopping up as this entire grassy field here has been reduced to a blackened and charred remains. Ok. So take a look at this, you can see some of the damage in this neighbor's backyard. We do have permission from a family uh to stand back here and just bring you these images that is a trailer back there that looks pretty well totalled. There's a trampoline and some other items in this backyard that are utterly burned. And if you turn back over this way to me, Kurt, you can actually see some of the grassy and dry grassy fuels that are driving this fire and you might be able to hear those very windy conditions on our microphone as well. Uh I spoke to the family that lives in this house, this property right over here and when this fire broke out at about two o'clock here, one of a number of fires at least two that have broken out here in the R Rio Linda area. Uh, they said that a number of small Children were here at home. It was actually a teenage boy who saw the flames called 911, got the firefighters here and then took out a hose and it became a whole family affair. They were all out there with hoses and buckets trying to protect their property. If you just take a look over there, which you actually can see are be. So this is the home of a beekeeper trying to protect some of his materials for his home business. Again, the good news here in Rio Linda is that this fire appears to be pretty well knocked down. We don't know of any structures that were damaged or destroyed here but a very close call here with these fires burning in people's backyards in Rio, Linda, Chris Laura. Indeed, so thankful no one was hurt. Our Luke Cla is live for us tonight. Luke, we'll have more tonight after the game, residents are returning to their homes after a wildfire tour through 900 acres in Sacramento County near Mather. It was called the Excelsior Fire and it certainly made for a scary Father's Day weekend. It certainly did all evacuation orders and road closures were lifted today and the fire destroyed outbuildings and cars. But thankfully, fire crews say homes were saved amongst the blackened land left behind by the fire. The Greater Sacramento Muslim Cemetery was also spared. I could not believe it that all the areas surrounding the cemetery is completely burnt even if you go to the back. But this cemetery is still intact. So that's really wonderful. Yeah, the strong winds and dry conditions we're still dealing with today, fueled those fires and help that spread. Now, fire crews worked throughout the night to build containment lines in threatened areas. The fire is now 100% contained Sacramento Metro Fire and the Office of Emergency Services will evaluate the damages. And right now, there's another fire burning in Calaveras County. This is on Arrow Road near Hunt Road. Just look at the smoke. It's putting up, it's 250 acres right now and we're learning this is impacting traffic near highway four as well. We're waiting to learn more information. So stay with us for updates there. I also want to show you yet another fire burning this time in Colusa County. This is near Ss Ladoga Road and Stone Coral Avenue in Kusa. It's now more than 600 acres and it is a fast moving fire. Keep in mind it started just a few hours ago after 130 and in southern California, the post fire has burned nearly 16,000 acres. This fire is burning in the grapevine which is about 65 miles north of downtown L A. It's only 8% contained at last check. Strong winds are making it challenging for the firefight. At least 1200 people had to be evacuated. The cause of this fire is under investigation.
