Because if they can't and it
comes through then it'll take me.
And everybody else out too so.
Be the second time that
my house burned down and.
All we can do is hope.
Unbelievable, that's something I
heard from one other lady we spoke
with that you know her house.
Her home had burned down a
couple years ago before what
happened with your experience.
How long ago was that
it was 25 years ago that.
It was like, unfortunately,
in the spring, so it never
started any forest fires,
but an electrical short.
In in my cabin and it burnt
to the ground by the time
I got there it was out
so many of the people I've
spoken with who live around here
like have said just like you,
they've not seen anything
like this in this area yet.
They are still prepared.
This I've heard from one man who
has sprinklers across this roof.
His home is soaked.
What have you done to prepare
for this unthinkable situation?
I live on a well.
When the power goes out, the pump don't pump.
I have generators that are not capable
of pulling water out of my well.
All you can do is cut the brush around
your house, knock the trees down,
try to get us a defensible spot as you can.
And just hope that nothing like this
ever happens. All you can do is hope.
And since the insurance companies are
canceling everybody's homeowners insurance.
It makes it kind of tough to when
you have to go to. Cal unfair.
To ensure your house but.
You're gonna at least you
have something I know.
Some of my friends who don't.
And their house has gone up in grizzly.
There's nothing you could do but hope.
And leave it to. The people.
Absolutely, I've seen so many
of you guys come together here.
I know a lot of you live on some
widespread property you're not neighbors,
and that connect to each other.
But there is such a strong
sense of community here
there is. And we live on 10 acres,
5 acres, 20 acres. Where where I live,
the houses are few and far between.
We all drive the same Rd.
And we all do stick together.
Unfortunately, up in Grizzly Flats
where the houses are closer together.
It's harder to defend.
Woodhouse, are you going to let burn
and what house are you gonna hose down?
I. Feel for.
It's hard you feel for your neighbors.
We feel for those folks too.
We don't even know them the way you do,
and seeing the images that we've seen
have just been devastating and tragic.
Wishing all of them the best.
Wishing you the best.
We know that your home is
still not out of the woods yet.
We thank you so much for taking
some time to speak with us.
Joe and our thoughts and prayers truly,
truly are with you and your friends this
afternoon and throughout the evening.
Right now I'm going to toss
things over to Andy Judson,
who's in Sly Park Rd in Pollock Pines,
Andy, that has been another area
that just earlier this morning.
We've heard warnings about
there's a warning in place.
It's an area that they have been watching.
What are you seeing out there right now?
Hey Zach, what a heartbreaking
interview and we're talking to evacuees
out here who are sounding a lot of the
same messages of concern and worry
as they're evacuating their homes.
I want to show you exactly
what we're seeing right now.
This is Sly Park Rd in Pollock Pines.
It's actually heading out
of Sly Park towards Hwy 50.
This is where the traffic also comes from.
Sly Park Recreation area. You know.
Besides this being a a home for
so many folks who live out here.
It's also a really popular spot
for camping and recreation,
especially as this is the last
day or the last.
You know,
couple of weeks before kids go
back to school of people enjoying
their summer vacations.
You can see firefighters are heading
in as all of these people are
heading out and it's just this type
of traffic as we were driving in.
It's like this for miles and
miles down this road.
And as you can see it's one lane
so it's taking these folks a while,
but the patients out here.
Is pretty amazing as you know
people are just telling us to
be safe out the window and you
know it's just really concerning.
We actually talked with one evacuee earlier.
His name is Brett.
He's lived in this area for 50 years.
He said this is the first time
he's ever had to evacuate.
Obviously there was worrying concern.
He said he's been trying to evacuate
and get out since 9:30 this morning.
We just spoke with him.
So that was about 3 hours ago
that he began evacuating.
So it's a slow progress.
All of these people are listening
to officials and getting out.
But what we're hearing from
officials is if you're in this area,
it's concerning,
you know there's a red flag warning
they're telling people to get out.
And right now you can't feel
the wind as we were driving up,
we pulled over on the side of
the road to give you guys a look
at what it looks like from Hwy.
50 and that wind was roaring,
but right now you can just feel the heat.
It is hot and dry out here and I'm
going to have my photojournalist Tyler
show you, you know, just down the road.
You can see the smoke coming out of the area.
We're seeing these huge plumes of smoke
just a couple miles down the road.
The sky is completely dark.
You can actually see a red tint to the smoke.
As you can see, the flames coming up.
You can just, you know,
it's really concerning looking
and then if you just turn it.
If Tyler gonna have you just look this way,
it's completely clear so you can see
the area that the fire is coming.
You know which is just really concerning.
For all of these.
Folks out here, they're just they're
sounding the same alarm of,
you know, concern.
They said that right now they
just have to have faith in the
firefighters and our government
system so you know,
it's just it's heartbreaking.
Listening to these folks.
Some of them have said that they just left
their sprinklers on because that's the
only thing that they can do right now.
You know, the only effort that they can make.
So we're going to continue
to keep you updated.
You can see that the fire
is pretty quickly moving,
so we're probably going to move
to try to keep you updated.
But for now,
I'm going to send it back to you all.
OK, thank you Andy Johnson
is in the slide park area.
People trying to get out.
You don't want to be heading
in that other direction unless
you're firefighting apparatus.
Or maybe you're just ducking into your house.
If you're that way,
the only other way out of there is probably
about 3 miles heading down the hill.
Take a left on Mormon immigrant trail,
but you may be hitting flames pretty soon.
If you head that way.
So Andy's right,
that's the only way out of there right now,
so if you can avoid going there,
please do so.
Monica Coleman has been
positioned in Pollock Pines.
Monica was seeing smoke there earlier.
Obviously that's just over Hwy 50
and Monica was showing us people
who were gassing up at that Shell
station and also the the Safeway,
Safeway Shopping Center and
getting some food as well.
Let's take it now to Monica Coleman
who is standing by there live as well.
Hey, well I'm here at the Shell station
and there's kind of a eerie silence here,
but people telling me that the
panic is beginning to set in.
You can see people are here filling
up their cars and their gas tanks
trying to make sure they have all the
fuel they need before they head down.
50 when we were working our way up this way,
you could see the traffic.
It was bumper to bumper.
You could barely get out of here,
so people are trying to not just
get gas but across the street.
You could also see people at Safeway
trying to get groceries and get all
of their essential needs as possible.
But I did speak with one woman.
Her name is Sydney.
She has packed up her kids and
her husband trying to get out.
They're only under a warning,
she said she's gonna take a moment
to speak with us here as well.
Sidney, can we talk with you
real quick about your plan?
Were you expecting to be evacuating
when you woke up this morning?
No, we weren't expecting it.
We knew
the fire was bad.
We knew it was kind of close.
We've been monitoring like Facebook
and then we have like a private
radio club that we belong to.
That kind of like a community watch.
And we've all kind of stayed in contact.
On the radio and we just started hearing
a lot about it at 4:00 in the morning.
So we just kept monitoring and then
got a warning from the Sheriff's
Department of Evacuation warning
so like not forced out but we just
decided to pack up and head out to be
safe and get ahead of the traffic.
Me, or did you just?
Well we have a trailer wherever
my husband just went.
We have that trailer over there so we
just started packing stuff into it.
As much as we could.
Just, you know, important stuff,
pictures and whatnot and.
Do you plan to stay in the trailer?
Probably yeah,
down in Placerville or we have
family in Cameron Park.
We can go to as well.
Hopefully we'll just get a call that
everything is good and we can go home.
We'll Sydney.
I appreciate you speaking with
us and your bravery and quick
thinking to get out of here.
Why it's a warning.
We appreciate that.
All right,
I'll let you go and be safe while
I'm gonna send it back to
you in the studio,
people here are getting out
as they can, staying safe,
getting that gas and groceries.
Yep, they. They've got to be prepared.
I'm sure you may want to suggest to her.
She's looking for a place to camp down
the road, shingle springs, the KO.
A campground is probably
taking in a lot of trailers.
I know whenever there's a fire in that area,
that's where people tend to go.
Monica Coleman in Pollock Pines,
which is indirect.
Hopefully they'll they'll be spared so,
but they're getting ready.
John Bartell has been a grizzly flats.
He got in there about an hour and change ago.
John, you were at an elementary school,
which we believe was a
Tyler Elementary school.
If we're not mistaken,
what else have you found?
Is there anything?
Any good news in Grizzly Flats right now?
So hey, well you know the signal is very,
very spotty out here, so we had to come
back up tier to the elementary school.
But we did take another quick lap
around here in this area and I
really could only count 5 homes
just in the short drive that we are.
Just take a look out here behind us this.
We're back up at the elementary
school here and you can see this is
where what appears to be a helipad.
And then we've got the playground
here down the hill is what I think
is the fire department.
The Volunteer Fire Department.
But it's very hard to tell because
everything around here is is just burned.
So if we walk a little bit
closer here you can.
You can really just see
down the hill over here.
There is just home after home
after home that has been burned.
But there there is 3 that we
are seeing that are standing.
We're going to take a closer look.
I'm going to put some pictures
up on my Facebook page just so
you know if this is your home,
you can know what is still going and
I just want to let you understand
what it's like to drive on this road.
Here we came down on grizzly.
Flat Rd here and the roads are just
littered with downed power lines.
We've got downed trees and I don't
know if if if you saw out of my last
live shot several of these trees
are burning out from the inside,
and that's what's causing them to fall out.
We'll kind of make our way over here,
but let Rory just kind of pan
around as you're taking a look here
this town there is not a single
person insight unless they are an
emergency crew and for good reason.
Here everything is blackened, they're there.
Is burned scars just everywhere?
And once again,
I do believe this is we can see the sign.
The elementary sign is here.
I don't exactly know what this building is.
If it's one of the classrooms,
but it's certainly with something
of importance here.
Now down this hill,
Rory over here there's another series
of homes I don't want to go too far.
We're going to lose signal.
This is our sweet spot here,
but if you can imagine from a
radius from here to here all
the way basically towards this.
Area there's homes down there and
many of them are still smoldering.
They're of course collapse in on each other,
but just complete devastation out here.
Walt I told you before here.
This really reminds me of what
happened up in Paradise and Santa Rosa.
For that fact.
Yeah,
how sad. It just keeps happening.
John Bartell at the elementary school.
They're in grizzly flats.
Not much going on there in terms
of good news. John, thank you.
Brittany Begley has been monitoring
all things social for us.
Brittany still remaining very active.
It is very active, so let's start
off with this traffic alert from Andy
Judson you just heard from a couple
of minutes ago, but Sly Park Rd.
You can see traffic backed up for miles
as more people trying to evacuate.
Of course, one thing we're also
watching beyond my firewall saying
hey it is really windy and as you know
wind plays a huge role in our fires.
You can see Sam caught this.
Take a look at your screen.
You can see this is from his backyard
of just a smoke billowing out.
This is at Grizzly flat roads.
This is the area of concern
which we've been showing you all.
Morning long and I'll end you
with Brian Douglas.
Take a look at your screen.
He says beautiful Blue Lake
Tahoe is not so blue today,
several major wildfires.
We have the Dixie Fire.
We have the caldora fire and
just the conditions in that area.
Very smoky and hazy and that's what a lot
of people are saying on Twitter as well.
Is that they're waking up to a lot of ash,
so a lot going on in.
You're breaking news in your
social Media Center will stay
connected throughout the day.
How's it?
OK, Brittany and Walt, thank you.
I just want to point out how quickly this
happened through the overnight hours we
knew there was a lot of fire activity
just to the South of Grizzly Flats.
What you're looking at here
is satellite derived hotspots.
It doesn't tell you exactly
the source of the fire.
It could be an intentional burnout operation.
It could be from a prescribed burn,
but what we know about this zone is that
this was active wildfire overnight.
We're expecting that to push
off to the north,
but the next image that came in
these come in about every six
hours just went right over.
Grizzly Flats and we knew that
we had a situation.
Now it doesn't tell you exactly every
little situation that happens as John
Bartell just said some homes are standing,
many are lost,
but it's about what's gonna happen next.
And with the direction of the fire
growth today with a lot of South winds,
Sly Park is in line.
Pollock Pines is in line
for areas of concern,
and Jenkinson Lake and then when you look at,
you know,
not just satellite derived hotspots.
That's just one way of looking at it.
When you look at the cameras in real time
we know that this is a very active fighter.
The terrain has not burned
in a very long time.
In fact, there's no history of it burning.
That's not saying it hasn't a long time ago,
but since we've been keeping modern records,
this is all virgin terrain.
There's a lot of vegetation.
We know how dry it's been.
We know the weather today is hot,
windy and dry,
and just during this fire the area expanded
to include this area in a red flag warning,
which is when it's very dry and very
windy and fire responds very quickly.
As you can see,
to those weather conditions.
So just taking a look again,
one more time of all the hot spots.
Right through the community
of grizzly Fats Flats,
John Bartels on the ground,
telling us that a lot of this what we know,
community homes,
businesses and also big important
buildings like the Volunteer Fire
Department may have burned and then
you take one more look at this.
Unfortunately,
the terrain that it's burning in is
the highest risk category out there.
Maps to me by the California
Public Utilities Commission.
These were just updated in March and
this is where the fire is actively
burning off to the north one.
Piece of good news.
I do expect a little bit more
West wind to sneak in here within
the next four to five hours,
which would push it a little bit more
away from Sly Park and Pollock Pines
in the direction of where Kibris is.
There's a lot of terrain in between,
but we have to watch it hour by
hour because that's the general
forecast we all know that fire
creates its own weather and anybody
near this fire needs to
be concerned and have a plan to get out.
OK Rob, thank you for that and
the forecast and all that will
continue to follow it throughout
the course of the day, right? Here,
stay tuned for more updates on abc10.com.