California On Fire… Wildfires Explode In Southern California 20000 Acres Destroyed Evacuation

Jen. Frickin’ cord, the situation changing about every half hour. First it was windy, then it was smoky. Now the sun is out, it even rained ash on us. Now just a couple moments ago, I spoke with residents. We’re in the Mill Creek area just east of where the fire began in the hillside community. And we were just told and heard tons of sirens racing just down the street, heading towards the fire that was coming down the mountainside towards the Mill Creek area. The last thing they want is for this fire to jump the 38 highway. Now take a look.

Here’s some video that we shot yesterday of some of the fierce flames on Highway 330 after the fire not only jumped the highway but was racing towards Running Springs. Yesterday, the day before it was 7000 acres and then it jumped to 17,000 acres last night with still 0% containment. Additional evacuation warnings have also been issued. More than 35,000 homes and structures are being threatened. It’s extremely smoky out here. And it’s also causing the ground attack to be grounded. And while they have hundreds of crews out here, resources and equipment that air attack absolutely helps. We spoke with neighbors here in the Mill Creek area and they say obviously they’re concerned and hope that firefighters can save their community as well as we spoke with experts earlier today.

Yeah, so the thunderstorms come in and they start having downdrafts that can blow the fire in any different direction where normally we can predict where the fire is going to go. But with the thunderstorms, you never know. If the lightning comes with no rain, it has the potential to light this brush that’s ready to burn on fire and start a new fire, which we don’t want. Many communities are under mandatory evacuations, others under warnings. Those are obviously fluid. The warnings are popping up all over the place. Many people around these communities know better though they have the apps they’ve been speaking with the sheriff’s department.

They are watching very closely because they again they’re used to fires in their neighborhood and they want to make sure that they get their stuff they get out. Yo, if I ever get to the point to where I’m used to fires in my neighborhood, that’s a sign. That’s kind of a sign for me to go ahead and exit left. I don’t know. And again, a lot of times we always say, well, you know, it never rains in Southern California. Well, that’s why y’all got forest fires. Y’all got land fires that’s exploding now to more than 20,000 acres.

And so, you know, what’s so funny, I was thinking to myself, like over the weekend, I was thinking to myself and I was thinking, man, you know what, I need to go and live in some of these places. Like, I need to just go and pick a month, like pick a whole month and go and live in the communities that, you know, you guys are describing and stuff and just rent an Airbnb for a month, live there for a month, maybe once a quarter, go and live in a different place every single month and see what happens.

And so I was thinking about, hey, man, what am I going to go and live over in California for a little bit? I don’t know. That might be last on the list. But let’s get some more coverage of this. And then I also want to have a conversation about insurance companies and why they’re pulling out of California in the first place. NBC4 News starts with breaking news. Right now on this special edition of the NBC4 News, severe weather in Southern California, dangerous heat, power outages, and a massive wildfire that has prompted evacuation warnings and is now threatening thousands of homes.

Thank you so much for joining us. I’m Kathy Vara. And I’m Jonathan Gonzalez. We do have team coverage tonight on the impacts of this extreme weather. But first, we also have new video of what happened after thunderstorms and strong winds hit the Inland Empire. Look at this tree that fell right into a home in Paris. The line fire creating its own weather system also contributing to this wild weather burning uncontrolled along the edge of the San Bernardino National. So my Alexander Bowles said, Anton, you’re not built for Callie. Callie, what? Oh, my God. This is not the show to prove how tough we are, but for some reason, I think that if the Kardashians and Drake and I can make it out in California, I can too.

And let me also be clear. I don’t plan on sanding the hood in California either. I plan on sanding in some of the poshest locations and really be able to take care of myself. Do you have any grip upon? So you’re right. For the parts that y’all talking about in Cali, I’ve survived Detroit. I’m not looking to go back to what it is that I came from. And I’m certainly not looking to go into the hood in California so you can have him. I’m not like y’all just like Kendrick Lamar said, I’m not like y’all. So, yeah, let’s get back to this forest.

The fire has now exploded to more than 20,000 acres. NBC 4’s Anastasia almost joins us live from Mentone with the very latest on containment efforts as they stand tonight on Anastasia. Jonathan and Kathy, in just the last 24 hours, the line fire has rapidly grown an additional 13,000 acres, 3,000 acres in just the last few hours. I actually want to show you from where we’re standing on Highway 38 in Mentone, we could not see any flames. And in just the last 45 minutes, we saw this flames sparking up at the top of the hill and really lighting up the mountains from behind.

Now it had originally died down with a little bit of that short rain that happened today. So you just chill in there and you just start to see a line of fire just come up behind you. That’s insane. Slowing the spread of the fire, but then they closed Highway 38, which leads to Angeles Oaks and up to Big Bear, closing it to all traffic where in just the last several hours, the county issued emergency evacuations for communities along this road in preparation for that fire to possibly grow up the mountain and spread east sometime tomorrow morning.

See, we’re here and the fires, it’s not even to constantly be crazy. Families who live in and around the San Bernardino National Forest are watching the line fire minute by minute, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Just keep in track until it’s… First of all, shout out to the little, shout out to homegirl. She said, I’m going to go and get me a little, a little, a snow hair. She going to get her a snow hair. They got them a little mixed baby, got them a snow hair. Okay, I see you, baby. Look, I don’t want to live nowhere where I got to buy a camper and be prepared minute by minute to be able to escape.

And I think that people over in California, God bless y’all. I think y’all should stay where y’all at and embrace and fix whatever it is that y’all got going on. But I will say that you just got to have a… You got to be conditioned for certain places because for every benefit that there is, there is always a downfall. Very few places don’t have something wrong with it, right? You might have extreme heat, you might have wildfires, but you might have great weather in the wintertime, right? You may have homelessness and mudslides, but, you know, you got sandy beaches.

Over in the Midwest, we have the largest body of fresh water and affordable prices, but then at the same time, you’re going to have snow. In Miami, you’re going to have the best winters outside of Hawaii, but then you’re going to have high prices, chicks that’s for the streets. You can’t turn it off. It’s unaffordable. And you got hurricanes. Over in New York, it’s largely unaffordable. They have some of the worst winters. Y’all have the highest taxes, rats, you know, uncleanliness and bad winters. In the middle of, you know, in the desert, it get very, very cold at night.

It’s beautiful. Most people are moving there in the middle of the… You know what I’m saying? It’s always going to be a ying and a yang for everything. So you got to pick your poison. Time for us to go, which it looks like it is. We did just get in order to leave, so we’re packing up and leaving soon. Desiree Armstrong and her family live in Mountain Home Village. We were there as county officials issued a mandatory evacuation order around 5.30 in the evening. One woman placed her three cats in crates in the car and told…

Is that the cat ladies that JD Vance was talking about? Them, they know the drill. Up the mountain in Angeles. Adrian Monique says Phoenix has fantastic fall and winter, but yeah, y’all summers is like death. And y’all got a migrant crisis that’s happening over in Arizona. You know what I’m saying? So it’s always going to be a trade-off, always going to be a trade-off, both socially and, you know, as far as the actual geography of where it is that you live. Folks, families remained under an evacuation watch Sunday evening, but Scott Swift says they know the drill, too.

You know, loading pictures and important papers, getting the trailer ready, you know, putting the generators in the back of the truck just in case. But Swift, like some others, say they’ll only leave if they absolutely have to. Nobody’s come and told us to get out, so we’re still here. But we’re getting ready. We’ll be hooked up. So when the time comes, we’re gone. This is why insurance companies are evacuating because they can’t afford to continue to fund what has happened in over in California. Now we turn to a sign of the times and a growing fear for every California homeowner.

People around the Bay and across the state are now being told their homeowner insurance policies will not be renewed. Insurance providers say those policies are in areas that are now considered too high risk because they’re too densely populated. NBC Bay Area’s Tom Jensen explains. San Francisco is the second most densely populated city in the U.S. And some homeowners here learn this week because of that designation, their homeowner’s policy will not be renewed. A woman who lost her Napa County home in the 2017 Tubbs Fire told me by email State Farm dropped her policy last week and she can’t find another private insurer to step in.

It means she’ll likely have to buy the California Fair Plan. Subsidized by the state, it’s expensive and only offers fire coverage. State Farm issued a written statement to NBC Bay Area earlier this week explaining its decision to no longer write new policies for new California homes and to end coverage for about 50,000 existing California customers. It reads, this decision was not made lightly and only after careful analysis of State Farm General’s financial health, which continues to be impacted by inflation, catastrophe exposure, reinsurance costs, and the limitations of working within decades old insurance regulations.

Y’all gotta understand that if it’s not profitable for the company, then they are not going to continue to stay in there. And that’s largely also how you can determine whether or not that market is a market for you. I know people that are getting out of the real estate in California, both commercial and residential, altogether. As homeowners that can’t wait to sell their properties, if your property appreciate above a certain amount, then you also gonna have certain tax that say that you’re too rich and you gotta pay extra taxes. The taxes is bad altogether. California can’t keep subsidizing everything and they subsidize the homes in order to maintain stability within the market.

And at the same time, they’re operating at a budget deficit of close to $75 billion a year. So California is in shambles right now. I think that if you want to go and you want to visit, I think it’s a great place to visit depending on where you go. The wildfires and all of the disasters and the catastrophes and them continue to raise taxes and a bad leadership and no police. It’s just bad. It’s just bad over in California. So go over there on your own risk. And I think that you got to be super duper rich in order to move there.

But ladies and gentlemen, line fires California and bad insurance rates over there. So it’s not all that great either over in California. OK, let me read. Thank you. [tr:trw].

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