Rescues, Evacuations Underway As At Least 22 Fires Burn Across California
KING: Let's get you the latest on the dozens of fast-moving wildfires ravaging the west. In California, at least 22 wildfires scorching more than two million acres across the state. The Creek Fire has forced an entire town to evacuate. Officials calling it an unprecedented disaster with zero containment. Let's bring in CNN's Ryan Young, in San Bernardino County, and CNN's Chad Myers, tracking the wildfires. Ryan, to you first. It's absolutely stunning when you look at all these pictures.</s>RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. When you look behind us, it looks like a moonscape. We're 45 minutes outside of L.A. You see this fire or what's left over. This is the El Dorado Fire, and this was started because of some pyrotechnics. People showed up to do a gender reveal party, and this started a fire. Look from above. You can see the scorched earth, 10,000 acres involved in this fire alone, 16 percent containment. Firefighters are really working overtime. But then when you talk about the other fire, the Creek Fire. When you have over 100,000 acres that are currently in flames and also the fact that there's zero percent containment. And then the idea that firefighters have had to think very quickly to save people in trouble using helicopters. Had four different locations that they had to get the hikers out of. All of this going on right now as temperatures have been very hot, and the wind has been very strong. In fact, take a listen to some of the rescue efforts.</s>THOM PORTER, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA FORESTRY & FIRE PROTECTION: This is a fire that's burning in a pretty remote area. A lot of camping and recreational cabins over the holiday weekend. A lot of people were there for vacation time. We have been doing sheltering operations, meaning people are staying in place until the fire passes areas and then shuttle operations to try and get them out by road.</s>YOUNG: John, look, it's still very early in the morning so we've seen firefighters who are driving around. These guys have been battling non-stop to put out these fires. Some of them working more than 20 hours at a time. You have to think about the work that they are putting in. Now, when you think about the conditions here and the fact that over two million acres have already burned, and it's not fire season yet, you understand why people who live in this state are very worried. Of course, when you look behind me and see the scorched earth, you know fire and this dry ground just don't mix.</s>KING: They just don't mix. Ryan, thanks for pointing out the fantastic work of these first responders who work around the clock and are all exhausted making their best effort. Ryan, appreciate that. Chad, to Ryan's point, it's not each fire season yet. Is the prognosis better when you look at other factors or getting worse?</s>CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Certainly not better for the next 48 hours, John. We really have a problem in California where winds will be gusting to 20 to 30 miles per hour on top of the fires that aren't contained. We talked about this yesterday where Salt Lake City could have gusted to about 79 this morning. They were over 70. But the peaks and the valleys to the north and to the east of Salt Lake City, 99 miles per hour for the wind gusts. I know we talk about the 25 in California, but there are many other fires here affected by this wind, affected by what we've seen, where temperatures in Denver went from 94 to 37. This is a cold front of big wintertime proportions. Each right now in Salt Lake City gusting to 67 miles per hour. Vegas to 43. Dust is in the Arabs, And we look out here towards Redding, that's the area that we saw the lightning complex, the northern lightning complex so badly close to Vacaville. This is going to fire up again today, I'm afraid, and maybe not much help for tomorrow, 15 to 20. That doesn't seem like a lot when you're hoping for a 15-mile-per-hour gust to cool you off. But when you have fire and embers and ash going in the direction of that wind, it is a problem. Now farther to the east and Colorado, snow. Even Wyoming and parts of Utah, some spots could pick up 24 inches of snow with this system. That's how vigorous and big this storm is. Snow on one side and 100- mile-per-hour winds on the other side and thunderstorms down across parts of Texas. This really is almost a winter type storm coming when we still have tropical storms in the Atlantic -- John?</s>KING: Talk about extreme weather. That's bizarre, just bizarre. Chad Myers, grateful for the update and the latest there. We'll stay in touch in the days ahead. Still ahead for us, eight weeks to Election Day, and Team Trump taking a very particular interest in North Carolina.