 We aren't out of this by a long shot. The Northern California fires of 2014 will go down as some of the most aggressive and difficult to fight in recent memory. Dozens of wildfires, more than 154,000 acres burned so far. Crews are making progress on the Eiler fire. Multiple fires are still burning. More than 31,000 acres to the California wildfires, the rain having an impact. In the heat of the summer, the Eiler fire torched Hat Creek, Fire Chief Randy Garner's hometown. It was extremely intense. Chief Garner and his crew of volunteers put in 36 hours on the fire lines to make good progress, but then his instincts picked up on something. The air kind of felt like it changed. A change for the worst, as it turned out. The fire was making a hard run up the mountain. The smoke column, you could see it starting to curl and lay over in our direction, and it's never a good sign. Just a hundred yards from the firehouse, Hat Creek's fireside village. The flame lengths from this corner were almost reaching the flagpole. They were just incredible. Those flames went beyond the flagpole and consumed fireside village. This is what's left, charred rubble, smoldering ashes. That was an icon. I mean, that place was Hat Creek. The heartbeat of Hat Creek, where for decades, locals have shared food, drink, and family time. Did the best stand that we could with the house behind us. It was a good save. Unfortunately, the store and the restaurant next to us, we ran out of water. Thousands of firefighters from around the state roll in. Tankers zero on, air attack on, air attack on. It's California's mutual aid system in action. Even fire crews far to the south, as far as San Diego, are dispatched to the North State's rough terrain. Being from San Diego County, everybody's a wildland firefighter as well, even though we may work in a city. Within that fire truck, we also have wildland capabilities. Those are the tools, the equipment, the hose line, and the personnel to attack a forest fires. More than 9,000 firefighters total, and nearly 1,000 pieces of heavy equipment and vehicles, all working in tandem to battle the blazes across Northern California. Most of those who live here are gone, and hoping to return to a home that was either saved or spared. They were evacuated to nearby Red Cross shelters, volunteers standing by ready to help. Finding what the people's needs are, you know, we hear it to cater to them, because this is their new home. And with that comes hot comfort food. It's homemade spaghetti with our very own special spaghetti meat sauce recipe. Coffee plays an important role here at the Incident Command Post, set up at the fairgrounds in the town of Anderson. This kind of brain power needs to stay sharp. Look around the room, you see a lot of different uniforms. Basecamp is home to fire crews from all over California. They're filling roles established by the Incident Command System. You can see the finance, logistics, operations, planning, it's all kind of, the work all happens right in this building. They monitor the latest intelligence on the fire's movements, the weather, crew locations and shift changes. They plan accordingly to get the upper hand on each blaze. It's starting to spread this way and we're trying to keep it from Jayhooking any further. But we're doing an excellent job with dozers that cruise out on the line and especially our aerial resources. Cal OES director Mark Gilarducci and Cal Fire Chief Ken Pemlot fly with the California National Guard to get a better view of the damage and potential losses. It confirms what their teams on the ground tell them. Recent spread are off the charts. They're exceeding anything that we've experienced in previous years. Three years of drought conditions have created fuels waiting to combust with the slightest spark. An additional 15,000 acres burned in just a few hours a day ago. But the mobilization of mutual aid resources and the effects they've already had gives these emergency managers confidence. Assess the complexity of all these events, the cascading impacts that occur, getting people out of harm's way, getting firefighters on the scene. I mean it was just a monumental effort to be able to pull all that together and it really speaks to the tremendous cooperation amongst all the agencies. Back at Hat Creek Fire Station, the feeling of guilt has set in with Chief Garner. It was sad and I almost felt responsible. Even though I know I had nothing to do with the fire, I actually had a small meltdown after the restaurant went. My folks have owned it since 1979. He was helpless against the roaring inferno that incinerated his family's business, its livelihood and his hometown's identity. Fire Station 11 was spared and so were the firefighters who worked there, but the town wasn't so lucky. The whole valley is never going to be the same. The picturesque mountains and the trees, the timber, it's never going to be the same. It'll come back, but not in my lifetime. Even so, Chief Garner can still see the irony and somehow laugh. After all is said and done and look behind you there. This is your burn pile. That is my burn pile. It didn't burn. The Eiler Fire alone has been a tough one. It's taken more than 30 weeks for mutual aid crews to get a handle on it, but not before it destroyed seven homes, two businesses and torched 32,000 acres. Oh yes, weather tender and I think another one out of Fresno. Back at Cal OES headquarters, Chief Deputy Director Nancy Ward and Fire Branch Chief Kim Zagaris get an update on the latest developments from leaders on the front lines. I think the fact that they just jumped on it with a bunch of crews last night and this morning was contributed to its success. Great news for that fire, but all of the North State blazes have taxed firefighting resources the likes not seen in years. Cal OES went to preparedness level five, the highest level. For fires not wind driven, they're fed by dry fuel and terrain. On some incidents they can't use helicopters because the water's too low to dip into, or there's barely enough water to drink, let alone fight fires. To take that as barometer and just before this all started, we had the Sands Fire in Al Dorado County. I think it's not going to be good if we continue down this rate with the ongoing drought and fire conditions. It's going to be extremely dangerous. Meanwhile, two new fires have sparked, the Junction Fire near Yosemite and the Wave Fire in Kern County. Crews are scrambling from the north to head south. The 2014 fire season has just started with the roar of a lion when it typically doesn't hit its stride until late October or November. But it's all in a day's work for Cal OES Fire Branch and the mutual aid system. The other side sluggered down the flank and started to torch a tree right now. So I'm just going to be climbing and aiming toward where that torching is. I'm just going to get a little smoke in here but not too bad.