nearly 30% of the electorate in this state. it is no surprise the governor was here today in the mission, garnering support, trying to win the vote from the latino community to defeat the latest recall ever. hoping to bank on the lot next vote, the governor posing for pictures seekers, volunteering to phone bank, and reach out to spanish-speaking voters with the recall election just days away. >> we do know how super important they are, specifically this one. >> reporter: the bigger turnout, the better for newsom as state democrats outnumber republicans 2 1. >> i'm very proud of the response we are receiving from the latino community. >> reporter: today, the mission language and vocational school became a makeshift phone bank. during the last year and a half, it has served for a food bank for many, especially those hit hard. >> it's one of the things that is affecting the latino community, the pandemic.

>> reporter: this summer, it appeared the latino vote was split on the recall. >> polls seem to indicate that you have lost some of the latino support since 2018. >> it has been a hard 18 months on everybody. everybody is feeling that front and fear and anxiety. that is the moment we are in. he put that in political context, and larry and with an off year and off month election, and people's anxieties and fears, it is a challenging cauldron. >> i think newsom is law support -- >> reporter: and advisor for candidates including a presidential bid. >> it has been affected and impacted by the economic policy decisions, by the mismanagement of state government that we have seen under the administration. >> reporter: an encouraging sign for newsom, the recently released public policy institute of california poll showed 66% of likely latino voters won't support the recall, and is 27% saying they would, a shift from previous polling that suggested a tight

race. politicians lining up to reinforce the governor's message, that his policies have aligned to support this voting base. >> communities like the mission, where we are today, we are foremost on his mind when it came down to vaccinations and relief, throughout this pandemic. >> how did the latino community vote in the last gubernatorial election? >> reporter: when you look at the exit polls from 2018 newsom was elected governor of california, those polls showed that about 2 out of every 3 latino voters supported newsom. we will see in 7 days if he has a kind of support to defeat this latest recall effort. allen martin spoke with one of newsom's challengers, republican caitlyn jenner a few hours ago . she is trying to set herself apart from this field. how so? are back she really is. caitlyn jenner told me that

unlike many of her republican counterparts, she is pro-choice when it comes to abortion rights. i asked her about women's rights, specifically the extremely restrictive texas abortion mandate banning abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy, even in cases of sexual assault or incest. this is what she said. >> i will respect the rights of the sovereign state of texas to be able to do what they want to do. i am not a texan, so i really can't comment on that, but they have the right to do what they did. as a pro-choice candidate, i don't see any changes in abortion in the state of california in the near future. >> reporter: she also painted herself as a more left-leaning candidate. she told me as a moderate republican, she is, quote, more like a democrat. we first streamed our conversation with caitlyn jenner on cbsn bay area. you can watch 24/7 on our kpix 5 news app, or our website , kpix.com . we saw other republican candidates making the rounds today, many of them blasting

crime rates, forest management issues, things like that, homelessness especially here in the bay area. this is what larry elder said while visiting fresno county. >> homelessness is going up. have a newsom ran for mayor in 2004, promised to clean up the homeless problem in san francisco in 10 years. that would've been 2014. have you been to san francisco lately? how about filling the campaign promise he made to people in san francisco to clean up the homeless problem? >> meanwhile, john cox also made a stop in modesto, where he made some sweeping pledges to push down housing prices, and fix the homelessness problem if he is elected. >> what really matters to the voters of the state is having a house that they can afford, having homelessness cleaned up, having enough electricity, have enough water to farm makea living, to of fear of crime.

>> and at a virtual rally, republican kevin falconer also blasted governor newsom for being too soft on violent criminals, and not putting the victims first. many of the candidates also blamed improper forest management for the wildfire threat, with elder claiming it is caused by a war on logging. you can visit kpix.com /recall for our comprehensive election guide. we are also streaming interviews with these candidates on cbsn bay area. let's take a live look outside. within the last hour, cal iso issued a flex alert for tomorrow. paul heggen joins us with more on the weather event, and some are worried it could overload california's power grid. it has been hot in lent for the past couple of days. is going to be hot again tomorrow. it will just be in the prior to the bay area, but the whole state away from the coast. look at the widespread 100

degree high temperatures for tomorrow. the hotspot in the bay area will be eastern contra costa county, but this goes the length of the state, from 105 degrees in reading, 108 degrees in barstow and palm springs, 121 in death valley. that's extreme for the month of september even there. temperatures will back off later this week, and the air quality will improve. for most of us, moderate today, but some unhealthy for sensitive groups readings down the peninsula, and into the santa clara valley and we will see better air quality of any tomorrow, especially along the coast. the worst we will have is a moderate air quality for the north bay, and then for the east bay, and the santa clara valley. check out the forecast coming up. in oakley, a firefighter driving a water tanker was injured after being involved in a crash. it happened around 1:00 this afternoon. the incident happened on west cypress road and o'hara avenueya

completely flipped er. the truck was responding to a vegetation fire nearby. the intersection has been cleared up, and the firefighter is expected to be okay. onto the fire watch tonight. cruise have the caldor fire nearly have contain this evening. it is burned more than 338 square miles, but cal fire says the growth slowed significantly over the weekend. further north, the dixie fire shows no signs of stopping, burning another 3000 acres overnight. the second largest wildfire in california history is now more than 800 square miles wide. cal fire says the perimeter of this fire is about as long as driving from the southern border of california, clear up to oregon. fire crews have that plays nearly 60% contained. thousands of californians have lost their homes in the recent fires. kpix 5's john ramose has more on how one company is using

drones and 3-d technology to keep him safe from wildfires. >> reporter: this forest in sonoma county near calistoga prince just last year in the glass fire, and it is seems like this that are making people who live in this area very serious about home hardening. the tubs fire in 2017 changed bill dyer's mind about living in a house in the middle of the woods. >> if we thought that was a cool thing, once you have been through these fires, looking out your window and seeing trees hasn't different impact. becky cleared a defensible space around the house, but when the glass fire burned right up to his driveway, he decided he needed professional help, and turned to a new company called fire maps. they use drones to create a three-dimensional image of the property that shows, in minute detail, the conditions of the home and the surrounding tree canopies. >> from that, we are able to create a prioritized list of treatments that would best help

reduce their fire risk. >> reporter: the fire maps cofounder says work is underway to trim bills trees, removing dead branches that can act as kindling. they also swapped out the eave defense for one second seal up under high heat, and fire maps found this while great, that could allow burning embers directly into the house. >> is not in the field of view, or something you are aware of a homeowner. how many vents do i have, what kind of vents, what kind of mesh. >> reporter: they get a detailed list of recommendations, including immediate fixes, and those that can be phased in over several years. scheduling contractors can be a difficult task, so fire maps helps find companies to do the work, saving the homeowner time, and the contractor money by using the 3-d rendering. >> it allows contractors to then look at and bid on the project without having to show up on site. perhaps the best thing is the price. it is free to homeowners. the cost is borne by the contractors for getting more work. bill still own work to

do but he says he has come to appreciate the thing in words that are not quite so thick. >> when i look at this direction , it is more parklike. it's a managed forest. that's what needs to be. >> reporter: john ramos, kpix 5. fire maps updates its renderings each time major work is done, and they say that could be valuable for mincing insurance companies to continue coverage in those high risk areas. now at 6:00, a crew of small fires are being investigated as suspicious. the fires broke out around 10:00 p.m. last night, and were put out by midnight. all of the fires were located around 2 to 3 miles north and west of healdsburg. six of them were on mill creek road. some of the fires reached as much as 2 acres in size.

because the fires were suspicious, law enforcement is patrolling the area. state senator mark mcgwire is urging anyone with security footage in the area to check with the sheriff's office. still ahead on kpix 5 news at 6:00, and cbsn bay area -- some encouraging numbers from around california raising some new questions. is the worst of the pandemic behind us, and is delta the worst variant threat we are going to face? a group of south bay parents fighting to get their children out of classrooms once again. >>

on the fight against coronavirus, the state of california's covid positivity rate is now at 4.1%. that is more than a 2 percent drop from this time last month. >> high vaccination rates and extra precautions are good at stopping the spread of the virus, but are we in the clear of another surge? >> wilson walker live at oakland international airport with more on this. wilson? >> reporter: 140,000 people came through oakland international over labor day weekend, more than double last year, and 75% of what we saw before the pandemic. not that. we talked to a couple of health experts today. they aren't too concerned about that have having any kind of bump in the numbers we have seen. they are looking at falling

hospitalizations in northern and southern california. here in the bay area, we may be back to where we were in may or june quite soon. >> the models are showing us that by mid-to-late september, we are going to be back to low levels of cases, those comfortable low levels that we had for so long. >> reporter: thanks to high vaccination rates and extra precautions, the bay area is moving out of the delta surge. it is decidedly good news that dr. monica gandhi fears is getting lost in a flurry of differing headlines about the state of the pandemic. >> i think we are having mixed messaging, where people are talking about breakthroughs a lot, but you know, david leonard gave a really great new york times article this morning that he said come up really like your breakthrough risk depends on if you are in a place with lower high infection rates. it totally makes sense. >> reporter: you just have to look at what happened in florida and texas and the south

to say this could've been asked, right, if we had lower vaccination rates. we have a compass a great deal. >> reporter: dr. george rutherford says delta has exposed the risk of having trucks of the population unprotected, and there are still corners of the region and age groups where there is more work to be done. >> we need to be working on improving our vaccine coverage. we need to anticipate what pediatric vaccines are going to become available. >> reporter: one more recent overcoming does it would be acute accomplishment. experts think that variant is so transmissible that it simply cannot evolve to become more contagious. if that is the case, the virus may have thrown its best punch. >> once people get more immunity, and other virus can't actually take hold. it is the only terrible silverlining of delta that it is infecting a lot of people leading to a lot of immunity. >> approximately 100% of the time, monica is right. i think she is right on this. i don't see big new mutations coming down the pipe.

>> reporter: another reason they are confident, there are plenty of places in the united states and around the world were other variants have had a chance to fight it out with delta, and delta has always proven to be the dominant heavyweight. the rest of the country and other parts of california are a different story. san joaquin valley is still seeing high hospitalization numbers and higher case numbers and we are seeing here. it is still a tale of where your vaccination rate stands, and that is becoming increasingly the case on the backside of the delta surge. live in oakland international, wilson walker, kpix 5. >> a lot of us have cautious optimism. thank you. some parents in the cupertino union school district want to go back to distance learning. they are concerned about the delta variant, and their kids who are still too young to get a vaccine. cases involving children under 17 have been on the rise here in california, but cupertino reports just 10 confirmed covid cases among students, and six among staff, out of a district of 14,000.

today, about a dozen parents met with the cupertino school officials to ask for an option to return to distance learning. >> we are very scared of the increase in cases around, and our kids are not vaccinated, and we don't want them to get exposed to that. >> the district says distance learning was controlled by the state, and funding for it has run out. students can enroll in homestudy , but parents would have to take the lead in teaching their kids. families would lose their spots in highly competitive schools, which often have lotteries just to get in. the coalition of homeless held a protest outside of san francisco city hall today. the group of roughly 100 people called on mary london breed and other city leaders to keep shelters and place hotels open. the group says sheltering the homeless population in hotels will keep many out of hospital beds during the pandemic.

travel news this evening, and a quicker way to get to lake tahoe. southwest airlines announcing that it is resuming its flights from san jose to reno. flights are set to depart from san jose 7 days per week. service was suspended in the beginning of april last year. now you can get there fast. >> even faster. >> as soon as the smoke is done it will be perfect. let's take a look at what is happening weatherwise, and it is still the same pattern that has produced the inland heat wave, but also some moisture offshore. that will hang out offshore tomorrow, but will creep closer to the coast on thursday. whenever that happens, we have to watch out for the potential of some showers and thunderstorms. we do want to see any cloud-to- ground lightning. let's look at forecast model data. the best case scenario is passing clouds on thursday. no showers, that they won't produce much precipitation anyway. the lightning, that's what we are hoping for. this is the worst-case model which indicates potential for scattered showers to try to pop

up north of the golden gate thursday afternoon, but mo likely, thursday evening and overnight thursday night. it doesn't look like a lot of activity, but just a couple showers going into an actual thunderstorm would allow cloud- to-ground lightning strikes to hit the very dry fire fuels we have across the bay area. we are going to monitor that. it's a low probability high consequence event, because we are looking at any cloud-to- ground lightning strike causing new fires that spread very quickly. the same system producing that thread of showers and thunderstorms will help clear out the surface level smoke. some will blow through tomorrow, elevated in the atmosphere. the ground-level air quality will improve tomorrow, and continue to improve on thursday, with the smoke being blown off to the northeast. more green dots on the forecast is we head through the end of the work week, and into the weekend. good air quality by friday and saturday. some talk along the coast. it is a compressed point there,

stubborn today. temperatures in san francisco only at the mid 60s. still low 90s for livermore and concord. though it is for san jose and santa rosa. cody knows how to beat the heat or the cool in the shade. the temperatures are too warm for a walk in santa fe, but we will pack down is we head through the rest of the evening. overnight lows, upper 50s, low to mid 60s. still hot inland tomorrow. 90 in san jose, low to mid 90s for most of the north bay. upper 90s to around 100 degrees. 60s along the coast. find the water and you will be able to cool off. temperatures back down close to normal levels by friday, saturday, and sunday. low 70s for oakland in the east bay, low 80s for san jose. still warm, but not overly hot for him in parts of the east bay. warm in the north bay, and temperatures back to the low 60s along the coast. straightahead in sports, an old friend is back in the coliseum. are you familiar with the usc? traveler. we will tell you the

the x-rays from your urgent care visit look good. just stay off that leg, okay? what about my rec team? i'm all they got. next season. thanks doc. wow, he already scheduled my pt. i love doctors who work with athletes. does he know you tripped over a basketball?

that's a sports injury. at kaiser permanente, we make getting care easy so you can get back on the court quicker. emergency planning for kids. we can't predict when an emergency will happen. so that's why it's important to make a plan

with your parents. here are a few tips to stay safe. know how to get in touch with your family. write down phone numbers for your parents, siblings and neighbors. pick a place to meet your family if you are not together and can't go home. remind your parents to pack an emergency supply kit. making a plan might feel like homework, but it will help you and your family stay safe during an emergency. baseball up top, and the state of the oakland a's. looking for october playoff

games. was the value of 3.5 games? write out by that margin, they are on the outside looking in with 25 regular season games left. skipper says there is still time. >> you know what, i think the best part of our season is yet to come. >> there is the roadmap. i hope you're right. after the tony larissa white sox series that starts tonight, the a's play nine straight games against teams with losing records rita looks good on paper. meantime, the giants are in business in colorado, moving pictures on the late show. stanford football has turned a sophomore quarterback tanner mckay as a starter now for this weekend, and it's a huge game as well. it is usc week period,, siren of the annenberg school of journalism, get in here. one of my sons goes there, so for what i'm paying -- i travel there myself. >> that's right. >> ths did not play

last year because of the shortened schedule. stanford, they say they will get acquainted which is much play fights on. >> your breaking out the loudspeakers at practice again, playing the song over and over again. >> i think our guys will be used to the song by then. >> and we pivoted to layla fernandez. she celebrated her 19th birthday yesterday. today, u.s. open for court against ukraine. the birthday parties built into the next round. what a shot in the third round. as the young canadian won and reach the semi finals of a grand slam for the first time. >> what are they feeding you up north in canada that is producing such incredible, inspiring tennis this week? >> i would say it is the maple syrup.

canadian maple syrup is very good. >> there you go, the maple syrup endorsements, coming her way. >> a rising thank you. up next, it is best to start them young, where east

i may not be as pretty. i'm not a cable tv personality or an entertainer like larry. i'm the businessman, the only cpa running for gov ernor. california is a mismanaged mess. taxes, cost of living, water, wildfires, homelessness. these aren't political issues; they're readily fixable management issues. career politicians? celebrities? i've solved problems all my life. let's fix this great state! california! during a flex alert, let's keep our power up and running. set ac cooler and use big appliances before 4pm. then from 4-9pm reduce use and take it easy on our energy. sign up today.

finally, the oakland fire department getting help yesterday from this future firefighter in training. pretty cute. >> the uniform looks good. >> very strong. >> at that get

captioning sponsored by cbs ♪ >> o'donnell: tonight, president biden tours the devastation caused by catastrophic flooding in the northeast, claiming his infrastructure plan will safeguard against future storms. the president consoles storm victims, promising to help communities rebuild, blaming climate change for the extreme weather. >> the threat is here. it's not going to get any better. >> o'donnell: plus, breaking news out of louisiana as the health department revokes licenses for seven nursing homes, it says failed to protect its residents. covid milestone: the u.s. hits a staggering 40 million confirmed covid cases as infections among children reach the highest levels yet. women protest the new hard-line taliban government.