. >> melanie woodrow is live from san francisco with the storey tonight. melanie? >> reporter: this is one of those properties behind me. the san francisco city attorney's office say that they first caught on to the scam back in 2014. the property owners were basically evicting tenants, and then renting out those units as short term rentals. air b and bs. this time the fine they'll be paying is much steeper. these are staging photos provided to "abc7 news" from the san francisco city attorney's office. food, garbage, even damp towels, all carefully placed making it look to investigators as though someone was living here all the time. but this these images, advertising the same units as short-term rentals, the food and garbage are gone, the damp towels dry. >> vast amounts of deception, and conduct to hide what the defendants were doing here. >> reporter: san francisco city attorney dennis herrera says his office caught them illegally renting out the units in 2014. they paid $276,000 in fines, but did it again, violating a court injunction. >> unfortunately, they vi

. >> melanie woodrow broke this story last year and covered it for months. she's in the newsroom with the latest on it. melanie? >> here's the settlement. oakmont senior living gets to continue operating on a two-year probation. the assisted living facility admits they left residents behind despite evacuations due to the tubbs fire. >> more than one year avril akah bring burned to the ground, they've reached a settlement with the department of social services. two months ago, they filed a legal notice to revoke the licenses of villa capri and -- after they left people behind during the tubbs fire evacuation. remaining residents were dependent on family members and emergency responder. >> all i could think about was getting all those people to safety. >> hi ma'am. i'm your escort service. grab on to my shoulders. like we're dancing okay? >> according to the settlement. after shuttling residents to evacuation sites, local authorities precluded staff from returning to the facilities. a point local authorities disputed. the settlement spelled out the terms of a

the store's owners spoke with our reporter melanie woodrow and is hoping someone will recognize the man and turn them in. >> there's no short an of surveillance cameras inside mid city market on gary street in san francisco. several of them captured multiple angles of a man setting a fire inside the store sunday morning. employees called the owner to tell him. >> i opened the cameras to see, and i saw the flames inside the store. my heart dropped. >> reporter: in the video, you can see the man unrap a roll of toilet paper and light the end of it. >> he was using the lighter, and the fire stashted going. >> reporter: by the time anyone realized, the man was going. employees ran with water and extinguishers and put it out before it reached bottles of lighter fluid. he estimates the fire, which destroyed merchandise and a section of the store. >> all this is damaged. this one here. this is damaged. >> reporter: costs $20,000 in damages. >> i don't know what's wrong with these people. >> reporter: the san francisco fire department has the surveillance video and is investigating. they say it

melanie woodrow, abc 7 news much. >>> the ace hardware on battery street tells melanie that they are expecting a shipment of the masks but not until tuesday. ich been looking for smaller-sized ones for the baby. i'm going to keep her inside. >> do they have them? are they available? >> yeah. amazon. i was checking amazon. >>> thanks for joining us for abc 7 news at 4:00. i'm larry beil. >> abc 7 news at 5:00 start now. >>> our downtown is devastated. this fire took everything. >> it also left behind buses and cars abandoned as people ran for their lives. >> my car ran out of gas. we had to leave it. >> she's one of the lucky ones. she and her dog are okay. in the bay area, masks are a common sight. how long will the skies stay this smoky. >> local researchers learning from what they've seen up north. >> would move 80 feet in 30 seconds. i've never seen anything like that. >> abc 7. live breaking news. >>> new video of that massive fire burning in butte county at least five people are now confirmed dead. the fire consumed their cars as they tried to escape. one woman who did make it o

"abc 7 news" reporter melanie woodrow explains what is going on. >> reporter: these are staging photos provided to "abc 7 news" from the san francisco city attorney's office. food, garbage, even damp towels all carefully placed, making it look to city investigators as though 2001 wsomeone was living all the time. in the images off airbnb advertising as short-term rentals, the food and garbage are gone, towels are dry. >> vast amounts of deception and conduct to hide what the defendants, the lees, were actually doing here. >> reporter: san francisco city attorney dennis hererra says his office caught landlords darryn and valerie lee illegally renting these units in 2014. they paid $276,000 in fines but did it again, violating a court injunction. >> unfortunately, they violated the terms of that injunction before the ink was dry on the paper. >> reporter: hererra says the lees booked more than $900,000 in short-term rentals and pocketed more than $700,000 in illicit profits from 14 units. >> a lot of evil that we see when people are violating the law, it is all about the money, nd that's

. >> "abc 7 news" reporter melanie woodrow has advice for staying safe. >> reporter: dr. balm, a professor of medicine and environmental health scientist, says air quality in the bay area is comparable to a good day in delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world. >> if you are outside, you will be breathing it with every air breath. >> reporter: as air quality is down, call volume is up at the bay area air quality management district. individuals, schools and even counties are calling for advice. >> they want to know what they can do or what type of measures they can tattke to make sure they're safe. >> the dose is determined by the concentration of particles in the air and how long you are out. >> reporter: doctors say you definitely don't want to be exercising outdoors right now, especially because when you do you tend to breathe more through your mouth than your nose. >> you bypass the filtering mechanism of the nose. >> reporter: also, when exercising you tend to breathe in more so you get a greater dose of the particles. experts say wearing an n-95 mask helps

in san francisco, melanie woodrow, "abc 7 news." >>> we have new details from chicago where a gunman killed a police officer, a doctor and a pharmaceutical assistant at a hospital today. police say the suspect first shot and killed a woman in the parking lot. a source tells our abc sister station in chicago the suspect was the woman's former fiance. police say the suspect fired shots at arriving officers before running into the hospital where he continued openin fire, killing another woman and an officer. >> the officers that responded were heroes and saved a lot of lives because we don't know how much damage he was prepared to do. >> this tears at the soul of our city. it is the face and the consequence of evil. >> the suspect was also killed. police say it is unclear if it was self-inflicted or by police gunfire. >>> a former cake decorator at a local safeway store filed a lawsuit claiming that managers failed to address health and safety problems she reported about a co-worker at the bakery and then retaliated against her. >> yes, she has provided pictures to the i-team's dan noye

melanie woodrow, abc 7 news. >> more to come here. cleaning up their streets and creeks. how one east bay community is working to build a better bay area by cracking down on illegal dumping. >>> a real sweet gesture to help a donut shop customer. why customers have vowed to boy up every pastry as early as possible every day. >>> i'm meteorologist sandhya patel. november off to a warm start, but changes are on the way. i'll tell you all about the weekend forecast, coming right up. >> sandhya, thanks. all that's ahead. >>> first, on jimmy kimmel live after abc 7 news at 11:00, jimmy? >> thanks, dan and am map. tonight, we ate their halloween candy again. >> three, two, one. pull! trust the science, trust the science. there we go! it's "gaming with america's best internet provider" internet. just any internet. it's "all your teenagers streaming at once" internet. it's "i can get up to one-two-three-four-five mobile lines included" internet. it's internet from xfinity that makes your life... simple. easy. awesome. get a special offer on xfinity internet and tv for $35 each a

melanie woodrow, abc 7 news. >> more to come here. cleaning up their streets and creeks. how one east bay community is working to build a better bay area by cracking down on illegal dumping. >>> a real sweet gesture to help a donut shop customer. why customers have vowed to boy up every pastry as early as possible every day. >>> i'm meteorologist sandhya patel. november off to a warm start, but changes are on the way. i'll tell you all about the weekend forecast, coming right up. >> sandhya, thanks. all that's ahead. >>> first, on jimmy kimmel live after abc 7 news at 11:00, jimmy? >> thanks, dan and am map. tonight, we ate their halloween candy again. >> three, two, one. pull! trust the science, trust the science. there we go! it's "gaming with america's best internet provider" internet. just any internet. it's "all your teenagers streaming at once" internet. "i n get upo e-two-threur-five mobile lines included" internet. it's internet from xfinity that makes your life... simple. easy. awesome. get a special offer on xfinity internet and tv for $35 each a month for 12 mo

in san francisco, melanie woodrow, abc 7 news. >>> reports say nearly 5 million californians have already voted by mail. you can check whether your ballot has arrived on california secretary of state's website. simply click on your county and follow the prompts. it takes less than 30 seconds. you can find out if the ballot was counted and, if not, the reason why. we have a link to that website on abc7news.com. >>> coming up next on abc 7 news at 4:00, new information has been released on the deadly shooting at a sonoma county home for veterans early this year. we'll have a live report on the investigation. plus -- >>> the white house knows they are already talking about potential major investigations on capitol hill. >> abc news white house >>> turning now to the election results, they're starting to pour in. senator bernie sanders has been re-elected in vermont. >> here dieian feinstein is holding her election night party in the presidio. >> kate larsen joins us live. >> we are at the officers club in the presidio. this is the heart of dianne feinstein country. she lives nearby and i'm t

"abc 7 news" reporter melanie woodrow consulted an expert. >> reporter: how do you carve a turkey? who better to ask than a chef who will be carving hundreds of turkeys this year. >> first, you want to separate out your legs and the thighs, and really take the drum sticks. don't be afraid to get in there and break that down to the side. what that gives you is a stable bird to work with. next, you want to take your breast off. so usually what i do, i follow this bone right here, is the wish bone. i'm going to make that cut and follow the breast bone down. what you can do is get that whole breast off. i'm carving around the wish bone and taking the whole breast off. i will keep the whole breast together and i will make nice, big slices for my platter. the rest of the turkey i will do with my hands. for the dark meat you can almost just pull those bonesout, and either this -- you can either slice with a knife or you can sort of shred with your hands. >> you made it look very easy. >> thanks. we have had a lot of practice. happy thanksgiving, everybody. >> wait for the microphone, i ha