 to you live from the California State Fair. It is First Responders Appreciation Day at the State Fair today. We'll talk more about what that means coming up. We have to address the heat across the state and we will do that. It is hot but there are certainly ways to beat that heat and we'll give you some great tips on how to do that. We'll also run down the state fire situation three large fires burning across the state of California and give you an inside look at what it takes to get on the front lines and fight the fires. Again, we are coming to you live First Responders Day at the California State Fair in Sacramento. I'm Brian May. Thanks so much for joining us and I'm joined now by Darla Givens, who is the media director for the California State Fair. I should also point out that you were a long time meteorologist up and down California and you and I have known each other for what, 20 years? About 20 years. That's right. Worked together in television. So before we talk about the fair, I'm going to let you put on your meteorological hat once again. It's hot and it's, you know, it's July. We expect to be heat, but this week is exceptionally hot. You know what? It seems to happen every time the fair comes around. We see those triple digits, but we prepare for them here at the California State Fair. We have 11 air conditioned buildings and I was telling you yesterday on my day off, guess where I was? Well, let me stop you there. Yes, you work at the fair. You get one day off during the fair and on your day off, you did what? I came to the fair. No, but, you know, when working here, I don't get to see everything. So I wanted to go into some of the cool buildings. We have 11 air conditioned buildings. I was in the California Fine Arts building. I was in there for about 30 to 45 minutes just looking at all the art pieces. We have six buildings like that. So just think if you go into those buildings, that's where you can keep cool. And just like we're here right in front of the Camp Smokey, this is a cool spot too. And so we have about 20 cool spots located throughout the entire fairgrounds. So we want to make sure that when people come out here, they know what to do to prepare themselves for the heat, drink plenty of fluids, wear the proper clothing and those cooling towels, they don't hurt either. They actually work really well. And we understand a lot of people maybe not be in the Sacramento area and can't come out here to the California State Fair, but there are county fairs all across the state right now going on and just, you know, be smart when you come out in this kind of heat. And that's the thing about it. Prepare for it. Watch your local newscast to find out what the weather is going to be because all up and down the state, as you mentioned, we are under some sort of heat advisory. So right now we do have an excessive heat advisory in effect from Northern California into Southern California. And believe it or not, Southern California, they're getting hit a little worse than what we are. But here's some things to remember. Drink lots of water where they're appropriate clothing and avoid the peak heat of the day. Let's look at some of these numbers from Southern California now. And we're looking at some of the high deserts, temperatures there well into the hundreds. And even here in the Sacramento region, we're looking at temperatures anywhere from 107 to 112 in Northern California. Especially in Southern, I know the problem is it's not cooling off at night. And that creates a big issue as well. Here we get that cooling Delta Breeze, although our Delta Breeze here isn't going to be quite as strong. We're looking at winds at about 10 miles per hour out of the Southwest, very shallow marine layer. So our temperatures here maybe in the 60s, so it helps a bit. But when you have temperatures in the evenings in Southern California at around 70, 75 degrees, that doesn't help much at all. You touched on it. I know you folks here at the California State Fair have done a great job of giving people ways to get out of the heat. We sent our own Jonathan Goodell out and he found some ways to beat that heat. Hey, Brian, yeah, here at the State Fair, it's well above 100 degrees. And here on the asphalt in the direct sun, it's even that much hotter. On the pavement, it's 133 degrees. And in the shade, it's just a little cooler, Brian, at 81 degrees. And just a few feet away inside the exhibit hall, it's much cooler and much more comfortable. 70 degrees. Fried food, amusement rides, carnival games. It's the State Fair in all its glory. What else is synonymous with the fair? Extreme heat. We notice more calls of service when it's over 100 degrees than when it's less. And then when you start to get in the extreme heat of 104 105, it's going to be a busy day for us. To offer relief, the State Fair deployed 20 missing fans throughout the fairgrounds referred to as cool spots. Full body misses are also popular, especially with kids drink a little bit more water than you normally would in the morning to get in preparation for being out here in the sun hot day, walking around for hours. These brutal summer conditions are problematic for all. But some can also be avoided. It's folks that either enjoyed perhaps too many adult beverages, fried food and spinny rides. Those are the folks we tend to see on a fairly regular basis. Great tasting lemonade right here. Free sunscreen is available throughout the fair. But maybe nothing cures a heat wave quite like a cold treat. Generally pacing yourself drinking plenty of water and spending enough time inside the air conditioning buildings to just kind of make your day a little bit more enjoyable. Even though it's extremely hot out here, Brian, the State Fair has done a great job of finding ways to keep people cool. And this right here is my favorite one. Back to you, Brian. His new nickname around the office is Misty. That's what we're going to call him from now. But he touched on it. You guys have done a really good job and we mentioned that just making sure there are ways people to get out of the heat. That's right. We want to make sure that the services here are available just like you saw Kevin Anderson, our EMT here on site. If something happens, we try to get someone over there right away. But that misting station, those are very, very popular. And they work. They do. They do. And we have the shaded areas in the food court that have the misting fans as well. I don't know if you went to the food court down that way. They have this, yeah, about that tall fan that blows cold air at you. You just stand there and enjoy it. You just stand there and be like, huh, okay. Air is free, right? It is. And we have the Forest Center back there as well. We have an acre forest and our three and a half acre farm. You go back there, we have frountains. So you have that water there. It helps that cooling effect. So we have lots of things here to keep cool. My mama pitched a blanket right where we're standing yesterday. And she just chilled out here yesterday where it was nice about 78 degrees right under the shade area. Well, you saw Jonathan with that heat gun. It's there's a 50 degree difference between being out on the sun and being in the shade. And that's the thing about it. They're too long. Yeah. Give yourself a break. Go inside one of the buildings. Go find one of those cooling fans. Cool yourself down. Drink the water. It's so important. That's what we want to remind people about today. You guys have done it every day. You guys done a great job of making it easy for people. Hey, listen, the heat's not only putting a strain on us as individuals with the exposure, but it also really is taxing the state's energy grid. We've been in a flex alert for the last two days, a possibility that we can have a flex alert again today. And what that means is the people who control the state's energy are asking you conserve as much as possible between the peak hours of 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Not running big appliances, your air conditioner, if you must have it, pull your temperature up to 78 or more higher degrees. Keep the pool pumps for in the middle of the night. Anything that uses electricity. Push it on either side of 5 p.m. Or later than 9 p.m. Yeah, always great advice when we're in these peak days of the summer. And listen, we've talked about what the heat can do to us as individuals. We've talked about what the heat is doing to the state's energy grid. We also have to talk about what this heat is doing to the state's fire right now. Fire is burning all across the state of California. The last couple of days have been specifically bad. I'm going to run down the three largest fires that are in the state of California currently and we'll start at the top of the state and kind of work our way down. So starting north in Shasta County, the car fire currently 20,000 acres, just 10% contained and there are over 1300 personnel working that fire. Working our way down the state in Mariposa County, the Ferguson fire, the largest of the fires right now. It is 43,000 plus acres, 27% contained. And as you see, up to 3,700 firefighters working that fire. And then working our way down the state, the Cranston fire, which is in Riverside County. And I want you to look at this. That red area is the actual fire lines. That's where the fire is. And then the orange area over to the right of the screen is the evacuation zone. That gives you an idea of which direction that fire is working. It is 4700 acres, just 5% contained. There are over 700 personnel working this fire. And I can also tell you that yesterday they did make an arrest suspect of arson starting that fire. Again, the reason we are coming to you live is because it is first responders appreciation day at the California State Fair. And what that means not only is first responders getting in free today, but if you come out here with your family, there are booths set up all across the state fair. You see the fire trucks behind us, Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service. We have a booth with Cal OAS. I see the California Highway Patrol is here, the California National Guard as well. Because the mutual aid system in California that we rely on for these fires is the best, the most robust in the world, but it relies heavily on local fire departments. And it also relies heavily on Cal Fire. Our own Jonathan Goodell joined us once again to talk about what it takes to get through the Cal Fire Academy. Absolutely. Just take one look at the statewide fire map. No region has been spared and the summer doesn't look much better. Here at the Cal Fire Academy, these firefighters are learning the necessary skills to fight fires and save lives. Situated on a sprawling campus in Ione, a small northern California town about 40 miles from Sacramento, the Cal Fire Academy is a state-of-the-art facility. Students take seven-week courses in either the company officer or firefighter academies, or often both. It's here where the groundwork is laid. Training is being done year round when one class graduates, the next one arrives just two days later. They work together, train and study together. The bond for these firefighters is forever. The seven-week program develops a very strong bond with the students. They spend seven weeks together fighting through exams, studying long nights of studying with long days in the heat, doing drills. So their bond becomes very strong. Students arrive on campus with basic knowledge. Learning advanced firefighting skills begins here at the academy and is incorporated here on the front lines. It's the framework of what we do and who we are in Cal Fire. Students learn in the classroom and in the field. Hands-on scenarios include commercial-based and residential structure fires for attack and searches. Mobile attacking fires around power lines with the intent of preventing injury and fire expansion, as well as wildland urban interface, focusing on defensible space while assessing and securing the structure. Once they leave here, they'll be ready to start their 30-year career. You're always learning and there's always more training to be had and training never stops. 90% of these students are seasonal firefighters. In extreme cases though, academy instructors may accelerate the program such as what happened in 2013. We've gone into drawdown solo where we've actually had to use the students and the instructors here to staff engines to respond to incidents. And if you come out to the California State Fair you can see the Cal Fire trucks that are here as well as a lot of other first responders. Now I'm joined by Kelly Houston, deputy director at Cal OAS because we have a booth here at the State Fair as well. Talk about the message we're trying to get out and what we want people to know, especially this time of year. Yeah and obviously we're in the summer month so we have sort of a double whammy. We've got the heat which is creating problems and has us in our phase two of a heat emergency plan. And then also with all these wildfires burning as we've seen in the last couple of years personal and family preparedness is super critical. It's not just something you say like oh you should really do a good thing and be prepared. We're finding that a lot of people in these evacuation zones, people who unexpectedly have a fire come up on their neighborhood are not prepared. They don't have a plan to be out of their home for 72 hours. They've not really kind of thought through geez how do I get a hold of my family members and notify them about what's going on and basically how do you take care of yourself in the middle of a disaster. That's one of our big challenges. So here at the state fair we have a booth where you can come and find out basically all the tips to do that. Stop by there's all kinds of information plus with all the other booths that are out here as well. I mean obviously grab a corn dog come on by say hi and then just learn what you need to do because the worst thing that could happen is you finding yourself needing to be evacuated and not know and like oh gosh what do we bring what do I grab do we have a plan where are we going I don't even know where we're going we're having an evacuation so it's really important to be prepared before a disaster strikes and that actually helps those first responders so they're not having to take care of those who could have otherwise taken care of themselves. I think Kelly sometimes people here have a plan together and it can be almost overwhelming but we can break that down to the very basic steps have a box where you've got your important stuff ready to get out of your house if they came knocking on the door right. Yeah and you know it's not specific like have an earthquake kit and then have a fire kit. I mean honestly if you have a bag of food water supplies and things just in the back of your car think about that that you can use that in the winter time if you get stuck on highway 80 or one of the mountain roads that may help you out for 24 hours so throw that stuff in there and you probably have all that you need at home you just got to pull it together and more importantly just know what you're going to do so your family is all on the same page when the bell rings disaster strikes or there's a danger coming and you know exactly what to do. One last message that I know we always want to drive home if you are in one of those areas that could be hit by a fire and you get that knock on your door please by all means heed those warnings and evacuate. And that is critical and people think wait a minute the fire is over the ridge I've heard it's blowing the other way why are they evacuating us. The evacuation is done by your local sheriff or police department aren't done because they just feel like doing it. It's because they believe there's an actual threat and whether it's an advisory evacuation or mandatory either way be prepared to leave and then evacuate when they ask you to do that I mean it's just better to be out than be stuck and go oh wow I never expected that and we hear those stories where people will say never thought it would come into my neighborhood look at this my house burned I I wish I would have evacuated earlier. Kelly Houston thank you very much I appreciate it Darla I'm going to bring you in one more time because I know the entertainment lineup at the California State Fair is always great but tonight and listen we you and I go back to the 80s tonight's a really good night give me the lineup we have low slowly boys at the golden one stage tonight you can come by pick up a wrist band to watch it for free with your California State Fair admission that's at 5 30 pick up the wrist bands and then come back at 7 o'clock 8 7 30 to get into the arena there at the golden one stage and then you're ready for this one ZZ top at the popping Murphy's Park here at Cal Expo that's where Sacra Public plays their games well for the first time this year we were having concerts at the Cal during the California State Fair I should say but that concert requires a separate concert ticket so unlike our our tickets here you buy the State Fair ticket you get to see the concert free well you have to buy the concert ticket for Papa Murphy Park for ZZ top and your throw good I've heard that women go crazy about a sharp dressed man I think so I think so I heard that but then you get into the State Fair free when you buy that concert ticket but it's a good time and it's going to be packed tonight because guess what Sun goes down it cools off and people don't want to leave I was here until 11 30 last night and we were like okay people time it was your day off it was my day off darling Evans thank you so much for joining us great time out here we again the great tips on staying cool when you come out to the State Fair great entertainment as well and the fair wraps up Saturday Sunday Sunday July 29th so you only have four more days to get out here and enjoy Sunday we have Cornhole just so I can talk about a few things going on so Friday we have steampunked at the races and if you've never seen steampunk come check it out it's going to be actually at the grandstand this time down in winter circles so people would be dressed up in steampunk and there'll be a competition of a rose she's a very popular steampunk in here I guess if you want to call her that and then Friday night we have the Greg Kenban plane at the golden one stage and we also have on Saturday we have the spinners so for you old school folks coming out get your ticket enjoy the concert and then we wrap the fair up on Sunday with our cornhole competition over at Papa Murphy Park we have an amateur division as well as professional division so go online castatefair.org get all that information and we wrap up the concert series the Toyota concert series with UB40 so drink some red red wine get a red red ice slushy wine slushy but drink water and stay cool Darla thank you very much hey listen thank you so much for joining us live from first responders appreciation day at the California State Fair I'm Brian May for all of us at Cal OES thanks for watching