 Welcome to the 6 p.m. press conference here on the CZU complex. My name is Jonathan Cox. I'm the deputy chief for Cal Fire San Mateo Santa Cruz unit and the line officer here on this incident Just as always if you can mute your telephones take any conversations outside the press briefing area and keep your masks on at all Times it would be greatly appreciated Just wanted to settle a bit of context again I know we did this a few days ago this evening we can report that across, California Since August 15th 1.25 million acres of land burned in the last just over 10 days To give you a sense of point of reference That's larger than the state of Delaware that we've seen consumed in the state of California over that period of time Additionally across the state. There's still over a hundred and thirty six thousand people evacuated for them from their homes and communities And there's over 100 aircraft assigned specifically to fight fires in the state at this moment With that we've dropped over 2.7 million gallons of retardant on that on these fires over the last 10-plus days and obviously there's additional resources coming in from throughout the western United States to help us fight these fires a Little bit about the specifics of the CZU complex this evening We can confirm that the fire is up to seventy nine thousand six hundred and forty acres As we spoke about the other day this number is going to get more and more specific as time goes on as we gain better intelligence We have good news in the sense that we're up to nineteen one nine percent containment on the fire As you as you know every cent every percent of containment is hours and hours of Sweat and blood up on those lines actually getting containment in in the fire perimeter As far as the number of structures threatened There's still over twenty four thousand structures that are threatened on Throughout the complex and we unfortunately can confirm this evening that we are up to four hundred and forty three Structures that have been destroyed on this incident the breakdown of that specifically eleven of those structures are in San Mateo County and 432 in Santa Cruz County with that we are now up to one thousand six hundred and ninety seven Personnel assigned to the incident and this this afternoon about two o'clock Working with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office in Santa Clara County Fire Department The first evacuation warnings in Santa Clara County were lifted on this incident, which is a sign of progress in the right direction With that we're very lucky this evening to have an honorable guest us congresswoman Anna issue Thank you very much. Excuse me. Thank you very much chief Well, it's been quite a day for me I was fortunate enough to be driven from the Sheriff's Office in Santa Cruz County with Sheriff Jim Hart our outstanding sheriff Saw first hand the Emergency Operations Center That is housed in in his building and it was room after room after room of teams whether They are law enforcement Fire you name it. They are there We went I went to the evacuation Center at the county fairgrounds. I think every person in this entire region I wish they could see what the team has done in Less than a week. They've really established set up a community and there's been an outpouring from the community in terms of Clothing food from restaurants Really a medical center that has been set up all across This effort is The teamwork that I see taking place It's one thing to for me to be working the phones calling the DoD calling the state director of OES Talking to the National Guard all about assets assets assets, but to be on the ground and To see firsthand what law enforcement together with Cal Fire and all of the other agencies in the county coming together and working seem is seamlessly I Would say this is this is really a picture of Government that is working very very well for people It's moving. It is heart-rending in some situations I don't know what it feels like to think that I might lose my home And I I try to imagine it But everyone that is part of this team that's standing in back of me those that are standing in front of me They know what it is. They know what it is. These are first-rate professionals I think that the progress that has been made is really quite remarkable For a number of days. We were at zero percent Containment then we inched up to three or four when I saw eight my heart leapt and you just heard the report and We had something to eat just not all that far away and there were not only blues there. There were orange Orange jumpsuits And those are the individuals from the California Department of Corrections They too have been trained in firefighting not that many people Know that and I didn't And although they're not here. I want to thank them for doing their fair share as well so I salute all of our first responders and the real heroes in our country truly the heroes in this community and God willing God willing that the weather cooperates They can do their work and the percentage of the containment I think will continue to increase and we will keep welcoming the news of Of more people being able to go back to their home So I have to tell you that I have I'll be going home this evening with a much higher level of confidence Then I had when I was driving over the hill to come to visit and I want to thank you all this is This is not easy work And I call it God's work Because everyone is in service to the people in this community and this community is a very tight-knit community they all know each other and so God willing we will continue this progress but for everything that you That you made me aware of today showed me firsthand Answering all the questions. I salute all of you and I thank you and thank you sheriff Hart for making me your guest The poor man kept saying come on come on. You have to stop talking. We have to keep going so thank you for your patience and for for the hospitality that everyone has Extended to me. I'm proud of the people of my district Very proud the courage of the residents the courage of the firefighters The courage and the dedication of the people that are taking care of each other in such a professional and caring way it is It is it brings great credit to this congressional district. I think it's an eloquent statement about it So God bless all of you. Thank you Thank You congresswoman Speaking next from Cal Fire instant management team three operations section chief mark Brun Good evening. So another very positive day another progressive day that we've got a lot done a lot of work out in the line A lot of success today again. The weather is cooperating with us We've been steadily getting doer reinforcements a lot of personnel since we get them in checking in We're putting them out in the line. We're putting them at to work in our plan and we're having a lot of success with that So I'd like to just take you around the horn with the fire really quickly again up in the division golf and kilo We have a really good line established the fire is back down to that line It's being in more of a patrol status and what's very critical and important about that piece of line was that was one We were concerned with that would that might drive into potentially Santa Clara County as you heard earlier that the the evacuation warning has been lifted And that's because we have a very good confidence and we have a good control in that part of the line So a lot of success there. That's been a lot of days in the making Moving around the branch one those communities such as pescadero the Honda the more Fire is creeping down there and in butano, but it's doing exactly what it's part of our strategy So although it may seem that the fire is burning it is but it's simply creeping down to our control lines where we can take best advantage And use our limited resources to to extinguish that and and make that safe and make those can be safe Or we can start talking eventually about a repopulation plan of moving down the coast Some of the fire is made itself mitigated in the lighter fuels And due to the the humidity and the the marine influence So that's really a good good thing Especially moving down to the community of Davenport Looking really good there fire is is kind of hung up on the hill So we're just going to wait for the weather conditions to to change slightly So it we can take advantage of it bringing it down to our control line that we have established around that community in the south here Holding very well This has always been a concern for us so that the fire does not progress in a subtly fashion to Threaten the community of Santa Cruz and the UC campus Again our control lines that we've established in our secondary control lines still valid still working The fire has bumped into some of that and extinguished and exactly what we wanted to do And so we're looking really good high level of confidence in that there are lined in our suppression activities there around the community of Felton We're working diligently of burning some lines around about that to three quarters of that community We have another line that we're establishing and going to do a burnout operation probably Thursday looking at the conditions are going to be right for that and Once that's completed then that's really going to put a really good buffer a really good line around that community of Felton And that'll give us a high level of confidence that that community is going to be very safe From any sort of oncoming of fire front Moving up towards Ben Lohman in the state park We we've got again one of our challenging areas the departure the fuels and so forth That's an area that we're working diligently in we're putting a lot of resources in it's just really tough difficult terrain to work in And so again, we've used our alternative strategies to Mitigate that issue and to have success in that and in the coming days. I think we're going to have a lot of success Moving up into Ben Lohman Boulder Creek Those communities are still looking really good We have a lot of resources working in and above those communities up in the hillside again Tough steep terrain to work in but we're having day-by-day success and we're getting those control lines established Moving into Bonnie Dune Again, that's looking fantastic. I was up there again this afternoon We're seeing a lot less smoke. We're with a cruiser in there working very diligently Working around the structures. Like I said, it's painstaking process a lot of homes and with our limited resources We have to go almost home by home Putting line around it securing it mopping it up making sure that it's safe in that community And we're having a lot of success on that that venue We have a lot of the utility companies starting to move in and starting to start Developing their plans and starting to do work to start re-establishing the infrastructure that's going to be needed And until the infrastructure is established set up repaired Then we can start looking at a repopulation and that's any of these communities So we are aggressively as soon as we can get it safe enough for those folks to move in Then it's we're bringing them in and they're starting their their hard work. So that's really good As far as the continuing challenges We've always said we've had with the folks that have been Evacuated and have been causing us some concern and hindering some of our operations I want to thank sheriff Hart and his staff has done an outstanding job of Policing and they've gotten in there and I got to say it's the first time in Over a week that we've got up there and it was almost a ghost town and that's what we needed Because now my crews are in there Unhindered doing the work. They need to do they're not distracted to perform rescues or any of the things are Concerned concerned about their safety. They're just in there nose down Putting in the hard work to make that's the community safe our air program our aircraft were flying again today We're timing out our aircraft means we're flying to the maximum we can Water dropping as of just about an hour ago. We were at about a hundred ninety five thousand gallons that have been dropped today We still have a few hours left of flight time And so we are going to at least meet or exceed the amount that we dropped yesterday. That was 200,000 gallons That's a lot of water dropping that's in support of our crews on the ground and working together We're getting that much closer to mitigating this incident and getting folks closer to getting back home And this fire being put away and put to bed Speaking next from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office is Chief Deputy Chris Clark Good evening So continuing along that same theme of positive news Really, this is the second operational period. We've had without seeing any arrests And so I really think that's a testament to the saturation that your deputies and your officers have been doing There's the saturation of policing effort within the San Lorenzo Valley that we did not to make an arrest today In terms of numbers as I mentioned today, we had about we had 76 officers in total Patrolling the San Lorenzo Valley. We'll do that again tonight with roughly about the same number 66 With 18 from our office 18 from our in-county partners and then 30 mutual aid from over the hill in terms of calls for service We had four welfare checks that our office responded to as well as 13 suspicious person calls In terms of there's been a lot of outpouring of support for the firefighter who had his wallet stolen Just today the sheriff received calls from as far east as New York I think everybody's just as disturbed as we are with regards to that kind of that kind of thing But our detectives are making some significant progress in that and so we hope to be able to To share with you more information as that goes along In terms of folks we did contact we did end up Contacting three different people that we cited for being in a closed evacuation area In terms of missing persons cases some positive news on that front as well So yeah this morning I reported we had a total of seven missing persons cases Today we were able to locate two of those folks so we're now we're down to five so five missing missing people total There's three of those cases are from the Bonnie Dune area one from Ben Lohman and one from Boulder Creek And again our detectives are working Throughout the throughout the day and into the evening to to locate these people and try to figure out exactly where they are As you meant as you heard earlier the evacuation notice was lifted for Santa Clara County Just again a good reminder to to to focus on you know Resources like Cal Fire's website our Facebook for information with regards to to information concerning our county I bring that up just so people aren't confused between the two counties and the evacuation order being lifted in Santa Clara Another thing so in putting ourselves in in your position again And I've mentioned this before where we have our own staff members of our own staff that have been that have been displaced by the fire and so and some In areas that are very close to where the the fire is actually burning and so if you're if you're there at night If you're there tonight, and you're wondering well, how do I know if my home's been damaged? How do I know if my home's okay? so the county's created a website and really what you do is you go to this website you put in your address and You'll be able to get some information whether not your home's okay damaged or or destroyed hopefully not destroyed But it's a resource for you to be able to go to to get more information So I want to give that to you real quick. So that's Santa you said the website is Santa Cruz County dot us Ford slash fire recovery Ford slash damage assessment map and Follow me on this. It's dot a s Px is in x-ray, so that's I apologize for the lengthy web address, but Santa Cruz County dot us Ford slash fire recovery Ford slash damage assessment map dot a s px Thank you Speaking next from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office is sergeant Zuno. Good evening For San Mateo County access to the evacuation zones remains restricted We understand like Deputy Chief Clark mentioned we understand that many of you are very anxious to know what's going on with your properties We're asking the people to please continue to be patient with us Please do not go to the evacuation centers or to the security checkpoints to ask on the status of your property We understand that you're very anxious. However, the staff working those locations. They do not have the information We are working with multiple agencies to inspect the areas that have been damaged and to identify hazards as This information is available and as and as we gather information on your properties We will put it together and make it available to you and we'll also let you know how you can get that information Some of some members of the community have asked where they can make donations For now in San Mateo County the San Mateo event center is collecting supplies for for babies specifically they're asking for diapers And baby formula and they're also collecting school supplies for students They can be dropped off at the San Mateo event center Monday through Friday From 10 a.m. To 3 p.m. And for now they're asking that only these items be donated Also for those for those in the lastly in regard to the Evacuation zones. We don't have any reports on on any suspicious people or looting We've been hearing rumors about that but right now no arrests or people caught conducting any looting in those areas And lastly for those in the agricultural business I have a contact number for you with the San Mateo County Agricultural Commissioner and that is 650 363 4700 thank you Speaking next and representing all the unified command agencies is Cal fire incident management team three incident commander Billy C Good evening. Obviously another successful day Increasing the containment up to 19% is tremendous for us my team hit the ground running last about seven days ago and Built a plan executed that plan put the resources in place and have been able to accomplish 19% containment on this incident while evacuating With our law enforcement partners over 77,000 people It says a lot about this area everyone's been very hospitable cooperative Obviously our firefighters been working very very hard to protect all their assets and all the unburned lands so far The sense it's impacted several people. It's a firefighting is a dangerous Situation to be in Wildland firefighter, especially here in the Western United States is very dangerous You hear a lot about our aircraft flying we timed out our aircraft of three shifts in a row now That says a lot about our safety record out there our personnel Organizing and orchestrating that aircraft both our fixed-wing and rotor wing assets out there Over the course of the last month in the air world in the wildland firefighting We've lost two tanker pilots on July 30th in the state of Nevada We lost the helicopter pilot last week in Western Fresno County and just yesterday. We lost the helicopter pilot Up in Mount Hood in Oregon. It's a dangerous profession. We take every Opportunity to insert every safety mitigation to ensure the safety of our personnel both on the ground and in the air So just be advised we're out there doing the best we can keeping everyone safe both the public and our firefighters at all times Thank you Final speaker this evening local cow fire unit chief from the San Mateo Santa Cruz unit chief Ian Larkin Good evening We're making progress and I appreciate the assistance from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department To mitigate those those issues we were having in some of the areas of the fire where we had civilians in there causing havoc and kind of getting in the way of our operation to make our success of protecting structures and Containing the fire with a perimeter control As chief C said today was a good day. We've made progress. We're at 19% contained But I just want to reiterate that it's a dangerous situation as he alluded to we have a lot of heavy timber that's been burning for 10 days now and That heavy timber is going to burn out at some time is going to come down So we have trees coming down all throughout the fire perimeter on roadways on private property throughout the entire fire area, so It's still a very dangerous situation. So having the public Repopulate that it's just not Available to us now until we get this area Secured and safer at reentry Since the damage inspection teams are making a significant progress and the county has released their Application to show homeowners with the statuses of their property. I just want to give a few details of some Assistance for those folks that may have had damaged property or destroyed property So they can they can start the process by getting ahead of the the curve if they're able to Confirm their property has been damaged by going to disaster assistance dot gov. That's disaster assistance dot gov These are resources that will help them get started in that recovery process Also, they can download the FEMA app They can go it's available on Android and Apple platforms And once again, that's the FEMA app or they can call if they don't have the ability to download the application They can call 1-800-621-FEMA. That's 1-800-621-FEMA With that, I just want to thank everybody Chief C and team 3 for the effort. They're putting forward. I want to extend my Appreciation to both the San Mateo County and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department the true inner operation Coordination that's going on between the multi-discipline agencies is of the most Professional manner that I've ever seen on an incident that I've been on the collaboration and cooperation is just outstanding So it's a pleasure to be a part of that and work towards the mitigation of this incident. Thank you All right, happy to get any questions Immediate Yes, the questions related to imminent threat for evacuation areas and when can people expect return So for firefighting as we've seen on this fire until we have line That's established around the fire perimeter and that line holds for over 24 hours That's when we feel comfortable actually calling something or an area contained or a percentage containment And as Chief Brunton mentioned the terrain on this side of the fire on the kind of southeast corner of the area It's you know almost vertical timber with three feet of forest duff underneath And to create a line in that area is not simply running a bulldozer through it It's hundreds and hundreds of hours of work for those firefighters on the ground. So, you know, I think We want to get people back in as quickly as possible The team is focused has dedicated an entire team for a 24-hour day operation to work on repopulation And re-energization and all the plans that are necessary But with that we're not going to sacrifice potentially putting people in harm's way You know, yeah, I'll get the expert up here the the question was really in relation to the area around Felton and Certainly with the clear skies we have a front-row seat and What you're seeing there with the smoke quite a bit of smoke production is a matter of a couple things one as I said Some of that terrain is very inhospitable It's really tough to work in so part of our strategies is to build our control lines and to let the fire Slowly work its way down to those control lines And then we can extinguish it And then we may be doing it based on again certain weather conditions certain fuel conditions and also certain topography Conditions that will establish a line let it burn to a certain point and then we will Introduce some fire in a very controlled fashion to eliminate that threat and thereby create a good buffer zone that helps Expedite that whole process of making a control line. So what you're seeing now is we are in a process I would anticipate that process being within the next 48 to 72 hours Where we were going to have success will have the right conditions to pull off that operation as I mentioned earlier We are right now constructing that line. We're making preparations to do a small burn operation We anticipate that the conditions should be right around Thursday to do that in which that'll help Put that nice buffer around the community of Felton It's the questions related to the two people that were found and any additional information about those that are missing Sure. So in terms of the two people we did find I obviously that's through Contacting contact contacting them directly making contact with them and them telling us where they are And we make sure that they're all right with regards to the other people that are missing there You know, we have detectives that are again tracking down people that know them Looking for people that may have had contact with them and then trying to get into the air into areas where they may have resided And if that area is impacted by fire, you know, obviously we're waiting for that area to be clear before we can get in there to To do further investigation And Sure as the question is the role of defensible space in the Bonnie Dune area and as and is it easily identifiable for firefighters chief absolutely Cal fire is for many years under the public resources code 42 91 instituted Defensible space inspection program the importance of defensible space a number of years ago We increased that amount of defensible space based on Our fires that we've encountered that maybe the original intent and distance was not enough so that was increased some modifications to that that code Established so that we gave better protection to the structures that we have also building standards There's been a variety of things land use planning the agency has embarked upon and work with our Cooperators to improve the survivability of the structures in our wildland urban interface So in this particular case as we see throughout the state and our team is deployed on fires throughout the state up and down the state We see a variety of Situations we see excellent excellent Situations where people have done their defensible stage space. They've done their due diligence They've done what they need to do and it gives us a fighting chance Whether we're there and at times when we aren't able to be there because of limited resources of large firefront early on in the incident That it can survive itself And then we unfortunately see many times more so than not a lot of people have not done their due diligence and They do not have the defensible space and the fire will will take and destroy or damage their homes In this case that by noon. I think you see the full variety of it You'll see a number of structures that were destroyed that did not have their defensible space Unfortunately, we saw a lot of that talking to the crews that were not only the initial attack companies But the other folks that the other responders that were there throughout this incident when things were really Intense as far as the fire intensity and running of the fire That they were not able to defend a lot of structures because as they went in to assess the structure They found that people had not done their part the construction types were not conducive to us to be successful in battling that structure So what we have to do at times is we have to make the very difficult decision to triage structures We have very limited resources a lot of structures defend a fast-moving fire front do the best what we can so we're going to take the best Opportunity we can based on the best chances and that's based on those homes that have the best defensible space And that's where we had successes and you can drive up and down through there And look and it's very apparent and very clear And this is a textbook case of where folks that did their defensible space those homes are standing today and and You know kudos to those folks that did it because now they have a they have a home standing because they did their part So the question is related to how many people who may still be in the evacuated zone and efforts they've underway Sure, so you know going door-to-door like we did throughout the entire evacuation area Obviously that was a huge task thousands of homes Three about 350. I think it'd be a number 347 people We made contact with who said that they would rather ride this fire out than leave And obviously we encouraged them to leave for for their safety, but our number was 347 That is still the case Now granted if people didn't answer the door or they're hiding from us There could be other mitigating circumstances there, but three three hundred forty seven Different houses told us they wanted to stay put All right. Thanks everybody for joining us. We'll see everybody back here at 6 a.m. Tomorrow This concludes the 6 p.m. press conference