 Good morning. This is the 6 a.m. press conference here on the CZU complex My name is Jonathan Cox deputy chief for Cal Fire San Mateau Santa Cruz Division and Line officer here on the incident Just a few things as always if you could please mute your telephones here in the press conference area Take any conversations away from from the the area and also keep your masks on at all times We'd appreciate it everybody who's speaking here this morning They will be available for questions and answers at the end of the formal presentations With that we'll get right into the incident update here on the CZU lightning complex the fire this morning stands at eighty two thousand five hundred and forty acres and Containment has increased to twenty six percent to six percent containment There are still thirteen thousand three hundred structures that are threatened by the fire and we can confirm this morning that 799 structures have been destroyed of those 799 11 of them are in San Mateo County and 788 are in Santa Cruz County within that 554 of the total number are confirmed to be single-family residents We do have over 2,000 firefighters that remain on scene and that number continues every day We stand right now at 2019 firefighters assigned to the incident with that I'll pass it over to the team for an operational update from IMT three operations section chief Mark Brennan Good morning. So yesterday. We had a really good productive day a couple minor setbacks and Last night nothing of super significance Lines were holding weather helping mitigate And we believe that we're gonna be moving forward with some really good work today with our plans for the day Up on top of the fire in the north zone fires holding really well in division Golf and kilo was able to fly late yesterday afternoon get a good look at the entire fire Up in the butano colony a lot of challenges up there a lot of the fire weekend trees are beginning to fall had a structure destroyed Yesterday from a falling tree that was fire weekend and there's a lot of fire weekend trees in there we're in there assessing that and Developing a strategy on how we're going to address that issue It's throughout the fire, but but we have a significant amount in that that particular area that we're concerned with Fire was was very active in that area burning down to our control lines Which is by design what we wanted to do with the winds that we had yesterday. That's where the big push was But it did it did move a little bit more rapidly than we've been seeing at the past few days That's fine. It just brings it down to the control line sooner. We have resources there Ready to deal with that issue and so yesterday they were dealing with that today It's gonna be another big day of dealing with that before we have a wind shift Which will push against that that advancing of fire front Moving down the the coast again. We're getting more lines put in All the way down to the community of Davenport the community. We've got feel that's that's quite safe We have some good lines around that. We do have fire established in San Vicente Canyon Just a little bit south of that area. That's something that is a target. That is a priority for us today We're gonna be putting a lot of resources in there. We've had some limited resources in there It's a very steep canyon a lot of vegetation in there We have some challenges to be able to get aircraft in there because there are power lines that run through there and Aircraft and power lines don't mix so we we really can't fly a lot in there so the ground troops are gonna have to really dig deep get in there and take care of business and we're gonna be Hammering that pretty darn hard today Along the south where our control lines are holding we continue a mop up phase there There is some smokes that pop up But they're deep interior and some of the drainages that we just really have a hard time accessing and they're just gonna Are strategy let those burn out burn up to our control lines and get our folks on them and to engage When it is safe and appropriate to do so moving up the the nine corridor Felt in the community felt and looking really good. We had that burnout operation a couple days ago That's doing very well with the last bits of it. We're we're burning out So some of the smoke that's visible from the Scotts Valley area a lot of that That's that's what they're looking at in piece and part is that and then also like I mentioned before some of the deeper drainages That's where the smoke they're seeing is predominantly coming from from that community So we're feeling a lot better about the protection of the community and and moving forward there up towards Ben Lohman Brookdale we we end up having a little setback yesterday. We had about a third acre. What's called slop over It's a it's a move fire that's crossed her line And a lot of that was due to the fact that again the the there hasn't been fire history here for such a long time The the matter that's on the decaying matter. That's on the force floor is very thick We call it duff you hear that term. It's very thick material and when we put our control lines in We we scrape those lines down to bare mineral soiled or bare soil that that won't burn and When you're dealing with a this kind of environment, you really have to have those lines dug very deep It's almost it becomes a trench at some points because it's so thick and we have to be very cognizant and very detail oriented on that because Sometimes and in this case, this is what we believe happened is that fire was able to creep Slowly within that and then pop up on the other side of our line. So again An area that has been a challenge because the topography and the fuels in it with all the homes Here's yet another challenge for us And when we're constructing our lines is this this thick matter that's on the floor that we have to cut through So that we don't have another one of those so we hit we are With more people there we're increasing our patrol of those lines so that we can detect that even sooner But that is unfortunately something that we're just going to be dealing with Throughout the rest of this event The rest of the line is continue to be put in play Up through the rest the north part of the fire all the way up past the north of Boulder Creek and tying into our division kilo up there the Bonnie Dune area again Continued a lot of work to be done a lot of work has been done a lot of homes in there We're working around a lot of those homes and it's a lot of just tedious work Been a lot of questions about the National Guard and the National Guard We've got them here a couple days ago. So now we our plan is we're going to be employing them in that area And it's because of the the sheer numbers that they're bringing This is actually a really good mission for them because again their training is of a basic standard And that's great because that frees up our more advanced hand crews to attack the other areas like we said Sente Canyon and then also open some of these lines here And we're going to put them to work where and they can do the job they do best in what we call gritting and making sure we go Through a very thorough process through that community and make sure everything's mopped up We have good line around where the homes and that sort of thing and to help render that safe Again our road crews are clearing the roadway so that our inspectors can get in to do more inspections The utility companies can get in to do their work to re-establish the infrastructure of those communities and The highway 236 corridor a lot of work being being done there and a lot of work to be done It's it's it's a mass lot of down trees and with the power lines and poles and so forth So that's that's a number of days worth of work just to get that that opened up there And they're working really hard working with Caltrans and and other resources to open that up Our aircraft we do still have the six water dropping aircraft. We anticipate that in the coming days We should see a few more of those coming in that's going to be a big help to us Mother nature if she cooperates we can get more flight time past few days We've had a thick marine layer. It hasn't burned off till late our aircraft as I mentioned before cannot work in those type of conditions safely So we've had to wait until that clears up as soon as it clears up on any part of the fire We're flying those missions and those those crews are doing a fantastic job when they're up to fly when I was doing my Reconnaissance flight yesterday all our aircraft were up and going and they were they were hammering it They were just it was turned constantly getting through their dip source getting their water bringing it back dumping on on the targets So as soon as we get more clear air, we're going to max out the hours we can on the aircraft We're going to be dumping hundreds of thousands gallons on that to support the mission and the in the mission of the in the helping the crews on the ground to Get another day closer to completing this this mission. Thank you Up next from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office is Chief Deputy Chris Clark. Good morning So some good news obviously last night and yesterday and getting folks home in the unincorporated area Scott's Valley So we hope to continue that good news as these days go on and so I would encourage people to pay attention obviously to Cal Fire's website to our social media our Facebook page For continued updates with regards to repopulation and then also we'll be discussing it at press conferences So, you know again good news on another front. We did get any any further citations or arrests last night I'll talk about the device we found yesterday here in just a moment But but no arrests or citations, which is which is a good thing and another good thing is that For the folks that went home last night. We had no reports of burglaries So they came back to homes that had not been broken into which is I mean who would want to who'd want to come back to that and so It was good in the sense that nobody that didn't happen We had 56 people 56 officers and deputies run around last night. We'll have another 56 today With 21 of our folks 15 from in County and in 20 mutual aid in terms of calls for service We had six suspicious people calls that that we went out to and our missing person still stands at one So again, we cleared up to three people. We were looking for that. We'd posted on our on our social media And so we developed one new one yesterday will be our detectives will be actively looking for that person in terms of the device That we found yesterday. I spoke about that last night Our bomb team went out there. They made that they made that situation safe and our detectives are continuing continuing to investigate So there's going to be there's likely going to be more to come but but obviously we're heavily involved in in that And then in terms of repopulation again I just just stressed you to just pay attention to to Cal fire Their website their social media and then our social media We want to get people home as absolutely fast as possible and we're going to continue to do that And then obviously that's that's our mission with In combination with the security checks that we're doing so that people don't come home to to missing stuff So anyway, that's that's all I have. Thank you Next from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office is Lieutenant Vince Badola. Good morning We are have good news similar to Santa Cruz County We did our saturation patrols overnight and had no reported burglaries in our areas and We did have a few calls for service for suspicious Suspicious vehicles that is driving slow in the area, but nothing panned out One of our volunteer crews that were there Volunteer sheriff's personnel called one in and then a couple residents called those in and no contacts were made with those Vehicles, so we are happy to report that Everything has been good safe and we are happy that our residents are getting back to their areas We want to again reiterate the fact that if you can please do not travel in these areas of San Gregorio Lahonda and Pescadero areas if you're not a resident don't travel through there, please We want to get everybody in to our residents our resident areas and we want to keep them safe and continue the efforts of getting everybody back so please stay away and Lastly, we want to continue and reiterate Look at Cal fires websites for updates and then our San Mateo County Sheriff's Office websites social media platforms as well. That's all I have. Thank you Speaking next on behalf of all the unified incident command agencies is Cal fire incident management team 3 IC Billy C Good morning. Obviously you're hearing a lot of good news about the firefight out on the ground There's still a lot of areas that have active flames We're aggressively getting our control lines put in place Well, I want to remind everyone this a multi-phase situation to mitigate this incident We have a lot of roadways that have damage to them The thick duff is starting to burn out underneath some of these roadways and collapse the roadways So we're going to be working with both County EOC's Caltrans and County roads to identify Problem areas and to make them safe for people to travel and obviously a lot of the damaged trees out there Are starting to come down. So we're going to have to start removing trees that are unsafe That potentially take out additional power lines Cross roadways or in danger structures. So like I said, it's multi-phase when we start pushing forward With the entire mitigation process of this incident and it's going to take a while. I need everyone to be patient We're working diligently with both County EOC's all the all the Caltrans and County roads And we'll be working with the private timber companies to identify and secure all those safety hazards out there. Thank you Our final speaker this morning San Mateo Santa Cruz unit chief Ian Larkin. Good morning Progress we continue to make progress each day As I stated earlier You know, we're we're still got a firefight going on trying to get control lines in To fully contain this fire and then make it safe for residents to get back in But I want to emphasize that the recovery process has already started Incident management team has been working diligently In coordination with our emergency operation centers to give them information on starting that recovery process. So those EOC's are working to Get information so that when this is over they can get in there and make those sites even safer for those that have had Significant damage or there's been damage to their infrastructure roadways and such We have requested a emergency watershed response team to the incident This fire has impacted our watershed pretty significantly And they'll be putting recommendations forth on how to mitigate those hazards as we move forward So as I said, it's not too early to start that recovery phase. We've been working on it for about a week now So just want to re-emphasize to the public that we're going to try to make the environment as safe as possible for you But on a different note I just want to remind everybody that we are just moving in to our peak fire season here in San Mateo Santa Cruz And we have an 82,000 acre fire that we're going to be continuing with through that process So for those that have not done your defensible space It's not too late to start. You just need to be cautious where you're doing it So you don't spark a new fire So if you can get out there protect your homes and start working towards that defensible space For those that are still out there, it is still a hazardous situation There are a lot of trees that are still weakened as we keep re-interating their root systems are inundated They have burned out underneath roadways culverts have been damaged bridges have been damaged in the area So it's going to take a little while to get that infrastructure up and back to normal So please be patient with us as we work with the counties to secure that infrastructure. Thank you All right, we're happy to answer any questions you might have Yeah, so question about a more specifics regarding the pipe bomb Can you tell us whether or not this is related to An organization that we've seen or individual who is in custody now was reigned yesterday. Is there any Any connection at this point? So at this point our investigators are investigating that that's concerning right phil I mean Concerning the folks live in the valley you hear about, you know pipe bombs you hear about explosive devices and That's concerning that people live up there. It's concerning to us And so our detectives are going to be pouring through all that looking into every conceivable question with regards to Why someone would be possessing that and all all the questions of of why and and that so We're looking into that phil. Is there can you be a little more specific about what was discovered? Yeah, so um, what again It was uh, like a toolbox and in as I mentioned last night This really started with some uh, some firefighters doing mop up cleanup work and putting out spot fires in and around Kind of like the boulder creek golf course area And so in doing that they ended up noticing a toolbox. It was open looked down and it found what appeared to be A pipe bomb and by the pictures that I looked at, uh, that's that's exactly the impression I would have gotten had I looked down and seen it and so they did the right thing they backed out of the area They contacted us we dispatched our bomb team and then And then detonated that stuff in place as I mentioned last night to make it safe But that's not without taking pictures and there's forensics work to be done on that And so there's a lot our detectives are going to need to follow up on and a lot they're doing a lot They did last night and a lot they're going to continue to do until we know, uh Although like again all the answers to those questions that I'm sure you have and uh, we have as well We did and so uh, I they did execute a search warrant last night, but for the sake of the investigation I'd love to tell you more about what they found but just for the sake of that investigation being able to Um answer more of the questions we have I I don't want to release that at this time just based on Them continuing to do do work. Are you looking at any particular person or persons at this point? Yeah, so, uh, obviously somebody you know somebody built that and so somebody possessed it And so, uh, we're going to be and there our detectives are looking into that Right, so the question is related to are there any more anticipated repopulations today Do you want to take it chris? Yeah So that's um You know, that's the hope and so you know where we want to be specific on the areas that we're looking for Or that we're looking to repopulate because I know that if I was displaced Um, and I was in an area that hadn't been repopulated yet I'd want somebody to be standing up here telling me when can I go home The problem is is that uh, it's hard to do that because of the logistics of getting people in safely efficiently Uh, and then also because I mean just is just yesterday, you know, we we repopulated scott's family preceding that We had people lining up at the checkpoints And so it just presents it presents it logistical issues with getting people back Efficiently because we don't want people sitting in traffic for two hours. You know, I mean especially up here There's limited roads and limited ways to get people in so we want to do that efficiently and also you've got You know kind of the changing nature of the fires you heard chief fronton mention There's a little bit of slop over in that, uh on that fire line there, uh, just north of ben loman So so things can change and things can things are dynamic Um, so Yes, we hope to provide updates. Yes, we want to provide, uh More on repopulation, uh every day and hopefully today will be Similar to yesterday, but things can change what I mean is Like almost there we're almost ready to bring you back Yeah, so those are the and as I mentioned those are areas that are going from least affected to most effect Most fire affected, right? So I mean again, you're moving towards felton And then up the highway nine corridor, but again I can't place specifics on and as much as I as much as we want to We just can't place specifics on when those people can go back home I wish I wish we could but things can change and so I don't want to get anybody false hope because I know that um That people want to go back home, but I you know, we want to be careful on on how we release that Hey chris to piggyback that that that question. Um, initially when there were evacuees they were displaced They were kind of filling up the parking lots here in scott's valley, uh, and then the scott's valley was moved out They were moved out. Is there a concern that um Now the scott's valley is open those those folks are going to come back and it's kind of going to create a bottleneck And how will you address that? Yeah, so the question is uh, is that is it going to create a congestion problem? The city of scott's valley for people wanting to venture further into the valley as these repopulation Or as these evacuation orders are lifted and and yes, I think that all of that all that's you know, we're looking at That that's exactly what we're thinking. I mean we not only is it the roadways. It's you know, it's impacting It could impact the city of scott's valley There's still you know a fire operation going on and we have fire that that's made scott's valley their home And so they're operating in and out of this area. And so, uh, you know any congestion to hear only makes things harder So as I mentioned last night, uh, and as you heard, uh, lieutenant bedoula mentioned for the areas in san matale You know, if you don't live here don't we don't want you coming here because it just creates further Just further impacts what we're trying to do or you know, uh Specific well, so we're hoping to stay consistent on when we release information, but again things can change All right, any other questions? I had a question for I just wanted to find out you mentioned of all the road damage What particular area is the worst that has to be cleaned up? So the question is related to the what's the worst area that roadways need cleanup Gc The most damaged areas are going to be all the interior roadways in and around the communities Obviously, we've got a lot of rolling material coming down on highway one and a lot of infrastructure repair that needs to occur out there But all of the impacted area Is a concern anytime you have fire weekend trees that could cross the roadway and create damage To civilians driving through there damage to our firefighters and their equipment or just Blocking the roadway itself is a major concern. So we're having to go through and assess every Inch of that line to make sure that we create a safe environment for all the people that are going to be In and around that area Highway one just past there there's issues with the blocks coming down No, honestly when you have 82,000 acre footprint in this type of terrain Something that looks reasonably well at this point tomorrow could be another Changing dynamic. So we have to look at it day by day As the ground starts to cool down those trees the root system are starting to burn out A lot of those are unknown dangers to a lot of us so When they start coming down and we start seeing the depth of char underneath the ground That turns into a major concern for our firefighters We're used to it. We've seen it up and down this state in many many areas. This is just another example Mother nature cleaning up the forest floor and what we need to do to mitigate some of those situations that we're presented with All right, everybody up here is available for questions and answers one on one at the conclusion of this We will meet back here tonight at 6 p.m. For another Press briefing and update. This concludes the 6 a.m. Press conference. Thank you for joining us