 Coming up on this edition of inside look it has been burning for a week now But the massive Thomas fire shows no signs of letting up that has now become the fifth largest wildfire in California history We're almost to 2018 But the 2017 fire season is still in full blaze Southern California now feeling the heat some scientists are saying southern California is literally burning up We'll take you to the fire lines and show you how California's mutual aid system is once again coming to the rescue Without the support of some of the states that are in here Helping us. I don't know where we'd be It was an alert that warned more than 12 million people of unprecedented fire danger in southern, California We'll hear firsthand what prompted state officials to hit the send button And we'll take a trip back to northern, California to get an update on the recovery progress from the october wildfires Cal OES logo inside look OES news comm I'm Brian man the Cal OES newsroom It has been a busy week and a tragic week as well on Thursday a 32 year old Cal fire firefighter Lost his life while on the line at the Thomas fire burning near Ventura and Santa Barbara That fire is the number one concern for emergency managers and going into the weekend red flag warnings are Saturating much of the state from the north bay to the eastern sierras and southern, California The Thomas fire now the fourth largest fire in California history It is more than seven and a half times the size of San Francisco Larger than New York City and Boston combined our Cal OES information team is all over the California December wildfires Jonathan Goodell is in Santa Barbara to talk with us about mutual aid Cal OES deputy director kelly houston is in the state operation center to talk with us about the wireless Emergency alert system, but we begin with Sean Boyd who is in Ventura County, Sean Yes, I'm here to Ventura County EOC where some of the managers here have received a copy of the alert that went out to select Residents in the Santa Barbara area. This is what they heard Residents only and that's just part of the message it goes on But while those select residents are being allowed back into their homes the firefighters are wondering What's gonna happen to the calm winds that they've enjoyed recently? Those are expected to pick up dramatically over the next couple of days The Thomas fire in Santa Barbara and much of Ventura County is relentless At more than 238,000 acres It's on its way to the dubious distinction of becoming the largest fire in California's long wildfire history But firefighters are relentless too having tirelessly worked to contain 30% of the Thomas after a quote pretty good day Tuesday with minimal fire movement strike teams monitor the fire in neighborhoods above the highway 192 corridor And again now at night just like the previous night The fire activities picking up and we're doing some structure defense Assistant chief Mike Taylor knows the night has just begun around 3 a.m. He expects winds to shift down the canyon and threaten homes. He's just looking for the signs What is it that you're looking for? The the smokes are big syndicator obviously you can feel the breeze with sometimes when you're tucked into these canyons You know we can have wind here. That's just around the corner completely different Poses a lot of challenges experience tells him it's gonna be a long night Daybreak reveals fresh burn scars and flare-ups big ones that could add to the 930 homes already destroyed Helicopters ferry Bambi buckets to and from canyons dumping water on fires that continue to burn More than 8,000 mutual aid firefighters are in on the battle and more than 94,000 people have been affected or evacuated The shelter here at UC Santa Barbara opened for many of them on December 6th And it's amazing when it all moves together like a big puzzle piece. It makes a big beautiful recovery operation And that's what we did Stephen Clapp says the evacuees here are emotionally drained Right now we have about 70 people last night The rec center is now home for an field in Michael Acosta They were camp hosts at Los Padres National Forest until they were evacuated I know there's people in the shelter right now who are in a Bigger mess than I am but for us and him being sick. It it's really harsh a few cuts away Norma Sears and her 92 year old mother are relieved They don't have to spend nights in their car or inhale the fine particulate matter and ash that's Inescapable outside and the Red Cross will come by and just ask her how she's doing and the added attention Norma's mom gets from Red Cross volunteers is a blessing. She says Red Cross I didn't know that much about it. These people are phenomenal as night falls once again They wonder how their town of Carpenteria will fare after all the Thomas fire has been 60 years in the making It's been that long since a fire burned in Santa Barbara's front country that type of fuel It's also Amber Anderson's hometown. So what we have now is a lot of very old growth and dense Chaperone Chaperone higher than 20 feet in some places Which makes it incredibly difficult for our crews to get in there and make any sort of hold in front of this fire And to do it safely Well increasing winds means increased air debris Particulates ash that kind of thing, but we've seen just about everybody wearing these in 95 masks That's a good thing, but what's not a good thing? Expected wind gusts over the weekend up to 50 miles per hour That's gonna post some serious challenges for firefighters Brian back to you. All right, Sean Thank you fighting the half dozen fires in Southern, California required a massive amount of resources and personnel at the peak Cal OES coordinating mutual aid of more than 2,700 fire fighters 1,200 of those coming from 11 different states. We continue our coverage now with Jonathan Goodell who joins us from Santa Barbara, John Thanks, Brian. Since October more than 20,000 firefighters some from across the western states have joined the fight against these wildfires First in Northern, California and now here in Southern, California They came here from remote towns in Alaska from the Northwest and the mountain range all here for one fight The mutual aid system is designed on assisting others. It's built on neighbor-helping neighbor California offered assistance earlier this year for fires in Oregon and hurricanes across the US now other states are pitching in to help, California Utah we have a couple hundred firefighters covering the entire state It's a massive state just like California is and we really rely on other folks from other states to come over and help us We need it kind of and the same idea is that when you guys need it will be there for you, too Six states deployed resources through the emergency management assistance compact while another was arranged via interstate compact in all 14 states have sent resources and without the support of some of the states that are in here Helping us. I don't know where we'd be introduced nearly 70 years ago The mutual aid plan has grown exponentially resources are quick to respond not just throughout, California, but state-to-state by ground and by air You know you go back to 1950 when they wrote up the Mutual aid plan and ultimately the state's match mutual aid agreement I don't think anybody intended that mutual aid would be you know, Cisco County helping San Diego or vice versa Or to the extent that we're doing it so constantly Kaiser fire district in southwest Oregon has spent a majority of the past few months in, California After crews responded to the October fires Matt Dryden Aaron Pittis and their crew are now here in Santa Barbara to fight The Thomas fire we're here to help so whatever whatever if everyone needs from us We're here to do what we need to do happy to be here and ready to help You know normally the fires we get heard you know, they're in one kind of little geographical area This is spread you know all over the place where you drive five minutes from here and You're seeing burned places already and then we drive for a you know half hour to get to where we're assigned We're still seeing the same burns places and just Just the magnitude is unbelievable with containment of nearby fires some fire personnel are transitioning to Santa Barbara Shane Ward and his unit from Utah arrived overnight after battling a lilac firefighter in San Diego By the morning his crew was working at Thomas fire. You know, we want to get there quick We want to be able to help out as much as we can because it's no one wants to see home You know, we all have a lot of empathy is being firefighters and first responders So like we never like seeing that especially if you do anything to help that's just where our mindset says like let's get there Let's help these folks out to put it to perspective just how many firefighters have been out here in northern, California And now here in southern, California 20,000 represents nearly a quarter of the population in Santa Barbara alone Brian All right, John. Thank you the red flag warnings and weather conditions in southern, California last week led leaders here at the office of Emergency services to take extraordinary measures This wireless emergency alert or we are sent to over 12 million cell phones in seven counties from San Bernardino All the way down to San Diego County Kelly Houston his deputy director here at Cal OES He was involved in sending this alert out last week Kelly joining us from the state operation center and Kelly I know that alerts are sent out all the time So what makes this alert that you guys sent out so unusual? Well, if there was ever a time Brian for the state to send out an alert to millions of people It was this time because the fire danger in southern, California was extraordinary There's seven counties down there that all were in red flag conditions in fact beyond red flag It was worse than it has ever been And we wanted to make sure that as people were going into the evening hours that they were getting an alert and being Aware of what the conditions were you got a lot of attention from this alert to the point that the New York Times did an Article on it and the comments that followed that New York Times story on social media were almost all positive What are you guys hearing a reaction wise from people who got those alerts? Well, there was a lot of careful consideration into whether or not we were going to send out an alert to 12 million people because Sometimes an alert can be annoying to folks or they feel that they may have been over alerted But we thought that with the extraordinary danger that was present in this case and the fact that we just needed people to Know that it was very dangerous conditions overnight the reaction by folks was actually a bit surprising We had a lot of support from people saying that they appreciated that we took the time to alert them Even if they weren't in the direct fire zone or somewhere where a fire was actually burning Kelly Houston deputy director here at Cal OES Thank you for joining us to learn more about wireless emergency alerts You can go to our home page Cal oes.ca.gov and before we go We want to give you an update on the cleanup efforts that continue from the October wildfires in northern California to date over 5,200 right of entry forms have been processed over the seven counties that were affected by those October fires over 438,000 tons of debris have already been removed from the burn zones That is equal to the weight of more than four full-size aircraft carriers For more information on the October and December wildfires. You can go to wildfire recovery dot org for all of us here at Cal OES I'm Brian May. Thanks for watching Visit our online newsroom at oes news comm to learn more about this program and get the latest news and information From our team don't miss our next video on your Facebook timeline Like our page and you'll get the latest posts as they happen if you're an Instagram user you can see the latest snapshots by following our Cal OES Instagram account and Twitter users can get instant access to our tweets from across the state by following Cal OES Facebook handle typed as California underscore OES Instagram and Twitter Cal OES handles are typed as Cal underscore OES