 All right all right well good afternoon everyone we're gonna get this little update started this is a this is an update on the current wildfire situation across California and the multi-county coordinated effort that's being done here at the State Operations Center and and throughout all the counties with the incident management teams and all of our responders before I start off I just since our last briefing I think I mentioned to you unfortunately the the auto accident that the gall police officers were in responding to the Caldor fire unfortunately since then we've learned that the Harminder Singh gray wall which when the officers in the vehicle had has passed and so our thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of of his his family and the gall police officer call Police Department at all it's unfortunate and you know we feel it will concern for their for their whole department we also want to express our our thoughts and sorrows for the loss of the all the individuals in the state are enduring in these fires and what everyone is going through we know it isn't easy and we're doing everything we can to mitigate the fires as fast as we possibly can I'm Chief Porter and Chief Sergeant Gardena will cover the fire specific operations I will just say that as you know there's been a lot of issues related to the evacuations in South Lake Tahoe I will say that we've been working closely here at the State Operations Center with El Dorado County the city of salt the city of South Lake Tahoe and the incident management team on proactively planning for safe and orderly evacuation of South Lake South Lake Tahoe the evacuation order is now in place for South Lake Tahoe which also extends up into Kirkwood which is part of the Alpine Alpine County that's important to follow all the local authorities issuance of evacuation information as the conditions change rapidly although in the planning effort over the course of the last several days there have been a number of evacuation warnings and information is being pushed out leading up to today's evacuation order and it's been a lot tremendous amount of work over the weekend with all of the different local state and federal partners working in the South Lake Tahoe area going out and knocking on doors making sure that all those those folks knew if they needed to evacuate they could that included evacuating the jail in South Lake Tahoe and included evacuating Barton Hospital in South Lake Tahoe and included making sure that individuals who had any access and functional needs issues had all of the transportation of all those assets that were required to be able to get them out in a timely and organized fashion it's important to note that to get evacuation information we're asking residents of El Dorado County to sign up for Code Red that is their their electronic information dissemination capability it's it's it's how they do their emergency notifications specific to El Dorado County it will alert residents and businesses by telephone cell phone text messages email and social media when there's a threat and there's any new information coming across so that's Code Red and you can go on on line and El Dorado County and sign up for that you can also go to the Cal OES website and pull up alert orders and click on that and go find El Dorado County and connect in with the Code Red as well also since our last briefing we we had asked you know the governor had asked the president for a presidential major disaster declaration the White House did approve that major disaster declaration actually within 24 hours after the governor had had submitted it and Andrew Grant the federal coordinating officer appointed by FEMA is here today he'll talk a little bit about that this federal support will really help impact the counties in Lassen, Nevada, Placer and Plumas counties at this point we also have states of emergency and under the states of emergency through the California Disaster Assistance Act for El Dorado and the Caldera fire fire and few of the other counties that aren't under federal declaration but are seeking and are getting state assistance and so we'll hear more about that from from Andrew in a few minutes we know these are difficult times and we continue to be all hands on deck we're moving every resource we can within the state to support the fires we currently have more than 15,000 personnel working on fires throughout the state that includes nearly 1200 fire engines 350 hand crews 367 dozer bulldozer units 411 water tenders and 111 helicopters our robust mutual aid systems supported by local government fire agencies and allied agencies across the state continues to bolster this firefighting effort with over 470 engines from from within that system committed in addition we continue to have out of state resources from Utah and Washington Wisconsin and West Virginia and we did have crews here from Louisiana which had to cut loose to go back to Hurricane Ida which is another major obviously catastrophic event that's taking place in the country and is a pull on resources from throughout the United States including our federal partners at the Forest Service and FEMA and we're providing resources now to more than 43,400 Californians who are under evacuation more than 650 are housed in 15 congregate non congregate shelters being coordinated by the Department of Social Services here at the state and along with the Red Cross and then our county partners throughout the state that are working at the county level in being able to support that we also are coordinating very closely with our partners the state of Nevada the Nevada emergency management agency for cross border evacuations at state line in Nevada in South Lake Tahoe with regards to individuals that are moving out of South Lake Tahoe and moving into and may need congregate or non congregate sheltering on the Nevada side and as I mentioned that is ongoing as we speak and we know that there is a pretty big group of people are moving out currently South Lake Tahoe area. All of this of course is a reminder that is very critical to be prepared and alert here. We are still at the beginning of our fire season and we know that this past weekend we were breaking fires throughout the state and the fire assets that responded to those are Cal Fire and the Forest Service and our local governments the initial attack they did a great job trying to keep most of those fires small and getting them out rapidly. Very important that we you learn the difference between evacuation order and evacuation warning. An evacuation warning means there's an impending danger to life or property. If a warning is given assume that evacuation order will probably follow at some time so we want you to pay close attention to that. An evacuation order means that there's an imminent threat and we want you to leave the area immediately. If given an evacuation order as we've said many times don't wait evacuate it is your life and we want to get you out of harm's way. It also allows firefighters and other law enforcement personnel law enforcement mutual aid etc to be able to get into the area and get the job done and then again sign up for those alerts as I mentioned earlier. You can visit CalAlerts.org CalAlerts.org to be able to pull down information on that. If you have been evacuated or have lost your home please follow Cal OES or your county for updates on how to apply for assistance but most importantly you should be out reaching out to your insurance companies now if you have insurance talking to your insurance providers to be able to begin that process that's the first line and being able to get government assistance. We know that there are a lot of work lives ahead but this continues to be a truly a one team one fight effort and I want to thank all of the folks we're working here all the folks have been working in the field we have a lot of very dedicated hard working very tired firefighters and law enforcement personnel and support personnel public private and non-governmental all working together to try to mitigate these these fires and and so we'll now know and learn more from Chief Porter and Chief Skardina from the Forest Service. I'll turn it over now to Chief Porter for the fire update. Thanks. Thank you Director Gillarducci again Tom Porter director Cal Fire and what I'm going to focus on today is kind of the big picture in California and what what things look like overall. First and foremost thank you to all of the mutual aid response local government for sure absolutely critical to all of these fires and all of the firefight but our federal partners for really stepping up and moving resources into the region and then all of the Cal Fire units from throughout the state moving resources to the needs at hand. It's one team one fight we're all in this together while a lot of these are on other other jurisdictions we're all fighting these fires as if they are one fight for California and that is an incredible thing that California does each and every year and particularly here we are in August yet again. So in the north part of the state we've been talking about a lot of fires that are still burning in the north part of the state the river complex the antelope the McFarland and monument fires in particular there are new fires that are cropping up in those areas mcash and knob fires all of these fires in the north part of the state are ones that we have resources on and we're we're fighting but we're also knowing that those are less concerning to lives and property right now than other fires so they are looking much better we are watching the weather and watching how they react in the weather but those fires are pretty much doing what they're going to do for this point in time. Circle down to Southern California Southern California in particular over the weekend in San Diego County we had a really touchy fire the chaparral fire chaparral fire is burning right on the border with between San Diego Orange County and Riverside County real tight little spot look pretty remote for those counties great stop stopped it at 1500 acres probably by the end of the day today we'll see at evacuation orders lifted in the communities of Duluth and those areas outside of Temecula really good stop can't emphasize it enough that we are still meeting our our responsibility to get fires put out at the smallest possible size during initial attack and that early extended attack so we can continue the fight on these bigger fires the rest of the fires in the south our Arola the French we're doing really well there so I want everyone to know well we're taking care of the rest of the state as well coming back to the critical fires the Dixie Dixie is still the second largest fire in California's history it is the 14th most damaging fire in California's history and we are continuing to fight that in two fronts one up in the north the Lassen National Park as it moves into parts further north from there a lot of effort being undertaken there and then down toward Quincy on the south end east of Quincy Genesee Valley a lot of work and good work being done there so then we come to Caldor Caldor is a real tough one for us it's been burning in heavy timber in deep canyon gorge of the highway 50 corridor between Southlake Tahoe and Sacramento and very difficult terrain as well as conditions to fight fire on the west end of that fire Sly Park grizzly flat which it was significantly damaged in the first days of this fire that area is starting to get some some control and so we're starting to feel better on that west side which is important in case we get a north or east wind event that fire pushing back out and then into communities closer to the valley floor and and then getting into more of the populated area in in the state responsibility now that doesn't translate exactly the same for the east side of the fire east side of the fire difficult road conditions hard to access it's been burning in heavy timber just very very difficult conditions we've been making headway at times I reported last week about how we have effectively an inversion that puts a kind of a lid on fire activity but then when air clears it's like taking the lid off of your pot of boiling water all of a sudden there's that plume of heat and steam that comes out same thing happens on a fire also sucks in oxygen from all directions puts fire and spot fires in all directions that's what happened yesterday 20,000 acre plus run yesterday massive growth for that fire not the biggest growth of its life but it was the biggest in the last week and a half and it unfortunately grew toward South South Lake Tahoe further further up Canyon twin bridges it burned into Sierra Tahoe the ski area and beyond that so now the fires held up hung up on that ridge above where it would drop into the basin we have spots down in and around Echo lower Echo Lake also in Aloha Lake in the death desolation wilderness so there's fire in the basin you might remember a couple of time reports ago we haven't had fires burn from one side of the Sierras to the other we did with the Dixie now we have with the call door two times in our history and they're both happening this month so we need to be really cognizant that there is fire activity happening in California that we have never seen before said it before but the critical thing for you the public to know is evacuate early early warning warning doesn't mean you have to stick around and wait for the order you can go during a warning you can go if you're sucking smoke and you have respiratory or other underlying issues and you're in the smoke for days you're not going to be out of the smoke for many more days so find a way out go to clear air look out for your own health and safety allow for firefighters to do what they need to do without having to rescue you without putting out fire as their main focus right now we need people to get to leave and we need you to leave early in the basin for the last week we have been planning for in coordination with with Nevada California the basin management unit region four from the from the Forest Service region five from the Forest Service all coordinating plans to evacuate South Lake Tahoe those are happening today in a very orderly fashion there is a method to the the the triggers that are being pulled and the timing for each of those it's time to start going for the rest of you in California you've heard me say this before every acre cannon will burn someday in this state be ready now be ready now before there's a warning when there's a warning you put everything in the car and you go or you wait for the order and you go be ready now with that I'm going to pass the mic to Tony Scardina deputy regional forester for region five here in California good afternoon thank you Chief Porter I'm just going to give some brief updates of so what's different from last week what is the same as we continue to be a preparedness level five nationally that's the highest fire preparedness level that has not changed since July 14th in north half of California we remain at PL 5 as well and in the southern part of the state we're now we move from three to four meaning that we've seen some increased fire activity you saw it on the Cleveland National Forest you saw it down near the San Bernardino National Forest with the South fire as Chief Porter mentioned we're happy that we were able to get containment on several of those but we're starting to see that drying trend and so as southern California starts to come into play in the September one of those concerns when we talked about resources already being strained in the north part of the state and other parts of the country when we add southern California into that that's where we have to remain vigilant in terms of our initial attack capability so we can stay aggressive there and that message of communities being ready and prepared for that there are 27,000 firefighters deployed throughout the United States at this point over 15,000 of those are in California if that tells you the the amount of resources we have that we are putting to these priority fires to try and fight them aggressively and suppress them to date 1.7 million acres of burn in California and that is significant in terms of communities impacted and recovery we will have to do so our hearts are really with impacted communities and as Tom mentioned just continued growth over the past 48 hours on several fires in northern California condition started to dry out a little bit when started to pick up a little bit and we're going to see red flag conditions in northern part of the state over the next 48 hours so expect to see growth on these fires and we are preparing for that as best we can but but same thing when it gets hotter and drier we're going to see more smoke in the air and we want the public to be aware of what you're seeing and be prepared as your local counties and others communicate with you. We are getting ready to prep and activate 250 soldiers of active duty military. They are getting ready to be trained and move into the northern part of the state as we did last year to support fires in California and just really want to thank our partners with Department of Defense and bringing additional resources to really shore up some of our own folks that are on the ground. We've also activated two two more C-130 aircraft with Department of Defense. They have a total of eight that we refer to as MAFs. This is the first time since 2012 that all eight of those have been activated when there was significant fire activity at the time in Colorado. As Tom mentioned Caldor last night was very active in one place made a seven mile run to the northeast of highway 50 and another place made an eight and a half mile run so that's the unprecedented fire behavior that Tom's referring to that that we have not seen and we're wanting to make sure that communities understand we're going to continue to manage and coordinate it in calm way but we also need them to be ready. The first priority at this point is making sure people get out safely and we don't have loss of life and that ready set go message. You know just be prepared as Tom mentioned you don't always have to wait for the evacuation order. If you get that warning start to think about what's the right time for you and your family in that situation and as I always do to close I want to thank our firefighters support personnel. I was out this week in one of our dispatch centers seeing what those emergency dispatchers do every day to respond to fires make sure resources are where they need to be. It's it's a type of work that we don't often see because it's not on the fire line but but just really critical on what those people do together and as well as with our partners and that final message of one team one fight and we know we have months ahead of us potentially and and the confidence that we have is through our partnerships and that we will get through this together amongst the agencies that you see here and with the citizens of California. Thank you and I'm going to now now going to hand it over to Major General Baldwin with California National Guard. Thanks Tony I'm Dave Baldwin with the Cal Guard. Cal Guard has 1,059 soldiers, sailors and airmen providing support to fire suppression operations. This support is a broad spectrum of military capability from space based platforms down to boots on the ground where we're providing fire suppression, incident awareness and support to law enforcement. Today's newest mission is we're mobilizing 150 military police members to go support El Dorado County and the California Highway Patrol and conducting traffic control points and securing evacuated areas. Looking forward we're going to facilitate and assist in the deployment of the active component hand crews that are coming from Fort Lewis Washington over the next couple of days in addition to mobilizing an additional force package of Cal Guard hand crew members. And then we are also postured and in contact with our partners from our states that are impacted by Hurricane Ida and we're postured to deploy lifesaving support or logistic support to those states from the Cal Guard if requested and necessary. And I'll be followed by Assistant Commissioner Ryan Okashima from the Highway Patrol. Thank you General Baldwin. Good afternoon everyone. Safety continues to be the California Highway Patrol's first priority. We appreciate the ongoing partnership that we have, the collaborative effort that's been going on with all of our public safety partners that you see behind me right here. Thank you very much for those personnel. General Baldwin we appreciate that assistance on this traffic control points. The California Highway Patrol continues to provide assistance with exactly that traffic control points, evacuations when necessary to assist our allied law enforcement partners and also with additional patrols to areas that have been evacuated so we can prevent looting that may be taking place. Additionally to that the Cal Dwarf Fire specific just last night yesterday we've added quite a bit of additional personnel to assist with those evacuations that are taking place today currently as we speak and our Valley Division Emergency Operations Center is fully operational as we speak as well. We've been talking about evacuations, the warnings, the order to evacuate. I want to talk a little bit about preparedness. I just would like to tell everybody be prepared when you get that warning. Make sure your vehicles are completely filled. You have your personal belongings that you want to take with you in your vehicle ready to go. You have your medications and some food and water just in case those evacuations take a little bit more time due to congestion evacuating the area that will help us out tremendously. Also please listen to CHP personnel law enforcement personnel when that order to evacuate is given to ensure that you are ready to go and that you listen to the direction of law enforcement National Guard potentially as to which evacuation routes you're to take. And as we talk about evacuations as I mentioned they're ongoing right now. There are some traffic delays but again those warnings went out early enough and the evacuation orders have gone out early. We're working with our law enforcement partners. We're working with Caltrans and again we have a lot of additional CHP personnel in the area to direct those evacuations and we're currently splitting those routes into 2 to kind of assist with that. Those kind of living in South Lake Tahoe the city proper are being told to evacuate eastbound on highway 50 and then the rest northbound on highway 89. And with that I'm going to turn over to our FEMA region 9 coordinator Andrew Grant. Thank you. Well thank you assistant commissioner. I appreciate you and sharing what you're doing for law enforcement. I got to tell you as a fellow Californian it's really difficult to see the the destruction the challenges that these survivors are facing. But I also know that everyone here in this press conference and all of their teams are doing everything they can to provide assistance to get them out of harm's way and it really is amazing to see to be a part of that team and again as a fellow Californian to see all the people that have come here to to support them in their greatest time need. So thank you very much all of you. So just a couple things about the declaration and I want to make sure that everyone understands that response being separate from recovery doesn't mean that we're going to move any more slowly we just have to do it with some dexterity and understanding what those recovery needs are. The declarations 4610 4610 it covers four counties for two fires. Nevada and Placer for the river fire and Lassen and Plumas for the Dixie fire which is ongoing and thinking about that Dixie fire a little bit here you heard the chief talking about the response operations and the firefighting that's still happening and yet we are already up in Plumas and with Lassen and the other two counties either on the ground actually as recently as last week the director and I along with others went and visited Greenville as well as on the phone or communicating with them in a variety of ways to make sure the recovery work is already being done in those places. The declaration unfolds in terms of assistance to a couple areas for individual assistance that's down to the survivor level it can go to what's called ONA which is other needs assistance it can be things like transportation costs all temporary funeral costs if that's necessary personal property a medical dental there's a variety of different personal temporary needs that we can provide monies to to help people go through this difficult time. The other area of focus is housing assistance all temporary assistance opportunities to enable people to pay for lodging or hoteling expenses other housing assistance come in the can come in the form of rental assistance or even in some cases reconstruction costs as well as repairs for those that have primary and permanent residences in the four counties. So we do at the same time while sharing what the program is about want to make sure that everyone understands the importance of reaching out to your insurance companies or your agents and to get them on your case and that is the primary form of how most people that they have that insurance can recover however if you're only partly partly covered by insurance please reach out to us and and we'll see if you're eligible for those those forms of assistance. All that being said there are really four ways in my view that you can receive that type of eligibility process to determine if you can receive assistance. The first is by calling 1-800-621-FEMA 1-800-621-FEMA. The other is going online to disasterassistance.gov a third way is through a web that web application that you can download so you can use the app directly and then also anyone who wears this out in the field will fully understand listen to your case fully understand how to direct you to those other places where you can start the registration process to see if you're eligible for for assistance. You know it goes without saying there's a lot of activity going on in California. We're going to stay laser focused on the declaration and those four counties and the work that we're doing there and I'm very pleased to say that the recovery team that Cal OES has put together as well as the team that we have in place are ready to do that. Most recently along with many members of the director's team as well as on the FEMA side we just finished through a very long-term recovery effort for the 2020 fires and so a lot of that same expertise is turning directly back into this new declaration and now we're going to do everything we can to help the disaster survivors. Director. Thanks Andrew and there'll be teams that are be going out to shelters and other places where survivors may be housed and we'll be working with them face-to-face as well over the course of the next week or two. With that I will be happy to direct or answer any questions anybody has. We have any questions today? With that I think we're good. Thank you.