 Well, welcome to the 6pm press conference here on the CZU complex. My name is Jonathan Cox, Deputy Chief for Cal Fire San Mateo Santa Cruz Unit and line officer here on the incident. As always, if you could mute your telephones, take any conversations outside the press conference area as well as keep your masks on at all times. As usual, we will have time for questions and answers with all of the speakers at the conclusion of the formal presentations. So we're on day 11 here on the incident, the CZU complex. We can confirm this afternoon that we have burned, or 81,479 acres have burned, and obviously the number of acres burned is slowly increasing now. We can also confirm 24% containment, which is up from this morning. However, we still have 13,305 structures that remain threatened. This evening we can confirm that 746 structures have been destroyed in this incident. Of those 746-11 are in San Mateo County, and 735 of those are in Santa Cruz County. Our damage inspection teams have completed about 65% of the total fire area for their inspections. With that, there are websites with damage information available for the public, both in Santa Cruz County through the county website and San Mateo County through their county website. With that, there's still over 50,000 people who are evacuated throughout the area. We have good news. We broke the 2000 mark for fire personnel assigned to the incident. We have 2,019 personnel assigned. And today, we saw the beginning of repopulation occur in both the Scots Valley area as well as the La Jonda and Pescadero area in San Mateo County. The only last notable piece for all of this is we did see another structure that was destroyed today, not because of fire, but because of the dangers that are still out there when a tree fell on it. With that, for a situation update from the operations, I'll hand it over to CalFAR IMT-3 Operation Section Chief Mark Brun. Good evening. So we had another again productive day of our fire suppression efforts. We were seeing a change, or the beginning of the change of our weather. Today, most of the morning was covered in a deep marine layer that prevented us from flying our aircraft, but it also, in turn, gave us a lot of help on the ground, bringing some of the moisture up. So it helped mitigate some of the fire spread and slowed that quite a bit. But as it heated up today and warmed up, we did see a little bit of increase in the fire activity. I was able to do a reconnaissance flight, first one I've been able to do on this fire so far because of conditions were not allowing me to do so before. But it was good because I got to get a good aerial view, see the whole part of the fire, and for the most part, looking good. We do have some challenging areas that we're going to be addressing and adjust our strategy accordingly. Just moving around the top of the fire, this Gulf Kilo area is still looking really good. That's holding very well. Very few smokes in that at all. And we do have an active patrol effort in that area. Over in Division Echo, over in this area, the Butano Park, we do have control lines in place. This was probably one of the most active parts of the fire and with the wind flow was probably the most smokiest in here. But where we've had this creeping down, it was definitely more active. But nothing significant, just doing what we wanted to do overall, getting down to our control lines where we could take good control of the fire and fit within our strategy. So we've been waiting, waiting, waiting for it. But what's good about this push, it's getting us to where we want to be. So hopefully that will expedite us being able to jump on that. And we have resources in there and we were able to put additional resources in there today to help with that effort. So that's really going well. As Chief Cox mentioned, we are seeing some other challenges beyond the fire in the area in the Butano Colony and the fact that there are a lot of fire damaged and weakened trees. And those are starting to drop and to fall. And as he said, one destroyed a structure today. We started putting some of our specialists in there to assess and start mitigating that issue. It's going to be a challenge. It's going to be a lot of work in there. So that's yet another ancillary challenge of this incident that we're going to have to start addressing and create a strategy to take care of that issue. Moving down the coast, a lot of this, the fire has mitigated or is completely out extinguished. I'd say out of the most destruction that I've seen of the fire beyond the structure loss as far as to the vegetation was amazingly here on the coastal area. More flashy fuels and so forth. But it did very noticeable once you drive a highway one and look up. And definitely from the air, you can see quite a bit of destruction to that area of the vegetation. Moving down towards Davenport, it's looking really good. A couple of drainages there that we're going to start addressing get very aggressive with. We haven't had the resources. We're starting to get the resources in, such as the hand crews, which are going to be perfect for our situation there. And we'll be putting them to work and taking care of that in the next couple days. Our line's holding still to the south very well. That was almost a void of any sort of significant smokes. There are some smokes very prevalent, but they're well, well interior. Not only here, but throughout the other parts of the fire. Deeper in the fire from the distance. You're seeing significant smoke, but they're deep into the burn. And it's just some drainages that are burning out. There was a lot of, on the initial push of the fire, leaving what we call fingers or islands and so forth. Now the fire is burning back onto itself with the changing of winds. And it's starting to burn those pockets out. Totally normal. We see that on fires all the time. So when you do see some of that smoke, a lot of that, that's what it is. And that's going to continue to do so for the next few days, especially as the weather gets warmer, drier, and we have some more wind. Our burn operation that went around the backside of Felton. That's, if you can see from our vantage point here, or from the Scots Valley area that's being repopulated, they'll see that smoke. Not to worry, that's from our operation. And again, a large chunk of ground that is slowly burning out, doing exactly what we want it to do. It's just going to be there for a little bit and it will be visible. But what that does, it puts a nice solid ring around the community of Felton and will protect it for many other advancements. So we're very happy with the results of that burn operation. Moving up the Highway 9 quarter, it looks really, really good. Throughout Ben Lomond, Brookdale, you'll see if you go up Highway 9, some where the fire had burned down a number of days ago. Slowly burned down, stopped at Highway 9. So when you see that, that was just part of the strategy of letting that burn down to our control points, which at that point is the highway. But those communities all are looking very, very good. Boulder Creek fires really far up on the ridge away from the community, past the golf course. So we've got control lines that are in there and are being improved every day. And we're feeling very comfortable with the protection of that, but there is a lot of work there because there are a lot of structures tucked in and among a lot of the drainages deep within that that we have to go and cut around. So it's a very tedious labor intensive process that will be ongoing. Bonnie Doon, overall looking good, continuing work within there. Again, long continuous and tedious process because of all the different homes scattered throughout, all the areas where it burned. And it wasn't a very continuous burn line. So we have to go in and actually cut that out with our crews to put a nice control line in there so it renders that area safe. Our road crews going in on Highway 236, but all the other roads throughout are doing a fantastic job getting us so that we get deeper in so the damage inspection teams can do their job to inspect those areas for the utility companies to get in, start doing their hard work so they can start bringing the infrastructure back up to par. And so that's an ongoing and will be an ongoing effort, a lot of downed trees. And even though we go through an area and clear it, we tend to have to go back and redo it because a fire weekend tree that's been burning for days or almost a week now decides to come down after the fact. So our folks are having to really be heads up because that is a significant safety concern this far into the event. And then for our crews that are opening up the roadways, same challenge there. As far as our air force and our air efforts, again, we've got about six water dropping helicopters. Those been in play once the weather cleared up and that's been later this afternoon. And they've been dropping water continuously, especially on the Bhutan Park area. That's been where the majority of the water droppings been today. When I was up on my recon, saw them actively working. They were dumping all kinds of water. Don't have the latest totals yet. As far as the day, they're still flying. They still have a few hours of daylight to fly, but we won't time them out today again to the weather. As the weather that we're seeing as forecasted to approach, we're going to get a lot more flight hours to be able to drop a lot more water and use that tool effectively throughout the incident. Overall, like I said, it's looking really good. We're really moving in the right direction. I know there's been questions about the National Guard. We received yesterday a couple of National Guard crews. They've been employed and they've been working predominantly down on the highway nine quarter and those hand lines that we've been there. So yet another tool in toolbox, another resource that we're putting to work. And as Chief Cox said, our numbers of resources that we've been getting have been trickling in and we'll continue to do so as we move through this event. Thank you. Speaking next, one of the unified incident command agencies representing the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office is Chief Deputy Clark. Oh, we had a good day today. And despite a lot of things that have gone on, today was a good day, especially for the folks that lived in the Scots Valley area and the unincorporated area of Scots Valley got to go home today. And so those evacuation orders were lifted for the area of Scots Valley and for the unincorporated area from Paradise Park all the way south, I'm sorry, from Redwood Heights all the way to Paradise Park. And so, and they'll be continued good news on that front as we go throughout the days to come. And so I just wanna preface that, I mentioned this last night, that's the strategy with repopulating these areas. We wanna get you back home. And so, today with Scots Valley and as we move closer to more fire affected areas, it could be just a little longer, obviously, in the work that still has to be done in those areas. So over the coming days, as we go closer, and I think I mentioned this last night, day to day, really, as we go towards Feltin and then up Highway nine. But they'll be continued good news on that front in terms of bringing people back to their homes and getting them back in their own beds at night. And then I just ask for your patience as we get towards like the Boulder Creek and the Bonnie Dune area. If you've seen pictures on social media, there's a lot of damage in there. And so, allowing PG&E and different utility companies and the roads to get repaired is gonna take a little bit. And so, in those areas, we wanna get you back as soon as possible, but we have to do it in a way that's safe for you. So when you come home, you have water and you have utilities and you have all the things that you need to keep you safe, but that's what we're pushing for now. And that's what these guys, they're working extremely hard at trying to get fixed is all that stuff as it goes deeper into those more heavily impacted areas. But like I said, day to day, I think we're gonna have good news day to day as we kind of go on from here. And that's a very positive thing, especially if you've been displaced by this fire. In terms of other good news, no arrests or citations again today. So we did have an interesting case. I'll talk about that here in just a minute. But in terms of numbers, today we had 42 officers and deputies working this, working the evacuated area. Tonight, we're gonna have 56, 18 from our county, 18, I'm sorry, 18 from the sheriff's office, 18 from in county and then 20 mutual aid. And so 56 people total, again, doing those security checks. And as I mentioned, as we start repopulating these areas, and I mentioned this last time, we're gonna be here. This is our community. We're gonna make sure you're safe. We're gonna make sure you're settled. And so I just want you to know that as people start coming back home. In terms of calls for service, five suspicious persons calls we went out to today as well as seven welfare checks. In terms of missing people, that list of three, I think we were at this morning, we found all three of those people. So those three folks that I mentioned last night, those names, we found them and they were okay. And so we did develop one new case today, but from what I'm getting from our detectives, it appears that that person is likely not a fire victim. Again, it's just someone where, a concerned family member called asked us to look into where they are. And so that's exactly what we're doing. And that's exactly what we did on the prior cases. And so again, I'd encourage people to continue to do that. And so we wanna make sure that people are all right. In terms of the interesting, kind of an interesting event today. So Cal Fire is doing a great job of creating line, clearing these areas, and then doing mop up work to ensure that there's no continued fire threat in certain areas. And so today, near the Boulder Creek golf course in the 100 block of Lake Drive, they were doing some mop up work there. There was an open toolbox and some firefighters noticed what appeared to be an explosive device. It looked like a pipe bomb. There was also some other explosive type materials. And obviously concerning, concerning to them, concerning to people that live in that area. And so we dispatched our bomb team and we have investigators looking into it. And so right now our detectives are authoring a search warrant to get into the home there. This toolbox was found near home. And so we're still continuing to do further investigation with regards to that and who's responsible and all the questions you might think would come along with something like that. And then obviously making that toolbox and those devices safe. So that's what they're doing now up in Boulder Creek. And if we find somebody responsible, obviously there's charges for manufacturing explosive device which this person could be potentially charged with. So I just wanna touch on repopulation again. So, and just some things to think about again, as we start, as people are able to start going home, one is to be vigilant. Again, we're gonna be in these areas, but when you go home, you know who should be in the neighborhood and who shouldn't. If you see somebody that should be in the neighborhood, we want you to give us a call and let us check it out. And then again, just because you're going back to an area, doesn't necessarily mean that the fire threat is over. And so it's important to pay attention to social media, our social media and Cal Fire's website to ensure that you're getting the best information and staying abreast with any sort of changing fire hazard is kind of we go along. And I said this again last night and I'll continue to say and know your zone. As we repopulate areas, know the zone in which you live. And so as you see, either press releases or press areas, I speak at these press conferences and tell you what areas to repopulate. That'll go by zone. And so, and again, you go to Cal Fire's website, the incident fact sheet for this incident, as well as our Facebook page, you'll see a map and go to your zone. If it's green, that means it's repopulated. You can go back home. If it's red, it's still under that same order. And other things. So there's gonna be lots of emergency vehicles, especially for folks here in Scotts Valley. And then as areas we continue to repopulate, you're gonna see people coming and going. I just, again, I would ask just for your patience in that as Cal Fire and the other utility companies are still doing their job. And then lastly, where people may wanna come, people may wanna come up in this area for a variety of different reasons. And what we're asking is that if you don't live here, we don't want you coming here. And so, and the reason being is because it just provides more traffic. It provides more congestion when what we want to do is systematically get people back to their homes and still allow for an efficient flow of traffic and that sort of thing for people that are working. So it's for residents only. If you don't have business here, we'd ask that you stay where you are or find a different location. That's all I got. Speaking next from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office is Lieutenant Vince Badola. Good evening. First and foremost, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office wants to thank Cal Fire, Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, the California Highway Patrol and all the law enforcement agencies and everyone assisting with the fire efforts. Without their efforts, our repopulation would not be possible in our county. Today at 12 p.m., we delivered some excellent news about the repopulation in the areas of La Jonda, San Gregorio and Pescadero. And many of those evacuated in our county are now moving back home. And I want to go over again the areas that we reopened. They are Pescadero Beach, Pescadero Creek County Park, Pescadero area, San Gregorio, La Jonda, Red Barn and Langley Hill, Russian Ridge, Open Space area, Sky Landa, Middleton Track, Portola Redwood Straits Park and Portola Heights. Currently, we have four roadblock locations within those areas that reopened. They are as follows. We have Highway One at Gazos Creek, Cloverdale Road at Butano Cutoff, Pescadero Creek Road at Burns Valley. I'll be happy to say that since we reopened at 12 o'clock, there have been no burglaries or no reports or calls for service for suspicious activity in these areas that we reopened. Additionally, we have more than 30 patrol units out in the area patrolling. And we want to ensure to our residents, like Chief Clark said, is that we ensure a safe transition, but that we're out there, we will not tolerate burglary, looting or any of that. It is imperative that anybody that does not live in our county or in those areas that I just identified to not travel there. We need these roadways open so our people can get back safely to the residents. Lastly, we're gonna go through the checklist again, but the evacuees obviously should check online to determine if their home is now accessible in our areas that I just described. Additionally, you can call 211 to learn if your address is included in this list. Evacuees temporarily housed in hotels. Prior to checking out, again, we wanna make sure that your area, your home is in the area, so check to make sure before you check out of the hotels. And for large animal assistance, please call Robin. Her phone number is 650-450-0516. And again, we are extremely pleased to provide good news to our residents and we'll continue to provide detailed information when it's available. And all of this information is listed on our social media platforms. There is more work that needs to be done. We will let you know when these other areas not listed tonight will be reopened. And thank you very much. On behalf of all of the Unified Incident Commanders, speaking next is Cal Fire Incident Management, Team 3, IC, Billy C. Good evening. Obviously, over the last 24 hours, we've been able to put over 20,000 people back in their homes. That says a lot for the work that all the firefighters have done out on the ground. We still got a lot of work to do ahead of us. Lots of smoke production today as the skies cleared out, the marine layer subsided, and you saw what fresh air does to the fire itself. So we still got a lot of work ahead of us, a lot of hot spots out there. Obviously, there's gonna be some concerns about Highway 1 reopening. There's a lot of debris coming down off the hill sides on the Highway 1. That's over 100 years of infrastructure out there, and we're trying to clean it up in over 100 hours. So bear with us. We're working diligently to make those roadways safe with all our cooperating agencies and our law enforcement partners to ensure the safety for the general public when we do reopen those roadways. Thank you. And our final speaker this evening representing the Cal Fire San Mateo Santa Cruz unit is Unit Chief Ian Larkin. Good evening. Today is a good day. We're making progress, and that's what we wanna see every day is progress. And I had an opportunity to go out and drive around a little bit today and see a little bit more of the burned area. And it is a dangerous situation out there. We had several trees come down in the area that we were in. And we have a lot of utilities down, including power lines and communication lines. So the infrastructure repair is gonna take some time. So as we're repopulating the areas that weren't affected by the fire, those areas that were affected by the fire are gonna take some time for us to get, make it safe for everybody to get back in there and make sure you have that vital resources available to you, such as electricity and communications, like telephone and such. So just bear with us, please. Let us get out there and get that work done with our cooperators. Between law enforcement, fire, PG&E, and all the other communications folks, there's a massive effort going forth right now to get the infrastructure back in place and get people back into their homes as quickly as possible. And once again, for the repopulation area, that website that you can go to, or the link you can go to is smco.community.zonehaven. That's smco.community.zonehaven. And there'll be a map on there and as those zones become eligible for repopulation, those zones will turn green. So that's where we're saying it's imperative to know your zone. You can actually zoom in on those areas and actually find the zone that you live in. It'll show the street layer the closer you zoom in. So please refer to those in our social media platforms to find out the most updated information along with our fact sheets that are sent out every day. So thank you again. With that, we're happy to answer any questions you might have. Arani Gordon, KVCZ, Boulder Creek Community Radio. I have a kind of a multi-part question. Are you able to elaborate a little bit more on the issues facing repopulating the San Lorenzo, the different communities in the San Lorenzo Valley? Will that require, are we gonna need to see that line turned black on the eastern flank of the fire? And is the process gonna involve, as far as notification, will that involve using the code red system that was used to tell us when we evacuated? Sure, so the question was related to what to expect for repopulation in the San Lorenzo Valley and how the notifications might go out. And I think the Sheriff's Office will elaborate. Some of the issues that are complicating returning to the different communities. Sure. Yeah, so as I've said before, our plan and we've been going through this over the last couple of days is really comprehensive and really dependent upon the infrastructure improvements that need to take place to get people back home. Last night I kind of gave like a little bit of a, so I'm gonna give you, and I'm gonna catch both parts of your question there. One has to do with repopulation and when, I believe that's part of your question. The second is how am I gonna know? So with regards to the first question, you know, last night I mentioned day or days for Scotts Valley, and that's dependent on a couple of things and we repopulated Scotts Valley today. And as I said last night and as I said today, we're gonna have continued good news as we go along. It's, there's a lot of factors that go into determining which areas get repopulated, but it's in a systematic fashion as we go from the least affected areas to the most effective, or most affected. And so it's kind of a natural progression as we get closer to the fire, closer to Felton up highway nine. And again, I mentioned, you know, having continued patients for the community of Boulder Creek and I've heard about today some water issues in the town of Davenport. And so these are, and then obviously Bonnie Doon being heavily affected. So these are things that have to get worked out, you know, for people to get back home, know where they have the services they need to be able to live safely in their own home. And then obviously there's still fire activity in the Bonnie Doon area and some of those areas until it's completely put out. So there's a lot going on, but you're gonna hear updates on this every day in terms of how do I know? And so what areas are repopulated and which ones aren't? I would say pay attention to our social media, to our Facebook page, to Cal Fire's map as you heard Chief Larkin mention with regards to knowing your zone. And then you'll hear me talk about it. And so there's a number of different ways to be able to stay apprised of when can I go home and all of that. So I just say, just keep up to speed on those resources and then hopefully we'll get you home as absolutely soon as possible. And as far as the line on that eastern flank of the fire, is that gonna need to be fully contained? That's probably a better question for probably Chief Brunner. Yeah, I wouldn't say that exactly that it has to be completely a black line on that. We're gonna take areas of opportunity that we assess and feel that it's safe to put people into. What's difficult is because of the valley, there's one side of the valley that currently is not affected by fire and obviously the other side is. It's very difficult in some ways to go and repopulate one part so that we maintain a level of safety for our personnel that are working in there and the safety of the public because if you only populate one side, there's access to the other side. And that's a huge challenge for us. And we understand the frustrations and the anticipation of getting back that we don't take that lightly. So we're doing everything we can to establish good control lines, render it safe so that we can return everybody back in a timely fashion and in an organized fashion. Like I've said many times before, it's not very clear-cut and not very easy process because of where the homes and how they're situated on that western side of the valley. So the meticulous efforts of having to go and put line and cut line around all the different homes and so forth, that takes time. And so we're trying to weigh that out the best we can. And once we get through an area that we've deemed is safe, the line will hold and we'll be safe, then we will advise accordingly the sheriff's office and work collaboratively with them as we have throughout this entire process because it takes everybody to agree upon that and including to make sure that their infrastructure is there. The utilities are in place and so forth. So when a person returns home, it's not only safe, but they also have all the comforts to return to their normal life. At this point in the fire, how long can we see the new spot fires pop up and is that a threat to spread more? Right, so as far as actual spot fires, we're really not seeing that. What we're seeing is as we're getting especially into the steeper terrain and case in point is that Highway 9 corridor, very steep terrain. We're seeing what's called rollout. So again, on steep terrain, you have burn material and as that burn material degrades like a tree or stump or log, then it loosens up and then it rolls downhill into the green area and then that fire ignites and runs back, fortunately as fire does uphill and typically back into the burn itself. So for us from a control effort, it's not usually a terribly bad thing. But it's more of a nuisance until we can get our control lines in play. So what that does is it just creates this lot more smoke and sometimes the challenge for us control effort wise because we have to back our lines down to where they're gonna be effective, where the rollout won't roll over our line and where we don't want it. So that's the challenging part there and that's what we're facing there. But again, one of the idiosyncrasies that make it a challenging firefight. Yeah, so the question was about the explosives that we found today. So in Boulder Creek this afternoon, near the golf course, Hunter Block of Lake Drive, you had Cal Fire and other firefighters working in that area, mopping up, basically just making sure there's no other little spotfires or what have you in that area. And they're close to homes as they do that. And so same as the case here, where they were near a home and they noticed an open toolbox happened to look down and lo and behold, they look like a pipe bomb with a fuse, other types of explosive type material in it. And just looking at it, they became concerned, saw it for what they thought it was. And then obviously called us and we wanna make sure that that's safe, that they're safe. And so that's how we became involved. And then obviously our, sent our bomb team and our investigative team up there to determine kind of more about that and then who's responsible for that. Was it a bomb? I haven't gotten a report on that yet, but typically what we'll do is, our bomb team will do a lot of investigation, but at the same time, they gotta render that device safe. So they'll do that in a variety of different ways, which could mean detonating it in place, but there's a lot of information that come out of that. They'll go back and look at it and look at forensics and be able to figure out, okay, was it a pipe bomb? Was there, what type of explosive was it? And then go from there. Yeah, so the question was of the 2000 personnel on the line, how many are firefighters? That is the firefighting force that's out there. So that includes everything from hand crews to firefighters to engines. Yeah, so we'll have a breakdown at the end as far as what were single family homes, what were 10 by 12. Well, welcome to the 6 p.m. press conference here on the CZU complex. My name is Jonathan Cox, deputy chief for Cal Fire San Mateo Santa Cruz unit and line officer here on the incident. As always, if you could mute your telephones, take any conversations outside the press conference area, as well as keep your masks on at all times. As usual, we will have time for questions and answers with all of the speakers at the conclusion of the formal presentations. So we're on day 11 here on the incident, the CZU complex, we can confirm this afternoon that we have burned or 81,479 acres have burned. And obviously the number of acres burned is slowly increasing now. We can also confirm 24% containment, which is up from this morning. However, we still have 13,305 structures that remain threatened this evening. We can confirm that 746 structures have been destroyed in this incident. Of those 746 11 are in San Mateo County and 735 of those are in Santa Cruz County. Our damage inspection team have completed about 65% of the total fire area for their inspections. With that, there are websites with damage information available for the public, both in Santa Cruz County through the county website and San Mateo County through their county website. With that, there's still over 50,000 people who are evacuated throughout the area. We have good news and we broke the 2000 mark for fire personnel assigned to the incident. We have 2019 personnel assigned. And today we saw the beginning of repopulation occur in both the Scots Valley area as well as the La Jonda and Pescadero area in San Mateo County. The only last notable piece for all of this is we did see another structure that was destroyed today, not because of fire, but because of the dangers that are still out there when a tree fell on it. With that, for a situation update from the operations, I'll hand it over to Cal Fire IMT-3 operation section chief, Mark Brun. Good evening. So we had another again productive day of our fire suppression efforts. We were seeing a change or the beginning of the change of our weather. Today, most of the morning was covered in a deep marine layer that prevented us from flying our aircraft, but it also, in turn, gave us a lot of help on the ground, bringing some of the moisture up. So it helped mitigate some of the fire spread and slow that quite a bit. But as it heated up today and warmed up, we did see a little bit of increase in the fire activity. I was able to do a reconnaissance flight. First one I've been able to do on this fire so far because of conditions. We're not allowing me to do so before, but it was good because I got to get a good aerial view, see the whole part of the fire. And for the most part, looking good. We do have some challenging areas that we are going to be addressing and adjust our strategy accordingly. Just moving around the top of the fire, this Gulf Kilo area is still looking really good. That's holding very well. Very few smokes in that at all. And we do have an active patrol effort in that area. Over in Division Echo, over in this area, the Butano Park, we do have control lines in place. This was probably one of the most active parts of the fire. And with the wind flow, it was probably the most smokiest in here. But where we've had this creeping down, it was definitely more active. But nothing significant, just doing what we wanted to do overall, getting down to our control lines where we could take good control of the fire and fit within our strategy. So we've been waiting, waiting, waiting for it. But what's good about this push, it's getting us to where we want to be. So hopefully that will expedite us being able to jump on that. And we have resources in there. And we were able to put additional resources in there today to help with that effort. So that's really going well. As Chief Cox mentioned, we are seeing some other challenges beyond the fire in the area in the Butano Colony and the fact that there are a lot of fire damage and weakened trees. And those are starting to drop and to fall. And as you said, one destroyed a structure today. We started putting some of our specialists in there to assess and start mitigating that issue. It's going to be a challenge. It's going to be a lot of work in there. So that's yet another ancillary challenge of this incident that we're going to have to start addressing and create a strategy to take care of that issue. Moving down the coast, a lot of this, the fire has mitigated or is completely out extinguished. I'd say out of the most destruction that I've seen of the fire beyond the structure loss as far as to the vegetation was amazingly here on the coastal area. More flashy fuels and so forth. But it did very noticeable once you drive a highway one and look up and definitely from the air you can see quite a bit of destruction to that area of the vegetation. Moving down towards Davenport, it's looking really good, a couple of drainages there that we're going to start addressing, get very aggressive with. We haven't had the resources. We're starting to get the resources in, such as the hand crews, which are going to be perfect for our situation there. And we'll be putting them to work and taking care of that in the next couple days. Our line's holding still to the south very well. That was almost a void of any sort of significant smokes. There are some smokes very prevalent, but they're well, well interior, not only here, but throughout the other parts of the fire. Deeper in the fire, from the distance, you're seeing significant smoke, but they're deep into the burn. And it's just some drainages that are burning out. There was a lot of, on the initial push of the fire, leaving what we call fingers or islands and so forth. Now the fire is burning back onto itself with the changing of winds. And it's starting to burn those pockets out. Totally normal. We see that on fires all the time. So when you do see some of that smoke, a lot of that, that's what it is. And that's gonna continue to do so for the next few days, especially as the weather gets warmer, drier, and we have some more wind. Our burn operation that went around the backside of Felton, that's, if you can see from our vantage point here, or from the Scots Valley area that's being repopulated, they'll see that smoke. Not to worry, that's from our operation. And again, a large chunk of ground that is slowly burning out, doing exactly what we want it to do, it's just gonna be there for a little bit. And it will be visible. But what that does is puts a nice, solid ring around the community of Felton and will protect it for many other advancements. So we're very happy with the results of that burn operation. Moving up the Highway 9 quarter, it looks really, really good. Throughout Ben-Loman, Brookdale, you'll see if you go Highway 9, some where the fire had burned down a number of days ago, slowly burned down, stopped at Highway 9. So when you see that, that was just part of the strategy of letting that burn down to our control points, which at that point is the highway. But those communities all are looking very, very good. Boulder Creek fires really far up on the ridge away from the community, past the golf course. So we've got control lines that are in there and are being improved every day. And we're feeling very comfortable with the protection of that, but there is a lot of work there because there are a lot of structures tucked in and among a lot of the drainages deep within that that we have to go and cut around. So it's a very tedious labor intensive process that will be ongoing. Bonnie Doon, overall looking good, continuing work within there. Again, long, continuous and tedious process because of all the different homes scattered throughout, all the areas where it burned and it wasn't a very continuous burn line. So we have to go in and actually cut that out with our crews to put a nice control line in there so it renders that area safe. Our road crews going in on not only Highway 236 but all the other roads throughout are doing a fantastic job getting us so that we get deeper in so the damage inspection teams can do their job to inspect those areas for the utility companies to get in, start doing their hard work so they can start bringing the infrastructure back up to par. And so that's an ongoing and will be an ongoing effort. A lot of downed trees and even though we go through an area and clear it, we tend to have to go back and redo it because a fire weekend tree that's been burning for days or almost a week now decides to come down after the fact. So our folks are having to really be heads up because that is a significant safety concern this far into the event and then for our crews that are opening up the roadways, same challenge there. As far as our Air Force again, we've got about six water dropping helicopters. Those been in play once the weather cleared up and that's been later this afternoon and they've been dropping water continuously especially on the Bhutan Park area. That's been where the majority of the water droppings been today. When I was up on my recon, saw them actively working. They were dumping all kinds of water. Don't have the latest totals yet. As far as the day, they're still flying. They still have a few hours of daylight to fly. But we won't time them out today again to the weather. As the weather that we're seeing is forecasted to approach, we're going to get a lot more flight hours to be able to drop a lot more water and use that tool effectively throughout the incident. Overall, like I said, it's looking really good. We're really moving in the right direction. I know there's been questions about the National Guard. We received yesterday a couple of National Guard crews. They've been employed and they've been working predominantly down on the Highway 9 corridor and those hand lines that we've been there. So yet another tool in toolbox, another resource that we're putting to work. And as Chief Cox said, our numbers of resources that we've been getting have been trickling in and we'll continue to do so as we move through this event. Thank you. Speaking next, one of the unified incident command agencies representing the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office is Chief Deputy Clark. Oh, we had a good day today. And despite a lot of things that have gone on, today was a good day, especially for the folks that lived in the Scotts Valley area. And the unincorporated area of Scotts Valley got to go home today. And so those evacuation orders were lifted for the area of Scotts Valley and for the unincorporated area from Paradise Park all the way south, I'm sorry, from Redwood Heights all the way to Paradise Park. And they'll be continued good news on that front as we go throughout the days to come. And so I just wanna preface that, I mentioned this last night, that's the strategy with repopulating these areas. We wanna get you back home. And so today with Scotts Valley and as we move closer to more fire affected areas, it could be just a little longer, obviously in the work that still has to be done in those areas. So over the coming days, as we go closer, and I think I mentioned this last night, day to day, really as we go towards Feltin and then up Highway 9. But there'll be continued good news on that front in terms of bringing people back back to their homes and getting them back in their own beds at night. And then I just asked for your patience as we get towards like the Boulder Creek and the Bonnie Dune area. If you've seen pictures on social media, there's a lot of damage in there. And so allowing PG&E and different utility companies and the roads to get repaired is gonna take a little bit. And so in those areas, we wanna get you back as soon as possible, but we have to do it in a way that's safe for you. So when you come home, you have water and you have utilities and you have all the things that you need to keep you safe, but that's what we're pushing for now. And that's what these guys, they're working extremely hard at trying to get fixed is all that stuff, as it goes deeper into those more heavily impacted areas. But like I said, day to day, I think we're gonna have good news day to day as we kind of go on from here. And that's a very positive thing, especially if you've been displaced by this fire. In terms of other good news, no arrests or citations again today. So we did have an interesting case. I'll talk about that here in just a minute. But in terms of numbers, today we had 42 officers and deputies working this, working the evacuated area. Tonight we're gonna have 56, 18 from our county, 18, I'm sorry, 18 from the sheriff's office, 18 from in county and then 20 mutual aid. And so 56 people total, again doing those security checks. And as I mentioned, as we start repopulating these areas, and I mentioned this last night, we're gonna be here. This is our community. We're gonna make sure you're safe. We're gonna make sure you're settled. And so I just want you to know that as people start coming back home. In terms of calls for service, five suspicious persons calls we went out to today as well as seven welfare checks. In terms of missing people, that list of three, I think we were at this morning, we found all three of those people. So those three folks that I mentioned last night, those names, we found them and they were okay. And so we did develop one new case today, but from what I'm getting from our detectives, it appears that that person's likely not a fire victim. Again, it's just someone where, a concerned family member called, asked us to look into where they are. And so that's exactly what we're doing and that's exactly what we did on the prior cases. And so again, I'd encourage people to continue to do that. And so we wanna make sure that people are all right. In terms of the interesting, kind of an interesting event today. So Cal Fire's doing a great job of creating line, clearing these areas and then doing mop up work to ensure that there's no continued fire threat in certain areas. And so today, near the Boulder Creek golf course in the 100 block of Lake Drive, they were doing some mop up work there. There was an open toolbox and some firefighters noticed what appeared to be an explosive device. It looked like a pipe bomb. There was also some other explosive type materials and obviously concerning, concerning to them, concerning to people that live in that area. And so we dispatched our bomb team and we have investigators looking into it. And so right now our detectives are authoring a search warrant to get into the home there. This toolbox was found near home. And so we're still continuing to do further investigation with regards to that and who's responsible and all the questions you might think would come along with something like that. And then obviously making that toolbox and those devices safe. So that's what they're doing now up in Boulder Creek. And if we find somebody responsible, obviously there's charges for manufacturing explosive device which this person could be potentially charged with. So I just want to touch on repopulation again. So and just some things to think about again as we start, as people are able to start going home. One is to be vigilant. Again, we're going to be in these areas but when you go home, you know who's, who should be in the neighborhood and who shouldn't. If you see somebody that should be in the neighborhood we want you to give us a call and let us check it out. And then again, you know, just because you're going back to an area doesn't necessarily mean that the fire threat is over. And so it's important to pay attention to social media, our social media and Cal Fire's website to ensure that you're getting the best information and staying abreast with what, with any sort of changing fire hazard is kind of we go along. And I said this again last night and I'll continue to say it and you know, know your zone. You know, as we repopulate areas, know the zone in which you live. And so as you see, you know, either press releases or press areas, I speak at these press conferences and tell you what areas to repopulate. That'll go by zone. And so, and again, you go to Cal Fire's website, the incident fact sheet for this incident, as well as our Facebook page, you'll see a map and go to your zone. If it's green and that means it's repopulated, you can go back home. If it's red, it's still under that same order. Another thing, so there's lots of, there's going to be lots of emergency vehicles, especially for folks here in Scots Valley and then as areas we continue to repopulate, you're going to see people coming and going on. Just again, it's just, I would ask just for your patience in that as, you know, Cal Fire and the other utility companies are still doing their job. And then, and then lastly, so, you know, people may want to come up in this area for a variety of different reasons. And what we're asking is that if you don't live here, we don't want you coming here. And so, and the reason being is because it just provides more traffic, it provides more congestion when what we want to do is systematically get people back to their homes and still allow for an efficient flow of traffic and that sort of thing for people that are working. So, it's for residents only. If you don't have business here, we'd ask that you stay where you are or find a different location. That's all I got, thank you. Speaking next from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office is Lieutenant Vince Badola. Good evening. First and foremost, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office wants to thank Cal Fire, Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, the California Highway Patrol and all the law enforcement agencies and everyone assisting with the fire efforts. Without their efforts, our repopulation would not be possible in our county. Today at 12 p.m., we delivered some excellent news about the repopulation in the areas of La Jonda, San Gregorio and Pescadero. And many of those evacuated in our county are now moving back home. And I want to go over again the areas that we reopened. They are Pescadero Beach, Pescadero Creek County Park, Pescadero area, San Gregorio, La Jonda, Red Barn and Langley Hill, Russian Ridge, Open Space area, Sky Landa, Middleton Track, Portola Redwood Straits Park and Portola Heights. Currently, we have four roadblock locations within those areas that reopened. They are as follows. We have Highway One at Gazos Creek, Cloverdale Road at Butano Cut-Off, Pescadero Creek Road at Butano Cut-Off, Pescadero Creek Road at Burns Valley. I'll be happy to say that since we reopened at 12 o'clock, there have been no burglaries or no reports or calls for service for suspicious activity in these areas that we reopened. Additionally, we have more than 30 patrol units out in the area patrolling. And we want to ensure to our residents, like Chief Clark said, is that we ensure a safe transition but that we're out there. We will not tolerate burglary, looting or any of that. It is imperative that anybody that does not live in our county or in those areas that I just identified to not travel there. We need these roadways open so our people can get back safely to the residents. Lastly, we're gonna go through the checklist again, but the evacuees obviously should check online to determine if their home is now accessible in our areas that I just described. Additionally, you can call 211 to learn if your address is included in this list. Evacuees temporarily housed in hotels. Prior to checking out, again, we want to make sure that your area, your home is in the area. So check to make sure before you check out of the hotels. And for large animal assistance, please call Robin. Her phone number is 650-450-0516. And again, we are extremely pleased to provide good news to our residents and will continue to provide detail information when it's available. And all of this information is listed on our social media platforms. There is more work that needs to be done. We will let you know when these other areas not listed tonight will be reopened. And thank you very much. On behalf of all of the unified incident commanders, speaking next is Cal Fire Incident Management, Team 3, IC, Billy C. Good evening. Obviously, over the last 24 hours, we've been able to put over 20,000 people back in their homes. That says a lot for the work that all the firefighters have done out on the ground. We still got a lot of work to do ahead of us. Lots of smoke production today as the skies cleared out, the marine layer subsided, and you saw what fresh air does to the fire itself. So we still got a lot of work ahead of us, a lot of hot spots out there. Obviously, there's going to be some concerns about Highway 1 reopening. There's a lot of debris coming down off the hillside on the Highway 1. That's over 100 years of infrastructure out there, and we're trying to clean it up in over 100 hours. So bear with us. We're working diligently to make those roadways safe with all our cooperating agencies and our law enforcement partners to ensure the safety for the general public when we do reopen those roadways. Thank you. And our final speaker this evening, representing the Cal Fire San Mateo Santa Cruz Unit is Unit Chief Ian Larkin. Good evening. Today is a good day, we're making progress, and that's what we want to see every day is progress. And I had an opportunity to go out and drive around a little bit today and see a little bit more of the burned area. And it is a dangerous situation out there. We had several trees come down in the area that we were in. And we have a lot of utilities down, including power lines and communication lines. So the infrastructure repair is gonna take some time. So as we're repopulating the areas that weren't affected by the fire, those areas that were affected by the fire are gonna take some time for us to make it safe for everybody to get back in there and make sure you have that vital resources available to you such as electricity and communications like telephone and such. So just bear with us, please. Let us get out there and get that work done with our cooperators. Between law enforcement, fire, PG&E, and all the other communications folks, there's a massive effort going forth right now to get the infrastructure back in place and get people back into their homes as quickly as possible. And once again, for the repopulation area, that website that you can go to or the link you can go to is smco.community.zonehaven. That's smco.community.zonehaven. And there'll be a map on there and as those zones become eligible for repopulation, those zones will turn green. So that's where we're saying it's imperative to know your zone. You can actually zoom in on those areas and actually find the zone that you live in. It'll show the street layer the closer you zoom in. So please refer to those in our social media platforms to find out the most updated information along with our fact sheets that are sent out every day. So thank you again. With that, we're happy to answer any questions you might have. Randy Gordon, KVCZ, Boulder Creek Community Radio. I have a kind of a multi-part question. Are you able to elaborate a little bit more on the issues facing repopulating the San Lorenzo, the different communities in the San Lorenzo Valley? Will that require, are we gonna need to see that line turned black on the eastern flank of the fire? And is the process gonna involve, as far as notification, will that involve using the Code Red system that was used to tell us when we evacuated? Sure, so the question was related to what to expect for repopulation in the San Lorenzo Valley and how the notifications might go out. And I think the Sheriff's Office will be able to elaborate. Some of the issues that are complicating returning to the different communities. Sure. Yeah, so as I've said before, our plan, and we've been going through this over the last couple of days, is really comprehensive and really dependent upon the infrastructure improvements that need to take place to get people back home. Last night, I kind of gave like a little bit of a, so I'm gonna give you, and I'm gonna catch both parts of your question there. One has to do with repopulation and when, I believe that's part of your question. The second is how am I gonna know? So with regards to the first question, you know, last night I mentioned day or days for Scotts Valley, and that's dependent on a couple of things, and we repopulated Scotts Valley today. And as I said last night and as I said today, we're gonna have continued good news as we go along. It's, there's a lot of factors that go into determining which areas get repopulated, but it's in a systematic fashion as we go from the least affected areas to the most affected. And so it's kind of a natural progression as we get closer to the fire, closer to Felton up Highway 9. And again, I mentioned, you know, having continued patients for the community of Boulder Creek. And I've heard about today, some water issues in the town of Davenport. And so these are, and then obviously Bonnie Dune being heavily affected. So these are things that have to get worked out, you know, for people to get back home, know where they have the services they need to be able to live safely in their own home. And then obviously there's still fire activity in the Bonnie Dune area and some of those areas until it's completely put out. So there's a lot going on, but you're gonna hear updates on this every day in terms of how do I know? And so what areas are repopulated and which ones aren't? I would say pay attention to our social media, to our Facebook page, to Cal Fire's map as you heard Chief Larkin mention with regards to knowing your zone. And then you'll hear me talk about it. And so there's a number of different ways to be able to stay apprised of when can I go home and all of that. So I just say, just keep up to speed on those resources and then hopefully we'll get you home as absolutely soon as possible. As far as the line on that eastern flank of the fire, is that gonna need to be fully contained? That's probably a better question for probably Chief Brunner. Yeah, I wouldn't say that exactly, that it has to be completely a black line on that. We're gonna take areas of opportunity that we assess and feel that it's safe to put people into. What's difficult is because of the Valley, there's one side of the Valley that currently is not affected by fire and obviously the other side is. It's very difficult in some ways to go and repopulate one part so that we maintain a level of safety for our personnel that are working in there and the safety of the public because if you only populate one side, there's access to the other side. And that's a huge challenge for us. And we understand the frustrations and the anticipation of getting back that we don't take that lightly. So we're doing everything we can to establish good control lines, render it safe so that we can return everybody back in a timely fashion and in an organized fashion. Like I've said many times before, it's not very clear-cut and not very easy process because of where the homes and how they're situated on that western side of the Valley. So the meticulous efforts of having to go and put line and cut line around all the different homes and so forth. That takes time. And so we're trying to weigh that out the best we can. And once we get through an area that we've deemed as safe, the line will hold and we'll be safe, then we will advise accordingly the sheriff's office and we're collaboratively with them as we have throughout this entire process because it takes everybody to agree upon that and including to make sure that their infrastructure's there, the utilities are in place and so forth. So when a person returns home, it's not only safe, but they also have all the comforts to return to their normal life. At this point in the fire, how often are we seeing the new spot fires pop up and is that a threat or a threat to water? Right, so as far as actual spot fires, we're really not seeing that. What we're seeing is as we're getting especially into the steeper terrain and case in point is that Highway 9 corridor, very steep terrain. We're seeing what's called rollout. So again, on steep terrain, you have burn material and as that burn material degrades like a tree or a stump or log, then it loosens up and then it rolls downhill into the green area and then that fire ignites and runs back. Fortunately, as fire does uphill and typically back into the burn itself. So for us from a control effort, it's not usually a terribly bad thing. But it's more of a nuisance until we can get our control lines in play. So what that does is it just creates this lot more smoke and sometimes the challenge for us control effort-wise because we have to back our lines down to where they're gonna be effective, where the rollout will roll over our line and where we don't want it. So that's the challenging part there and that's what we're facing there. But again, one of the idiosyncrasies that make it a challenging firefight. Yeah, so the question was about the explosives that we found today. So in Boulder Creek this afternoon, near the golf course, Hunter Block of Lake Drive, you had Cal Fire and other firefighters working in that area, mopping up, basically just making sure there's no other little spot fires or what have you in that area. And they're close to homes as they do that. And so same as the case here where they were near a home and they noticed an open toolbox, happened to look down and lo and behold, they're look like a pipe bomb with a fuse, other types of explosive type material in it. And just looking at it, they became concerned, saw it for what they thought it was and then obviously called us and we want to make sure that that's safe, that they're safe. And so that's how we became involved and then obviously sent our bomb team and our investigative team up there to determine kind of more about that and then who's responsible for that. Was it a bomb? I haven't gotten a report on that yet, but typically what we'll do is, our bomb team will do a lot of investigation but at the same time they gotta render that device safe. So they'll do that in a variety of different ways which could mean detonating it in place but there's a lot of information that can come out of that. They'll go back and look at it and look at forensics and be able to figure out, okay, was it a pipe bomb? Was there, what type of explosive was it? And then go from there. Yeah, so the question was of the 2000 personnel on the line, how many are firefighters? That is the firefighting force that's out there. So that includes everything from hand crews to firefighters to engines. Yeah, so we'll have a breakdown at the end as far as what were single family homes, what were 10 by 12 in larger. The best way to kind of reference it right now is to go on the county's website that has that information and actually when you click on the location of each structure it gives a description about what it is. So they've completed 65% of the fire area. I believe there's 12 teams out there, the damage inspection teams. One of the biggest hindrance that the team is charging forward with is clearing all the roadways to get into the really inaccessible areas. If you've seen the pictures online of the bridges that have been compromised, the trees that have come down, the power lines that are in the roadway, literally getting access to some of the most damaged areas is limited. So that Chief Brunton's team is working diligently with the damage inspection teams to make sure they have the access to get in there and get all those structures cataloged. All right, so just a final notice I wanna say thank you. I know we stand up here a couple of times a day and speak about the incident, but we are a very small piece of a much, much larger team out there and that encompasses everything from local jurisdictions in both counties to the EOCs, to the non-profit organizations, to the people who are housing friends and family. Just from us, thank you for everybody, for your patience. We are truly all in this together and we will make sure that we continue to keep you informed until this is 100% complete. Thank you.