 Good evening. Welcome to the 6 p.m. press conference for the CZU lightning complex My name is Jonathan Cox deputy chief for cow fire here in the San Mateo Santa Cruz unit As always just make sure we have take our conversations outside mute our telephones And for all the media to remain masked with COVID masks at all times Just a quick incident update on this fire. We currently have 50 we can confirm 57,000 acres have burned on this fire and we have 2% containment now 24,000 structures remain threatened out in front of the fire And we have we can confirm 97 structures have been destroyed Just so everyone's clear on what that means in the last two days We've had two damage inspection teams out in the field starting tomorrow We're going to have five damage inspection teams. So we anticipate those numbers to climb in the next few days We still have two firefighter injuries from the beginning of this incident Their status remains unchanged. A minor injury is not hospitalized And our final personnel count for today is we have 1157 personnel assigned to this incident With that, I'll hand it over to incident management team three operations section chief chief brunner Good evening. So throughout the day, we've seen a little bit of help from mother nature as far as Little bit cooling temperatures a little change in the wind We have not seen erratic fire behavior throughout the day. It's allowed us to make some progress albeit somewhat small due to our lack of resources But we have seen little progress as far as being able to start to construct some contingency lines Especially in the southern end of the fire that's in progress as we speak So it's giving us a good opportunity to get in there and take care of that We still are doing a lot of point protection on structures throughout the entire fire Which is allowed us because of the intensity has dropped slightly Further crews to get in there and get some good work done fire is still making progress and burning down throughout the San Lorenzo Valley into the highway nine corridor And on the western end of the fire and the north end of the fire The fire is Being mitigated slightly by the onshore marine flow the the fog layers and so forth So that's allowing us to get in there where we can do some work Especially behind the community of Davenport to provide a layer of protection for for that community We're looking to see what's going to happen tonight. The weather should be more favorable We should not have as heavy of the north winds that we've been experiencing so Our expectation is the fire behavior should Mitigate slightly only slightly But we will continue to make progress where we can take advantage of those opportunities where we can And and make some progress with the coming weather the next few days we can we can do some pretty good work Beyond that it's going to provide us some challenges and we're preparing to meet those challenges with the weather as the coming days approach Speaking next from the Santa Cruz county sheriff's office is deputy chief clark Well, good evening. So I thought I'd touch on a little bit about what we did today We completed the evacuations of the city of scott's valley about 12 000 residents We completed that about mid-afternoon The next thing I want to talk about is is is really reiterating and we we've said this At prior press conferences, please do not return back into the evacuated zone If you don't have to it provide it presents hazards for everybody that's trying to work in that area Like I can totally understand if you have medication if you if you feel like you have to go back But please try to seek alternative means to obtain that stuff contact your doctor If there's an alternate route you can go to obtaining critical things that you need that would be extremely helpful Just based on the dynamic and changing nature of the fire and really allowing fire personnel to to devote everything they can to helping put out this fire In terms of Burglary suppression. So today we had about 60 personnel Looking looking for potential looters and protecting property. I can say that That there are people out there Unfortunately that are that are looking to victimize people who have left and have been displaced and it's absolutely it's it's terrible And it's disgusting Today alone we arrested five people five people with two car loads full of stolen property off a fall creek road And so there's more information on that our press information officer is Is posted information about those folks on our facebook page and so you can go to You know our the Santa Cruz sheriff's office facebook page to obtain more information With with regards to those arrests But in touching on that some of us have rain cameras webcams that sort of thing around your around our houses if you see Like somebody prowling around your house Call call our dispatch center at a 31 471 1 1 2 1 a 31 471 1 1 2 1 and report report the prowling we'll get an officer there Like I said today we had 60 personnel. We're going to continue With likely that strength of people For as long as as people are displaced, so we're going to have people in the area Looking for these folks, but if you if you see something, please call In terms of large animal rescue, uh, I wanted to provide some information as far as that was concerned If there are if you have the large animals that need to be evacuated I'm going to provide you a number and this is to our large animal rescue Folks that'll that'll help get those animals out that phone number is a 31 3 3 1 6 2 2 7 a 31 3 3 1 6 2 2 7 as for large animal evacuation Uh, I want to touch on missing persons So, uh, this is kind of come up and it's obviously something that we that we encourage if you can't find your if you haven't heard from your loved one Please call us And like I said yesterday, uh, you can go to the red cross, uh website to to look to see whether or not They've been reported there. Uh, if you can't find them there Call our dispatch and uh, we'll we'll uh, we'll look into it To provide you some numbers we we've taken about 19 missing persons cases since this fire started 19 Uh, we we we have detectives that have looked into it. We brought that number down to two So there are two missing persons cases at this point that we're actively trying to confirm And so we're going to continue that until there's a resolution to both of those Uh, and then lastly, I just want to touch on there was another, uh, Evacuation center that was opened at simpkins swim center. So that's that's open today. You can go there Uh, if you've been displaced, you need a place to go But also I'd encourage you to contact, uh, the, uh, the shelter hotline at eight six six two seven two Two two three seven to be connected with, uh, shelter services. Thank you Speaking next from the san mateo county sheriff's office is detective blanksway Good evening right now. We two are in safety and security mode We have teams of people including law enforcement and volunteers who are in the area providing those, um safety and security measures for the northern part of this fire the areas that reach into san mateo county We want to say thank you to everybody who has evacuated so far And those that are doing so right now We're still seeing a lot of people who are entering the area for whatever reason and we want to reiterate that These are hard closures We have law enforcement personnel who are staffed at these closures And we're not allowing anybody back in for safety and security reasons We stress this because we want to make sure that you're not putting any of our first responders in a situation Where they have to risk their lives to rescue you I know that everybody wants updates as far as what's going on at their house And what's going on at their neighbor street and and their friends property We can't give you those numbers right now right now We're trying to assess the needs of the community and it's a really great opportunity for us to show our strength as a community by Listening to our fire experts and cooperating with these orders and showing that you can be patient and wait for this information As many of the other fire experts have said this is going to be a long haul Or we we would like your patience in that So, thank you very much and um again your cooperation and patience is much appreciated Speaking next one of the unified incident commanders from cal fire incident management team three chief c Hey, good evening. This morning. I talked about trying to obtain some small wins. Obviously. We did today We've got two percent containment on on this fire. I know it's not much, but it's a small win Lots of small wins equal a big win at the end of the day Today was a good day for us We've had smoke conditions that have kept the fire in check with increased amenities and reduced winds We'll see what comes overnight Tonight we're anticipating that the upper elevations that the humidity will drop again On the high ridge tops, but down in the lower levels the humanities will stay increased So it'll moderate the fire behavior in those areas With that said the firefighters are have been working extremely hard for many many hours over the last several days And they're going to continue to do so This camp's increased in size by a hundred personnel today and a few resources have come in Over the course of the next week or so We're going to continue to see that small trickle effect coming in as we see out of state resources deployed here in california to assist us Right now we've got 13 incident management teams deployed on two dozen different large fires in the state of california This emergency system is strapped But please be aware everyone's doing the best they can for the citizens of the california. Thank you And our final speaker the unit chief for cal fire in the local San Mateo Santa Cruz unit chief larkin So we're entering into day six Of this incident and as we keep saying this is going to be a long haul Our firefighters are out there doing the absolute best they can with the limited resources that we have To protect the citizens of Santa Cruz county and san mateo county As we reiterate each time there are still a lot of citizens that have chosen to stay in the community And I had first hand Witness to a lot of those people driving around the fire area when I went out to do just a little bit of Wind shield surveying and myself of the the devastation that is occurring and It's very difficult to maneuver around this fire as it is with the narrow roads and to add that public back in there is very Very difficult and very unsafe for our firefighters. So if you're in the area And you don't need to be there. Please leave. Let us do our job So it's the safest environment we can provide for our firefighters This is going to be the long haul as we keep saying we're day six into this fire and we've only got it six percent contained So Bear with us. We're doing the best we can with the resources we have and as resources come in the team's going to allocate those resources Equally to the assignments that need to be completed. So thank you All right, as usual or happen to answer any questions. I just asked that we group them together tonight Just went off the shuffle too much. So, uh, whoever we want to start with Sure Yeah, speaking to tourism You know, the county's advocated that that that please if you don't live here, please don't come here to to to recreate We've displaced a lot of people from the San Lorenzo Valley Those people need places to stay and so there's only so much of that and so by increasing tourism into the county It only it only takes away rooms for folks that really need them. So again, you know, we would encourage you Please if you do not live here, uh, don't come here to recreate. We we'd love to see on a different day. Just not now The additional questions Okay Sure, so the question is really about the operations that are going on in the bonding doing So as you can imagine the bonding doing area has been hit very hard by the fire And as a first responders our heart's go out to those folks That is very devastating what they've experienced whether their house has been destroyed or their house They're out of their homes now. I can I can sympathize with that Unfortunately, as I've said before we have very few resources. So typically in an area that size We would have probably 10 20 times the resources to combat that fire. We simply don't have it It's just the resources are only finite as you heard chief see say already before the number of fires throughout the state We're really tapped out. We're bringing in stuff from out of state that that should indicate that how how far drawn down We are with resources So we do the best we can We have to change our strategy. We have to change our tactics To address a fire situation like this As we said before it's unprecedented This isn't just a typical fire that we face day in and day out. This is Unprecedented. This is historic. So take that into mind with the limited resources and doing the best we can We can only have like we keep saying small wins and we do point protection. So it's life number one And we've been Taking care of that by evacuating the people so that their life safety is the number one priority Then we move on to the property conservation and property protection We're doing But with the magnitude of this fire and the fuels and all those things we can only do so much with what we've got. So I know it's it seems easy to ask for patience in this We are doing the absolute best we can we've had firefighters that work double triple shifts So we're maximizing our personnel out But there's only so much that they can give before they become unsafe And we cannot let them be unsafe because then they are ineffective and it becomes a downward spiral at that point So All all we can ask is I know it's hard to ask for patience in this but we are doing absolutely everything we possibly can Oh, certainly, I mean this is an emotional event You know lives are on the line the property everything that they've worked for hard for We can appreciate that. We're all involved. You know been there in that situation one way or the other So we are just the message is we are doing everything we possibly can and we're trying to mitigate that situation And as soon as we can they'll be getting back to their homes and hopefully back to their normal lives Okay, so for right now We we don't feel that there's a direct threat To either the campus nor to that community. We are putting in at this point in time. It started last night and in throughout the day A good contingency line So we have a good plan that we're having success with the weather has mitigated to such that we can have success with that We have some resources we can put into play And so we are working extremely hard to put in a a contingency line that will protect those communities so At this point in time and the way the weather is mitigating It's it's a there are probably the more safer of the communities If they weren't we would have already done the evacuation been very aggressive with our evacuations for for the right purpose because Of the lack of resources and because of the fast-moving fire So the fact that they're not evacuated at this point or we have not required their evacuation Is is a good indicator as to their safety and the safety of their community Could you tell me please? I'm further that he can bear up for the murder use The Santa Cruz a lot of people there I think this is the place you never heard Is that I mean because you know there's been a lot of vegetation that's connected in various places It seems like it's not one of the communities in that way Is could it could it sound like Santa Cruz That fire from a fire like this you know I hate to say is this is california and anything's possible in particular with wildfires I mean we've seen time and again over the past number of years communities that We've said hey, we'll never burn or never historically have burned And we've seen unfortunately that they have or they've been affected directly by the fire So I would never let your guard down with that. I think it's it's a relatively safe community. But again Most communities in california are surrounded or nearby to wildland areas and with the extreme conditions we're seeing You know as prepared as we are as fire service professionals We do become surprised as to these conditions I mean we who would have ever expected a fire of this magnitude in this area It just it just hasn't happened and the conditions with the drought The fuels as dry as they are the conditions they are the build-up of the fuels all these factors come into play that create an unexpected situation so What I've learned in my career is to expect the unexpected and prepare for it the best we can and I would be prepared In any community. I am in the state of california We should and we always preach this Fire season non fire season that you prepare for wildfire And if the time is that your your community's threatened and you need to go that you're ready to go and you go when you're asked to go So yeah, the question keeps coming up about aircraft and and Really what's been hindering us is a few things one you keep hearing about the drawdown of resources So it's a finite resource very limited. We do have some That are assigned to this This incident and that we share with other incidents our error program our error operations directors Are working diligently with our partners and the other fires of sharing that resource so What little we have we are sharing and and we're utilizing one we can use it The biggest factor has been the weather in particular what the smoke has been doing laying into most of the areas So we can't fly the aircraft into these heavily smoked out areas. It's just not safe and they're quite frankly They're not effective so the areas that that the air is clear and it's safe to do so our Aerial supervision has Directed those aircraft into those areas We've utilized them to the fullest extent that we can utilize them And we've had some success Utilizing those but unfortunately a good portion of the fire has not been accessible for the aircraft to be utilized so Trust me as much as we can use it. We're using it and We're using it to the maximum effect, but right now just mother nature isn't cooperating with this We've we've used we've had a variety of our fixed wing air tankers that we've utilized And those again are shared aircraft So we've had anywhere from Two to four tanker air tankers that have been able to drop on the northern part of the fire in particular We've also have a number of helicopters that we've got assigned to the incident and that we've shared so Anywhere from about four to six helicopters that we've been able to fly throughout the varying times of the day And just using their maximum effect based on their the fuel that they have available And and the flight distances and all the little intricacies regarding aircraft But whatever we have we've been flying them as much as we possibly can when we can And those two to four drops were today Throughout the day. Yeah, and well those are the tankers, but they've done multiple drops Throughout the day Yes, absolutely, yes Okay, so a lot of a lot of parts of that question so the The area is the most concerned and in our priorities has been the the highway nine corridor because of the population base And also upon upon the ridge On empire grade road and community bondy dunes So those are the areas that the most population that have the direct effect of fire Not that the outlying communities are not but they're not currently immediately threatened So we take the limited resource we have we've divvied those out to those areas They're doing what we call point protection because that's all the the Strategically and tactically that we can do to be effective with the limited resources and that means that They're given a large area They're very mobile They do what's called bump and run tactics where they bounce from house to house knock down fire move fire around the house The best they can bump onto the next one Normally if we have everything that we possibly could have as far as resources We'd be able to be a little bit more static with that put in a lot more control lines and so forth due to the topography the steepness of the of the mountains and the The heavy fuels it's very difficult to do traditional Tactics where we can put in large control lines dozer lines hand lines and do that sort of operation So because of that we're really having to change the way we do business on our strategy and our tactics As far as the the gas lines and so forth Most of the homes here are propane and propane tanks and that sort of thing those are hazardous and As far as when the fire does impinge and impact those And and they can explode and and we have had that happen numerous times in areas that have been Directly exposed to fire. So they are a hazard. We identify those hazards We try to protect against those those tanks being impeded and infected by the by the fire and Taking all those precautions in regards to the amount of firefighters. Ideally if I could have 20,000 firefighters that love to have them, but that's just not the reality Typically on an event like this. We probably have like I said about 10 to 20 times the amount of the firefighters and the resources whether the area resources our hand crews or engines, whatever to To affect the the suppression of the fire Great everyone up here is going to be available for questions to conclusion I just want to end with a couple things a couple questions have come up about what types of resources we do have on this fire We have federal state and local government all all working together on this fire In addition to that, we have a very strong coordination with both san mateo county emergency Center as well as santa cruz county emergency operation center Obviously when we evacuate people, there's a big coordination that goes on behind the scenes about where do they go? How do they get there and how do their needs get met? So although we stand up here? There is a large team of people who actually make this emergency Response possible. So on that note, uh, we'll end it here. We'll see you back here again tomorrow morning at 6 a.m This concludes the app press conference. Thank you