 Days have noticed we've started to get increase in our media presence and we ask that you maintain that distance to help us out Thank you All right, for my media affiliates if it's this lab for the for the local mic is that going to disrupt you guys? We're trying to get it to wear on the live feed for Twitter. It's loud enough to where the folks at home can hear Is that gonna be all right for you? Committed to an incident somewhere in the state of California at this exact moment With that we have 95 aircraft assigned to incidents in California Those include helicopters and fixed wing aircrafts that includes the 747 all the way down to the smaller tankers and helicopters In in that air operations program across the state since August 15th We've dropped 2.4 million gallons of retardant in California on this siege An additional 2.5 million gallons of water at the same time The the firefight now includes the California National Guard with 11 helicopters assigned to the lightning siege in the state As well as 12 specific hand crews much needed hand crews from the California National Guard With 216 people assigned to help in that firefight Right at this moment We have 60 engines from out of state in California assisting us and we have an additional 26 engines from other states Inbound to California And with that at the same time other emergencies still go on in the past week since this immersion or these emergencies have started We have responded as cal far to over 12,500 new emergencies In that same time period just want to start out and give some context to what's going on in the state before we Talked specifically to San Mateo Santa Cruz Tonight here in the San Mateo Santa Cruz Lightning complex we can confirm that we're now up to 74,000 acres that have burned with 8% containment Additionally, there are still 24,000 structures that are threatened on this fire And we can confirm an increase in the number of structures that have been destroyed 163 structures is where we stand this evening That number broken down is 152 structures destroyed in Santa Cruz County and 11 in San Mateo County The good news is that we have additional personnel coming in We tonight this evening we're up to 1511 personnel assigned to the incident and obviously that is very very helpful With that I'd like to pass it off for an operational briefing from cal fire incident management team three operation section chief Good evening So another very successful day in our firefighting efforts The weather has been cooperating with us even with the adverse weather has been predicted Our troops have gotten with the program and really put in a lot of hard work and efforts So I'll just take you around the map and show you what we've been able to accomplish Just for the past couple days with this favorable weather So around the top part in what we call division golf and kilo We have a really good line established there That it helps protect this part for this top part of the fire for Progressing so that's that's really really good We either fully constructed or in the process of constructing and improving a line that that runs all along the highway nine quarter On this part of the fire the easternmost part of the fire And so they're making really good progress with that whether it be everything from our dozer line to our hand crew hand crew lines All along that area So that'll be a work in progress over the next couple days Not only with the initial line, but improving it and putting in what we call contingency or secondary lines For that area to protect those communities Boulder Creek and loman and thalton itself Along the south we have our Control line that we established a couple days ago that runs between highway one highway nine That's still a good line and we're improving that line and have put in a secondary line behind that That is being completed as we speak should be completed this evening. So that's Really good for the community of santa cruz and the uc campus Along the coastline again at the the weather's moderated the fire spread So community damp or still looking really good We're continuing to work on that that control line as well as well as our communities in the north such as pescadero And interior and the community of bonny tune. We've continued to improve i do spot controls of the fire Working around the structures the variety of structures that are in there And as we get more of the resources we're able to put more of them to work in that area To improve in our control efforts within the bonny tune community Speaking next from one of our unified incident command agencies from the santa cruz county sheriff's office is chief deputy clerk So I wish I had good news for you. I wish I could report on something positive But I can't Today we recovered a decedent a fire victim From the area of last chance You know, this is something I don't want to be standing up here Nor does our office want to be recovering people that are victims of fire We got in this job to help people This is a very Very dark. I think it's one of the one of the darkest periods we've been in it been in with this fire Uh John okay, so Today I and I want to speak to kind of the effort to recover this decedent and I really got us. I really have to Really give thanks to cal fire And helping us get out there. We we needed a helicopter literally to get to the area Sorry for everybody. We'll uh, we'll get inside somewhere the rain amazingly has started here in santa cruz county So we'll take a break. All right. We'll try this again The bad news is our press conference got interrupted and moved the good news is we're getting precipitation on the fire right now Uh, again, we'll take it. Uh, we wanted to introduce from the santa cruz county sheriff's office chief Deputy chief park. So as I was saying earlier, um, and you know Kind of ironic. I'm up here telling you that this is the darkest day in this fire so far Where I I'm telling you we we've recovered a decedent and we get rain. Um, kind of kind of uh, unbelievable frankly um And so that that's what unfortunately happened today At the end of last chance road Last chance heavily fire damaged impassable Uh, and it actually took a helicopter Uh to get our folks in there To recover this person and so unfortunately that was the task That our office that our office was involved in Throughout the middle middle portion this afternoon Uh, we recovered a 70 year old man. We've identified this person But we're waiting on next of kin and notifying them before before I release his release his name In terms of other activities for us, it was kind of a little more the same with A few updates and a few highlights So for one again touching on burglary suppression. That's we we did that throughout the day We did that with a total of 61 staff We also conducted a number of welfare checks. We did 11 of those today and we responded to 28 suspicious person calls But I want to touch on you know Some activity that we had earlier today and kind of give you an idea of really Kind of what our deputies are are seeing at times out there now So this afternoon in felton our deputies attempted to initiate it did initiate a traffic stop of of a vehicle And it appeared that Another vehicle was was with this other car That we were trying to stop either way we stopped both of them For being in a closed evacuation area And upon further investigation we discovered A number of things that were super concerning to us one five firearms including Our six firearms rather including one assault rifle A bunch of ammunition a bunch of magazines stolen property And drug paraphernalia and so those five people those five people were arrested and taken to jail And charged with you know a litany of different charges from weapons violations to drug charges stolen property as I mentioned And and obviously being in a closed area Uh, and then some of those folks were fermented out of the area And so that's kind of what we've been seeing with these folks that we've been contacted Who have really no business being here either. They've been evacuated already Uh and coming back for the purposes of doing harm Or uh, they're from out of the area coming to do the same thing Uh, we also contacted a person today, uh in the evacuated area. We arrested him He had a warrant and then we cited somebody else and again, you know Speaking to this area being closed and our efforts to maintain that closure and free up the roads and provide Opportunity for Cal Fire to fight this fire. That's what we're doing And so in this case, we cited somebody who they were returning Trying to return back to their home and we get it. We absolutely get it But it again, we you know having the roads clear for Cal Fire to be able to do their job is is About most important And then it also leaves us the ability to be able to to focus on the people that are out there Doing what we don't want them to do So this person we we ended up receiving a citation for being in a closed evacuation area And we have supported him out In terms of missing persons cases this decedent that we recovered was one of the missing persons cases I've reported to you earlier That was one of the two we uh, we have three more today And we'll be vetting those and going through them. Like I said, we we have detectives that are committed to going through these cases Until we're absolutely certain where these people are. So today that we that this grew to three Um in terms of cell phones so in terms of cell phones. So for those people that are choosing to remain in their homes You know, we encourage you to evacuate. You just don't know what the weather's going to do Grant we got rain right now, which is a great thing But if if something changes the wind changes or what how do you it leads to rescue and obviously it divides our resources But if you're going to stay in the evacuated area, I want you to know that Cell service is extremely sporadic. I mean throughout the valley And so if you needed help if you know if we have to reach out to you because reverse 911 Or we have to somehow or if your family needs to get in touch with you They're not going to have that opportunity because cell service is down right now Like granted Verizon is working on that so they're working on that today Hopefully they'll be able to fix it if something else changes that might not happen and then AT&T if you have that service They're working on it tomorrow that could take some time I say that because If you needed help tonight, you might not be able to make a phone call So it's important to be able to heed the evacuation warning and leave those evacuation areas Uh, I want to touch on scams. I touched on that this morning So again, it's unfortunate There's people out there that are that are looking to take advantage of you if you've evacuated and so These scams are going to continue And so you might get a phone call I mentioned this morning if you didn't hear that you may get a phone call It could be somebody claiming to be from PG&E It could be somebody saying that hey, it's you know, we're here to fix your gas line or whatever And they may and they may tell you that's going to cost An amount of money and we'll be there and and then there's this gift card angle There's a whole lot of different angles these folks use to be able to rouse people and to give it a money And so unfortunately it happens You know in other in other times I've seen people unfortunately lose you know thousands of dollars to these folks So please if you get a phone call from a utility from a utility company Or or someone that says they're with us nobody's going to ask for money over the phone And definitely nobody's going to ask you for gift cards over the phone. That's typically what how these things work On somewhat of a positive note The county has developed a free hotel program And so I want I want to be able to direct people because I uh because frankly we You know we can we can empathize that in a time like we're in today with covid and everything else that's going on You know having resources for people to utilize to be able to find a place to sleep Uh, it is vitally important that and and and frankly we know people are hurting So here's a resource for people if they're looking for free for free lodging It's and it's and I've mentioned this website. I believe last night santa Cruz county dot us forward slash fire resources That's uh, santa Cruz county dot us forward slash fire resources And uh, they developed this not only the county of santa Cruz developed this not only with the thought in mind That people needed a place to sleep But also recognizing that sleeping outside just isn't healthy in a fire environment I mean, uh, it's extremely smoky throughout the county And so sleeping outside just may not be good for people's health So if you need free housing and definitely we you know, it's healthier to sleep indoors and it is outside Look at that website And then lastly The city of watsonville has set up a community donation center and that's at 114 walker street In the city of watsonville. So that's 114 walker street In watsonville and that donation center is open monday to friday 8 to 8 for folks who who want to donate supplies And other things for people that have been displaced. Thank you speaking next from the san matel County sheriff's office is detective blanksway For 72 county, we are seeing some scams popping up of people claiming to be fire victims They've lost their houses or they need some kind of funding to assist them with Recovering from this we ask that you do your due diligence to look into whether or not these scams are real One of the scams we saw this person had already raised $22,000 So do what you can to try to That these go fund me accounts and do that you can to save your heart and monday Any changes that we have in weather or conditions for the san matel county and coastline We'll update you through our social media platforms as well as smc alert and the sheriff's office. That's all we have. Thank you Speaking next from cal fire incident management team three incident commander billy c Hey, good evening Obviously it's been a tragic day Finding a civilian fatality out there on any incident strategy And you know on behalf of team three cal fire and all the Corporate agencies, you know our our condolences out to the family of the deceased Today was a good day on the fire line The weather has been moderated for us The humanities have come up and has allowed the firefighting personnel out on the ground to make significant headway In developing containment lines around this incident Over the next few hours we anticipate additional personnel Showing up on the incident along with additional engines, which will bolster our firefighting force on the ground tomorrow Obviously, we're still under a red flag warning. It's been decreased until five p.m. Tomorrow night And we have moisture coming in right now, which will benefit the firefighter in effort on the ground But we'll watch closely throughout the night and into tomorrow to see if we have any lightning activity with it As we continue throughout the week The weather pattern is going to diminish And what the predictions right now will remain that the humidity levels will come up The recovery at night will increase which will allow our firefighting personnel to gain significant headway As long as we don't have any significant winds with the weather pattern So to close like I said our hearts go out to the family's deceased And the firefighters will continue to put their best foot forward to contain this incident promise. Thank you And our final speaker cal fire San Mateo Santa Cruz unit unit chief larkin Good evening. Uh, I just want to reiterate and uh state that uh, yes our condolences go out to the family of the citizen that lost his life in this fire Um, it's just a start to reminder of those that still remain in the area that uh, this fire has become deadly And I just want to reiterate to those that are still out in the communities That we have a weather pattern coming in that's unpredictable We are seeing a little bit of moisture with it, but we don't know how much moisture we're going to get We do not know if we're going to get lightning or not We don't know what the wind speeds are actually going to be in and around the fire There still has potential to be a devastating situation for those that remain in that fire area I had an opportunity today to go out on the line and just view a little bit more of the fire area And uh, it's pretty devastating the amount of Destruction that has occurred not only in our watershed, but to the residents in the communities here in Santa Cruz county It's just a start reminder of where we live we live in the mountains. We live in the rural areas and Though it hasn't happened here ever It has happened here now so Moving forward the troops are doing a great job out there Making progress with the resources that we have at scene and as we continue to get new resources in The team will be doing the allocation to make sure those resources are put in there in the most advantageous way to Get the production that we need to get this fire under control. Thank you Just a few items to note before we take any questions Two questions have come up about the damage inspection process We have there's 12 damage inspection teams out there now looking at the damage and destroyed structures They are being hindered by all of the trees that are down in the roadway all of the Kind of holes that are down the wires on the ground So it's just taking time to get in those deep canyons Some of which are still smoldering and hot and And still have fire in them. So there will be increases in those numbers It's just going to take some time for our our damage inspection teams to get in there With that a couple other questions that have come up recently are in regards to infrastructure in the watershed The cal fire incident management teams work with what's called a watershed emergency response team are all worked to address the kind of impact on the watersheds such as the the watershed here in the In the this fire essentially So those are two things that I think are important to note because they do come up often in the questions Would that happen to answer any questions that you may have? Yes, the questions are related to where is the national guard and when will they be here at the fire themselves? And I'll pass over the chief seat. Currently the national guard has been activated They're training down in the San Luis unit right now. They do a 5v training period We anticipate that training and being going out on the line around the 26.7 And they'll be deployed Based on the need of incidents throughout the state of California Do you have specific numbers of how many will come from this fire? Not at this point now Will they'll be determined once they become available after the training period is completed Yeah So Sure the question was related to the The fatality that's been confirmed and any further information about that I'll pass over the sheriff's office Yeah, so, you know, we We take missing persons cases and we've taken a few during the course this fire that this missing person or this This person that lost their life Was reported to us this person was missing and so through our detectives efforts to locate him As well as people in and around the area Alerting us to basically what what potentially appeared to be human remains is what got us to that area And I want to talk to that for a minute these we want to get to these areas. We we want to Find these people we do and so unfortunately in this case It took a helicopter to get there and so and not only that but changing conditions and fire and and just all the hazards that come with that Um It took us some time to get there, but we got there and so and today We were able to bring that person back here to sancers Early on in the fire. I want to say it was like either Tuesday or Wednesday Was he found at his home or on his property? No, so uh, he was found Kind of towards the end of last chance road and so some distance from what we think potentially Is this person's car and again, I'd like to tell you who the person is we just have a spoke to the family and obviously out of respect for that and their loss we want to make sure to we honor that and Yeah, there'll be more information with that That's something we're working through and so obviously it's contacting people and speaking to people that were in and around that area and getting the statements from them and and trying to Help us answer. What exactly was this person doing? I mean likely they may have been trying to escape that fire Just speaking plainly But those are all questions that we have Things that we're working through and answers that we want to give the family When we notify So right now we have four additional cases and again, like I said, we've been working with we've been working through Up until today. We only had two So we had this person that we found and then we had one more That case one of our earlier cases. We were hoping to get up there and do further investigation today I don't have any other information on that and then we developed three more today and again our detectives are In the middle of gathering more information trying to get to those areas This is a few days ago now that on wednesday someone asked how How the evacuations on last chance road were handled and how the sheriff's office would handle evacuations in the future and Since you mentioned that it gets to the heart of your The sheriff's office since we made the trip to cal fire Since then, of course, everyone's been really proactive about about doing evacuations, but How has cal fire been in terms of communicating with your office and your colleagues? And is there anything to do better if there are any Kickups in those initial days? No, I mean we were locked with cal fire And I couldn't speak more highly of the job. They're doing with the resources that they have You know, I'll tell you I was at my office On tuesday when I got a call there was a fire in boulder creek And so me and my my management team we responded directly to cal fire headquarters And that's where I met up with chief larkin and we began working This crisis together so and we've been tied in that relationship ever since we're co-located here at base camp And so our folks are working. I mean hour by hour with cal fire Is what is the strategy to protect the boulder creek tonight and uh chief brunt will be able to answer that So, yeah, the fire is still actively burning. So you there are going to be flames visible Especially certain vantage points, especially as the fire progresses all the be it slowly And people will see some flames. So, uh, yeah, what we have is I explained earlier We have control lines that we've been working on and we're in the process of establishing We have crews that are working that area and um, yeah, it's It's going to be something that's an ongoing effort and and You know fires are fully controlled by any stretch. So that that will occur Especially now that the smoke is lifted due to the weather conditions They are going to be more visible as before the smoke really was hiding those flames, but I couldn't assure you that the crews are working diligently at suppressing that and and Quite honestly have done a fantastic job in and constructing the amount of control line in such a Small period of time with limited resources and very adverse conditions with heavy fuels And very steep topography Correct so the question regards to it was a complex of fires But we have one large fire now. So yes, it did start out as a complex of fires a number of small fires all Created by the lightning event that that occurred early in the week As the those small fires grew they all grew together into one large fire There are as you can see on the map some of the circles with the x's Those were some of the other additional lightning fires that occurred, but We're suppressed in our rate of patrol Load right now. So we check on those on a regular basis to make sure there's no flare ups Mop those up and then eventually put those into a control status, which means that they're completely and fully out So yeah, what you see now is is a were a bunch of fires that Rapidly grew together into one big fire and that typically happens with these complexes which are seeing in in Further north bay and over in the east bay with those fires same thing They were all a bunch of very small fires that have grown altogether into one large event What do you see as the biggest challenges your crews have faced during this fire? The largest challenges that we've faced well We've been saying time and again the limited resources Typically on most of our wildland fire events Throughout the state and most fire seasons will have one or two a couple large fires occurring at the same time But we still have a lot of resources available to us California is very fortunate We're a very very unique state in the fact in emergency response that we have a very good mutual aid system So we work very closely not only with cow fire, but with our federal and local government partners As well as our law enforcement partners working harmoniously to to take care of these events So what happened here was it's such a widespread event with a variety of fires that are ongoing limited resources and then We're mostly lightning fires occur. They're not in very easy terrain to for us to fight fire in So it makes it a challenge for us with limited resources to work in very inhospitable terrain from the most part and heavy fuel loadings to to be successful with our strategy and tactics and that is probably All combined the biggest challenge we're facing right now I could address that sure so What we saw early in the event Obviously the lightning event went through then what we saw on the the backside of that was a weather event in which We had a significant north wind event which pushed the ignited vegetation And created the large fire that we have now we saw that over a period of time So with those winds the relative humidity is plummeting Which the drier the air mass the drier the fuels and and more intensity with our fires As the we progressed towards the end of the week we saw some of those mitigate We saw the winds decrease our relative humidities weren't as low as they were And that gave us an opportunity to really jump in on the fire and Employ our strategy and tactics with some success Then we have the event as we're facing now where We're seeing the breakup of a previous hurricane it creates a lot of moisture and conditions that lend themselves to potential for dry lightning And and strong outflow winds that we call them which push the fire main different directions We don't have a very directional wind pattern with these So it's very unpredictable and very dangerous for our crews as we progress through this event We'll see what actually happens We really didn't have a prediction of any sort of precipitation We saw a little bit right now Is it enough to put out this fire? I don't want to give any false hope No, the fuels are so dry. Is it going to give us a little bit of help? Absolutely As we move through the rest of the weekend and into the next week The forecasts are very favorable with a little bit higher relative humidities light winds Temperatures a little bit above average But it's stuff that we face in a normal summer day throughout the state of california and suppressing wildland fires So it's stuff that we're used to working in as far as the environment And regarding the weather and the fuels conditions, although I'll be a dry And I think and I believe that this week we're going to have a lot of good progress If we get once we get past this weather event here this weekend It should set us up well, especially as we get more resources, which we've been seeing And I think we're going to have a lot of good success for this coming week You'll see as we progress through the week More winds for the big wind to put this thing completely to bed Blowing So the question regarding what's worse if the the the new starts from the lighting or the winds Really with the new starts It's it's a bit of a Roll of the dice as far as will these start something night something on a magnitude Was there wind directly behind it? That'll that'll make that small fire into something bigger We have plans that we've put together With this event that we knew we were going to face that We would attack those small fires. We we have contingency plans Keep those small isolate those and then it's not as big of a problem for us But when you have a fire this large When we don't have as many control lines in place that we would typically or like to have at this point in time within this event Then certainly these outflow winds these erratic winds which are very unpredictable Especially with this topography and the dry fuels That's more concerning to to myself to my other fire ground commanders as well as our personnel out in the line So I would say out of the two the wind is is the bigger issue What do you think of the people staying behind any of the evac zones, uh, there's a group and body doing for instance that claims they save 20 homes What's your thoughts on this these people? That's a bit of you know a challenge in the fact that um You know for people that are the property owners like I understand I get it. I've personally been through events where my home or my family's home was threatened by fire and Obviously you want to do what you can to protect your property and and we understand that we invoke the The fact that we evacuate the people and we've set a time and again The main reason is so that number one their safety is first and foremost um No offense to anybody but most are not trained professional firefighters and Although they think they are doing the right thing and they're doing a good thing They inadvertently put themselves into harm's way and when we're in there whether it be ourselves Is firefighters doing fire suppression or a brother and sister's a law enforcement that are doing their job To isolate that area and to make it safe Um, it puts us in a really disadvantageous Tages to position when we have to go and perform a rescue for somebody that inadvertently gets themselves in a bad spot You know for those people that have stayed behind it has created some challenges for us some Innocently and some where as we've reported Where they've taken advantage uh a criminal activity in a various actions. So Overall, I would say that uh like we've said time and again I know they want to do the right thing. They want to protect their property understand that right But uh in the big the big picture It's it's safer to have us that are professionals Go in there take care of that protect their lives protect their property And um and and this event So Yeah, I think we're happy to chat with you further. Um, we'll take individual questions after this I just want to close this out by saying uh Although there's a team up here and a group of unified incident commanders There's a whole bunch of people that are not acknowledged and that we really want to say thank you to And that is all the people who are working at the shelters right now all those non profit organizations that are helping people Get their animals out and keeping them safe. And I think that uh requires a lot of acknowledgement and from from our team Especially thank you for assisting us in being successful with that. Thank you to the media That's the fastest I've ever seen a press conference be scrambled and reset up. I apologize for the inconvenience We'll see you here again tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. This concludes the press conference. Thank you