 Good evening. 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 on the incident As always if you could mute your cell phones take any conversations away from the press conference area and keep your masks on at all Times it would be greatly appreciated Additionally with that there will be moments at the end of the speakers to ask any questions for some more specific answers With that I'll get right into the incident update for this evening here on the CZU Complex like we can confirm that the fire is now 81,137 acres 81,137 The good news is we are up to 21% containment. So that is obviously an increase over This morning There are however still 20 over 24,000 structures that are threatened due to this incident And unfortunately the number of structures that we can confirm that have been destroyed is 590 of the 590 structures destroyed 11 of those are in San Mateo County and 579 of those are in Santa Cruz County Currently there are still mass evacuations in place across the incident area We also have additional crews that have come in throughout the day and we now have 1,982 firefighting personnel assigned to the incident with that I'll hand it over to Cal Fire Incident management team three Chief Mark Brunton for an operations update Good evening. So we had another good successful day of suppression on the fire Whether I threw a few hinderances our way that I'll go ahead into later But overall some good success and continuous successes as we speak this evening As mentioned earlier in the vision golf kilo that line is still continuing to hold that Is very critical as far as keeping any sort of fire spread To the north and to the east which would potentially threaten Santa Clara County But that's shut off and we continue to monitor and mop up patrol that and that's looking really good continue more line construction and and letting the fire back down to our control line and butano that And that that's just creeping down the weather is helping mitigate that But that's part of our strategy so that we can bring it to more favorable ground in which to work work on The community's pescadero the Honda the Lamar are looking really good So we're just continuing to monitor that part of the fire and trying to wrap that up to make that safe Working down the highway one corridor that we're having more and more success with that putting in a troll line Where we need to some of the fires self-mitigated as I've said before and that and we're just continue to monitor that Davenport's looking really good. I know today. They were working on Re-energizing the the electricity that community and so we're trying to start to get that up and running a lot of work along highway One by PGD restoring the infrastructure there as well as Caltrans to make sure that the road is safe to pass our Line to the south continues to hold looks really good That's protecting the communities of Santa Cruz and the UC campus So I was just there just about an hour ago It looks really solid and we're very comfortable with that in particular because we're going to start seeing a weather change We're going to see a northerly push of a wind moving into this this weekend So I feel comfortable that that's going to hold and what'll be also good with that wind blowing on that is what we call a wind Test and that means that the lines will hold based on the wind an adverse wind to it So we believe that that will survive a wind test and to us That's a that's a great measure of success because it means that that fires extinguished in our lines are doing what they're supposed to do The highway nine corridor, so Felton's looking really good. We've got a good line around about three-quarters of it And we're continuing to put line up through the the highway nine quarter behind the communities of Ben Lohman Boulder Creek A lot of crews as we're getting crews in we've received a few more hand crews come in and they are working We've put them right to work. So we're having a lot of success with that and we're going to continue to have a lot of success with that and Down it just between Ben Lohman and Felton. I was talking about a burnout operation just came directly from that operation right now We're taking that slow methodical the weather conditions Had to delay that operation because as we saw today Some fog that stuck around a long time It kept the the fuel moisture and the relative humidity up So we really had to wait before we started lighting that fire so that we have an effective burn and One that we can control readily. So as I left the line shortly ago, it's looking good. It's burning. Well It's doing exactly what we wanted to do It's just going to take us a little bit longer to accomplish that mission Then we originally thought because of the weather and but we're looking at making that line go Just on the backside of Felton Just below Ben Lohman and tie into to highway nine So that'll give us a good level of protection for the community of Felton as and then we'll continue up as We stated up the highway nine-quarter Bonnie dude by dudes looking really good We've got a lot of resources in there. They continue to mop up around homes They're continuing to find any fire that are in some of the ravines and gullies and drainages and start to Extinguish that and mop that up There are a lot of hazard trees in there. We've had a number of trees fall across Felton Empire grade road that we've had to bring the our specialty crews in to to open up the road Cut those trees down and also we're going and eliminating any of the hazard trees the ones that are burning out that could pose a hazard To our personnel or any of the utility company folks that are working in that area to start restoring that infrastructure Which they are doing on our heels as we Open up the roadways throughout the fire and also through the 236 corridor Working with Caltrans so that we can move deeper and get into the park And and then the utility company's coming behind to start setting up their infrastructure to to restore one Matter to note regarding our burn operation Unfortunate situation is as I said this morning we have highly qualified individuals that are setting up planning and running that operation one of our Personnel the commanders that is setting up and running that operation. Unfortunately last night Somebody broke into his fire department vehicle and stole his protective equipment Sad to say so it kind of delayed the operation as well. He was able to get restocked with equipment and Continue forward with his mission. So a little bit of delay unfortunately due to that circumstance But Scott's Billy Valley Police Department is working in conjunction with our law enforcement officials to deal with that issue and Moving forward with that Aircraft aircraft unfortunate due to the the weather today couldn't really get a lot of hours of flying. So as I've been saying in previous days We've been able to max out our aircraft drop a lot of water today Wasn't as successful unfortunately because we just could not fly the aircraft due to the weather as soon as we had the small Wind of opportunity we did and we were only able to drop about 10,000 gallons of water still not bad, but We you know in order to support our ground troops You just couldn't do the maximum effort that we've been seeing the past few days That's just part of the job and the nature of the job that we have to be able to bounce back from that And we improvised from that and just continued on with our march up Throughout the fire line to take care of it and start mitigating that circumstance for us We believe that coming weather that we were seeing the next few days It's going to be better for us and we're gonna have better days ahead and be able to maximize that that effort. Thank you Speaking next from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office is Chief Deputy Chris Clark. Well, good evening So again today this operational period marks number four the fourth operational period We've had so far where we haven't needed to arrest anyone. I think that's a positive We did have to to cite one person and I'll talk about that here in just a minute But I wanted to kind of go through some numbers with you as I typically do so today We had 70 personnel working Throughout the San Lorenzo Valley tonight. We're gonna have we're gonna have 60 folks doing the same task of Security checks and welfare checks and and responding to calls for service. That's 11 of our folks that will be working 20 from in County and then 20 mutual aid in terms of calls for service. We we received and responded to nine welfare checks 15 and 15 suspicious people. So in regards to the person we cited this morning I spoke about a Gentleman 73 old gentleman who was initially evacuated Left his home and then on Monday night decided he wanted to get back in so And then this might this might be happening It might have happened in the past But I want to kind of describe a situation that we dealt with today as a result of someone sneaking into an evacuated area And then ultimately ultimately needing help. So that's what happened to this person. He wanted to get back to his house He found a route Kind of on the outskirts of the evacuated zone and then decided to make his way through a trail and unfortunately he got lost He got into an area that was very steep And luckily for him he literally he survived two nights in the woods two nights until he was able to make that phone call Until his friend made a phone call on his behalf Last night which then initiated our response to it And so then we became involved and as I mentioned this morning We were going to devote all kinds of resources to finding him and that's exactly what we did So we launched a search and rescue operation But just in terms of kind of what that operation looks like it's 100 for today For example for finding this person 126 man hours Three hours of ambulance time two hours of helicopter time because we needed a helicopter to extricate the person Because of the steep terrain and then one of our SAR personnel Unfortunately was hurt when they crashed on a mountain bike when they were out out looking I bring that up I you know, I feel bad for this person because you know, they're they're they're just trying to they want to get back home And I absolutely we absolutely get it But we had to divert all kinds of resources to to help them and so I put that out there because that's that's ultimately what it can take if someone decides not to heed an evacuation order And then get in a place where they need help Luckily for him he he's going to make it. He's going to be okay. And so he was taken for some medical treatment and and and issued a citation in terms of missing persons cases We had some progress on that front also. So as I mentioned this morning, we were up to six Today our detectives narrowed that number down. We're down to three now So three total missing persons cases and I'll give you their names and their ages Just so that you guys have it and potentially the public and those watching can help us Potentially if you know these people you hear a name sounds familiar And the you know if it and you know them and you can call them or know where they are call us Uh, one of them is 70 year old Henry rinky. That's Henry rinky and he's 70 He was last seen on august 20th 21 year old shane smith also last seen august 20th and 37 year old mica Zoki and he was last seen on august 15th now The one thing that our detectives have advised me is that these three folks Right now preliminarily we don't believe them to be fire victims But we don't have enough information information to confirm that without a doubt So I mean there's there could be more to come on that But at least what we see now we we we feel that there's not necessarily a strong Likelihood that they they felt victim to fire But there'll be more to come on that and hopefully if you hear these names and you and you know them You'll you you'll either tell them to call us or or uh, or you call us Which we greatly appreciate And I want to touch on repopulation. It's a huge thing I mean just is The anxiety level being evacuated out of an area I mean the anxiety of of wondering when I'm when am I going to get back home? Like we can absolutely empathize with you there and so Uh, I kind of wanted to give you some rough kind of figures because if you're sitting at home And you're wondering well, when can I get back to my house? So With regards to like scott's fell out and I don't want to put this in perspective So our repopulation plan which we've had folks working on for the last few days Uh, is systematic. It's thorough Because in these mountains as you know, there's limited opportunity for ingress and egress So the roads there's only certain ways in and out So we want to do this systematic And we also want to do it when it's safe and when there's infrastructure there to support safety and support people being able to live In those areas we take information from from our fire partners and we we put these plans together So what does that look like so for the city of scott's valley and kind of the unincorporated area scott's valley? We're talking about Day or days and I say day or days because things Things can change and I don't want to give anyone false hope But I also want to kind of give you a rough framework To kind of to kind of wrap your mind around a little bit if you're wondering when I might get back to my house So for the city of scott's valley in those areas to the north and south Day or days and then as you move to the west towards the city of felton It's days. I would estimate days or potentially a week and that's really dependent upon You know and as you mentioned today or as a chief brunton mentioned they're having Great success on really isolating the fire containing the fire Especially with these fire lines that they're that they're developing along that highway nine corridor So with that felton and then I'm going to and then basically as it goes north It's it's like it's it's weak to weeks potentially as you get further north as we progress into heavily Damaged more heavily damaged areas right towards boulder creek You're talking, you know, but weeks potentially Because of the the fire damage that's in that area, especially the 236 area that that It's west of boulder creek and then weeks again for for bonnie dune And and really it's just given the amount of fire damage. It's in that area. I mean cal fire. I went up there today Uh, you know cal fires, they're they're trying to put out a fire, but at the same time You've got pg and e up there trying to restore lines and lines are dropped everywhere if you've seen pictures And then, you know, there were tree services today up there marking trees and trying to fell trees To to make the roads a little more passable, but there's a lot of road work to be done And then it's there's a lot of road work to be done on the north coast And in the swat and last chance area a lot of work to be done up there So that's kind of a rough framework of kind of what that repopulation plan looks like in a rough sort of idea of when I might be able to get back home And then in terms of so tonight so they uh, so ucse is going to repopulate You're going to see a notice go out shortly from uh from cal fire And so they'll they'll talk more about that here in just a minute, but uh, But chief oe so over the over at the school wanted me to put out a message to you that With regards to school same Thought process with repopulating the school systematic And if you if you were going back to the school to pay attention to emails and then and follow those instructions It's going to be a phased reopening. So definitely if uh, if you if you live at ucse Watch your email closely and then um, and then you'll see instructions there So with regards to the repopulation and I want to put this out there also because it's going It's really important on two on two levels one cal fires done a great job of of putting together a map an interactive map We used it when we evacuated people And so there's a website that you can go to on our facebook page We're going to put this website out there You can also find the website to this evacuation map and we're going to use it in the reverse for repopulation If you go to cal fires website and you find the incident fact sheet for this fire You'll find a link to this map and essentially what it looks like right now is red You the whole I mean the evacuated area looks red But you got to zoom in you zoom in to where your street is where your address is it'll go To that granular level on that map you go to you find your street You'll find a zone now that zone's important. It's important for a couple reasons one is that it's it's You know that those zones are how we evacuate people out of areas if there's fire That's that's what we did when we first started launching evacuations But that's how you would know whether or not and we're going to tell you So there's going to be a lot of information coming with regards to letting you know when you can go back home But to be specific you go to that website After this briefing you'll see the you you'll see the zone that the that ucsc is in if you zoomed in It's going to turn green and so that's the differentiation there red being red zones Meaning you can't get back to green meaning you can so pay attention to that map you can find it again at our website our Facebook page and you can also find it at calfire's website On the incident fact sheet And then lastly I just want to touch on I've heard the comment Well if things reopen is it going to be a foot race between me and someone potentially wanting to break into my house And the answer that's no we're not going anywhere So we're going to be here the sheriff's office is going to be here with our mutual aid partners Until this is over until we have Until we're able to get people home safely and they feel safe being at home This is going to be a process and it's not something we we're just as quick as it's repopulated. We're leaving You know, we're a part of this community and we're going to continue to be there as people resettle So just to clear up any anxiety there Thank you Speaking next on behalf of all the unified incident commanders is calfire incident management team three ic billy c Obviously today is a good day. We've increased our containment from 19 to 21 percent We've also increased the personnel numbers by almost 300 personnel We've added additional hand crews into the mix both today and for tomorrow's plan All those numbers are going to equate into additional percent containment Efforts and be able to create more areas that we can start to repopulate Today today we took our first steps Having a uc santa crews Turning green on the map and being able to repopulate that area So over the coming days as we continue to have success out on the line We're going to continue that effort to move people back in to develop some type of normalcy back with this population Thank you And our final speaker the cal fire san wato santa crews unit unit chief ian larkin Good evening. Um This is a good day. So we're our percentage containment is going up. We're getting more resources here So that's going to equate more work being done on the ground As we start to move forward to get this fire fully contained Team three is doing an outstanding job to get the resources in here And get them to the line as quickly as possible so that we can Mitigate this as quickly as possible A couple things I want to note. Um, obviously our damage inspection teams are out there working hard and getting into the areas That are safe for them to get into and evaluate Any of the structures that are damaged and get those details out to the public As uh chief deputy clark said, uh, there's a website you can go to to find that information It is linked on the cal fire information sheet And it'll help you determine You can type in your address and do a search of it And it will take you to that location and to help you determine whether your structure is Survived or if it has been destroyed I just want to point out again as I did this morning For those that have that have needs based on potential destroyed structures or damage structures There are a couple locations you go to to you can get resource or information related to resource Assistance to help you the first one is disaster assistance.gov. That's a disaster assistance.gov The second one is you can download the fema application Through the android or apple platforms And that's the fema app or if you don't have the ability to download the fema app You can call 1-800-621-FEMA That's 1-800-621-FEMA And those are some resources that will be able to assist you In the recovery process and if there's any small businesses out there that sustain damage or losses You can also contact the sba the small business administration for additional assistance Just to just to note This is still a dangerous situation This fire has been burning in some areas for 11 days The fuels out there may not have consumed fully as we said we have trees coming down still along the roadways Our utility partners are out there doing their best to get the infrastructure back into play so that we can try to repopulate areas That have been damaged and the other key point I need to make is if your structure has been destroyed There are some environmental issues that need to be addressed through the county Environmental health to make sure that the environment is safe for people to go back into those burned areas Where structures may have been lost. There are a lot of household Items that are used within our homes that are can that can be contaminating the area around so they may need to Isolate and clean up that site a little bit before it can actually be Repopulated so we're doing the best we can as quickly as we can with the resources we have available And just remind all those that are out there still in the evacuated areas You need to be cautious when you're out and about because the trees are coming down And causing you know issues with the roadways and potential safety hazards for you all As well as safety hazards for our crews that are out there working really hard to try to get this thing Contained so that we can get everybody back into their residence. So thank you With that we're happy to answer any questions. All right, everybody up here. Oh go ahead Yes, the question is related to a long-term strategy about suppression and you know chief larkin I have long conversations about what this looks like two months three months four months a year down the line from now And and I don't think we there's any doubt in our mind that we're going to be chasing smokes in there and putting out small Areas that may still be warm Going on smoke checks fairly frequently And maybe that's a good thing to kind of get out there is the expectation that You know an old growth stand of redwood trees or forests that haven't burned in a hundred years Unlike brush or grass that may be extinguished after 10 to 14 days This has the potential to be months of work ahead of us And that goes hand in hand with you know, normalcy back to the community normalcy back to the environment Yeah, the question was what's the percentage of damage inspection that's done? I believe the chief see you can answer that As of this evening, we've had 12 damage inspection teams in place working diligently each day The reports this evening. We've had 55 percent of the burned area canvas Information collected and validated Obviously, there's still 45 percent to go and a lot of that's going to be interior areas Where we still got to get the roadways open and make it safe to do so to get in there Any other questions? So you're referring to the evacuation order being lifted at UC Santa Cruz is that correct? Okay, uh, so question was have the orders been lifted and I can pass that over to chief deput clock to answer So the answer is yes So for UCSC the evacuation order has been lifted as I mentioned They're in talking to chief always over at UCSC if you live on campus pay attention to your email There's going to be specific instructions with regards to a phased approach at Repopulating the school Yeah, the question was where did the latest containment today come from and what portion of the fire and chief's front and vivid answer that Actually, uh with today's containment. We had a couple areas that we felt that met the containment criteria One of which is on the southern end. Uh, we were talking about UC Santa Cruz being repopulated and The any potential threat to the city of Santa Cruz? And so we felt that down in the where I've mentioned before that was a good spot to to put some containment Um, and I think you'll see that grow over the coming days. That's the area that we'll see containment We also had some more up on the coast. This map doesn't completely, uh, Indicate that but tomorrow's map will certainly show that blackened area on the map All right, everyone up here is available for questions after this press conference is over We will reconvene here tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. For another press conference. Thanks for joining us. This, uh, this concludes the conference