 Yeah, you ready? All right, good morning, and thank you for taking the time to be here today. I'm Ken Timlott, Chief Director of CAL FIRE. And today we want to talk a little bit, obviously, about the fire activity that's going on in the state. And as we all know, wildland fires are nothing new to California. But we've been talking about these drought conditions for really the last four years. And everything that we've been talking about, everything that we've been talking to our communities about how dry the vegetation is, the potential for just explosively growing fires is really all coming true. I think in the last, really since mid-July, we've seen fires throughout Northern California grow at really exponential rates. In some cases, thousands of acres in just an hour. We are over 1,500 fires ahead of the normal for this time of year. That's significant. Many of those fires we're not hearing about because the work that's being done by firefighters at all levels across California are putting those fires out when they first start. But because of the conditions that we face, and when we get temperatures over 100 degrees, relative humidities that are extremely dry, some of those fires escape that initial attack. And that's what we've seen since really mid-July. And quite frankly, that's what we've seen in this last week with the fire in Amador and Calaveras counties, the Butte Fire, and then this tragic fire this weekend in Lake County, the Valley Fire. Record rates have spread over 10,000 acres on this Valley Fire in just a few hours. We're continuing to mobilize and move resources around the state. There are really three large fires that we're concentrating on right now. The rough fire in Fresno County started out and has been primarily burning on the Sierra National Forest in Fresno County and impacting parts of the Sequoia Kings National Park. That fire now is impacting some private lands west and south of Hume Lake. And so the state and local government resources are working with our federal partners to work on suppression efforts there. But that's not the highest priority fire, although it's over 138,000 acres. It doesn't have the threat to structures, lives and property that these other two fires do. The Butte Fire in Amador and Calaveras County this morning is over 71,000 acres. It is about, excuse me, it's showing about 30% containment this morning. As you saw from last week, impacted the communities of McCullamy Hill, San Andreas, and was burning this weekend towards the Highway 4 corridor and potentially Angels Camp, Murphy's and those communities along there. Yesterday, aircraft was able to fly that fire again because the smoke inversion had lifted and they provided a significant number of aerial firefighting drops to support the firefighters on the ground and are cautiously optimistic that they're working towards better containment. But again, you've seen the conditions we're burning in and no one is willing to say that we have a handle on these fires until we truly do. So that fire continues to be a significant effort for the state and local government. It's really our second priority. Our first priority is the Valley Fire, which started mid-afternoon on Saturday and we're standing around Cobb Mountain. And we've seen on the news and seen our firefighters from the Boggs Mountain Helitack Copter 104 that were burned over literally within the first few minutes of that fire when it was just a few acres and it grew at explosive rates. And again, this morning that fire is 61,000 acres and only showing about 5% containment. Significant impact to communities around Middletown, there are communities now, for example, Cobb, that have almost been 100% decimated by this fire. Extreme, difficult challenges, hundreds of structures lost and we really only have 5% containment because that fire has been burning in all directions. It's impacted into now Sonoma County and the geysers that are there and there's some impact to that area. So again, this is fire season. These are all the conditions that we talked about. We are organizing, just like we've done for a long time in California, well-practiced at moving resources. We've gone outside of California to get additional 50 fire engines from other states. Our federal partners at the Forest Service are moving additional hand crews and fire engines in from the Pacific Northwest as those fires are starting to ramp down, they're bringing additional resources in. And that includes not just aircraft, but hand crews and sorely needed fire engines. And so we've also gone to the state of Nevada for additional hand crews and we've been working very closely as we always do with our California National Guard to get additional resources. We're deploying a third round of 12 hand crews of soldiers from the California National Guard, which we're very proud of. Also additional helicopters and other resources in that support. And in addition, the mutual aid system working with our partners at the California Office of Emergency Services going very deep into all the local government fire departments around the state that are really providing significant resources to assist and work in these communities and in this fire fight. So again, we don't see an end in fire season for the months to come. We're planning for that. We're in this for the long haul. We are continuing to use all of the resources at our disposal. Governor Brown provided some additional funding just last week that we were able to bring on six additional private helicopters that we are staffing and are all engaged in this fire fight as well as additional firefighters. Last week, we started the process of bringing on some additional firefighters to supplement what we already have, knowing we're gonna be in this for the long haul. So with that, I turn it over to director Mark Geller Ducci, California Office of Emergency Services. Thanks, Ken. Good morning. First of all, let me just say really our thoughts and prayers and hearts grow out to those who have lost their homes and have been displaced by these fire situations. We know that there have been a number of people in the case of the Valley Fire. We have roughly 13,000 individuals that have been displaced up on the Butte Fire. We have at least 10,000 that have been displaced. As Chief Pemlott said, these communities still are in an active fire fight. And we're working very closely with Cal Fire and the local counties where these fires are taking place to try to get a adequate assessment on the total amount of loss. We know in both fires, both the Butte up in Calaveras and in the Valley that, as the Chief said, we have a number of homes, commercial structures, ranches, et cetera, that are on the ground. We also know we've got a significant amount of infrastructure that has been damaged, both water, power distribution facilities. And as the Chief mentioned, now the fire going into the geothermal plants at the geysers. Our focus at this point, all the folks here in the State Operations Center, representing all the state agencies, the governor did declare a state of emergency for both fires and that activated the State Operations Center to the highest level. All state agencies are here coordinating well, working with our partners at the federal level, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the US Forest Service to make sure that we've got all hands on deck and all resources that are necessary to come in and support this. Our real focus now is to help those individuals that have had loss. We need to get, their Red Cross has been great. We are supporting the Red Cross at the various shelters. We've got a lot of people in shelters right now. Donation management has been fantastic. I wanna thank the community at large in being able to provide resources. But also if you wanna do something, provide contributions, contribute to the Red Cross or your favorite charity that's working on the fires, that's really gonna be helpful in the long run. And then once we can get a good assessment on the loss, we'll work with the various insurance companies and the other entities to go in and start to get these people's lives back in line and help the communities that have been impacted recover. Because of the case of the Valley Fire, we've got, as the Chief said, Cobb, but even Middletown, both the Chief and I were on the ground yesterday. We were going through the damaged area. Downtown is really damaged and most of it is destroyed. And that's gonna be something that we're gonna have to work with the local officials to help them recover and get their community back online again. Cooperation has been very good. These are fast moving, very dynamic situations. And as the Chief didn't mention it, but there have been firefighter injuries. We know that there have been injuries of citizens and there's been some fatalities that we're still working through. And so this is sort of an ongoing situation as we move forward. So at this point, let me turn it over to our Governor, Governor Brown to say a few comments. Governor? Well, California always faces fires year in decade centuries or centuries. So this is one of the conditions that exists living in California. And I came here just to give my encouragement to all the people who are doing everything they can to coordinate and combat these fires. But the fires, once they start going, they become very difficult to deal with and very expensive. And whether it's a local fire department or the state cal fire, we are gonna have to make available increasing amounts of money. And it is well to realize that government is about many things, but its fundamental obligation is public safety. In terms of protecting people against fires and disasters and also criminal activity. So it's really back to the basics. These are serious fires. People have been killed. Hundreds of structures, more than that actually have been destroyed. More to come. We don't predict because fire is indeterminate. We don't know what happens until it actually starts burning and continuing. These fires do exceed what the computer modeling has been saying. So again, we need our short term, which is to deal with the forest with preventative fires. It's to build up our fire personnel and the equipment that is needed and be ready to pull in resources from all over. And of course we need the longer term goals to try to minimize the build up of drought and global warming. That's a topic that is very much in the news and very important. And unlike a fire that you can mobilize and react to, this is something that builds up over decades and centuries. But that doesn't mean you can ignore it. And that's the reason why I've emphasized so much for California to deal with climate change as well as the immediacy of fires. This is a big challenge because we have to deal with the immediate. It's costing hundreds and hundreds of millions. And then we have to look and prepare a longer term. And we have to do so in a way that joins together with other states and communities and countries all around the world. So the Southwest of America is one of the places that we'll experience more and more warming and dry conditions. And then when you add to that historic droughts that are fairly regular, you get exactly what we're seeing, probably in small measure and increasingly over the next few years and decades. You'll see the same thing, only more exaggerated and more intense. So I think we have a lot to be thankful for. It's a good team. Take any questions. Great, any questions? Fatality is multiple. And I think you said you're still working through it. But if you could tell us what you know at this point, go ahead. What we know is we have one confirmed fatality in on the valley fire outside of the town of Milton. And so that's what we know at this point. The area is still very active in fire. And so we're really not gonna know for sure across the board until we can get in and do a more in-depth assessment, but can't do that until the buildings get cooled down a little bit. What you say for salt is that there's no confirmation to get out of that? No, we only have one confirmation, but we do have people who are unaccounted for. And then we are working with the sheriffs in both counties to adjudicate those numbers and try to track individuals down and confirm those numbers. Any estimates on how many that is? Do not have that. On the number of unaccounted, I'm sorry, following up on what you said, on the number of unaccounted where you don't have numbers on that. That's correct. Are people even warning to evacuate? You want to talk about that? Thank you for bringing that up. Quite simply and directly, no, they're not. And these fires, as we've talked about, are extremely fast-moving. The Butte Fire, when it crossed the river from Amador County, crossed the McCullamy River into Calaveras, direct impacts to the communities of McCullamy Hill and the outline communities. Individuals, obviously, they want to protect their property. They want to stay with their livestock. We know, folks, we're not heating evacuation orders to leave. And the challenge with that, firefighters are always going to protect lives and property first. So it diverts our firefighters to help and get these individuals out. We literally had law enforcement officers and firefighters going house to house as the flaming front was coming through, pulling people out and getting them the safety. We had individuals walking down streets after their homes had burned, after their cars had burned and had no place to go and pulled them out because they waited too long. I can tell you, when we were in Middleton yesterday, there was evidence of all of that. There are cars burned out on the highway. They are wrecked up against the side of banks. It's very clear that folks were waiting until the last minute got scared and then left. And so we really need everybody. Primary message is when evacuation orders are given, please leave orderly and quickly. And quite frankly, don't wait until the orders are given. When you realize the situation is what it is, please pack up, follow your plan, and then move out of the community safely. I have a question. You had mentioned that we're 1500 fires above where we were last year. Quick on in perspective, where were we at this time last year? Approximately 4,500 last year and we're at about 6,000. And I can confirm exact numbers for everyone offline if we will, but that's about the reference that we're at. And 1500 is a significant increase over last year and the average. Are you writing that you have enough resources to fight these fires, or are there fewer options for you to call on? Well, certainly as we ratchet up in the number of fires and the amount of resources that each of these fires take, it becomes more challenging to bring in resources. We are very well-practiced at moving resources around the state. We do that all the time. That's why we very quickly went to outside of California to get additional resources. Why we've gone to the California National Guard very early for helicopters and hand crews. And it's again, we've put on additional resources for two years in a row, additional firefighters and additional resources. But yes, resources get stretched thin. We are always planning for the next fire. We've got three major fires burning right now. We also have over 250 fires a week that start that no one ever sees. So we've got resources across the state at the local government, federal and state level that are initial attacking those new fires. We've got to maintain that force. It's a constant balance, a constant process to move and anticipate where the next fire is coming from. Can you also address it? I think you mentioned that the fires are exceeding with what the computer modeling is saying. Can you go into that, what you're saying? Absolutely, Don. What happened on, for example, the Rocky fire last month or two months ago, we have computer models that plug in the vegetation type, the weather conditions, humidity, temperature, and the terrain, the steepness of the topography. And then we put a fire there and we see how it will burn under the various conditions as we change those parameters. Our fire predictive staff ran those models on the Rocky based on the actual conditions they had. They ran the models hundreds of times, could not come up and replicate the same rapid extreme rate of spread that the fire actually had or showed. It would show us that these fires are actually exceeding what our models will even predict. And I can tell you, whether you're a rookie firefighter with your first year or you're a seasoned veteran, everyone is saying the same thing. Have not seen fires spread and move in the way they're moving in this case. Do you have any idea why the models aren't keeping up with the reliability of the state? Quite frankly, I don't believe they were designed to take into the count of one, four years of extremely dry conditions in this state. The vegetation isn't recovering during the winter like it would normally do as it brings in moisture from the soil with rainfall. It's not getting there because we're not getting it. So every year it's just getting drier and drier. We're seeing things change in the state. We're seeing that mean temperature, that average temperature come up and fire seasons are getting longer because the conditions are conducive in a longer time period. So all of that is contributing to a base of vegetation that is just way beyond what the models ever were really designed to predict. What's the impact of the geothermal facilities? We're currently assessing that. It looks like there was damage to the cooling towers and those are wooden the way they're designed and then some of the other actual plants themselves. So we're still working, again, fires very active so it's been a challenge to get into many of these areas but there's certainly was damage to both the cooling towers and some of the plants themselves. Governor, in the recent legislative session, there were some climate bills that you supported that either didn't go through or were modified. Talk about that a little bit and put it in perspective of these fires. What are your thoughts on those things all related? Well, look, there's been fires in California from time immemorial, we know that but we also know that the temperatures are rising. The annual mean temperature is going up and that then when combined with years of drought means that the conditions are worse. They're drier and therefore these fires are acting more aggressively, more unpredictably. So we have to do something about it. A lot of what you have to do is fight the fire, is have the equipment, invest the money. You also have to do preventative work during the year and there's some air pollution issues about starting controlled fires that are very important. We have to work through those. But longer term, the climate is changing and that means the weather is gonna be hotter and more unpredictable. So we have to do something about it. But when we talk about something as global and as slow moving, as climate change, it doesn't fit in with either the news cycle or the political cycle. This is a longer term challenge which California has definitely been responding to in a very creative way. Some of these bills, I have to say, the SB350 was incredible what it's doing in terms of energy efficiency and the 50% goal which is very real. And California, unlike any other state, has the technical capacity to meet that 50% renewable energy. Now, one of the third element, petroleum, that's something that has to be reduced over time. Now how we do that, that is a very complicated set of initiatives that need to be taken from now on going forward. We have a goal for 15 years from now. The Air Resources Board will be setting forth how we're gonna get there. So they'll be what they call, they'll be doing a scoping set of workshops and people will come in and they will argue and talk and in the best way we can. What the bill merely said was that which is our goal, which I laid out in my inauguration, let's put it into statute. But there was nothing in that particular statutory provision that indicated how we're gonna get to that goal. That is the work of the Air Resources Board and the legislature going forward. So we haven't missed a beat. Climate change is real. Now we have a whole political party that denies that. That is a real challenge to California, to the country and to the world. That's why I'm working on this and you ought to see it, not in terms of me. I'm just a part of the flots and jetsome of history. I'll be going soon enough. But climate change is not going. It's gonna be around even after your newspapers are long forgotten. So this is a matter of deep personal and general significance that everyone ought to be thinking about how they can best respond. We know from the science that the Southwest will warm, that the climate is changing and it's going to exacerbate and intensify the occurrence of forest fires. There's no doubt about that. Now the exact chemical interaction for every day and every fire, that's something that will be argued about and scientists will continue to research. But we know with certainty, with great confidence that we gotta deal with the climate change. That's why I've made such a big thing about it and it's not gonna stop with me because I wish if it were just about me, then it would be a very trivial problem. But it's really about you and it's about your children and it's about the future of how our society is gonna function and what we're seeing in Europe now with mass migrations, that will happen in California. As the Central American, Mexico, as they warm, people are gonna get on the move and it's a real challenge. We have a chance to minimize this significantly but it takes real commitment and it's not business as usual and there are a lot of companies and people and ideas that say, well this can't be, we don't believe it. I think the science indicates what we have to do and as far along as I'm around, I'm gonna keep pushing it. But I don't think the fact that they took the oil out, that didn't alter any of the legal framework of California. It just said the legislature's not ready yet to memorialize the goal that I've set forth and I think is well contained within AB 32. Why don't we just let him follow this? It's not often that we see you have a legislative, if you wanna call it defeat, you usually get what you want. So thinking about that, what are your thoughts on that? Well my thoughts on that since I have been watching governors come and go since our Warren days, the idea that a governor always gets everything that the governor requests is silly and to try to make that as some kind of unusual event when a bill is defeated. I mean, this is a bill that came out of the legislature, came out of the Senate, and we certainly backed it because it's definitely in the right direction and people who voted against it are gonna have to vote for it or the next legislature or a few years after that. There's no doubt we have to decarbonize our modern economy. That's true and quite frankly, I think the good out of this is we have drawn the battle lines we have sharpened what the debate is because there's still vast numbers of officials who just say this isn't true. Well, this will at least smoke them out and as I said, people are gonna focus on it but I would suspect that not everything I want I'm gonna get. That's never been my experience as governor or as attorney general or in life and I don't think it's your experience. All your newspapers have certain circulation goals and you miss them all many times. So this is part of the narrative but one thing about these conditions, fires are not political. Climate change is not political, it's real and I believe we all have to do whatever we can to respond appropriately. Yes. I just wanna ask you about the fires, governor. You've no doubt taken in some of the coverage you were talking to your officials over the weekend. You've seen what's happened. Two entire towns, virtually wiped off the California map over the last few days. Yes. Can you just talk a little bit about what has struck you and listening to the reports from the front lines, what you have noticed? Well, I did talk to a couple of firefighters this morning and they said this thing, they had never seen anything like this before. Both these firefighters have been doing firefighting for seven years and they definitely were caught by surprise. They didn't think the fire was dangerous from where they were and then all of a sudden it was. So this is damn serious stuff. Firefighters have to be careful, but so do people who live out in their cabins or their homes. They have to leave when they get the word and this is not just this year. This is the future from now on. It's gonna get worse just by the nature of how the climate's changing. In Oakland, we lost thousands of homes and I happen to live in a zone. I live in a fire zone, a slide zone and a couple of miles from the Hayward fall. So I often like to spend time in Sacramento. Yeah. Yeah, but with regards to the fire, the budget that's been set aside for just this reason. Yeah. Are you concerned about that at all? Is there any outlook having to go to the rainy day fund at that point? Well, I am concerned because the desire for government intervention is almost endless and in that exfoliation of government spending and activity, we can sometimes lose sight of the basics and the basics are public safety and water and the basic infrastructure of roads and the distribution of food. We have to make sure we stick to the basics and be a little slower to be invested in things that are good and are nice, but we have to stick it to the fundamentals and that's certainly fighting fires and we will have enough money in this budget. We'll be able to find it. We're not gonna have to dip into the rainy day fund. It's not this year. We've gotta move here last question. Emotionally, how does this take that toll on you watching what's happening to your people going through this situation? Well, when you hear the firefighters themselves, you can imagine yourself being in that position. It's very, I mean, it's obviously it's scary stuff and it takes a lot of courage and these fires will take lives and they will cause injuries and we have to do the best we can because we are really in a battle with nature that nature is more powerful than we are. And Chief, Mark Murther, any word on the investigations leading to the last two fires that started? Did we know that the one that King's came to that was the lightning fire? Correct. All of these fires other than the ones that were caused by lightning are all under investigation. Obviously, as you can imagine, we are very protective of the investigation so they can get a good handle on all of the indicators and come back to us with that cause. So all of these are currently under investigation. And Director, if I could ask just down down here on the, the, this thing over here, who's in, how do we know who's on the count for, are they not heard, are there any reports of somebody not getting out? Is there any estimate as far as five or 20, what are they looking for? So we don't have an estimate on that yet. The sheriffs in the various counties are working through their process. They know their communities well and sometimes if they're cities in the counties, they're working with their city police departments to get through those, that amount of data. So in these type of conditions, you know, in the way the fires have taken place, some people may be on vacation, they may not have been there. There's just a lot of reasons why people may not be accounted for but we don't have an accurate number on that quite yet. Emergency fire officials will be here at the end to a specific question. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.