Good morning! 8.28 6am @CALFIRECZU Press Conference Livetweet Recap and Analysis will be in this thread, starting in a few minutes.

#CZULightningComplex #CZULightningComplexFire #CZUFire #SantaCruz #SantaCruzMountains

If the work is useful: http://ko-fi.com/erinbergren 

There will be a longer analysis and summary of the past 24 hours in today's lunchtime newsletter, which you can sign up for at http://czufire2020.substack.com  - the newsletter is free.

Please ask any questions, I will respond to them as soon as I am able.

Follow along live at https://twitter.com/calfireczu/status/1299331718973812736?s=21 https://twitter.com/calfireczu/status/1299331718973812736

Jonathan Cox begins the presser as usual

82,540 burned
Containment at 26%
799 structures confirmed destroyed, all but 11 in Santa Cruz County
554 of those are single family homes
2k+ personnel on the incident

Chief Brunton expects really good work today

Lots of the fire weakened trees have begun to fall in the are around Butano, yesterday a structure was destroyed by a falling tree. Very active fire in that area burned down to our control lines yesterday. Our resources are ready.

There will be a wind shift today.

More lines going in toward Davenport, that community is very good, we have active fire in San VIcente Canyon to the south of that area, that's a big target today and we can't use air support in there so we're going in with hand crews on ground.

We're letting the fire burn towards our control lines in the south to establish control

In SLV, the burn operation which finished yesterday went really well, smoke today will be coming from the deeper drainage areas.

30 acre “slopover" in Ben Lomond/Brookdale yesterday

This is because of the fuel buildup aka “duff” which is super thick in the area, we believe that although we built a trench the fire managed to creep from sections of duff onto the other side of the line. We are increasing personnel in the area but this is something that happens

Bonny Doon: lot of work has been done, lot of work to be done, the national guard will be deployed in the Bonny Doon area, this is a good mission for them because they will free up advanced hand crews for the more technical areas. We are working to clear roadways for inspection

hwy 236 corridor is a mess, many days of painstaking work still to be done to open that area. We have 6 aircraft today and we are hoping the marine layer will burn off early so we can maximize our air support; air support is having lots of success, working super well

If we maximize air support we will be able to drop hundreds of thousands of gallons today, make lots of progress.

SC Sheriff

We are really glad that people in Scotts Valley get to go home, follow @CALFIRECZU and our own social media for announcements, no further arrests/cites

No reports of burglary from the people who moved back in to their houses, 56 personnel today working to patrol the area

Missing persons still at 1; we cleared all but 1 yesterday

The device we found in Boulder Creek was addressed by the bomb team

If you are hoping to go home soon be sure you're keeping an eye on Cal Fire and we will keep doing security checks.

@SMCSheriff also notes no reported burglaries in the newly reopened areas, some people reported slow-moving vehicles, but all is good

If you're not a resident, please do not travel to these reopened areas, it gets in the way of moving people back in.

Cal Fire Incident COmmander Billy See

You're hearing lots of good news today, although of course lots of areas still have active flames.

Lots of roadways still need to be fixed, and in other places the duff is burning out under the roadways and collapsing the roadways. We are starting to remove the unsafe trees, that will be a really big job, but it has to be done to make the area safe. Will take a while.

San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit Chief Ian Larkin

We are making progress every day, although we are still far from containment. The recovery process has already started, the incident management team is working hard to set up behind the scenes work for recovery.

We have requested an emergency watershed response team, the watershed is really bad, those folks will give us rapid recommendations as to how to secure the watershed.

You should note that this is just the beginning of peak fire season. NOT TOO LATE TO BUILD DEFENSIBLE SPACE

Remember lots of our infrastructure has been damaged and some of it is still being damaged, we have a lot of work to do still to get roads and utilities back up

Q: pipe bomb, what's the news about the investigation

[context: pipe bomb and explosives found at a residence in Boulder Creek]

A: we're looking into it

Q: be more specific?

A: it was a toolbox found by FFs doing mop-up, they saw a pipe bomb sitting out, bomb squad detonated

A: Lots of work for the detectives to do in followup

Q: [inaudible]
A: search warrant was executed on the house. Can't answer more questions.

Q: looking at particular individuals
A; yes, the person who built the bomb

Q: any more repopulation today?
A: We hope so? Hard to get people in safely, we don't want people to sit in traffic for two hours waiting to get through the checkpoint. Things are dynamic, we will provide updates as soon as we can.

A: Can't be specific right now, we lift the order as soon as we decide it's safe. It will go from least affected to most affected in terms of fire damage.

Q: bottleneck in Scotts Valley?
A: yes, definitely possible, and that's what we're trying to avoid.

A: sure there are parking lots in SV but we don't want them to fill up with people anticipating that they're going home when we're not ready to let those folks back into their homes

Q: what's the worst area for road damage?
A: all the roadways inside the fire perimeter. The whole impacted area is a concern [I'd say mess], civilians could be hurt, and our own crews are having to work to avoid the hazards
Q: be more specific?
A: Honestly this area is huge

A: something that looks okay today could be a mess tomorrow. Everything is changing as the ground starts to cool and the trees start to break apart above and below ground. We are used to this, we see this every time, this is how the forest begins to recover

End of presser

I will be back in a couple minutes to highlight a few key points of analysis.

ANALYSIS

I'm going to try to be brief in this thread; there will be a more detailed analysis in today’s newsletter.

1. DYNAMIC RECOVERY
To get a clearer understanding of what’s going on in the fire perimeter right now, it will help to think of the area ecologically.

The fire didn't just burn structures and things that humans have built. It burned soil. Brush. Rocks. Huge trees which exist above ground (trunk and branches) and below ground. Remember the root system of every plant is, generally, just as big as what you see above ground.

What's happening now is the the entire area is cooling down - all the soil, water, plants, trees. The soil is moving and contracting as heat dissipates. In some places, the fire appears to be out but organic matter still smolders. Trees that have cooled break down.

Yesterday was the first report of a structure that hadn't been destroyed by the fire being destroyed instead by a falling/breaking apart tree next to that structure. This will continue to happen until fire crews are able to remove or trim all the trees they find to be a threat.

First of all, finding all of the hazardous trees may not even be possible. I really don't expect them to be able to do it 100%. Second, this will take a long time. It's a truly enormous amount of work. And it can only be done once the area is cooler, safer, etc.

2. REPOPULATION TIMELINE

I think everyone would like to know what the schedule is for people going home. I don't think we're going to get it.

The problem is that once people know when they get to go home, they won't wait to leave their spots, they’ll show up hours early.

The sheriff was reporting 2 hour waits at the checkpoints to get in to Scotts Valley, and this is when they had all their local resources working on the checkpoints, when they had a plan to get everyone through, etc etc. This is not a good situation for anyone.

It would be great if everyone could go home in a patient, orderly, calm way but I don't think that's what they're seeing and so they have to work with the situation at hand. Evacuation orders will be lifted as soon as they have the resources in place to let people in.

People won't get advance warning, at least for now, because they don't want people coming back before the resources are in place to get people through. The last thing anyone needs is the entire population of Felton camped out in the SV Safeway parking lot.

Those are my two big-picture takeaways from this morning.

SUPER HAPPY to see that Scotts Valley was repopulated yesterday evening along with Pescadero and La Honda, this is super exciting. Everyone in incident command is working their hardest to get everyone home ASAP.

There will be a longer analysis of the last 24 hours in the newsletter, you can sign up (or just read it) at http://czufire2020.substack.com , it is free, it will be out in English and Spanish around lunchtime.