Well, welcome to the 6pm 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 here on the incident. As always, if you could mute your telephones, take any conversations outside the press conference area as well as keep your masks on at all times. As usual, we will have time for questions and answers with all of the speakers at the conclusion of the formal presentations. So we're on day 11 here on the incident, the CZU complex. We can confirm this afternoon that we have burned, or 81,479 acres have burned, and obviously the number of acres burned is slowly increasing now. We can also confirm 24% containment, which is up from this morning. However, we still have 13,305 structures that remain threatened. This evening we can confirm that 746 structures have been destroyed in this incident. Of those 746-11 are in San Mateo County, and 735 of those are in Santa Cruz County. Our damage inspection teams have completed about 65% of the total fire area for their inspections. With that, there are websites with damage information available for the public, both in Santa Cruz County through the county website and San Mateo County through their county website. With that, there's still over 50,000 people who are evacuated throughout the area. We have good news. We broke the 2000 mark for fire personnel assigned to the incident. We have 2,019 personnel assigned. And today, we saw the beginning of repopulation occur in both the Scots Valley area as well as the La Jonda and Pescadero area in San Mateo County. The only last notable piece for all of this is we did see another structure that was destroyed today, not because of fire, but because of the dangers that are still out there when a tree fell on it. With that, for a situation update from the operations, I'll hand it over to CalFAR IMT-3 Operation Section Chief Mark Brun. Good evening.  We were seeing a change, or the beginning of the change of our weather. Today, most of the morning was covered in a deep marine layer that prevented us from flying our aircraft, but it also, in turn, gave us a lot of help on the ground, bringing some of the moisture up. So it helped mitigate some of the fire spread and slowed that quite a bit. But as it heated up today and warmed up, we did see a little bit of increase in the fire activity. I was able to do a reconnaissance flight, first one I've been able to do on this fire so far because of conditions were not allowing me to do so before. But it was good because I got to get a good aerial view, see the whole part of the fire, and for the most part, looking good. We do have some challenging areas that we're going to be addressing and adjust our strategy accordingly. Just moving around the top of the fire, this Gulf Kilo area is still looking really good. That's holding very well. Very few smokes in that at all. And we do have an active patrol effort in that area. Over in Division Echo, over in this area, the Butano Park, we do have control lines in place. This was probably one of the most active parts of the fire and with the wind flow was probably the most smokiest in here. But where we've had this creeping down, it was definitely more active. But nothing significant, just doing what we wanted to do overall, getting down to our control lines where we could take good control of the fire and fit within our strategy. So we've been waiting, waiting, waiting for it. But what's good about this push, it's getting us to where we want to be. So hopefully that will expedite us being able to jump on that. And we have resources in there and we were able to put additional resources in there today to help with that effort. So that's really going well. As Chief Cox mentioned, we are seeing some other challenges beyond the fire in the area in the Butano Colony and the fact that there are a lot of fire damaged and weakened trees. And those are starting to drop and to fall. And as he said, one destroyed a structure today. We started putting some of our specialists in there to assess and start mitigating that issue. It's going to be a challenge. It's going to be a lot of work in there. So that's yet another ancillary challenge of this incident that we're going to have to start addressing and create a strategy to take care of that issue. Moving down the coast, a lot of this, the fire has mitigated or is completely out extinguished. I'd say out of the most destruction that I've seen of the fire beyond the structure loss as far as to the vegetation was amazingly here on the coastal area. More flashy fuels and so forth. But it did very noticeable once you drive a highway one and look up. And definitely from the air, you can see quite a bit of destruction to that area of the vegetation. Moving down towards Davenport, it's looking really good. A couple of drainages there that we're going to start addressing get very aggressive with. We haven't had the resources. We're starting to get the resources in, such as the hand crews, which are going to be perfect for our situation there. And we'll be putting them to work and taking care of that in the next couple days. Our line's holding still to the south very well. That was almost a void of any sort of significant smokes. There are some smokes very prevalent, but they're well, well interior. Not only here, but throughout the other parts of the fire. Deeper in the fire from the distance. You're seeing significant smoke, but they're deep into the burn. And it's just some drainages that are burning out. There was a lot of, on the initial push of the fire, leaving what we call fingers or islands and so forth.  And it's starting to burn those pockets out. Totally normal. We see that on fires all the time. So when you do see some of that smoke, a lot of that, that's what it is. And that's going to continue to do so for the next few days, especially as the weather gets warmer, drier, and we have some more wind. Our burn operation that went around the backside of Felton. That's, if you can see from our vantage point here, or from the Scots Valley area that's being repopulated, they'll see that smoke. Not to worry, that's from our operation. And again, a large chunk of ground that is slowly burning out, doing exactly what we want it to do. It's just going to be there for a little bit and it will be visible. But what that does, it puts a nice solid ring around the community of Felton and will protect it for many other advancements. So we're very happy with the results of that burn operation. Moving up the Highway 9 quarter, it looks really, really good.  Slowly burned down, stopped at Highway 9. So when you see that, that was just part of the strategy of letting that burn down to our control points, which at that point is the highway. But those communities all are looking very, very good. Boulder Creek fires really far up on the ridge away from the community, past the golf course. So we've got control lines that are in there and are being improved every day. And we're feeling very comfortable with the protection of that, but there is a lot of work there because there are a lot of structures tucked in and among a lot of the drainages deep within that that we have to go and cut around. So it's a very tedious labor intensive process that will be ongoing. Bonnie Doon, overall looking good, continuing work within there. Again, long continuous and tedious process because of all the different homes scattered throughout, all the areas where it burned. And it wasn't a very continuous burn line. So we have to go in and actually cut that out with our crews to put a nice control line in there so it renders that area safe. Our road crews going in on Highway 236, but all the other roads throughout are doing a fantastic job getting us so that we get deeper in so the damage inspection teams can do their job to inspect those areas for the utility companies to get in, start doing their hard work so they can start bringing the infrastructure back up to par. And so that's an ongoing and will be an ongoing effort, a lot of downed trees. And even though we go through an area and clear it, we tend to have to go back and redo it because a fire weekend tree that's been burning for days or almost a week now decides to come down after the fact. So our folks are having to really be heads up because that is a significant safety concern this far into the event. And then for our crews that are opening up the roadways, same challenge there. As far as our air force and our air efforts, again, we've got about six water dropping helicopters. Those been in play once the weather cleared up and that's been later this afternoon. And they've been dropping water continuously, especially on the Bhutan Park area. That's been where the majority of the water droppings been today. When I was up on my recon, saw them actively working. They were dumping all kinds of water. Don't have the latest totals yet. As far as the day, they're still flying. They still have a few hours of daylight to fly, but we won't time them out today again to the weather. As the weather that we're seeing as forecasted to approach, we're going to get a lot more flight hours to be able to drop a lot more water and use that tool effectively throughout the incident. Overall, like I said, it's looking really good. We're really moving in the right direction. I know there's been questions about the National Guard. We received yesterday a couple of National Guard crews. They've been employed and they've been working predominantly down on the highway nine quarter and those hand lines that we've been there. So yet another tool in toolbox, another resource that we're putting to work. And as Chief Cox said, our numbers of resources that we've been getting have been trickling in and we'll continue to do so as we move through this event. Thank you. Speaking next, one of the unified incident command agencies representing the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office is Chief Deputy Clark. Oh, we had a good day today. And despite a lot of things that have gone on, today was a good day, especially for the folks that lived in the Scots Valley area and the unincorporated area of Scots Valley got to go home today. And so those evacuation orders were lifted for the area of Scots Valley and for the unincorporated area from Paradise Park all the way south, I'm sorry, from Redwood Heights all the way to Paradise Park. And so, and they'll be continued good news on that front as we go throughout the days to come. And so I just wanna preface that, I mentioned this last night, that's the strategy with repopulating these areas.  And so, today with Scots Valley and as we move closer to more fire affected areas, it could be just a little longer, obviously, in the work that still has to be done in those areas. So over the coming days, as we go closer, and I think I mentioned this last night, day to day, really, as we go towards Feltin and then up Highway nine. But they'll be continued good news on that front in terms of bringing people back to their homes and getting them back in their own beds at night. And then I just ask for your patience as we get towards like the Boulder Creek and the Bonnie Dune area. If you've seen pictures on social media, there's a lot of damage in there. And so, allowing PG&E and different utility companies and the roads to get repaired is gonna take a little bit. And so, in those areas, we wanna get you back as soon as possible, but we have to do it in a way that's safe for you. So when you come home, you have water and you have utilities and you have all the things that you need to keep you safe, but that's what we're pushing for now. And that's what these guys, they're working extremely hard at trying to get fixed is all that stuff as it goes deeper into those more heavily impacted areas. But like I said, day to day, I think we're gonna have good news day to day as we kind of go on from here. And that's a very positive thing, especially if you've been displaced by this fire. In terms of other good news, no arrests or citations again today. So we did have an interesting case. I'll talk about that here in just a minute. But in terms of numbers, today we had 42 officers and deputies working this, working the evacuated area. Tonight, we're gonna have 56, 18 from our county, 18, I'm sorry, 18 from the sheriff's office, 18 from in county and then 20 mutual aid. And so 56 people total, again, doing those security checks. And as I mentioned, as we start repopulating these areas, and I mentioned this last time, we're gonna be here. This is our community. We're gonna make sure you're safe. We're gonna make sure you're settled. And so I just want you to know that as people start coming back home. In terms of calls for service, five suspicious persons calls we went out to today as well as seven welfare checks. In terms of missing people, that list of three, I think we were at this morning, we found all three of those people. So those three folks that I mentioned last night, those names, we found them and they were okay. And so we did develop one new case today, but from what I'm getting from our detectives, it appears that that person is likely not a fire victim. Again, it's just someone where, a concerned family member called asked us to look into where they are. And so that's exactly what we're doing. And that's exactly what we did on the prior cases. And so again, I'd encourage people to continue to do that. And so we wanna make sure that people are all right. In terms of the interesting, kind of an interesting event today. So Cal Fire is doing a great job of creating line, clearing these areas, and then doing mop up work to ensure that there's no continued fire threat in certain areas. And so today, near the Boulder Creek golf course in the 100 block of Lake Drive, they were doing some mop up work there. There was an open toolbox and some firefighters noticed what appeared to be an explosive device. It looked like a pipe bomb. There was also some other explosive type materials. And obviously concerning, concerning to them, concerning to people that live in that area. And so we dispatched our bomb team and we have investigators looking into it. And so right now our detectives are authoring a search warrant to get into the home there. This toolbox was found near home. And so we're still continuing to do further investigation with regards to that and who's responsible and all the questions you might think would come along with something like that. And then obviously making that toolbox and those devices safe. So that's what they're doing now up in Boulder Creek. And if we find somebody responsible, obviously there's charges for manufacturing explosive device which this person could be potentially charged with. So I just wanna touch on repopulation again. So, and just some things to think about again, as we start, as people are able to start going home, one is to be vigilant. Again, we're gonna be in these areas, but when you go home, you know who should be in the neighborhood and who shouldn't. If you see somebody that should be in the neighborhood, we want you to give us a call and let us check it out. And then again, just because you're going back to an area, doesn't necessarily mean that the fire threat is over. And so it's important to pay attention to social media, our social media and Cal Fire's website to ensure that you're getting the best information and staying abreast with any sort of changing fire hazard is kind of we go along.  As we repopulate areas, know the zone in which you live. And so as you see, either press releases or press areas, I speak at these press conferences and tell you what areas to repopulate. That'll go by zone. And so, and again, you go to Cal Fire's website, the incident fact sheet for this incident, as well as our Facebook page, you'll see a map and go to your zone. If it's green, that means it's repopulated. You can go back home. If it's red, it's still under that same order. And other things. So there's gonna be lots of emergency vehicles, especially for folks here in Scotts Valley. And then as areas we continue to repopulate, you're gonna see people coming and going. I just, again, I would ask just for your patience in that as Cal Fire and the other utility companies are still doing their job. And then lastly, where people may wanna come, people may wanna come up in this area for a variety of different reasons. And what we're asking is that if you don't live here, we don't want you coming here. And so, and the reason being is because it just provides more traffic. It provides more congestion when what we want to do is systematically get people back to their homes and still allow for an efficient flow of traffic and that sort of thing for people that are working. So it's for residents only. If you don't have business here, we'd ask that you stay where you are or find a different location. That's all I got. Speaking next from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office is Lieutenant Vince Badola. Good evening. First and foremost, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office wants to thank Cal Fire, Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, the California Highway Patrol and all the law enforcement agencies and everyone assisting with the fire efforts. Without their efforts, our repopulation would not be possible in our county. Today at 12 p.m., we delivered some excellent news about the repopulation in the areas of La Jonda, San Gregorio and Pescadero. And many of those evacuated in our county are now moving back home. And I want to go over again the areas that we reopened. They are Pescadero Beach, Pescadero Creek County Park, Pescadero area, San Gregorio, La Jonda, Red Barn and Langley Hill, Russian Ridge, Open Space area, Sky Landa, Middleton Track, Portola Redwood Straits Park and Portola Heights. Currently, we have four roadblock locations within those areas that reopened. They are as follows. We have Highway One at Gazos Creek, Cloverdale Road at Butano Cutoff, Pescadero Creek Road at Burns Valley. I'll be happy to say that since we reopened at 12 o'clock, there have been no burglaries or no reports or calls for service for suspicious activity in these areas that we reopened. Additionally, we have more than 30 patrol units out in the area patrolling. And we want to ensure to our residents, like Chief Clark said, is that we ensure a safe transition, but that we're out there, we will not tolerate burglary, looting or any of that. It is imperative that anybody that does not live in our county or in those areas that I just identified to not travel there. We need these roadways open so our people can get back safely to the residents. Lastly, we're gonna go through the checklist again, but the evacuees obviously should check online to determine if their home is now accessible in our areas that I just described. Additionally, you can call 211 to learn if your address is included in this list. Evacuees temporarily housed in hotels. Prior to checking out, again, we wanna make sure that your area, your home is in the area, so check to make sure before you check out of the hotels. And for large animal assistance, please call Robin. Her phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. And again, we are extremely pleased to provide good news to our residents and we'll continue to provide detailed information when it's available. And all of this information is listed on our social media platforms. There is more work that needs to be done. We will let you know when these other areas not listed tonight will be reopened. And thank you very much. On behalf of all of the Unified Incident Commanders, speaking next is Cal Fire Incident Management, Team 3, IC, Billy C. Good evening. Obviously, over the last 24 hours, we've been able to put over 20,000 people back in their homes. That says a lot for the work that all the firefighters have done out on the ground. We still got a lot of work to do ahead of us. Lots of smoke production today as the skies cleared out, the marine layer subsided, and you saw what fresh air does to the fire itself. So we still got a lot of work ahead of us, a lot of hot spots out there. Obviously, there's gonna be some concerns about Highway 1 reopening. There's a lot of debris coming down off the hill sides on the Highway 1. That's over 100 years of infrastructure out there, and we're trying to clean it up in over 100 hours. So bear with us. We're working diligently to make those roadways safe with all our cooperating agencies and our law enforcement partners to ensure the safety for the general public when we do reopen those roadways. Thank you. And our final speaker this evening representing the Cal Fire San Mateo Santa Cruz unit is Unit Chief Ian Larkin. Good evening. Today is a good day. We're making progress, and that's what we wanna see every day is progress. And I had an opportunity to go out and drive around a little bit today and see a little bit more of the burned area. And it is a dangerous situation out there. We had several trees come down in the area that we were in. And we have a lot of utilities down, including power lines and communication lines. So the infrastructure repair is gonna take some time. So as we're repopulating the areas that weren't affected by the fire, those areas that were affected by the fire are gonna take some time for us to get, make it safe for everybody to get back in there and make sure you have that vital resources available to you, such as electricity and communications, like telephone and such. So just bear with us, please.  Between law enforcement, fire, PG&E, and all the other communications folks, there's a massive effort going forth right now to get the infrastructure back in place and get people back into their homes as quickly as possible. And once again, for the repopulation area, that website that you can go to, or the link you can go to is smco.community.zonehaven. That's smco.community.zonehaven. And there'll be a map on there and as those zones become eligible for repopulation, those zones will turn green. So that's where we're saying it's imperative to know your zone. You can actually zoom in on those areas and actually find the zone that you live in. It'll show the street layer the closer you zoom in. So please refer to those in our social media platforms to find out the most updated information along with our fact sheets that are sent out every day. So thank you again. With that, we're happy to answer any questions you might have. Arani Gordon, KVCZ, Boulder Creek Community Radio. I have a kind of a multi-part question. Are you able to elaborate a little bit more on the issues facing repopulating the San Lorenzo, the different communities in the San Lorenzo Valley? Will that require, are we gonna need to see that line turned black on the eastern flank of the fire? And is the process gonna involve, as far as notification, will that involve using the code red system that was used to tell us when we evacuated? Sure, so the question was related to what to expect for repopulation in the San Lorenzo Valley and how the notifications might go out. And I think the Sheriff's Office will elaborate. Some of the issues that are complicating returning to the different communities. Sure. Yeah, so as I've said before, our plan and we've been going through this over the last couple of days is really comprehensive and really dependent upon the infrastructure improvements that need to take place to get people back home. Last night I kind of gave like a little bit of a, so I'm gonna give you, and I'm gonna catch both parts of your question there. One has to do with repopulation and when, I believe that's part of your question. The second is how am I gonna know? So with regards to the first question, you know, last night I mentioned day or days for Scotts Valley, and that's dependent on a couple of things and we repopulated Scotts Valley today. And as I said last night and as I said today, we're gonna have continued good news as we go along. It's, there's a lot of factors that go into determining which areas get repopulated, but it's in a systematic fashion as we go from the least affected areas to the most effective, or most affected. And so it's kind of a natural progression as we get closer to the fire, closer to Felton up highway nine. And again, I mentioned, you know, having continued patients for the community of Boulder Creek and I've heard about today some water issues in the town of Davenport. And so these are, and then obviously Bonnie Doon being heavily affected. So these are things that have to get worked out, you know, for people to get back home, know where they have the services they need to be able to live safely in their own home. And then obviously there's still fire activity in the Bonnie Doon area and some of those areas until it's completely put out. So there's a lot going on, but you're gonna hear updates on this every day in terms of how do I know? And so what areas are repopulated and which ones aren't? I would say pay attention to our social media, to our Facebook page, to Cal Fire's map as you heard Chief Larkin mention with regards to knowing your zone. And then you'll hear me talk about it. And so there's a number of different ways to be able to stay apprised of when can I go home and all of that. So I just say, just keep up to speed on those resources and then hopefully we'll get you home as absolutely soon as possible. And as far as the line on that eastern flank of the fire, is that gonna need to be fully contained? That's probably a better question for probably Chief Brunner. Yeah, I wouldn't say that exactly that it has to be completely a black line on that. We're gonna take areas of opportunity that we assess and feel that it's safe to put people into. What's difficult is because of the valley, there's one side of the valley that currently is not affected by fire and obviously the other side is. It's very difficult in some ways to go and repopulate one part so that we maintain a level of safety for our personnel that are working in there and the safety of the public because if you only populate one side, there's access to the other side. And that's a huge challenge for us. And we understand the frustrations and the anticipation of getting back that we don't take that lightly. So we're doing everything we can to establish good control lines, render it safe so that we can return everybody back in a timely fashion and in an organized fashion. Like I've said many times before, it's not very clear-cut and not very easy process because of where the homes and how they're situated on that western side of the valley. So the meticulous efforts of having to go and put line and cut line around all the different homes and so forth, that takes time. And so we're trying to weigh that out the best we can. And once we get through an area that we've deemed is safe, the line will hold and we'll be safe, then we will advise accordingly the sheriff's office and work collaboratively with them as we have throughout this entire process because it takes everybody to agree upon that and including to make sure that their infrastructure is there. The utilities are in place and so forth. So when a person returns home, it's not only safe, but they also have all the comforts to return to their normal life. At this point in the fire, how long can we see the new spot fires pop up and is that a threat to spread more? Right, so as far as actual spot fires, we're really not seeing that. What we're seeing is as we're getting especially into the steeper terrain and case in point is that Highway 9 corridor, very steep terrain. We're seeing what's called rollout. So again, on steep terrain, you have burn material and as that burn material degrades like a tree or stump or log, then it loosens up and then it rolls downhill into the green area and then that fire ignites and runs back, fortunately as fire does uphill and typically back into the burn itself. So for us from a control effort, it's not usually a terribly bad thing. But it's more of a nuisance until we can get our control lines in play. So what that does is it just creates this lot more smoke and sometimes the challenge for us control effort wise because we have to back our lines down to where they're gonna be effective, where the rollout won't roll over our line and where we don't want it. So that's the challenging part there and that's what we're facing there. But again, one of the idiosyncrasies that make it a challenging firefight. Yeah, so the question was about the explosives that we found today. So in Boulder Creek this afternoon, near the golf course, Hunter Block of Lake Drive, you had Cal Fire and other firefighters working in that area, mopping up, basically just making sure there's no other little spotfires or what have you in that area. And they're close to homes as they do that. And so same as the case here, where they were near a home and they noticed an open toolbox happened to look down and lo and behold, they look like a pipe bomb with a fuse, other types of explosive type material in it. And just looking at it, they became concerned, saw it for what they thought it was. And then obviously called us and we wanna make sure that that's safe, that they're safe. And so that's how we became involved. And then obviously our, sent our bomb team and our investigative team up there to determine kind of more about that and then who's responsible for that. Was it a bomb? I haven't gotten a report on that yet, but typically what we'll do is, our bomb team will do a lot of investigation, but at the same time, they gotta render that device safe. So they'll do that in a variety of different ways, which could mean detonating it in place, but there's a lot of information that come out of that. They'll go back and look at it and look at forensics and be able to figure out, okay, was it a pipe bomb? Was there, what type of explosive was it? And then go from there. Yeah, so the question was of the 2000 personnel on the line, how many are firefighters? That is the firefighting force that's out there. So that includes everything from hand crews to firefighters to engines. Yeah, so we'll have a breakdown at the end as far as what were single family homes, what were 10 by 12. Well, 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 here on the incident. As always, if you could mute your telephones, take any conversations outside the press conference area, as well as keep your masks on at all times. As usual, we will have time for questions and answers with all of the speakers at the conclusion of the formal presentations. So we're on day 11 here on the incident, the CZU complex, we can confirm this afternoon that we have burned or 81,479 acres have burned. And obviously the number of acres burned is slowly increasing now. We can also confirm 24% containment, which is up from this morning. However, we still have 13,305 structures that remain threatened this evening. We can confirm that 746 structures have been destroyed in this incident. Of those 746 11 are in San Mateo County and 735 of those are in Santa Cruz County. Our damage inspection team have completed about 65% of the total fire area for their inspections. With that, there are websites with damage information available for the public, both in Santa Cruz County through the county website and San Mateo County through their county website. With that, there's still over 50,000 people who are evacuated throughout the area. We have good news and we broke the 2000 mark for fire personnel assigned to the incident. We have 2019 personnel assigned. And today we saw the beginning of repopulation occur in both the Scots Valley area as well as the La Jonda and Pescadero area in San Mateo County. The only last notable piece for all of this is we did see another structure that was destroyed today, not because of fire, but because of the dangers that are still out there when a tree fell on it. With that, for a situation update from the operations, I'll hand it over to Cal Fire IMT-3 operation section chief, Mark Brun. Good evening.  We were seeing a change or the beginning of the change of our weather. Today, most of the morning was covered in a deep marine layer that prevented us from flying our aircraft, but it also, in turn, gave us a lot of help on the ground, bringing some of the moisture up. So it helped mitigate some of the fire spread and slow that quite a bit. But as it heated up today and warmed up, we did see a little bit of increase in the fire activity. I was able to do a reconnaissance flight. First one I've been able to do on this fire so far because of conditions. We're not allowing me to do so before, but it was good because I got to get a good aerial view, see the whole part of the fire. And for the most part, looking good. We do have some challenging areas that we are going to be addressing and adjust our strategy accordingly. Just moving around the top of the fire, this Gulf Kilo area is still looking really good. That's holding very well. Very few smokes in that at all. And we do have an active patrol effort in that area. Over in Division Echo, over in this area, the Butano Park, we do have control lines in place. This was probably one of the most active parts of the fire. And with the wind flow, it was probably the most smokiest in here. But where we've had this creeping down, it was definitely more active. But nothing significant, just doing what we wanted to do overall, getting down to our control lines where we could take good control of the fire and fit within our strategy. So we've been waiting, waiting, waiting for it. But what's good about this push, it's getting us to where we want to be. So hopefully that will expedite us being able to jump on that. And we have resources in there. And we were able to put additional resources in there today to help with that effort. So that's really going well. As Chief Cox mentioned, we are seeing some other challenges beyond the fire in the area in the Butano Colony and the fact that there are a lot of fire damage and weakened trees. And those are starting to drop and to fall. And as you said, one destroyed a structure today. We started putting some of our specialists in there to assess and start mitigating that issue. It's going to be a challenge. It's going to be a lot of work in there. So that's yet another ancillary challenge of this incident that we're going to have to start addressing and create a strategy to take care of that issue. Moving down the coast, a lot of this, the fire has mitigated or is completely out extinguished. I'd say out of the most destruction that I've seen of the fire beyond the structure loss as far as to the vegetation was amazingly here on the coastal area. More flashy fuels and so forth. But it did very noticeable once you drive a highway one and look up and definitely from the air you can see quite a bit of destruction to that area of the vegetation. Moving down towards Davenport, it's looking really good, a couple of drainages there that we're going to start addressing, get very aggressive with. We haven't had the resources. We're starting to get the resources in, such as the hand crews, which are going to be perfect for our situation there. And we'll be putting them to work and taking care of that in the next couple days. Our line's holding still to the south very well. That was almost a void of any sort of significant smokes. There are some smokes very prevalent, but they're well, well interior, not only here, but throughout the other parts of the fire. Deeper in the fire, from the distance, you're seeing significant smoke, but they're deep into the burn. And it's just some drainages that are burning out. There was a lot of, on the initial push of the fire, leaving what we call fingers or islands and so forth.  And it's starting to burn those pockets out. Totally normal. We see that on fires all the time. So when you do see some of that smoke, a lot of that, that's what it is. And that's gonna continue to do so for the next few days, especially as the weather gets warmer, drier, and we have some more wind. Our burn operation that went around the backside of Felton, that's, if you can see from our vantage point here, or from the Scots Valley area that's being repopulated, they'll see that smoke. Not to worry, that's from our operation. And again, a large chunk of ground that is slowly burning out, doing exactly what we want it to do, it's just gonna be there for a little bit. And it will be visible. But what that does is puts a nice, solid ring around the community of Felton and will protect it for many other advancements. So we're very happy with the results of that burn operation. Moving up the Highway 9 quarter, it looks really, really good. Throughout Ben-Loman, Brookdale, you'll see if you go Highway 9, some where the fire had burned down a number of days ago, slowly burned down, stopped at Highway 9. So when you see that, that was just part of the strategy of letting that burn down to our control points, which at that point is the highway. But those communities all are looking very, very good. Boulder Creek fires really far up on the ridge away from the community, past the golf course. So we've got control lines that are in there and are being improved every day. And we're feeling very comfortable with the protection of that, but there is a lot of work there because there are a lot of structures tucked in and among a lot of the drainages deep within that that we have to go and cut around. So it's a very tedious labor intensive process that will be ongoing. Bonnie Doon, overall looking good, continuing work within there. Again, long, continuous and tedious process because of all the different homes scattered throughout, all the areas where it burned and it wasn't a very continuous burn line. So we have to go in and actually cut that out with our crews to put a nice control line in there so it renders that area safe. Our road crews going in on not only Highway 236 but all the other roads throughout are doing a fantastic job getting us so that we get deeper in so the damage inspection teams can do their job to inspect those areas for the utility companies to get in, start doing their hard work so they can start bringing the infrastructure back up to par. And so that's an ongoing and will be an ongoing effort. A lot of downed trees and even though we go through an area and clear it, we tend to have to go back and redo it because a fire weekend tree that's been burning for days or almost a week now decides to come down after the fact. So our folks are having to really be heads up because that is a significant safety concern this far into the event and then for our crews that are opening up the roadways, same challenge there. As far as our Air Force again, we've got about six water dropping helicopters. Those been in play once the weather cleared up and that's been later this afternoon and they've been dropping water continuously especially on the Bhutan Park area. That's been where the majority of the water droppings been today. When I was up on my recon, saw them actively working. They were dumping all kinds of water. Don't have the latest totals yet. As far as the day, they're still flying. They still have a few hours of daylight to fly. But we won't time them out today again to the weather. As the weather that we're seeing is forecasted to approach, we're going to get a lot more flight hours to be able to drop a lot more water and use that tool effectively throughout the incident. Overall, like I said, it's looking really good. We're really moving in the right direction. I know there's been questions about the National Guard. We received yesterday a couple of National Guard crews. They've been employed and they've been working predominantly down on the Highway 9 corridor and those hand lines that we've been there. So yet another tool in toolbox, another resource that we're putting to work. And as Chief Cox said, our numbers of resources that we've been getting have been trickling in and we'll continue to do so as we move through this event. Thank you. Speaking next, one of the unified incident command agencies representing the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office is Chief Deputy Clark. Oh, we had a good day today. And despite a lot of things that have gone on, today was a good day, especially for the folks that lived in the Scotts Valley area. And the unincorporated area of Scotts Valley got to go home today. And so those evacuation orders were lifted for the area of Scotts Valley and for the unincorporated area from Paradise Park all the way south, I'm sorry, from Redwood Heights all the way to Paradise Park. And they'll be continued good news on that front as we go throughout the days to come. And so I just wanna preface that, I mentioned this last night, that's the strategy with repopulating these areas.  And so today with Scotts Valley and as we move closer to more fire affected areas, it could be just a little longer, obviously in the work that still has to be done in those areas. So over the coming days, as we go closer, and I think I mentioned this last night, day to day, really as we go towards Feltin and then up Highway 9. But there'll be continued good news on that front in terms of bringing people back back to their homes and getting them back in their own beds at night. And then I just asked for your patience as we get towards like the Boulder Creek and the Bonnie Dune area. If you've seen pictures on social media, there's a lot of damage in there. And so allowing PG&E and different utility companies and the roads to get repaired is gonna take a little bit. And so in those areas, we wanna get you back as soon as possible, but we have to do it in a way that's safe for you. So when you come home, you have water and you have utilities and you have all the things that you need to keep you safe, but that's what we're pushing for now. And that's what these guys, they're working extremely hard at trying to get fixed is all that stuff, as it goes deeper into those more heavily impacted areas. But like I said, day to day, I think we're gonna have good news day to day as we kind of go on from here. And that's a very positive thing, especially if you've been displaced by this fire. In terms of other good news, no arrests or citations again today. So we did have an interesting case. I'll talk about that here in just a minute. But in terms of numbers, today we had 42 officers and deputies working this, working the evacuated area. Tonight we're gonna have 56, 18 from our county, 18, I'm sorry, 18 from the sheriff's office, 18 from in county and then 20 mutual aid. And so 56 people total, again doing those security checks. And as I mentioned, as we start repopulating these areas, and I mentioned this last night, we're gonna be here. This is our community. We're gonna make sure you're safe. We're gonna make sure you're settled. And so I just want you to know that as people start coming back home. In terms of calls for service, five suspicious persons calls we went out to today as well as seven welfare checks. In terms of missing people, that list of three, I think we were at this morning, we found all three of those people. So those three folks that I mentioned last night, those names, we found them and they were okay. And so we did develop one new case today, but from what I'm getting from our detectives, it appears that that person's likely not a fire victim. Again, it's just someone where, a concerned family member called, asked us to look into where they are. And so that's exactly what we're doing and that's exactly what we did on the prior cases. And so again, I'd encourage people to continue to do that. And so we wanna make sure that people are all right. In terms of the interesting, kind of an interesting event today. So Cal Fire's doing a great job of creating line, clearing these areas and then doing mop up work to ensure that there's no continued fire threat in certain areas. And so today, near the Boulder Creek golf course in the 100 block of Lake Drive, they were doing some mop up work there. There was an open toolbox and some firefighters noticed what appeared to be an explosive device. It looked like a pipe bomb. There was also some other explosive type materials and obviously concerning, concerning to them, concerning to people that live in that area. And so we dispatched our bomb team and we have investigators looking into it. And so right now our detectives are authoring a search warrant to get into the home there. This toolbox was found near home. And so we're still continuing to do further investigation with regards to that and who's responsible and all the questions you might think would come along with something like that. And then obviously making that toolbox and those devices safe. So that's what they're doing now up in Boulder Creek. And if we find somebody responsible, obviously there's charges for manufacturing explosive device which this person could be potentially charged with. So I just want to touch on repopulation again. So and just some things to think about again as we start, as people are able to start going home. One is to be vigilant. Again, we're going to be in these areas but when you go home, you know who's, who should be in the neighborhood and who shouldn't. If you see somebody that should be in the neighborhood we want you to give us a call and let us check it out.  And so it's important to pay attention to social media, our social media and Cal Fire's website to ensure that you're getting the best information and staying abreast with what, with any sort of changing fire hazard is kind of we go along.  You know, as we repopulate areas, know the zone in which you live. And so as you see, you know, either press releases or press areas, I speak at these press conferences and tell you what areas to repopulate. That'll go by zone. And so, and again, you go to Cal Fire's website, the incident fact sheet for this incident, as well as our Facebook page, you'll see a map and go to your zone. If it's green and that means it's repopulated, you can go back home. If it's red, it's still under that same order. Another thing, so there's lots of, there's going to be lots of emergency vehicles, especially for folks here in Scots Valley and then as areas we continue to repopulate, you're going to see people coming and going on. Just again, it's just, I would ask just for your patience in that as, you know, Cal Fire and the other utility companies are still doing their job. And then, and then lastly, so, you know, people may want to come up in this area for a variety of different reasons. And what we're asking is that if you don't live here, we don't want you coming here. And so, and the reason being is because it just provides more traffic, it provides more congestion when what we want to do is systematically get people back to their homes and still allow for an efficient flow of traffic and that sort of thing for people that are working. So, it's for residents only. If you don't have business here, we'd ask that you stay where you are or find a different location. That's all I got, thank you. Speaking next from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office is Lieutenant Vince Badola. Good evening. First and foremost, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office wants to thank Cal Fire, Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, the California Highway Patrol and all the law enforcement agencies and everyone assisting with the fire efforts. Without their efforts, our repopulation would not be possible in our county. Today at 12 p.m., we delivered some excellent news about the repopulation in the areas of La Jonda, San Gregorio and Pescadero. And many of those evacuated in our county are now moving back home. And I want to go over again the areas that we reopened. They are Pescadero Beach, Pescadero Creek County Park, Pescadero area, San Gregorio, La Jonda, Red Barn and Langley Hill, Russian Ridge, Open Space area, Sky Landa, Middleton Track, Portola Redwood Straits Park and Portola Heights. Currently, we have four roadblock locations within those areas that reopened. They are as follows. We have Highway One at Gazos Creek, Cloverdale Road at Butano Cut-Off, Pescadero Creek Road at Butano Cut-Off, Pescadero Creek Road at Burns Valley. I'll be happy to say that since we reopened at 12 o'clock, there have been no burglaries or no reports or calls for service for suspicious activity in these areas that we reopened. Additionally, we have more than 30 patrol units out in the area patrolling. And we want to ensure to our residents, like Chief Clark said, is that we ensure a safe transition but that we're out there. We will not tolerate burglary, looting or any of that. It is imperative that anybody that does not live in our county or in those areas that I just identified to not travel there. We need these roadways open so our people can get back safely to the residents. Lastly, we're gonna go through the checklist again, but the evacuees obviously should check online to determine if their home is now accessible in our areas that I just described. Additionally, you can call 211 to learn if your address is included in this list. Evacuees temporarily housed in hotels. Prior to checking out, again, we want to make sure that your area, your home is in the area. So check to make sure before you check out of the hotels. And for large animal assistance, please call Robin. Her phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. And again, we are extremely pleased to provide good news to our residents and will continue to provide detail information when it's available. And all of this information is listed on our social media platforms. There is more work that needs to be done. We will let you know when these other areas not listed tonight will be reopened. And thank you very much. On behalf of all of the unified incident commanders, speaking next is Cal Fire Incident Management, Team 3, IC, Billy C. Good evening. Obviously, over the last 24 hours, we've been able to put over 20,000 people back in their homes. That says a lot for the work that all the firefighters have done out on the ground. We still got a lot of work to do ahead of us. Lots of smoke production today as the skies cleared out, the marine layer subsided, and you saw what fresh air does to the fire itself. So we still got a lot of work ahead of us, a lot of hot spots out there. Obviously, there's going to be some concerns about Highway 1 reopening. There's a lot of debris coming down off the hillside on the Highway 1. That's over 100 years of infrastructure out there, and we're trying to clean it up in over 100 hours. So bear with us. We're working diligently to make those roadways safe with all our cooperating agencies and our law enforcement partners to ensure the safety for the general public when we do reopen those roadways. Thank you. And our final speaker this evening, representing the Cal Fire San Mateo Santa Cruz Unit is Unit Chief Ian Larkin. Good evening. Today is a good day, we're making progress, and that's what we want to see every day is progress. And I had an opportunity to go out and drive around a little bit today and see a little bit more of the burned area. And it is a dangerous situation out there. We had several trees come down in the area that we were in. And we have a lot of utilities down, including power lines and communication lines. So the infrastructure repair is gonna take some time. So as we're repopulating the areas that weren't affected by the fire, those areas that were affected by the fire are gonna take some time for us to make it safe for everybody to get back in there and make sure you have that vital resources available to you such as electricity and communications like telephone and such. So just bear with us, please.  Between law enforcement, fire, PG&E, and all the other communications folks, there's a massive effort going forth right now to get the infrastructure back in place and get people back into their homes as quickly as possible. And once again, for the repopulation area, that website that you can go to or the link you can go to is smco.community.zonehaven. That's smco.community.zonehaven. And there'll be a map on there and as those zones become eligible for repopulation, those zones will turn green. So that's where we're saying it's imperative to know your zone. You can actually zoom in on those areas and actually find the zone that you live in. It'll show the street layer the closer you zoom in. So please refer to those in our social media platforms to find out the most updated information along with our fact sheets that are sent out every day. So thank you again. With that, we're happy to answer any questions you might have. Randy Gordon, KVCZ, Boulder Creek Community Radio. I have a kind of a multi-part question. Are you able to elaborate a little bit more on the issues facing repopulating the San Lorenzo, the different communities in the San Lorenzo Valley? Will that require, are we gonna need to see that line turned black on the eastern flank of the fire? And is the process gonna involve, as far as notification, will that involve using the Code Red system that was used to tell us when we evacuated? Sure, so the question was related to what to expect for repopulation in the San Lorenzo Valley and how the notifications might go out. And I think the Sheriff's Office will be able to elaborate. Some of the issues that are complicating returning to the different communities. Sure. Yeah, so as I've said before, our plan, and we've been going through this over the last couple of days, is really comprehensive and really dependent upon the infrastructure improvements that need to take place to get people back home. Last night, I kind of gave like a little bit of a, so I'm gonna give you, and I'm gonna catch both parts of your question there. One has to do with repopulation and when, I believe that's part of your question. The second is how am I gonna know? So with regards to the first question, you know, last night I mentioned day or days for Scotts Valley, and that's dependent on a couple of things, and we repopulated Scotts Valley today. And as I said last night and as I said today, we're gonna have continued good news as we go along. It's, there's a lot of factors that go into determining which areas get repopulated, but it's in a systematic fashion as we go from the least affected areas to the most affected. And so it's kind of a natural progression as we get closer to the fire, closer to Felton up Highway 9. And again, I mentioned, you know, having continued patients for the community of Boulder Creek. And I've heard about today, some water issues in the town of Davenport. And so these are, and then obviously Bonnie Dune being heavily affected. So these are things that have to get worked out, you know, for people to get back home, know where they have the services they need to be able to live safely in their own home. And then obviously there's still fire activity in the Bonnie Dune area and some of those areas until it's completely put out. So there's a lot going on, but you're gonna hear updates on this every day in terms of how do I know? And so what areas are repopulated and which ones aren't? I would say pay attention to our social media, to our Facebook page, to Cal Fire's map as you heard Chief Larkin mention with regards to knowing your zone. And then you'll hear me talk about it. And so there's a number of different ways to be able to stay apprised of when can I go home and all of that. So I just say, just keep up to speed on those resources and then hopefully we'll get you home as absolutely soon as possible. As far as the line on that eastern flank of the fire, is that gonna need to be fully contained? That's probably a better question for probably Chief Brunner. Yeah, I wouldn't say that exactly, that it has to be completely a black line on that. We're gonna take areas of opportunity that we assess and feel that it's safe to put people into. What's difficult is because of the Valley, there's one side of the Valley that currently is not affected by fire and obviously the other side is. It's very difficult in some ways to go and repopulate one part so that we maintain a level of safety for our personnel that are working in there and the safety of the public because if you only populate one side, there's access to the other side. And that's a huge challenge for us. And we understand the frustrations and the anticipation of getting back that we don't take that lightly. So we're doing everything we can to establish good control lines, render it safe so that we can return everybody back in a timely fashion and in an organized fashion. Like I've said many times before, it's not very clear-cut and not very easy process because of where the homes and how they're situated on that western side of the Valley. So the meticulous efforts of having to go and put line and cut line around all the different homes and so forth. That takes time. And so we're trying to weigh that out the best we can. And once we get through an area that we've deemed as safe, the line will hold and we'll be safe, then we will advise accordingly the sheriff's office and we're collaboratively with them as we have throughout this entire process because it takes everybody to agree upon that and including to make sure that their infrastructure's there, the utilities are in place and so forth. So when a person returns home, it's not only safe, but they also have all the comforts to return to their normal life. At this point in the fire, how often are we seeing the new spot fires pop up and is that a threat or a threat to water? Right, so as far as actual spot fires, we're really not seeing that. What we're seeing is as we're getting especially into the steeper terrain and case in point is that Highway 9 corridor, very steep terrain. We're seeing what's called rollout. So again, on steep terrain, you have burn material and as that burn material degrades like a tree or a stump or log, then it loosens up and then it rolls downhill into the green area and then that fire ignites and runs back.  So for us from a control effort, it's not usually a terribly bad thing. But it's more of a nuisance until we can get our control lines in play. So what that does is it just creates this lot more smoke and sometimes the challenge for us control effort-wise because we have to back our lines down to where they're gonna be effective, where the rollout will roll over our line and where we don't want it. So that's the challenging part there and that's what we're facing there. But again, one of the idiosyncrasies that make it a challenging firefight. Yeah, so the question was about the explosives that we found today. So in Boulder Creek this afternoon, near the golf course, Hunter Block of Lake Drive, you had Cal Fire and other firefighters working in that area, mopping up, basically just making sure there's no other little spot fires or what have you in that area. And they're close to homes as they do that. And so same as the case here where they were near a home and they noticed an open toolbox, happened to look down and lo and behold, they're look like a pipe bomb with a fuse, other types of explosive type material in it. And just looking at it, they became concerned, saw it for what they thought it was and then obviously called us and we want to make sure that that's safe, that they're safe. And so that's how we became involved and then obviously sent our bomb team and our investigative team up there to determine kind of more about that and then who's responsible for that. Was it a bomb? I haven't gotten a report on that yet, but typically what we'll do is, our bomb team will do a lot of investigation but at the same time they gotta render that device safe. So they'll do that in a variety of different ways which could mean detonating it in place but there's a lot of information that can come out of that. They'll go back and look at it and look at forensics and be able to figure out, okay, was it a pipe bomb? Was there, what type of explosive was it? And then go from there. Yeah, so the question was of the 2000 personnel on the line, how many are firefighters? That is the firefighting force that's out there. So that includes everything from hand crews to firefighters to engines. Yeah, so we'll have a breakdown at the end as far as what were single family homes, what were 10 by 12 in larger. The best way to kind of reference it right now is to go on the county's website that has that information and actually when you click on the location of each structure it gives a description about what it is. So they've completed 65% of the fire area. I believe there's 12 teams out there, the damage inspection teams. One of the biggest hindrance that the team is charging forward with is clearing all the roadways to get into the really inaccessible areas. If you've seen the pictures online of the bridges that have been compromised, the trees that have come down, the power lines that are in the roadway, literally getting access to some of the most damaged areas is limited. So that Chief Brunton's team is working diligently with the damage inspection teams to make sure they have the access to get in there and get all those structures cataloged. All right, so just a final notice I wanna say thank you. I know we stand up here a couple of times a day and speak about the incident, but we are a very small piece of a much, much larger team out there and that encompasses everything from local jurisdictions in both counties to the EOCs, to the non-profit organizations, to the people who are housing friends and family. Just from us, thank you for everybody, for your patience. We are truly all in this together and we will make sure that we continue to keep you informed until this is 100% complete. Thank you.


And then with this, I am going to go ahead and I'm going to hand it over to Lizzie for her wonderful presentation. Hello, hello. Oh, there. Okay, now I can see I can drive. Alright, everyone's going to forgive me a little bit for learning this new software. Caitlin and I practiced. My name is Lizzie, and I'm really honored to be included as a speaker at this year's virtual International Day of the Midwife. As is true for a lot of us growing into our roles in midwifery, I stand on the shoulders of the midwives who've mentored me. And so I joined today as the newest in a lineage of Georgetown University midwifery students who've been mentored by Dr. Cindy Farley and who have participated in VIDM for the past seven years running. So we've got a tradition at this point. And not only this, but I'm speaking to you on the eve of the annual meeting of the American College of Nurse Midwives. So we're here in Orlando and the air is thick with us. There's lots of us. All right, I am a student of many things at Georgetown, not least of midwifery. So today I'm going to talk a bit about what makes midwives so perfectly poised to relate across cultures in the way that we're doing today as we gather in a global community. If we're discussing the art and science of midwifery, as is our theme this year. As a resident of the Circumpolar North, which is that region of the north of the globe, it feels like there's no better way to explore this idea than to look to the first peoples of this region who've practiced these birthing traditions and principles for millennia. I'm speaking to you today as an individual who lives, works, recreates and partakes in the harvest of unceded Dena'ina land in the place known as Anchorage, Alaska. I just wanted to mention off the bat that I don't identify as a member of any of the indigenous groups that I discussed today. And so I speak from a position of humility of curiosity and of commitment to doing what I can to elevate native voices. I'm speaking with you today about what maternity and childbearing looks like in the remote Circumpolar North, including some of the pervasive health disparities in these remote regions. I'll touch on how the examination of childbirth in this region challenges those of us who have been raised in the western colonial medical tradition to adopt a more global approach to care and to ethics. And then I'll share some selected traditional birth practices from the first peoples of the Circumpolar North. As Caitlin mentioned, we do have time for questions at the end. So I invite the yes. Um, okay, so first I was just about to set the stage. So I'm going to keep setting the stage. Um, when we talk about exploring other birthing cultures from our positions as midwives, I emphasize that it's not to become an expert in that culture. So much as it's renewing our commitment to health equity and exploring these ideas from a position of humility, right? We talk about cultural humility versus cultural competence. And I emphasize this because the historical trauma from colonialism, from structural racism, from casual and intentional researcher misconduct on indigenous populations is still felt acutely. And we could argue that this is no more true than in the care of women and birthing people. So I think it's fair to say that while the deep foundations for our work lie in the steady hands of granny midwives and of wise women and other revered female elders, in the modern era, we do know that the care of childbearing people is heavily influenced by the white and the patriarchal and the medical systems. So while we focus daily on advocating for physiologic birth on health equity within that western framework, on a broader scale, we do have a lot of work to do in making room for incorporating these culturally valued traditions into pregnancy in the birthing sphere. So how we reclaim these ancient, these really rich ancient ways of knowing about pregnancy and birth and childbearing is really exciting and a long overdue initiative that we as midwives are perfectly poised to undertake. Here's a few reasons why. First of all, we as midwives, we care for the whole person. We are advocates with that wide angle lens. We're really good at talking about how can I support this whole person and this person in the context of their circumstances. We support physiologic birth practices, which also means unlearning or re-exploring a lot of modern bias and reclaiming older ways. We are nimble both literally and figuratively in adapting the shifting pressures and powers and passages and passengers of our profession. And then finally, we're humbled on a daily basis by the power and the unpredictability of birth. And I think that humility that we practice on a daily basis is the key to us being allies and the reclamation and the sovereignty of birth by indigenous women and birthing people and indigenous midwives. So as we shift our lens northward, let's break down the title of this presentation just a little bit. When I say circumpolar, I'm referring to the land that borders the Arctic Ocean. So you can see on this map here, it's made up of the nine countries on the map, which include the United States by virtue of Alaska, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Iceland, and then Denmark by virtue of the Faroe Islands in Greenland. The Planix Arctic region is home to about four million people, about 500,000 of whom are indigenous today with higher densities of indigenous populations in those darker regions visible on the map. Indigenous is the term that I'm using to refer to the first peoples to continuously populate these regions, starting mostly after the last Ice Age. I have to emphasize these groups are not a monolith. The circumpolar north includes 27 regions and myriad indigenous nations and tribes who use different names to represent themselves and are recognized as sovereign to varying degrees by colonizing governments. A small percentage of originally nomadic peoples, for example, the Nanets in Russia, do remain nomadic today. So given the size of the region we're talking about, it does make sense that maternity care access is really challenging. Part of the reason the majority of these regions are considered maternity care deserts is because of that systematic displacement of indigenous midwives over the past several centuries. The systematic pathologizing of birth removed this integral ritual from the home and the community where it was traditionally often presided over by experienced birth attendants and steeped in those traditions. And it moved into the hospitals, which in this case are hundreds of miles away and which is where it remains today. In terms of population health, even though the countries of the north are some of the world's wealthiest, the chiefly indigenous regions of the remote Arctic still experience large health disparities. Some patterns of note in nations where indigenous people comprise the biggest proportion of the population, the disparity in health outcomes in this region also tends to be higher. These circumpolar regions with large indigenous populations experience high fertility rates and generally a younger median population, but they also experience lower life expectancy and higher rates of pregnancy loss. We see broad variation in infant mortality across this region with indigenous dyads mortality rate for indigenous dyads in certain areas of Russia being 14 times higher than we see in Iceland, for example, which is the best among the region. Maternal mortality rates are more challenging to find in the US, we're able to see that among American Indian and Alaska Native, the rate of mortality among Native women is two times higher than the national average. To honor traditional birth practices, I do think it's important to understand that the modern circumstances of birth in the north. In the current area, as I mentioned, the vast majority of pregnant people in the circumpolar north do give birth in hospitals. This is due in large part to policies regarding maternal transport. So mothers are moved, mothers are birthing people are moved at 36 weeks gestation by bush plane or by jet or whatever conveyance from their remote community to a maternal home or a hospital in a regional hub. What this looks like in practice is that a person's final month of pregnancy and even the birth is often spent hundreds of miles away from family and from community. Anecdotally, in my own personal clinical experience and from interviews and studies such as this New York Times article that I've screen capped here, mothers do describe a type of community that develops in these sort of dormitory like environments, but you can imagine the profound disruption that happens and that is inherent in this new Western custom around birth, which in many countries is actually reinforced by law or at least by insurance policy. So, for example, in regions where transport to outside services doesn't arrive in time or parents elect not to travel to maternity center, they might give birth at home. In the case of the Nenets who remain nomadic in Russia, they may birth on sledges or tents as they're following caribou herds, but it may also happen as we see in Alaska, for example, where families may decline the flight or they may go into preterm labor and start to labor before the flight happens. We are beginning to reach a bit of a tipping point in birth care in the north where it's increasingly clear how policies that evacuate these geographically remote families to hubs or to hospital centers in that last month of pregnancy can be harmful and expose individuals to bias to racism and to trauma. Well, the practices enable a more rapid access to those higher levels of care. I'm a NICU nurse by training and neonatal intensive care. So while we do see the benefits of this more rapid escalation to higher levels of medical care, it also prevents individuals from accessing those resources and that community support and those skills that they have in their community to navigate this really vulnerable perinatal period. So as I mentioned, I saw this play out this on a daily basis in the neonatal intensive care unit as a nurse in Anchorage. And in fact, this is largely what motivated me to become a midwife and also motivated my doctoral work in perinatal mental health. What is encouraging is that we see that policy being challenged and changed by indigenous and professional organizations across the circumpolar north. Recently, there are a few promising studies that have explored community birth led by indigenous midwives in Quebec and in Greenland. And when the majority of births took place in the community, parents valued the cultural support, they value the continuity of care, and we saw fewer obstetrical interventions were necessary. So that's who that's always really validating outcome. When we think about health disparities in the circumpolar region, they are due to a large part to these enormous treks of land that are sparsely populated. And so access to maternity care services, even in the best of circumstances, would be challenging. But further complicating this is the continued influence of colonialism that I mentioned before. And this is manifested through a lot of different ways. We see the forced relocation and centralization efforts. So this isn't just the maternity home model. This is also the historical forced settlement of nomadic peoples into fixed villages. We see this all throughout the modern day in history and development and resource extraction that's impacting access to subsistence foods. In Alaska, for example, we're talking about the Willow Project these days. We see it in the historical assimilation efforts that were aimed at erasing systematically erasing indigenous culture and language. And then, of course, the ever increasing burden of climate change. I do have to emphasize that climate in this case is not a tangential discussion. It's actually critically important if not the most critical critically important factor influencing long term maternity health. And that's because the poles of the planet actually experience climate change at twice the rate of the rest of the world. Meaning that this ongoing effect of rising seas and intensifying storms and thawing permafrost and enormous forest fires and changing migratory patterns, they're all impacting the health and well-being of indigenous peoples and all the peoples living in these regions to an outsized and disproportionate degree. So here on this map, for example, you see what access to maternity care looks like in Alaska where these darker regions on the map indicate zero resources, minimal or zero resources. And then, clockwise, you can see some of these dramatic impacts of climate change. Major floods in 2019, millions of acres of the Arctic burned in forest fires. And these are all threats to fresh air and clean water and access to food and reliable transport, whether planes can get in and out, that have immediate impacts on maternity care and care of preconception care, prenatal care, and postnatal and childcare. And especially for peoples who rely on this land. Okay, so I think that the pictures of the fires and floods are really important to ground us, but also can get a little bit bleak because they are. So I want to focus back on what we as midwives can do for communities experiencing the vulnerability that we work with every day in the remote and rural regions, such as those in the circumpolar north, but really everywhere. So when I mentioned valuing cultural support, this means the intentional and relatively seamless introduction of cultural values into the modern delivery of care. Members of a dominant culture often don't realize how often their cultural practices are seamlessly integrated with their health care. So for example, in my doctoral work, the depression screening scales that we use for perinatal mood disorders are not actually validated for nonwhite, nonwestern birthing people. And so that impacts our ability to accurately evaluate coping in this population. Talking circles are a way that traditional indigenous practices are not only being incorporated into modern medical care, but are supported in the literature as particularly effective. Talking circles are not necessarily unique specifically to the circumpolar north, but they do hold a sacred place in native communities throughout the US and Canada and elsewhere. So a talking circle starts with a prayer, usually by the person who calls a circle or by an elder, a sacred object such as a talking stick or a feather is passed around, the person who holds the object speaks, and all others in the circle can only listen. And this method prevents reactive communication and it promotes deep listening, and it's been explored in really cool ways in both Alaska and Canada, centering pregnancy models but sort of with indigenous roots, both in person and then in the COVID era, virtually to broaden access over large distances. Now, this is a little side plug. Among my other roles at Georgetown, I also a scholar of bioethics in the Pellegrino school of bioethics. And so I would be remiss if I didn't also mention how we can adopt this work of reintegrating ancient ways of knowing with the miracles of modern science in our approach to bioethics too. So one of the reasons that it's really important to promote indigenous reclamation of childbirth and of sovereignty over childbirth is that it brings with it the imperative to re-examine the ethical frameworks that we use to shape delivery of care in birthing families. So the principles of bioethics, as I learn them, and as most nurses in the US learn them, is grounded in fundamentally Western American colonial principles. Here in the US, it usually focuses on the individual. We talk about the principles of beneficence, of non-maleficence, of justice, autonomy, and we frame these historically from the perspective of the physician toward the patient. And I use those terms deliberately because this has historically been characteristic of the medical model. We think of the moral dilemmas of the good physician in service to a vulnerable patient. And so we think of the flow of information in this model in the shape of a triangle. It comes from the expert physician at the top and it goes toward the rest of the team and that team includes the patient somewhere in there. However, when we look at other cultures approaches to ethics, we often instead see a pluralistic model. So what does this mean? This means pluralistic means acceptance of multiple conflicting options as equally viable paths to moral good. So this is a really cool idea to me because when we take a pluralistic approach, there's no sole arbiter of the patient's fate, right? We don't have one person trying to cure a patient's illness because the goal isn't necessarily curative action by the physician toward the patient. And instead, success is defined by honoring a patient's values, by health promotion, by harm reduction, by prevention. All these things are really good at. So in this case, we can think of the flow of information as moving around a circle with the healthcare provider, such as the midwife, as part of that circle. And the patient we can think of either as part of that circle or more often right at the middle. And depending how complex we want this model to get, we can think about concentric rings of influence, right? The patient, the family, the community. In their 2007 book, African American Bioethics, Culture, Race and Identity, preeminent bioethics scholars, doctors Progre and Pellegrino, explore the question of whether in the United States there is a uniquely African American bioethical experience. And a host of American experts ultimately conclude that there is. The experience of black Americans is distinctive by virtue of systemic racism, of colonialism, slavery, with its own schema for what constitutes moral good. And this is really valuable for thinking about care in these environments with different populations. And so as a student of ethics myself and someone who chose to become a midwife and to work in the service of indigenous communities, I think it's also really important to consider how indigenous first peoples may also have a unique bioethical experience. And so adopting this pluralistic mindset could fundamentally reshape our approach to the care of indigenous birthing people. And I think a lot of the health disparities we see are direct results of that hierarchical triangle model that we see on the left and the systemic injustices that that model enables. So my thinking is what if we just as systemically adopt the model on the right? So that's my proposal for today. And of course, here's the big asterisk. When I say re-adopt, I really when I say adopt, I really mean re-adopt or restore this pluralistic approach to bioethics, because of course this idea comes from the ancient indigenous traditions of communal decision making, of storytelling as tools of healing and collaboration from this willingness to hold simultaneously these multiple perspectives as equally true. And so in this way, I think we're challenging ourselves. I think that challenging ourselves as midwives, as medical providers to adopt a pluralistic ethical approach, which aligns you'll find quite naturally with the midwifery model of care that we know and love, enables us to become partners in this ongoing work of reclamation of birth and promotion of birth sovereignty among our indigenous colleagues and communities. So re-centering the indigenous voices in the birthing sphere and also leveraging the capacities of modern technology. So we're thinking about telehealth, we're thinking about mobile ultrasound, home testing kits, medications by mail, all these modern miracles that we have to work with. They allow us to promote evidence-based care but grounded in the values and voices of our rural and indigenous communities. And so I think we can't talk about where we're going from here without honoring the practice and the passing of the talking stick. And so this brings me a little bit to sort of this next section of our time together where we talk about, we reflect about child birthing practices and different cultures and why we do it. Firstly we do it because it's really fun to learn how different groups celebrate momentous events across the world. But, and from an anthropological perspective, childbirth traditions facilitate social acknowledgement of milestone events and they foster community at the same time. Ceremonies that honor pregnancy and birth allow communities to formally welcome newborns and to support growing families. And they offer new families a sense of belonging and they signal to both parties the tangible and emotional assistance that's available that's being offered. Two families during the period of adjustment, which in the modern day is often quite a challenge. Knowledge of cultural practices is handed down through generations and so this continuity strengthens communities both laterally in the now time, but also longitudinally across that generational continuum. Traditional birth work is experiencing a grassroots revival right now as the recognition of these, the healing and caring methods in this work grows. And so we know that temporary relocation for childbirth has deleterious social effects and there's, as we mentioned, considerable support and desire for traditional communal birthing in combination with our modern techniques and technology.  And so gaining a sense of the importance of birthing traditions and how historically birth has worked in these communities allows us to refocus on the Indigenous individuals at the center of their own care and work towards reclaiming the power and sovereignty over birth. Importantly, it signals to us as allies who are not necessarily part of these ancestral traditions to consider how we might help and have positive influence in that work as part of our clinical roles. So now we'll touch on some traditional cultural practices from around the polar region. I have select examples from the Nanetz people as in Russia, the Sami in Scandinavia and the American Indian and Alaska Native peoples in Alaska and the Inui of U.S. Canada and Greenland. These groups, I reemphasize, have ties that cross sociopolitical boundaries that are imposed and influenced by colonizers. So within each of these groups are different nations and tribes that carry their own customs, their own norms. And so while many folks share common ancestors, their separation from modern borders and tons of water and tons of land has resulted in changes. So as you can imagine, there is no way, no way at all to capture the nuance and breadth of tradition in this enormous region and this enormous time period that we're talking about in this super short little presentation. So I'm really just offering select examples of birth traditions in some of these regions on the theory that the awareness of these backgrounds could benefit midwives working with families from these regions and help make more person-centered care. Many of the traditions have been gleaned through stories from elders and they may or may not be part of the traditions of birthing peoples who present to care today. So I like to say this is just the tip of the iceberg, which feels like an apt analogy and just a quick reminder that while I honor the cultural traditions, they are not part of my own ancestral heritage. So when we get to questions, please pipe up with additions or corrections or updates if you haven't. Okay, first things first, how do we view pregnancy? One of the most lasting traditions to the extent that broad generalization is possible is that pregnancy is not infirmity and that hospitals can be a touch excessive in terms of approach to birth as a normal part of the life cycle. And in keeping with that idea, we see that often pregnancy is approached with pragmatism in traditional indigenous communities throughout the north, pregnant people more or less continue about their daily activities. You may know people who do that very gracefully. Traditionally frequent exercise and a nutritious diet have been honored responsibilities of the birthing person. For example, in Alaska, Alaska Native American Indian communities and Inuit communities in the north have encouraged pregnant women to be active after waking and also after eating. So we're thinking about walks or berry picking and the goal here being quite intentionally to ensure that the baby develops a strong heart and doesn't gain too much weight, all of which are known over long periods of time to complicate labor. The role of the father does vary by region. So in some cases he's very involved in preparations and in other communities such as the Nenets, the birthing preparations may not even be seen by the men. And so preparations can historically include collecting of sphagnum bark and birch pulp for diapers or maybe having a steam bath to promote circulation and also to avoid malpositioning of the fetus. In terms of nourishment, apart from berries, many of this subsistence cultures don't necessarily emphasize specific foods for pregnancy or birth other than a varied diet rich in protein during pregnancy. Because of course this diversity of diet is readily supplied by a subsistence diet. And then after birth, we see emphasis on easy to digest broths with protein for recovery and promoting lactation. And then there are some traditions of abstinence from certain types of food but traditionally have having more to do with the role of Christianity. In terms of laboring practices, the Nenets traditions focus around fire, which is considered the symbol of life. So a woman may labor on her hands and knees or squatting to position the baby's head towards the fire. And then when the baby crowns, she will turn her face to the fire alongside her newborn. Throughout the period of birth, the Sami honor the goddess Madaradka, the mother deity, she lives in the farthest place in the house from the hearth. And then Saratka is a fertility goddess and a protector of the family and the home. And she lives under the hearth. We see in the Inuit traditions stories and art pieces that illustrate a kneeling position of the midwife. So you see that here in the soapstone carving with support from behind. And we also hear stories about sawing a hole in the bed to prepare for the baby to descend through. So I think of that as like the original breaking the bed. And then many peoples in the region, including the Nenets in the Inuit, do value culturally the stoicism during labor. So that presents his limited vocalizations and lesser requests on pain medication or desire for pain medication. So who is there? Who's present at the birth? The major difference we see traditionally between the Nenets and the Sami is the role of the father in the birth. So for the former, the man's not necessarily present or involved at all and nor are male deities. And usually the birthing person is quite solitary in terms of making preparations and throughout the process of birth, with the exception being one helper once the child's been born.  And the Sami tradition is actually quite the opposite. Men are not only involved in birth but traditionally there's actually lots of stories of men having fulfilled the role of the birth assistant and personally delivering the baby. And so there's broad variation of course across all these different traditions. And then among our Inwi and American Indian Alaska Native communities, we see a strong tradition of indigenous midwives being present at birth. Once the baby is born, all of the cultures of the circumpolar north emphasize immediately getting up and moving to stave off bleeding. This to me is a perfect example of the melding of the ways that ancient ways of knowing are being emphasized by modern science. Because this, here we have ancient knowledge of early ambulation addressing a phenomenon that western medicine has only just formally identified, which is a genetically heightened risk of postpartum hemorrhage and changes in different liver enzymes related to hemorrhage in this population. I think that's really awesome and validating. The Nanets have a postnatal walking tradition and the Sami mothers might immediately join a hunt traditionally. And then we see ritual cleansing after birth throughout the region. Nanets may undergo a ritual chaga wash and an herb smudge for both of the dyad as cleansing. Others may sweat, others may steam. And finally I'll close with blessings and prayers for the baby. There's been a resurgence among indigenous women and birthing people in reclaiming tattoos, which are traditionally bestowed for various rites of passage. And so we see facial tattoos being sewn into the skin for womanhood. And we see thigh tattoos being inscribed on the legs to honor motherhood. And that's so that the first thing the baby sees upon entering the world is beauty. To mark the birth, the Nanets say we managed to catch the running child. And they also rename the mother as well as the child. And in many of the Inui cultures, the baby is given an ancestor's name in order to honor the belief that babies carry the ancestor's spirit into the future. And so this final image is really, I think, one of my favorite in terms of illustrating our work that we're doing in promoting the rebirth of ancient knowledge in a modern world. And I hope to leave that with you today. I hope to leave you with a reminder that relating across cultures and that advocating for indigenous reclamation of birth, that acknowledging the ongoing traumas of colonialism, need not be an obstacle for us in the delivery of care, but it does require intention and humility. And so it's an opportunity, a challenge to all of us, and it's an extension of what we do every single time we manage to catch the running child. We hold the future and this ancient knowledge both in hand. We honor, we educate, we advocate. And as midwives, we always wonder, is there anything I can do to subvert the dominant paradigm today? Thank you. Here is my info. Of course, I can give you references upon request and please let's open up the floor. I welcome any questions and especially additions, corrections and other feedback. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lizzie. One of the questions in the comments is from Peggy and it says, I'm used to working with the Sumi in Norway. They usually do not give birth at home. Which time are you talking in your research? Peggy, thank you. This research is mostly traditional practices. So when we're looking at sort of pre-colonial periods and when we're looking at this idea of reclaiming ancient ways of knowing, the practices that have been ushered out with the advent of modern medicine and the influence of colonialism. And so I would love to hear more about your experiences because of course this is what I'm finding in my own searching in my own conversations. So thank you. And then let's see. Hannah says that was a fantastic talk, Lizzie. Are there any other questions? You can ask either verbally or put it in the chat. I think I mostly have my hype team here. That's just saying hi to me. Hi guys. Thank you everybody. I'm so excited. And of course, since this is recorded and this is just the beginning of this awesome whole conference that we are doing over the next 24 hours. My email, I'll put that in the chat is emj62atgeorgetown.edu. And so anyone who's listening down the line, please feel welcome to reach out and we can have some conversations.