Alright good morning everyone I'm Mark Gilarducci the Director of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services here in California welcome to the State Operations Center. Today we're going to provide you the most updated briefing on the latest and events and I believe that's some very encouraging efforts that are happening right now from across the state and nation to assist all of us on the front lines impacted by the major fires that are still currently burning in the state. The list of those impacted by the disasters is unfortunately growing with regards to the areas that are continuing to require evacuation. I want to speak directly to those people who have been impacted. All of us here in the State Operations Center and those involved in the massive response efforts to reach to these fires are thinking about you or our hearts go out to you those affected by the fires and we understand that lives have been changed forever by these events. This is difficult and we are dedicated of using every available resource to help you to help the communities and to help our first responders out there be able to mitigate the situation. We're going to get through this however the emergency is not over and we continue to work at it but we are seeing some great progress in some of the areas that the fires have impacted. You'll hear more about this when Director Ken Pemlock from Cal Fire briefs you in a minute. Today is Friday. It's the sixth day of these fires but we are still at it full tilt and we'll get ahead of these flames and preventing more loss of property and life throughout the weekend and into the next week and as long as it takes. Our priorities today, number one is firefighting and lifesaving, other public safety, law enforcement, public health, etc. We are watching carefully the wind conditions and it's a concern of ours as we move forward and not just here but throughout the entire state. Secondly, taking care of the thousands of those who have been evacuated and are hurting. Many more were asked to evacuate recently from Napa, Calistoga and other areas. Recovery assistance and implementing recovery programs what you'll hear more about from FEMA Regional Administrator Bob Fenton. Looking at what's needed for the long haul already working on the recovery strategy and implementing the strategy moving forward in the coming days. This is not a situation where we're going to wait for all of the fire to be out before we begin the recovery process. The recovery process will begin and it already has begun in getting ready to roll in to the communities have been impacted where we can. Currently there is an extensive effort going on doing damage assessment and getting a good situational awareness of what we need to do and the areas we need to get into first. Our focus includes individuals, businesses, NGOs, non-governmental organizations, tribal community groups and everyone else hit by these awful fires. Again, I have to repeat this because I it is really want to underscore it. We need to tell all those who are in this right now that we know you're hurting and that but we're not out of the firefight and we're doing everything to continue to protect you and respond to these fires. The operation will be non-stop here from the state operations center and across the state to pump new fire, law enforcement, medical sheltering and other resources into the county's local authorities attacking these fires. The mutual aid system in the state remains second to none and it is operating as design. As you know now we have received resources and personnel from any states including Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, Oregon and Arizona and we've also begun conversations with Utah, New Mexico and Idaho. We have 425 law enforcement officers and more than 9,000 firefighters, 840 fire engines from throughout California agencies and more than 170 engines from supporting states and our partners in the federal government. I'll say that beyond FEMA the US Forest Service has been engaged with us and has supplied many resources which you'll hear about shortly from Robert Baird from the US Forest Service who's going to speak to you shortly. Sheltering operations, we still have over 3,900 people in evacuation centers as late as last night and are about 40 and are about 40 percent shelter capacity. So we have about 43 shelters that are activated statewide for these incidents. They're roughly about 40 capacity. At least 40,320 meals have been served. 30,000 cots have been provided and more than 60,000 liters of water have been deployed through the strategic state staging areas. Those numbers don't include the huge response from our private sector partners including Rayleigh's, Nestle, Walmart, Airbnb, Dyson, Home Depot, Direct Relief International, AT&T and many others. Private sector partnership also coordinated embedded right here in the state operations center has been a phenomenal part. This is a community effort, public, private, non-governmental, the business community, everybody coming through together as a whole of community to respond to this incident. We have been able to restore power to 17,500 people yesterday which makes our current stand at about 29,500 people who are without power statewide. The 77 cell towers that were knocked out in the incident all but eight have been restored now and they're working very diligently to get those last eight up and operational. I want to say again that we're not out of this emergency, not even close. We continue to address the current and future needs. This includes those most at risk such as the elderly, the very young and those with access and functional needs. For those near and around the fires please listen to your local emergency services for possible more evacuations, shelter updates and road closures. This is via social media, this is via portable radio, your TV, they come to you in multiple means so please be attentive to those vehicles where that information could come forward. And if you're not in these areas driving around our state you'll see fire trucks and other convoys and resources responding please make way for them to get through. They are actively trying to get to the fires and you'll hear more about that from our Highway Patrol Commissioner Warren Stanley. So at this point I'm going to turn it over to Chief Ken Pamloff from Cal Fire for an update on the fire operations. Thank you director, good morning. So as of this morning we have 17 large fires for 221,754 acres that have burned since the beginning of the six-day fire siege director Gellar Ducci indicated.  And this accounts for a significant increase literally several thousand additional firefighters were deployed to the fire lines on these major fires over the last 24 hours. Talk a little bit about because it can be very confusing in terms of all these fires and how they're being organized. As I've said before, there are four complexes that all of these fires are being organized under. We talk a lot about the Central Complex which is now all of the fires in Sonoma County, the South Complex which are all of the fires in Napa County, the Mendocino Complex which are the fires in Mendocino County and Lake County, and then we have the Wind Complex which are the fires in Nevada, Butte, and Yuba. We have been focusing primarily on the Central and the South because that's obviously our highest priority fires where the greatest structure threat, infrastructure threat, and largest fires are. But I don't want to forget that we've got these two other complexes where firefighters have been doing some amazing work bringing some of these to containment and getting resources there with limited firefighting resources because we've been putting priority on these others. As of this morning, we continue with our law enforcement partners who continue the grim task of searching through the rubble and adjudicating the missing persons from this tragedy. As of this morning, the number of individuals killed by these fires stands at 31. As I've said before, we've all said that number continues to be fluid. We will provide those updates as they come in. There's a lot of different numbers that can be posted out there. Look for the official numbers that come through the system, through the Joint Information Centers, through your media folks as those are updated. We have had some significant progress, some good news to report here in the last 24 hours. Three smaller fires have been contained 100% including a fire in Sonoma County along Highway 37. We've increased containment on most of our major fires by some degree. The Tubbs Fire in the Central Complex is now 25% contained at 34,770 acres. The Atlas Fire in the South Complex is 27% contained at 48,228 acres. We're very careful and cautious about how we do this. Our first priority is putting the fire out, protecting lives and property, but right after that we're working very diligently to put together repopulation plans because it's very important for everyone, for all of you, to get folks back into their homes where it's safe and appropriate to do so. So all of the incidents are evaluating that right now and we hope to have news in the future to where that can be occurring and again that will be an ongoing process coordinating very closely with the utilities, with the counties, with local law enforcement and others. It's a very coordinated effort literally going block by block to render these communities safe and to ensure it's ready for habitation and we will be keeping everyone updated incident by incident with that information. So again, pay very close attention to your information through social media and others at the local incidents. Investigators are actively investigating the cause and origin of all of these fires. Literally in Sonoma County alone we have 20 cause and origin investigators combing the landscape working on that. We are not going to have a lot of extra information or additional information to talk about over the weeks to come as they go through this painstaking process. It's very technical, clues, information, all these things can be consumed in a fire. These experts have to go through and do a lot of work forensically to get there. So I'm going to continue to tell you that we can't talk about it. I don't even know what's going on out there because our investigators are working diligently on the ground. But trust me, we take that seriously and they're going to continue to work on that. As we indicated, resources continue to pour in from all over the country and internationally as Director Giller-Jucci indicated. But we're not out of the woods yet. Red flag warnings have been posted for tonight well into the weekend for not only the areas impacted in Northern California by existing fires but for a good portion of Southern California from Santa Barbara down the coast into Orange County. This will be, as we saw last weekend, very low humidities, very dry air and winds that could be in excess of 45 miles an hour over the existing fires as well as in Southern California. Traditional sundowner and Santa Ana type winds. We are preparing for this. We are moving resources. We are pre-deploying. We've established mobilization centers in Central and Southern California. These additional resources coming in 75 additional fire engines coming in from outside of California are being pre-deployed to these mobilization centers or sent to additional incidents as they occur. We are activating six Department of Defense or regular military helicopters. Three from the U.S. Navy, three from the Marine Corps. They'll be activated at North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego and they'll be activated with the Marine Corps through Camp Pendleton or Miramar. All of those will be pre-deployed and again available for the need should fires request them. We're also bringing other additional aviation assets, helicopters, air tankers and pre-deploying at our air attack bases and helitack bases across Central and Southern California. All of these resources will be nimble and they'll be prepared to deploy either back to Northern California should they be needed here or into Southern California very quickly should additional fires break out there. Public expectations and actions and director Geller Ducci mentioned that and let me just reiterate we're not out of this. We talk about this throughout every fire season. The same expectations of all of us continue. Right now we all need to be paying extremely close attention to all of the media reports including social media, radio, television if at any point folks feel uncomfortable with where they're at. Self evacuation is absolutely encouraged and recommended. It's always easier to leave the area before the fire occurs than to wait when the fire is bearing down on your home or your community to try to determine how you're going to get out. So everyone needs to be thinking right now no matter where you're at in California what is my evacuation plan? What am I going to take with me? How am I going to get out and be prepared to do that literally on a moment's notice. Not a half hour, not an hour. You need to be thinking about that in minutes. That's all the time individuals may have with these fast-moving and dangerous fires. I want to echo director Geller Ducci's comments relative to our hearts and thoughts are with everybody around California affected by these incidents. There's an amazing stories of neighbors helping neighbors. Everyone has been in this fight. We're not out of it. We're going to stick here and continue to engage until this is over no matter how long it takes and we're going to continue to provide resources no matter where we have to get them or what we have to do. With that I'd like to turn it over to commissioner of the California Highway Patrol Warren Stanley. Thank you chief and good morning. As the CHP as we move on in this endeavor right now we have approximately 160 people assigned to work these fires mostly traffic control some with escorts some with general law enforcement to prevent looting and some with some security details especially at the fairgrounds where our shelters are to protect those people. Also just a couple a couple of things I want to talk about for the public and it's been brought up director Geller Ducci brought it up. We have a lot of closures a lot of areas that are closed due to these fires and the things of that nature. We ask that the public we know you're concerned and you want to get down and get as much information as possible. We ask that you use social media trying to keep the public out of these areas because right now as we have a lot of assets coming in as director Geller Ducci talked about and chief pimmelot fire trucks utility personnel utility vehicles and we want to keep the roads open so they can get in and out as quickly as possible because as soon as we can get them in there they can help to mitigate the situation. Also we've been helping out some of the farmers and ranchers in the area of the fires they have large livestock at their farms and ranches and they're still there and we've been helping them get in into their farms and ranches so they can feed their livestock and that's been very important so we're working with them and the California Department of Food and Agriculture to do that. So with that as director Geller Ducci and chief pimmelot said we understand how this is affecting many many people in this area and also in Southern California and we will continue to work together as a group to mitigate this emergency and help people get back to normal. Thank you very much and I'd like to introduce the Bob Baird. He's the Fire and Aviation Director for the U.S. Forest Service. Hi good day my name is Robert Baird. I'm the Director for Fire and Aviation for the United States Forest Service for the for the Pacific Southwest region which is California and the Pacific Islands. We've been working together seamlessly with the state and local officials in mobilization of the firefighting resources to support the tragic and terrible fires and our hearts go out to all those who've had a significant loss of life and property. It's a terrible situation and we've been here to support. We're bringing in from the federal firefighters almost 4,000 of them to help augment the state and help assist them with the ongoing operations that are happening as Director Pimlock talked about. We're providing the resources of 12 elite hot-shot crews that are designed to go in some of the most demanding wildfire situations in the state as well as over 103 federal crews of 20 each that are out assisting on containing the fires that we have. In addition to that 266 federal fire engines are here to support the state with ongoing challenges that we have. In addition to the ground resources we have 15 large air tankers available in the state. That'll help across the state and that in addition to that two of the DC-10s the very large air tankers which assist with ongoing wildfires and we've brought up to speed a great deal of firefighting helicopters over 37 in support of this challenge. Additionally as we've moved up our preparedness level and gotten that many firefighters here to support all the operations that Director Garaducci and Chief Pimlock talked about. We too are concerned about the low humidity and high wind events that could happen in the future. As Director Pimlock talked about everyone needs to be prepared for a wind-driven wildfire that's very dangerous. We've upstaffed and mobilized a federal incident management team knowing that the state incident management teams are fully committed in Southern California so the event of a wildfire in Southern California occurs. We have a team postured to assume incident command there in support of this citizens of California. With that thank you I'll be followed by Bob Fenton the Regional Administrator for FEMA. Thank you. Let me first draw off by saying our hearts go out to those that have been affected by this event and have lost loved ones and homes during this event and we've been committed since the beginning of this event to help with the response to this event by coordinating the federal response and support of state and local government but we will also be committed through the recovery of this event no matter how long that takes. I'm happy to announce today that Solano and Orange counties were added to the original declaration by the president to provide assistance for debris removal emergency protective measures and direct federal assistance if other federal resources are needed there in addition to that yesterday the president added on individual assistance for Sonoma County last evening that allows us to start helping with individuals that were affected from these events and this morning Napa County has been added on in addition to that we're working as quick as we can to get teams into the other affected counties and the fires there as it's safe to do that to do further assessments to make decisions to turn on those counties for additional assistance and we'll work through those as quick as we could get in there and it is safe to do so we've gotten outstanding support from the National Guard to help us not only be able to augment our teams on the ground but to do assessments by air which has helped us in making decisions for Sonoma and Napa County. Let me just talk a little bit about what our individual assistance program is homeowners and renters in Sonoma and Napa counties who sustained damage to their primary homes vehicles and personal property as a result of the fires may apply for assistance disaster assistance may include grants to help pay for temporary housing to include rental and lodging expense emergency home repairs uninsured and underinsured personal property losses and medical dental and funeral expenses caused by the disaster along with other serious disaster related expenses. In addition to what FEMA provides through our individual assistance program other programs have now been brought from the federal government for example small small business administration's low interest disaster loans both for businesses private non-profit organizations and homeowners and renters. To access these programs we recommend that you go to and register at disasterassistance.gov again that's disasterassistance.gov web registrations are the fastest way to apply for assistance our call centers are open from 7 a.m to 10 p.m you can also phone our teleregistration number at 1-800-621-3362 again 1-800-621-FEMA or 3362 and ask questions operators can receive registrations in English Spanish and other languages and the reason why I'm recommending applying through disaster assistance.gov is you can imagine at this point we're managing disasters across the country and even though we've augmented our teleregistration intake by thousands of individuals over the last month that they are significantly stretched and so we recommend to go onto the website and register through our website again at disasterassistance.gov as it's the best way to register for assistance. When you register for assistance you'll need a social security card for one member of your household, a description of the damages and information about your insurance because disaster assistance does not replace insurance a current address where you can receive mail and contact details for bank information is helpful. Lastly we know you're eager to return home please put safety first and follow guidance for local emergency officials before returning home with that i'll be followed by general beavers from the National Guard thank you good afternoon once again our thoughts and prayers are with everybody throughout the affected areas we continue to pray for them on a regular basis we also continue to be extraordinarily well postured across the entire fire emergency area. To date we have 2100 personnel assigned to support Cal Fire, OES, FEMA and others and we continue to provide fire mapping for Cal Fire as well as provide damage assessments for FEMA. Today we'll have two of our modular airborne firefighting system equipped C-130s flying in support of the fires as well as eight rotary wing type one aircraft. We continue to provide traffic control points and support patrols throughout the counties of Mendocino, Solano and Napa. We also have opened our armories in Santa Rosa and Petaluma to support first responders and with that i think we'll take your questions. Well i wouldn't say that it's less concerned where we're certainly continuing to work closely with with the local sheriff's departments to drop that number down the fact is is that it will remain a concern until every last person is accounted for. I don't have any updates on the numbers this morning but we can all have a lot of things. Go ahead come up again and start with that. Well i wouldn't say a surprise these are the conditions that we've been talking about for several years now and that we've been experiencing for several years now. Two years ago the valley fired just to the north of these in in Lake County very similar conditions. The Butte fire in Calaveras County. These are the kinds of fires California is experiencing now and is going to experience into the future. Dry vegetative conditions, weather patterns that are changing. The enormity of this disaster we're only beginning to understand and i think it's how we go forward once we are done saving lives and as we're done putting these fires out and caring for people and moving on we're going to evaluate how these fires spread. We're looking at building construction. We're going to look at all those questions because we want to know are there more is there more that we can do in all of those areas. Right now the focus is life safety. Let's get people from out in front of these. Let's get these fires out and let's take care of the people that have been impacted. We're not scrambling. We are very well organized. We were briefed again this morning by the four incident management teams that i indicated today. They have very well organized deliberate plans and in those plans are very clear objectives and the resources are all being deployed based on those objectives and work's getting done. That's why you're seeing increase in containment. That's why you're seeing very deliberate trigger points for evacuations so that we are well ahead of if these fires change direction or increase in intensity. We'll know right where to place those evacuations and get people out of harm's way. Well it depends on access back in there to do the inspection. It depends on whether you have all the information but it can be a very quick process. And there's additional there's assistance that may be of it made available right away for example like transitioning shelter assistance in the days to come if they need help with hoteling and need to get out of a out of a shelter. And there's other assistance that could be provided to take care of some of the costs that they may have expended already for hoteling those kind of things. So the best thing to do is if you think your home got destroyed, if you're in the affected area is go ahead and phone them the number go to the email address and start the registration process and it could be a very quick process depending on you know whether you're able to provide all the information and ultimately will continue to work with you. You may get a some form of assistance up front only to get more assistance once we can get into an inspection of your house and see to what level the damage was. Well that's what I was talking about as far as recommending that everyone go on the web and apply to a disaster our disaster assistance site versus phone or tele-registration and the reason for that is even though we've expanded our call center capacity by thousands in the last month they're still handling millions across the country. And so the more that we can let the electronic system operate the quicker that you will get assistance. So our recommendation is go on to the website register there. There's a check list over here for disaster survivors that we've put up that they could follow and I recommend that you get it out to them and it will help them go through the process and apply for assistance. Can I also add just on the administrator's comments. Tomorrow in Santa Rosa we have a local assistance center that's standing up. That local assistance center is a place for people who have been impacted by the effects of the disaster to go to. That is at that one stop shopping location you have all your state agencies your federal agencies your non-governmental organizations and and they just go through there'll be opportunity there to register there'll be opportunity to get information what you need the DMV will be there they'll be able to give you new licenses right on the spot. We can handle your tax paperwork and any other kind of critical documents that may have been lost and the idea behind this local assistance center is to immediately get your process of getting that out of the way in the process of rebuilding your your losses in your life so this is this will be opening up and we're going to have numerous of these local assistance centers established in all of the counties that have been impacted by the fires as as the fires as the situation allows us to get those in there we're working with our local partners to do that but tomorrow there'll be a local assistance center opening up and will help with many of the things that the administrator is talking about. I yeah we'll get the address to you guys I don't have it on top of my head. As I was saying in addition to that we sent people to help registrate people at the shelters directly so to make it easy on them we're going to where those survivors are at to help them out. Don't have a answer to that right now we're we've been the governor has briefed multiple times a day and by the team here and is providing direction to all of us in in the insurance of of the appropriate response clearing any hurdles and and communicating with the White House and other elected leaders that are necessary in the overall response and recovery of this operation and so but as soon as he what the appropriate time you know one thing is getting in the way of there's a lot of moving parts to getting governor into this area he wants to focus on the firefighters and and the responders getting the job done and so when that happens we'll let you know thank you.


First service members away from family supporting the mission are those at home entertaining a house full of guests The holiday season can be a time of stress and depression Here are some tips to combat the holiday blues First try to stick to a budget before you go shopping for food or presents only spend what you have budgeted Sometimes the best thing you can do to bring yourself joy over the holiday season is thinking outside your own situation And doing something for someone else Donating to a charity in someone else's name Giving homemade gifts and starting a family gift exchange are all great alternatives to buying gifts If you can't be with the ones you love this year It's normal to feel down if you're feeling lonely seek out community or social events They can offer support Companionship and it's a good way to lift your spirits Most importantly make some time for yourself so you can come back to the mission refreshed