LIVE: Los Angeles County Officials Hold Press Conference on Wildfires (Jan. 11)

It's not there yet. They've been holding the line. Yeah. That's the, that's the here. So, second paragraph. Yeah, yeah. Have you? Close? Okay. Thank you. Where do you want this? Here? Yes. Actually, I want to do it. Yeah. Well, wait one second. And work out. I know. Yeah. Thank you all for joining us. Thanks for our morning press briefing. You're going to keep, we're going to keep these morning remarks brief, and we'll open up with questions at the end. I'd like to welcome up our first speaker, Director of Office of Emergency Management, Kevin McGowan. Thank you, Supervisor, for the introduction. I'd like to share some important announcements about the county's emergency alert system and the progress that we've made with our partners in addressing the alerts that have been going out in error. Late yesterday afternoon, we distributed a press release that details some of the immediate improvements that are now taking place. Copies of this press release are available at the front of the room. First, we have made an initial determination that the erroneous alert that went out the first time on Thursday from the Emergency Operations Center was indeed correctly targeted to the right recipients. We believe that the problem occurred in the software system that accidentally blasted this alert countywide rather than to the targeted recipients who needed to get the information to safely prepare to evacuate. As we drill down with our vendor to establish the root cause and apply corrective measures, we are taking the immediate step of changing our alert and notification system to partner with the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services and the State Alert and Warning Center. The county's Emergency Operations Center is already tied in with the state's Operations Center and can actively issue emergency notifications in coordination with the state utilizing the state system. Second, on the issue of the echo alerts that continued to go out countywide yesterday after the first erroneous alert was corrected, we've been working tirelessly with FEMA, the FCC, the state, and our region's telecommunications providers, and we've made the preliminary determination that the echo alerts happened as cell towers came back online after they were knocked offline due to this disaster. The outdated alerts were cached in the system and as they came back online, started being released to the public. We are very grateful to our federal and state partners who are working with the cell phone providers to make sure that all of these outdated alerts are flushed from the cell phone towers so that this ceases. We believe this process is largely complete and we are working with our federal partners and the providers to ensure that there is not a reoccurrence of the alerts going out in error. This has been frustrating, unacceptable, and the public is in the most need of accurate information and we are moving forward rapidly to reestablish that. Finally, the press release spells out some of the immediate improvements that we are concurrently making to establish a more robust multi-layered notification system. We are enhancing 211 call network to respond to the public's urgent need for information. Technology can be great. These emergency alerts helped us evacuate hundreds of thousands of people in immediate life safety measures. We have undoubtedly saved lives. But the last couple of days have also reminded us that technology is vulnerable to the impacts of a disaster, especially unprecedented ones. So I will close by reminding everyone in the public, please, for your safety, the safety of your family and friends, to receive emergency alerts, you can sign up for our local program which will be utilized by the state by going to Alert L.A. County. These are customized alerts, they are different than the wireless emergency alert. When you sign up, you can put landlines, your cell phone, you could receive text and email messages. Go to LACounty.gov slash emergency to sign up for Alert L.A. County. With that, thank you, and I'll introduce Fire Chief Anthony Maroon. So good morning. I will be providing an Eaton Fire update. The fire is now estimated to be 14,117 acres with 15% containment with over 7,000 structures damaged or destroyed. We have 2,832 personnel assigned to the incident and it is static at this time. Elevated to critical fire weather conditions are predicted to continue through Wednesday. Moderate to locally strong Santa Ana winds will affect Los Angeles County and today, tomorrow, and then again on Monday through Wednesday. L.A. County fire will be prepared. These winds combined with dry air and dry vegetation will keep the fire threat in Los Angeles County high. I would like to take this moment to express my gratitude to Board Chair Supervisor Katherine Barger, along with Supervisor Horvath, but also to all of the boards of supervisors for their support of my personnel on my department and me as a department head and fire chief. To our first responders battling these wildfires from the air and ground, we recognize and commend their tireless dedication in protecting residents and properties. And finally, to our residents, please rest assured that we will continue to battle these wildfires until they are fully contained. We stand alongside all of you as we begin to plan for the repopulation, the recovery, and the rebuilding. I would now like to invite up Todd Hopkins, Unified IC, CAL FIRE Incident Management Team for the Palisades Incident. Good morning. The Palisades Incident is now at 21,596 acres and 11% contained. It is being in unified command with CAL FIRE Incident Management Team 2 coordinating the efforts. Ground crews and aerial assets work through the night in the Mandible Canyon area, creating containment lines and protecting structures, continuing a full suppression effort. Approximately 100 engines were surged into that area for direct suppression efforts and for structural defense. Six night-flying helicopters were utilized all night, and additional night-flying resources were also ordered. There was an approximate 1,000 acres in growth last night in the Mandible Canyon area. Early estimates from an aerial reconnaissance indicate approximately 5,316 structures have been destroyed. And please, what I want you to remember is that structures does not mean homes. Structures can be homes, outbuildings, RVs, automobiles, or other types of things like sheds or outbuildings. Damage inspection teams have been in the field surveying properties. As of this morning, it was confirmed 426 homes have been destroyed. We still have over 105,000 citizens that have been evacuated. There is a fire weather watch being issued for the next 72 hours. And tonight, there will be a community meeting at Calvary Westlake Church at 6.30 p.m. tonight. The address for the meeting is 5495 Villa Rocas in Westlake Village. And next, I would like to introduce LA County Sheriff Robert Luna. Thank you and good morning. So this morning, our staff at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has increased to approximately 700. We continuously bring people in. We've shifted to 12 on, 12 off shifts in patrol. And we will continue to reevaluate that as the needs come up. We continuously bring people in. We've shifted to 12 on, 12 off shifts in patrol. And we will continue to reevaluate that as the needs come up, not just in our area of responsibility, but the entire county of Los Angeles and our partner law enforcement agencies' needs. Just to reiterate our mission and so that hopefully everybody understands. An evacuation order versus warning. And I want to put this out to our community, some of them who have been significantly impacted. And we're trying to have as much empathy as we possibly can, but safety does come first. I would like to reemphasize that an evacuation order is a mandatory directive for residents to leave the area immediately due to imminent danger. Wildfire, floods, anything of that nature. Failure to heed our warnings can put individuals at risk and potentially interfere with emergency response efforts. You've heard me say it the last couple of days. Every miraculous story of a rescue or tragedies that we're encountering, the majority are people who did not heed the warning to leave or the order to leave. Failure to heed these warnings. I already talked about that. Evacuation warnings are precautionary alerts informing residents that they should be prepared to evacuate as the situation may worsen. So you've got to be ready to go. A lot of people are coming back saying, hey, I need my medicine. Please try and remember, and I know it's chaotic, it's stressful, it's not easy. Important paperwork, your medication, your pets, maybe supplies for your pets, those kind of things, have those ready to go. While it's not mandatory, it's strongly advised to prepare to leave the area to make other arrangements. Please understand the decisions to evacuate or issue warnings are not made lightly. I have been at command posts or other venues where they're talked about very seriously. We do not want to inconvenience people that we don't have to, but there's always a top priority. Is your life in danger? That's what the priorities are made for. Many orders have been downgraded or lifted related to the Eaton fire, such as Glendale, La Crescentia, much of Pasadena, Monrovia, La Canata Flintridge, Arcadia, and some in Sierra Madre. We continue to reevaluate these areas and we will adjust when the time is appropriate. Overall, evacuations for the Palisades, Eaton, Hearst, Kenneth, and Lydia fires, numbers are both for the county and city area. Evacuation orders are approximately at 153,000 residents that are under the evacuation orders and approximately 57,000 structures are still at risk. Regarding evacuation warnings, approximately 166,000 or a little over 166,000 residents are under evacuation warnings. I'm going to switch now to the curfew order that we have in place. A curfew order was established for the Palisades and Eaton fire areas in all mandatory evacuation zones that will be in effect from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice. That is something else we continuously will be evaluating. This curfew will be strictly enforced and is being taken to enhance public safety, protect property, and prevent any crime, specifically burglary or looting, in areas where residents have been evacuated. Many times when we're trying to evacuate people, their number one concern is, is somebody going to break into my house? They shouldn't have to worry about that because they're worried about so many other things. This is trying to assist them. We ask that all individuals comply with the curfew and stay clear of the affected zones unless you are authorized personnel or emergency responders. We have people driving up and around trying to get in just to look. Stay away. Anyone found in violation of this curfew will be subject to arrest for a misdemeanor offense under the county code and conviction may result in a fine of $1,000 or jail. We understand that this is extremely stressful and absolutely challenging, but we appreciate our public's cooperation, our community's cooperation as we work together to get through this crisis, and we will do it together. National Guard deployment. We have roughly 400 National Guard members deployed around the region that are assisting not only us, but our partners at the Los Angeles Police Department, Pasadena Police Department, Santa Monica Police Department, Asusa Police Department, Arcadia and Sierra Madre Police Departments. They're assisting with road closures and critical infrastructure missions. I want to switch now to arrest and criminal activity. These numbers fluctuate and they do change. In total, we have made 22 arrests between the Eaton Palisades fire, 19 arrests in the Eaton area and three in the Palisades area. All these individuals were in areas they were not supposed to be there, meaning they had no business being there. Of the four arrested last night, two were arrested for unauthorized entry of emergency area. Basically, we had two arrests for curfew violations. You heard me say it yesterday. We've directed our deputies that under these circumstances, if you get arrested for a curfew violation, you are not going to be cited and released. Those two individuals were actually booked at stations. I'm just letting you know, you go out there and you violate this curfew, you are going to spend time in jail. You're not going to get cited and released. I want to make that very clear. Most of the arrests were made for burglary, looting, including trespassing, possession of narcotics, identity theft, and one suspect was on active parole and charged with the possession of a concealed firearm. These are the kind of folks that our deputies are encountering, stopping, investigating. Some of them need to arrest. Some of them don't. These did. Switching gears on you again, something that we're starting to do this morning, search and rescue task force. Through unified command, the department has committed 40 members of its specialized search and rescue teams to work jointly with our partners at Los Angeles County Fire, Urban Search and Rescue Team, the Coroner's Office for LA County, FEMA, the Office of Emergency Services, and the use of cadaver dogs to search for remains and reunite families. They will conduct systematic grid searches that will commence this morning to locate missing persons and reunite families. Due to safety concerns, we are unable to safely search the impacted areas during the hours of darkness. So this will only be taking place while there's light. We will be staffing a joint family assistance center at 300 East Green Street in the city of Pasadena from 9am to 6pm. People will be greeted by deputies along with providing them with additional resources that they may need. If our residents need to take a missing report, our deputies will do that at that point. I encourage you, if you believe somebody's missing, go there, talk to the deputies. We will assist you in any which way that we can. Regarding deaths at this point, and again, this information continues to change. Be patient with us. We have confirmed 11 deaths in our jurisdiction. Again, that does not include LAPD and Pasadena. This is just LA County Sheriff's area of responsibility. Eight in the Eaton Fire and three in the Palisades County area. We also have reports for 13 missing individuals. Are those related or not? Maybe, maybe not. We hope to find everybody safe. We want to bring closure to the families. Family assistance centers are open to provide information to people looking for missing and family and friends, and they will be comprised of the Office of Emergency Management, Sheriff's personnel, Los Angeles Police Department, Red Cross, Medical Examiner, and the Department of Mental Health for the County of Los Angeles. These centers will provide information to families and victims regarding this mass casualty event. A couple of other things, and I'll wrap up here. I know it's a lot of information, but there's a lot going on and we're really, really busy. Donations. We talk about arrests. We talk about the sad things going on, but I got to tell you, I have been getting a ton of phone calls and inquiries from good people who want to help. They want to donate. So they want to help the people impacted in the disaster. If you are in a position to be able to lend support to countless people who have been left with little or nothing, please contact the Emergency Network of Los Angeles by visiting www.enla.org. The last two things more. One, if you haven't heard, we were scheduled to have an NFL playoff game here Monday night at SoFi Stadium, the Rams versus the Vikings. The decision was made to move that game. It is now going to be taking place in Glendale, Arizona. I'd really like to thank the NFL and Stan Kroenke, the owner of the Rams, who looked at the situation and understood that that would be a draw on more resources, both from the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, the Englewood Police Department, L.A. County Fire and other law enforcement partners. We're in the crisis. Those resources need to go elsewhere. Last thing I will mention is if you need more updates on evacuations or road closures, please visit LACounty.gov slash emergency. And with that, I will now be introducing Board Chair Supervisor Catherine Parker. Thank you, Sheriff Luna. Yesterday morning, the federal government declared a federal public health emergency. And in alignment with the federal government, Los Angeles County Public Health has done the same. Among other things, this emergency will assist with staffing ratios at our medical facilities, both residential and at our hospitals, and ensure displaced residents have access to the necessary medications and prescriptions. In addition, there will be a focus on the health and safety of our first responders to ensure that they remain healthy while they are protecting our communities. All of the emergency proclamations I have signed as the chair of the board, along with our local public health emergency declaration, will be ratified on Tuesday in our motion that I have co-authored with Supervisor Lindsay Horwath. We have received an overwhelming amount of support and outpouring of assistance from all corners of the county, state, and quite frankly, the nation. It is paramount that we appropriately harness and utilize these resources to maximize the benefit to the impacted residents to address their most immediate needs. And let me go off script for a minute. Last night when I got home, one of my dear friends lost everything and I went on the GoFundMe page that was set up by his family. And I was shocked to find out that to give $500, they were going to charge me $95. So I'm going to be reaching out to the CEO of GoFundMe to find out if at the very least they can cut the cost in order to ensure that the money goes directly to the family. I think it's important for us to recognize that I know it's a company and they deserve to be able to pay for their overhead. But at the same time, we are in a crisis. These families are suffering. So again, I'm going to be reaching out to the CEO of GoFundMe to ask him to at the very least slash the amount of money that's costing to give to people in need. To that end, with the fact that we are looking at how to best harness and utilize these resources, a motion which is going to be coauthored by Mr. Horvath is going to include a directive to our Chief Executive Officer to immediately work on the development, oversight, and draft parameters of a fund to be managed by a third party fiscal sponsor to provide flexible spending that supports the most impacted individuals in the communities that have been devastated by these fires. On that note, I also want to take a moment to emphasize to our constituents that we will be here during the recovery process every step of the way. I've talked to people that want to know when they can begin to rebuild. I'm directing our county departments to set up local assistance centers for residents who've lost their homes. These will be one-stop shops for resources on the ground and in the community. We are here for you and we will be here for you throughout the entire time it takes to restore our neighborhoods impacted by the fires. We are going to rebuild LA and we're going to rebuild it in a timely fashion. Lastly, I want to mention an important resource for those who've been displaced and in need to begin the claims process. All our LA County libraries and their staff are available for displaced residents to use computers and internet access to complete the FEMA and Assessor claim forms. We have also engaged the Assessor to provide a warm line for the library to get questions quickly answered and resolved for residents. I continue to work with FEMA to address the problem that has occurred when people apply and they check the box that says they have insurance. Their claim is automatically denied. FEMA is aware of this glitch and is working to correct it. As soon as we get an update, I promise you we will provide that information. But I encourage everyone to go to any one of our libraries or go online if you have access to a computer to begin the claims process with FEMA. And if you have any issues, be patient. We are working day and night to make sure that we get you the answers. With that, I would like to turn it over to my colleague, Supervisor Lindsay Horvath. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate your strong, clear, and resolute leadership in this time of crisis. I know that people are concerned, and the united partnership of everyone standing here this morning is essential to ensuring that everyone remains safe and that we are able to move forward towards recovery in a united fashion. L.A. County had another night of unimaginable terror and heartbreak, and even more Angelinos evacuated due to the northeast expansion of the Palisades Fire. I want to thank all of you who have and are swiftly evacuating. Your cooperation is essential to keeping you, your loved ones, and our first responders safe. The evacuation order from last night includes Sunset Boulevard north to Encino Reservoir from the 405 Freeway west to Mandeville Canyon. The evacuation warning area is the south border is Sunset Boulevard east, Bellagio Road, Roscomare Road north, Mulholland Drive, and west 405 Freeway. On the south, Mulholland Drive and Sepulveda Boulevard, east 405, north Ventura Boulevard, and west Louise Avenue. And this area includes the Encino Reservoir. New evacuation shelters are now open in Van Nuys and Canoga Park to provide immediate support for those who've been displaced, including our veteran community from the north VA campus. Overnight, the American Red Cross and field teams from every city, county, state, and federal district were mobilizing on the ground to help move safely our evacuated residents into safety. It was simply astonishing seeing people come together in these wee hours to protect our residents. I want to thank those who are on the front lines who work tirelessly to respond to fires that threaten our Topanga community. The past two days, including aerial support and boots on the ground, your swift actions have made incredible difference for our residents. And this focus has been necessary, critical, and impactful. I specifically want to thank Chief Maroney, Captain Drew Smith, and Captain Jen Cetu for your partnership in making Topanga a top priority and firefighting efforts. In response to the ongoing fire, we've declared a local health emergency, as the chair shared, and this is effective countywide. This also includes prohibiting the use of power air blowers, which can spread harmful ash and smoke particles. And the motions that Supervisor Barger indicated also include a funding program for those impacted. We know that while we are fighting on the immediate term, we also know longer term we have to start getting those systems in place. We are hearing the concern from our residents that we won't be able to move swiftly. So we are working in a coordinated fashion to ensure the systems that need to deliver for our residents are working together and that we are securing the resources to swiftly get them to our residents. We're also urging residents to avoid ocean waters from Surfrider Beach to Dockweiler State Beach due to contamination caused by the fires. Please prioritize your health and follow these guidelines. Also, as Chair Barger mentioned, we introduced a local proclamation of emergency to be ratified at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday. This will also cut through red tape so county departments can respond more effectively, give Cal OES the ability to provide recovery assistance under the California Disaster Assistance Act, and unlock critical state and federal resources. At my request yesterday, Senator Schiff reached out to Secretary Mayorkas and FEMA to investigate the emergency alert issue that Director McGowan spoke about. And I want to thank the Senator, the Secretary, FEMA, and the White House who communicated directly their immediate partnership with us to diagnose and address the telecommunication errors. We know this issue is serious. It is frustrating. It has added chaos to an already catastrophic crisis. Some mobile carriers have confirmed that the issue is cleared on their systems. We are waiting for that confirmation from additional mobile carriers, and we will continue to fix this issue. I know these are incredibly challenging and devastating times for our community, but I want to remind everyone, we are here for you. You see partnership in every shelter, incident command post, and across our resilient and beautiful county. Together, we will rebuild and recover. Remember, all mandatory evacuation orders and warnings, in addition to all emergency information, can be found at emergency.lacounty.gov. And some of the statistics that you've heard on arrests and acreage and others are focused on the statistics that L.A. County provides. We also know that our local partners in the City of Los Angeles, City of Pasadena, City of Santa Monica, and others have their additional statistics as it relates to arrests and the work that they are doing on the ground. We are working in a unified command situation, and we want to make sure that the information we are providing you is accurate. We appreciate our partners who are working with us collaboratively to ensure the safety of all. Please continue to check and follow all evacuation orders for the safety of you and your loved ones. Thank you. We also want to recognize a few individuals that have joined us at today's press conference. We have with us State Board of Equalization Chair, Antonio Vasquez, and also Senator Ben Allen. And we are also joined this morning by U.S. Fire Administrator, Dr. Lori Moore Merrill. Thank you for being here. We will now transition to question and answer with the press. Does anyone have a question? And oh, sorry. This is for the Sheriff. Some communities that have been closed off, such as Altadena, are letting residents back in to collect important items from what remains of their homes. They were told that they'd need to present important paperwork to get back in, but some residents we've spoken to say that they lost those documents in the fire. What should those residents do to get back to their homes? Well, number one, I feel for anybody who was impacted by this event. So I would recommend that they go to the Family Assistance Center that we've set up. I can give more information at the end about the location. I think I gave the address sooner, but please go there, engage our employees, and I can assure you we will do everything we can to assist them. With their critical needs, but I do want to repeat something. I know people are frustrated. Any of us would be frustrated if you want to get back to your own home. When we say you can't do this, it is based on their safety and the safety of others trying to get in and out. So be patient with us. As soon as we can get people safely back in, it will be a top priority for us. Thank you for the question. Right here in the middle. And please, when you're asking your question, if you can state your name and which media outlet you're with. Simon Bowie, CBS Network News. A couple of questions. In the days in advance of the catastrophe on Tuesday, the event was described as a potentially life-threatening event with catastrophic potential outcomes. I'm curious to know if there were any efforts taken on behalf of county officials, especially in advance of the event, to request assistance from other municipalities throughout the state or other states in general to send fire apparatus to us. Was that done? Yeah, thank you for your question. So yes, I've communicated at the previous press conferences the actions that the LA County Fire Department took in advance and during this fire siege. We did communicate with state agencies. We did communicate with our region partners. We communicated with the LA County Fire Department. We did upstaff the department. We did pre-position resources. As a matter of fact, on Tuesday morning, the 7th, prior to 7 a.m., I gave permission to hold over the off-going shift of the County of Los Angeles Fire Department. Every day, we staffed 900 firefighters throughout our communities out of 176 fire stations. And at 7 a.m. or thereabouts, we held over the off-going shift, and we've now had a firefighting force of 1,800 firefighters. We staffed all available reserve apparatus prior to the start of the Palisades fire. I did everything in my power to make sure that we had enough personnel and resources before the first fire started. I alerted my board via memo regarding the situation prior, and on Wednesday, I recalled all LA County firefighters back to work. Not only two shifts, all three shifts. I was the one that made the call to the state office of emergency services. I requested 250 additional engine companies consisting of 1,000 personnel. The state OES went to outside states, the western United States, for additional resources to be brought into California, to be brought into LA County. We have national and international firefighters. Mexico, Canada, all of our surrounding states are here right now fighting this fire. So it wasn't for a lack of preparation and decision making that resulted in this catastrophe. It was a natural disaster. Thank you, Chief Moroni. I just want to add from the law enforcement side, and really from the county family side, and I'm going to start off by really talking about Kevin McGowan, who's back here, because he's our director of office of emergency management. And he had all county departments on a phone call as we were getting the weather updates. And as we were getting them, they were getting worse. So obviously, we did everything we could to plan for the worst. I don't think any of us anticipated it was going to be this bad. And as you see, we're making history here. And not all for the right reasons, right? From a weather perspective, climate perspective, and all those things. But from the law enforcement perspective, we made sure that we had our resources in place. I was on the phone with the chief of the office of emergency services for the state. We were in communication with the California Highway Patrol. We were already putting things in place, along with our other partner law enforcement agencies in LA County, which includes my multi-daily conversations with Chief Jim McDonald from the Los Angeles Police Department. So there were a lot of things going on, a lot of moving parts. But remember this, for anybody who's watching, we weren't dealing with one fire. We weren't dealing with two fires. We were dealing with multiple incidences all around our county. And I got to tell you, from a first responder perspective, we're still answering 911 calls. We are still responding to people who are asking for help throughout the entire county of Los Angeles. So I just like to throw this out. And you're going to ask tough questions. We need to answer those tough questions. But man, I'm telling you, I am so proud. And I could speak from the policing side of it. Our deputy sheriffs, because most of them haven't had a day off. Most of them haven't seen their families. But they're out there. I've run across many of my employees who have tears in their eyes because they're seeing the devastation. And it's impacting them. It's impacting their families. Not to mention, I've spoken to at least four of my employees who have lost their houses, total losses. And I'm getting more of that every day. So I just want to throw that out as we're talking about our preparedness and what we're doing and next steps. This event is unprecedented. And I'm really proud to be part of this county family and the partnerships that we have in the region and the state. I believe our mutual aid systems are second to none in the entire United States. Can I just add one thing on that? And Chief Moroney, you touched on it. I was at the Rose Bowl yesterday. And that is the command center where all the different agencies bring our position. And I had the opportunity to talk to firefighters throughout the state from Cal Fire, but also from Kern County, from Santa Clara. And they were talking about the fact that this is a year-round situation. And they stand ready at a moment's notice to drop everything. And they commit to what I was told, 14 days at any incident. So this is an example of mutual aid. But this is going on constantly. And we are always prepared. And to Chief Moroney's point, even before this fire broke out, they were preparing, knowing that the Santa Ana winds were coming. So we were prepared for what we believe to be a very dire situation. And so I also want to thank you, Chief Moroney, because you did alert us. And you had an all-hands-on-deck working with the sheriff. So I just want to make that point clear. Thank you, Supervisor. Follow-up. Did you have a follow-up question? Over here. Hi, Morgan Windsor with ABC News. My question is for Sheriff Luna. Can you provide an update on the ongoing investigations into the fires, into the cause of the fires? And also, are you able to share what potential ignition sources investigators are looking into right now? Yes. As I stand here right now, from the last update I have, it is still absolutely an extremely active and fluid investigation. And what I mean by that is not only do I have assigned detectives working on the multiple fires, but we are working in collaboration with LA County Fire, LA City Fire, the Los Angeles Police Department, the FBI, and the ATF. And they are meeting as we speak. And I can tell you this, that we don't want any gaps in information. Any and every clue is important. And it does give me an opportunity at this point to say this to all of you. If anybody out there has any information on anything suspicious, maybe there's a conversation, maybe there's a social media post, something that you think just doesn't sound right, get it to us. We are not going to leave any rock unturned if this is a criminal act. If. I'm not saying it's going to be. If it is, we need to hold whoever did this or groups responsible. But we're not there yet. This could have been caused by other causes. But everything is absolutely on the table. One last question here. Hi, Kirsten with KCAL News. Clarification on the alert system. Is it required for residents to go online and sign up, but there's no automatic alert? I mean, some people don't have power or access to the Internet to do that process. Will they be automatically notified at all if they are in that zone? Yes, the system that we're partnering with the California Office of Emergency Services still has the ability to issue wireless emergency alerts through their process. That is the push notification that goes to cell phones. If people have that right now, the best way, if you don't have access to sign up directly with through the Internet on to the alert system, would be to call 211 and get assistance through that source. Thank you. That's the end of our press conference. To be clear, if I may, I just want to be clear. You don't have to sign up. You'll get the alerts automatically. Anything that you want. In addition, I think what Director McGowan is saying is any clarification that people need, you can go online. If you can't go online, you can call 211. But the alerts are automatically being sent. And you also can't unsubscribe, which is, I know, been frustrating for people too. They want to shut the alerts off as they've been disturbing through that repetitive process. Thank you for that. Thank you for joining us today. That's the end of our press conference. See you tomorrow at 08.