Authorities providing update on Airport Fire burning in Trabuco Canyon, Orange County.

Orange County Fire Authority Orange County TJ McGovern from the Orange County Sheriff's department will be assistant Sheriff John mola from the Cleveland National Forest will be speaker will be the mayor of Santa Margarita Rancher Santa Margarita Carol gamble so I'm going to introduce deing of the airport fire that we currently have going on so this afternoon at approximately 1:04 p.m. our emergency command center re Crews arrived on scene they reported a Halfacre vegetation fire on both sides of the road all that included our aircraft service also provided resources to assist additional uh resour ources to help from outside of our County to our neighboring counties and to our region the night and for the canyon uh as we see behind us uh in unified command with uh Orange County Sheriff's department and also the United States Forest Service that uh person was also transported and treated to have approximately 1,000 firefighters on scene through the night and into the the next couple of days and no properties for being in unified command with us I'd also like to thank the community to respond to this fire our role in a fire incident is to assist currently we have road closures at the following locations a Drive Plano trbo Road and Robinson Ranch Road Road Antonio uh mandatory evacuations have been of voluntary evacuation warnings are in effect for the following area and Dove Canyon and the community of Rancho cello Reception Center at the following location Bell Tower Regional branch of Santa Margarita and the Red Cross will be available evacuated residents large animal shelter has been established the city of Costa Mesa to evacuate the horses for any updated emergency messaging and including a map of the evacuation area please visit OC sheriff. for fire and this is aot reminder that if residents haven't signed up for the alert OC they can sign up for alert OC and get messaging at Alert oc.com in closing I'd like it's important if you live in the area to be prepared to evacuate and I want to thank again the community to welcome Cleveland National Forest District Ranger Daryl Vance the uh Federal response on this fire um we really appreciate the uh we quick to assist with a a good initial attack response um as folks are aware this is one of three major fires burning in the Southland and and so um our resources uh were available and we were we jumped on this as soon as we could uh currently this is burning towards the uh generally the footprint of the uh 2018 Holy Fire and um obviously uh we don't want to make predictions on on what we think it's going to do but um we have high hopes that that's going to assist us with a prior burn scar as as folks have noted uh we have a number of resources on the Fire currently um fortunately as far as we're aware we uh do not have any UMES burned uh as of yet um but um the this fire has got a long ways to go before it's out and we do appreciate uh the patience at the community and we do ask that uh folks try and stay away from where the fire is being fought um we've got a number of gates that are closed and we ask that the members of the community respect uh that the uh the battle's ongoing I appreciate it uh from there I'd like to uh introduce uce uh Orange County Board of supervisor good evening and uh thank you all for coming out and helping us get the word out to the people of Orange County the folks that have come before me it is an all Hands-On deck situation and is working in coordination once we learned about this fire we stood at the county we've had opportunities to chat with Chief fennessy of OCA with Sheriff Barnes with men and women under their command I've even talked to uh uh Orange County congresswoman young Kim who like me represents this District she's pledged the support of the federal government and so we've got all layers of government involved and then I also had a chance to call Mayor gamble to make sure that if there's anything we can do we'll do it and so I will assure you from the Municipal level through the county on up to the state and the federal government we are on this doing what we can to protect life and limb out there in Orange County but the one thing that can most protect people is not the wonderful work of the men and women behind me it is the work of you out in the community to protect yourselves your families your loved ones your animals you heard about some of the evacuation orders some of them are not yet mandatory don't wait for a mandatory evacuation order if you're under an involuntary evacuation order please no those are not issued lightly that is the time to get going that it could happen there could be an evacuation order coming your way means get prepared figure out what you're taking how you're taking it the time to protect yourselves is now not when you get an emergency absolute order to evacuate because then you put yourself your loved ones your neighbors the men and women that are working to fight this fire all of them at risk and so to the community know that you've got some dedicated professionals here and know that they are counting on you to help do your part in protecting yourselves your property and most important your loved ones and so to the community I say as you heard from the sheriff check out alert OC go on to the sheriff's website go on to the Orange County Fire Authority's website follow me my website will be putting out information Aton Wagner CA keep yourself informed as to the progress of this fire what you can do to help these men and women help you that's the message that I'd like to drive home to the community Community it is our turn to protect ourselves and so now now is the time to figure out what you're going to do if you're in fact forced to get out I will at this time turn it over to the city of ranch of Santa margarit as mayor who has been on this on the Emergency Operations Center since the fire broke out to to gamble good evening ladies and gentle also a longtime serving board member of OCA so I'm supporting both Brands right now A of the Orange County Sheriff's department and the Orange County Fire Authority and our friends at calire and also my city staff under the leadership of our city manager Jennifer Cervantes for the coordinated and professional resp is probably your first scary and it's looks so bad however I want to tell you that I know every person standing here and that's because I've worked with them for years and they have worked with each other we do drills in anticipation of this type of event and so I hope that brings you a small amount of Peace for what I believe might be considerable anxiety as the previous speakers have mentioned the fire is moving away from us and I do want to say a few things first if evacuated and you you have animals in your home and you have been unable to retrieve them they're stationed right down the street here at the shopping center that are able to retrieve your animals from your home time they're doing this for us and for you and we're so appreciative of their efforts second it's extremely follow the direction of the sheriff's department and the Fire Authority when they ask you to leave please do so off the street please do so we need the streets clear so that we can get our First Responders to the fire and the people that we are evacuating and please stay tuned to the various websites I think Don did a great sorry supervisor Wagner did a great job outlining them this team will work all thank you mayor gamble we get deeper into the fire season when the Santa Ana winds pick up this is a your home and keep combustibles away from Windows and your roofs this could be a far different fire if we had Sant an wind so we do appre appreciate residents heating the wars when the sheriff's put out those evacuations these communities again so and also if the smoke bothers you please stay out of the air on but stay out of the smoke we're going to open up to questions right now and left right here and Pete if you want to start and we'll bring up if you would forward please space around the perimeter fire leading up to homes where go in there and prot Robinson Ranch they've done a very very good job in uh overa however the fire was coming over a couple ridges it was never an immediate immediate threat but we did have a ton of resources up there in that whole fuel modification from behind the residents to assist from that fire coming down into those backyards yep San dieago Peak the fire was making a run up to San dieago Peak we were working on getting Crews up there to protect the towers up there they were having some difficulty getting up there with the road a dirt road up there but what we did do we had our fixed Wing come in the fixed Wing aircraft and lay retardant down around the uh struct uh since since I've come up here there was no damage up there and the aircraft did a wonderful job by laying and down hours are at the top of Santiago Peak if anyone else wants to elaborate what exactly is up there are you guys air resources overnight and we're working on that our operations Chiefs are getting a plan uh if we're able to do it with the conditions we do have an important checklist ating that right now that's one as far as containment uh right now we have have zero containment uh we're hoping to get some small number out on the containment uh your third question was fire that OCA or any Fire Authority responds to we investigate all fires and our fire investigators were out there on the needed to be so the fire has been classified as unint cause of the fire was a spark from heavy equipment being used to replace barriers out there two employees from Orange County Public Works were utilizing heavy equipment to Place Large Boulders as barriers off truco Creek Road to rest began the planned work this morning around 7 a.m. after placing a loow of the loaders basket the operator and his supervisor used multiple fire extinguishers and the loaders to attempt to extinguish the fire while 911 was being called there were some additional Reports online that you had made requests for CED up or are we in aough situation now yeah so this time of year you know we always have fires burning up and down the state of California and that that's the we have such a robust uh Master Mutual Aid System where we help our neighbors and they uh neighbors and they will give us resources put in a large resource request a lot of those are getting filled uh outside of our County outside of our region it's our neighbors part of the master Mutual Aid System that is providing those assistance uh we have a lot throughout the night because if you remember we have all the firefighters out there right now and tomorrow we firefighters out so if you thinking about it the number of firefighters we have right now we probably need the same amount of firefighters tomorrow so that's why we have all these resources coming in this evening with many many orders being request our orders through we made it to where we had enough of difficult had smoke over there they couldn't actually see fire was burning I was looking at the there was no visibility at all they couldn't fly at all yep so our our new firehawks were on scene uh from an initial dispatch today they were doing theirs with a th000 gallons which was a significant assistance also Cal Fire brought in their fireh Hawk also to assist and we also had fix wi Dro multiple fix wi large Air Attack uh air tanker uh airplanes come in to assist been in situations where wind we had to ground them we did not have that situation and they fly around uh navigate through smoke that was not a barrier they were able to hit the flame this that the OC Public Works removing boulders to block access to vegetation can you expand what moving Boulders and what exact area yeah so I don't know the exact area but out TBO Creek Road they were moove maybe to prevent cars for going off or something just kind of doing barriers to keep out the people now and it's the fuels are getting to that point so we just don't want a lot of people in that vegetation unnecessarily it was it was principally motorcyclists that I'm told that they were trying to make sure couldn't get back there again because of the lands outside the Cleveland National Forest so a little bit different situation are we going to rock in a hard place here we have forward wild all of the uh neighboring agencies are interested in in um taking care of projects that uh assist both the natural lands and protect um whether that aligns with the the weather um done and um to the extent that we can we hope that we have all the resources in place to take care of the event uh to my knowledge uh there were two hikers that they were back in tribo Holy Jim Canyons but I don't have any details we just have time for a few more questions yeah there will be announcement the school district will be announcing that this evening for those residents yes went very well and there was um one person that had some smoke inhalation and he was also transported e e e folks try and stay away from where the fire is being fought um we've got a number of gates that are closed and we asked that the members of the community respect uh that the