 For the record, tell me your name, title, rank, serial number, all that stuff. My name is Mark Nicholas Payson, Chief of Law Enforcement for the California Office of Emergency Services. Okay, and it's M-A-R-K-P-A-Z-I-N. Correct. All right. We're going beyond the blaze. Okay. Beyond the blaze. So today, listen, we know there's tons of mutual aid out there, but what doesn't get a lot of attention, if you will, or a lot of focus is the law enforcement side. So tell me, from your point of view, the way things sit right now with regard to law enforcement's mutual aid effort in all of these California wildfires. I got to tell you, the law enforcement role is so very important when these fires erupt. We understand that the fire personnel have to effectively suppress that fire, but to do such, you need the law enforcement part to ensure that there is proper ingress and egress in going to these fires. What happens here is that a lot of these small agencies, i.e. Lake County, Trinity County, very quickly deplete their personnel because they are relatively small agencies. Hence, California Office of, hence, hence, so the small agencies quickly deplete their personnel because the fire gets going, and next thing you know, evacuations, advisories, the whole plethora of issues that confront a law enforcement. What happens here, the California Office of Emergency Services on the law enforcement branch side then starts to facilitate mutual aid. At this point in time, we were in Lake County and Sheriff Brian Martin was so appreciative of all the law enforcement assets that were put together on this state side, Highway Patrol, Department of Fish and Wildlife, State Parks. We had Yolo County there. A lot of this stuff is not done in a vacuum, hence, when mutual aid call goes out, the entire law enforcement community chips in. Okay, so going back to the part where you were talking about ingress and egress, what does that, in what way does law enforcement contribute to that ability? When you have soft road closures, when you have hard road closures, somebody has to be there on the ladder, okay? Now you can put up a sign stating this road has been temporarily closed. That's only as good as the person that's going to effectively take that warning. There's going to be a time, and there has been, wherein we have to do hard road closures, which means a law enforcement person must be there. That that road is unsafe. We are evacuating. We have gone from advisory evacuation to mandatory evacuation. That takes personnel. That personnel is where the mutual aid system comes in on the law enforcement side. And it's very labor intensive. I was there as a young deputy out of Merced County. I understand what it takes when we had the big fire in the early 1980s in Tuolumne County. You have to knock on the doors. You have to be very polite. You have to explain what is going on. You can go ahead and do all the advisories you want, but people sometimes just don't understand how severe, how critical it is to leave your house. And I know the attachment to your residence. You're going to stay there. You're going to fight that fire. This sheriff of each county takes on a huge responsibility. That responsibility is then shifted over to those persons that came under the mutual aid compact that we have with all 58 sheriffs and those other local agencies. So when we bring these regions together, when we bring outside law enforcement agencies, they are working as an ancillary part of that sheriff's office, whether it be Lake County that we're working with right now, whether it be Trinity County or any prospective agency that needs our assistance in the future. So if you had to itemize just bullet points, what it is the law enforcement aspect of mutual aid does, you would start with facilitating evacuations. Then what? We would first ensuring that the public is saved, either through evacuations, ensuring a law, ensuring, these are the words, evacuations, but with those evacuations come a orderly process of which people are leaving their residence. They may have five minutes. They may have 15 minutes. We don't know, but we have to facilitate to ensure that they get down those, could be a large two lane road with proper areas to maneuver. It could be a small two lane road wherein people are going to get excited, start trying to pass each other. When the sheriff calls us, again, we are an extension of that sheriff for that county. And when we put out the evacuation notice, we have to make darn sure that everybody is safe when they leave their residence. Get what you can, but it has to be orderly. The other thing is too, the next question that we get, the next question that we always get, who's going to watch our house? If we're gone, if this family leaves, and they are putting their trust not only in the sheriff of that county, but also the law enforcement agencies that are there under the mutual aid. And we take that responsibility very, very seriously. Obviously, prior to my role here with Cal OES, being the sheriff of Merced County for those number of years, I understand that I am putting under the mutual aid guidelines a large trust in those allied agencies. But when we put on the badge, we're all on the same page. And we want to make sure that the evacuation is orderly, that those persons get out of their house safely, and that they are assured that the residence that they just left is going to be safe from looting or any type of ransacking. As you well know, there's a criminal element out there. They're going to try and take advantage of a situation. And there are times when these fires present an opportunity for criminal activity, and we want to make darn sure that we keep those roads closed, that we are very polite, that we are respectful, that if a person who has a proper identification wants to get back to their house upon being allowed to, via the sheriff of that county, that they are allowed such, that we do it in an orderly fashion. So the reason, in addition to safety of the homeowners, anybody who may be driving around that community, that the reason for those closures is to also protect the home while the homeowners are away? Exactly. You know, it's a cause and effect. You know, we want to make sure if there is a mandatory evacuations that people are assured that somebody isn't going to come right behind them and burglarize their residence. The other thing is too that the law enforcement branch has done is ensuring communications. You know, we have mobile communication satellite and trucks that we work closely with our Public Safety Communication Office. Right now, we are in Trinity County. We have facilitated that because of the, the fires have this, could disrupt, may disrupt, but we want to get ahead of the curve. And that's part of what the law enforcement branch does also. So there's a lot of moving parts on this. It's not only effecting safe and sane evacuations, ensuring that the roads are clear for ingress and egress for fire personnel and then the other type of emergency vehicles, excuse me. But we also facilitate communications throughout the region. And we have an excellent crew that does that and so we all work very closely together. Real briefly, let's talk about the Cal OES law enforcement contingent that is at the Rocky Fire that may be at any of the other fires. What can you tell me in terms of the number of people, anything along those lines? You know, it fluctuates from day to day. You know, when the Rocky Fire first hit, it started off as a small fire. It looks what, look what has occurred. It's just absolutely erupted. There's a number of personnel from, again, the Highway Patrol, state, state parks, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Yolo County, Mendocino County. For the, this for proper edification, California is broken up into regions. And so region two has been asked to come to the forefront to assist Lake County Sheriff's Office. Conversely, the fire in Trinity County has also blown up and we are working with region four and our assistant chiefs are busy working with all the allied agencies within their respective regions. Region four is compromised of Sacramento Sheriff's Office, a good partner in Sheriff Scott Jones. He is the regional mutual aid coordinator for this region. So right now we have Citrus Heights Police Department up in Trinity. We have Sac Sheriff's Office, Sacramento PD. So as Sheriff's and police chiefs can accommodate, we ensure that those persons and the law enforcement personnel are, get to that area and, again, I keep reiterating myself, but I just cannot emphasize how we have to make sure the community knows. We may be from out of the area, but we're there on behalf of your Sheriff of Trinity County, Lake County, any county in the future, because we want to be absolutely, positively, unequivocally sure that everybody is safe during this tragic times with these fires. There was something else to get a hit on and I'm not sure if you don't think it's something that you can or should answer just like that. Okay, sure. Have you guys or have you heard any reports of any incidents where a law enforcement officer has been involved in either the arrest or the apprehension or the restraint of someone who maybe was doing something they shouldn't have done in a previously evacuated area? You know, that's an excellent question. I'm going to tell you, we have not had any issues with the civilian personnel. We get out in front of the advisory evacuations. If it goes to mandatory evacuations, we understand the angst associated with having to pick what belongings you're going to take with you for whatever amount of time it could go, not knowing when you see your house in the rearview mirror that you may not see that residence again. So the cooperation between the law enforcement and the fire personnel have to be absolutely in sync. By that I mean when those evacuations, mandatory evacuations are in effect its law enforcement's role to make sure that persons get whatever personal belongings they need and effectively and safely get out. In the meantime, it's a quid pro quo so to speak, symbionic relationship. That's when the fire personnel come there to protect those buildings and those residences. At this point in time, I'll be quite honest with you, there was a rumor that there may have been some looting and ransacking. It was just somebody talking that they were happy with the law enforcement and all the mutual aid that had occurred because there had been none. Everybody's safe, everybody's playing what I would say nice in the sandbox. People are understanding. You have a great sheriff in Brian Martin out of Lake County, Bruce Haney. I've been on the phone with them as well as my assistant chiefs again to make sure that on the law enforcement side we are hitting on all eight cylinders. What are your concerns right now looking forward to for the next week to two weeks? What are you thinking about right now and planning for it? The sustainment of law enforcement personnel, just like the sustainment of the fire personnel. These fires can drag out, obviously we're all human. It's very laborious and not only fighting the fire, but protecting on the law enforcement side those fire personnel so that they can do their job. Again, it's a symbionic relationship that has proven its worth in so many instances over the years. What we are now thinking of, okay, this fire goes on further, how is it going to burn itself out? We're going to get a handle on it. What are we going to be doing in the next few days? In fact, I just got off the phone with Sheriff Haney and we were talking about that very same thing. But I've got to tell you that's the beauty of the mutual aid system. Not only on the law enforcement side, but the fire side. We've been here before, we got through it before, and we'll do it again. Have you had to go outside of the state for mutual aid? On the law enforcement side, we've been able to stay intra-state. We have a number of resources and I got to tell you the California State Sheriff's Association along with Cal Chiefs, they've been excellent to work with. Again, this isn't their, if I may borrow the term, not their first rodeo. We've had these instances in Southern California. It's our turn in the barrel up here in Northern California. So everybody knows, everybody knows on the law enforcement side, hey, this could happen to us. So we want to be good partners and we will assist where we can and when we can because the next time it could be us. Anything that you want to say that you haven't had a chance to say yet, something that I haven't asked? We don't basically, the mutual aid system works. On the law enforcement side, we have been in constant contact with the chief executives of those respective law enforcement agencies. They've been absolutely great to work with. They understand that they are small departments and call upon us and we like that. We want everybody to know that Cal OES on the law side and the fire side are there because again, like I had mentioned before, what's happened to you in Lake County, Trinity County could happen to a neighboring county. And so the system, I just can't emphasize the system works and it works so great under Director Gillarducci and with Governor Brown that it just, it moves, it flows, whatever little hurdles we have. They're quickly mitigated and the entire, and I'm going to encompass everybody, the entire public safety community, law, fire and the civilian side have worked together for this perfect trifecta to knock down this fire, make sure that persons are safe if they have a mandatory evacuation and that those basic needs are met while they may be displaced. So the system works.