 Here at OES, we have a saying that no one stands alone, and that's true when these massive wildland fires are burning across the state. As of this post, the Beckworth Complex and Plymouth National Forest is about to pass a 100,000-acre point. It's the largest fire burning in the state, and to get control of a fire this size, it requires an army of people and equipment, neither local nor federal government, as a capacity. That's where California's Mutual Aid System, a model worldwide, comes into play. Mutual Aid System and the reliance and dependence of it has become more and more over the last several years. Assistant Fire Chief Kit Bailey is a Cal OES representative at the Beckworth Complex. He's coordinated resources from the State Mobile Command Unit at the Incident Command Post in Portola. He says for about the last five years, wildland fires have become more frequent and more aggressive and erratic. And without the presence and commitment of local government and utilization of the Mutual Aid System, we in the state would be very compromised and have a really hard time staffing a lot of these fires. We caught up with Cal OES Strike Team 4801 Alpha just as they were beginning their shift. Division Command is holding them in place at Frenchman Lake in the middle of the fire. All crews have been pulled back for now. It's been sobering considering the time of year, how aggressive the fire has been, especially a few nights ago we were sitting in the same spot and wherever you looked you could see fire. Three of these Cal OES engines, the bright greenish yellow ones, belong to Sac Metro Fire Station 50. In exchange for the engines, they must staff them and respond when and where Cal OES needs them. I happened to be working that last Wednesday at station 50 when it was requested early on in the morning. Got notified by my battalion chief. We quickly responded with our crew members to a staging area and responded to the incident. They are a night crew, so the replacements get their updates, intel and marching orders at 6 a.m. When the day crews reach 4801 alpha, the strike team will return to the ICP and get some rest along with hundreds of other mutual aid teams and support crews. We might have different patches, but we do the same job. We want to protect property, protect the environment for the fire out as well as we can, as quickly as we can. Just realizing that basic principle, it provides an ability to communicate with other agencies. We don't know the guys, but we know that our end goal is the same. For more information on the mutual aid system, log on to news.caloes.ca.gov. For Cal OES, I'm John Goodell.