CDF SHU/SKU and USFS Coordination?

[ssmith39]

I've spent the better part of the week in Mount Shasta country and have a question regarding CDF and USFS coordination. Can CDF can directly dispatch USFS apparatus? Can USFS directly dispatch CDF apparatus?
The USFS net frequency (171.575) seems much quieter than CDF, I don't think I heard a single dispatch all week. Any information as to why?

As always, thanks!

[duster]

Originally Posted by ssmith39

I've spent the better part of the week in Mount Shasta country and have a question regarding CDF and USFS coordination. Can CDF can directly dispatch USFS apparatus? Can USFS directly dispatch CDF apparatus?
The USFS net frequency (171.575) seems much quieter than CDF, I don't think I heard a single dispatch all week. Any information as to why?

As always, thanks!

The short version... It depends upon the individual units and forests. The CDF Unit I work in now does not direct-dispatch USFS apparatus. However we are an interagency command center, so we just poke our head over the divider and ask the USFS dispatcher for their equipment. But the unit I worked in before DID direct dispatch certain USFS apparatus, because several green engines were co-located with CDF resources in the same location.

The Forest Net is likely quieter than the CDF Local net because there is less activity to dispatch. Most CDF units are much more active dispatch-wise then many forests (there are exceptions like Yosemite and Lake Mead Park in Nevada, but...)

Hope that helps!!

David

[Exsmokey]

CDF often dispatches local fire districts under a contract with counties. CDF has other contracts as well such a providing EMS in some locations, providing supervision of local volunteer departments within the CDF battalion chief structure, providing wildland suppression/prevention in LRA's (local responsibility areas), and even providing structural protection for cities and counties. All of these factors make for more dispatches than the US Forest Service.

Dispatching for the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and the CDF Shasta-Trinity Unit are co-located in Redding. When I have monitored traffic from other co-located dispatch centers CDF might put out a dispatch at the same time the Forest Service does for the same incident. There are locations where there are automatic mutual aid zones and resources from each agency respond. In the case of borderline or intermixed jurisdiction areas the same will occur.

Separate from fire the Forest Service actually has a more diverse and a greater workload than CDF but most of it does not generate radio traffic. The Forest Service has taken some huge cuts in recreation, timber, range management, and wildlife management to name a few. The Forest Service was forced to outsource the operation of its campgrounds to private companies and that along with many other cuts has reduced the number of field going employees. These cutback have not been as severe for National Forest fire management.

Did you listen to the local management unit (consisting of one of more Ranger Districts) nets? Much of the non fire and law enforcement traffic on the Shasta-T NF is on those nets. Most of the Forests in the southern portion of the state have separated all the radio traffic of the non fire/law enforcement functions a placed them on a separate net.

In short you really can't compare CDF to the Forest Service as they are more or less apples and oranges. The Forest Service manages federally owned lands and CDF provides fire related services on private land. The forestry portion of CDF provides regulatory oversight of timber harvest on private lands but does not actually manage the timber resource. CDF does not manage wildlife habitat, recreation, or issue special use permits for highways, power lines, ski areas, lodges, dams, electronic sites, and the like. CDF does not enforce the nearly as broad a set of laws as the Forest Service does. Except for fire suppression, these are two completely different types of agencies.

The SRA (state responsibility area) experiences more fires due to more ignitable fires in lower elevation fuel types and the intermixing of development with wildland vegetation. The bulk of the area CDF provides protection for is privately owned.

As for Yosemite and Lake Mead, these are units of the National Park Service, not the U.S. Forest Service. Yosemite National Park is an exclusive federal jurisdiction and services normally provided by local jurisdictions such as property crime and non-resource related law enforcement, EMS, search and rescue, structural fire protection, water and sewer systems, and a host of others are provided by the National Park Service. Yosemite National Park has more of a law enforcement workload than several counties in California in spite of its relatively small size of about 761,000 acres. Lake Mead is adjacent to Las Vegas and has a huge weekend workload.

The four southern California National Forests have much more radio traffic than Forests in northern California. The proximity to a major megalopilis is the reason.

Duster, when CDF fire changed to blue uniforms did the resource types like foresters change as well? I would think they are still wearing the khaki and green. I hate to be out climbing hills in the summer with a dark blue uniform.

[IanS]

"Most CDF units are much more active dispatch-wise then many forests"

Most are more than many. You should be a politician!.

[duster]

Originally Posted by IanS

"Most CDF units are much more active dispatch-wise then many forests"

Most are more than many. You should be a politician!.

Hey! I'm a graveyard slug now...I was asleep when I typed that... LOL

[duster]

Originally Posted by Exsmokey

As for Yosemite and Lake Mead, these are units of the National Park Service, not the U.S. Forest Service. Yosemite National Park is an exclusive federal jurisdiction and services normally provided by local jurisdictions such as property crime and non-resource related law enforcement, EMS, search and rescue, structural fire protection, water and sewer systems, and a host of others are provided by the National Park Service. Yosemite National Park has more of a law enforcement workload than several counties in California in spite of its relatively small size of about 761,000 acres. Lake Mead is adjacent to Las Vegas and has a huge weekend workload.

Hey Smokey, long time no talk! Good to hear from you. I know these are NPS Parks...I was thinking federal dispatch centers, not just USFS. It's that muddled nightshift brain activity.

Originally Posted by Exsmokey

Duster, when CDF fire changed to blue uniforms did the resource types like foresters change as well? I would think they are still wearing the khaki and green. I hate to be out climbing hills in the summer with a dark blue uniform.

Everyone went to dark blue, including the resource management (forester) staff.

[Exsmokey]

Originally Posted by duster

Hey Smokey, long time no talk! Good to hear from you. I know these are NPS Parks...I was thinking federal dispatch centers, not just USFS. It's that muddled nightshift brain activity.

Everyone went to dark blue, including the resource management (forester) staff.

I have a mission on this website to make sure information about natural resource agencies is correct. So I'm frequently correcting such things as "US Forestry Department," "Angeles National Park," "Plumas County National Forest," and the ever present "the forestry." I'm on it like ravens on road kill.

What the heck are you doing on nigh shift? I thought CDF worked 24's and were not forced to stay awake at night unless a call necessitated it. Except in ECC's that is.

Those resource folks wearing dark blue and hiking a timber sale in July must hate life. Somehow natural resource management employees wearing blue is incongruous to me. "Real resource management people wear khaki and green," or grey and green, or light brown and dark brown.

I think you indicated in another thread that the younger fire types in CDF didn't like being associated with forestry. Well CDF's primary function is wildland fire protection, which is a natural resource management task as is forestry. I don't really see a problem being associated with forestry, but then I am a forester by education and experience so what do I know? I would think that CDF should also start thinking in terms of fire management instead of fire suppression like all the other natural resource management agencies do now. Fire prevention and suppression should be just a part of the overall picture of vegetation, watershed, wildlife, recreation, and range management. To separate fire from the other resources seems a bit short sighted, not "holistic" as the buzz word indicates.

Since CDF's apparatus is red I suppose blue has to be worn around it. The biggest topics of conversation and policy making in the uniformed services seem to be "what shall we wear," "what shall we call ourselves on the radio (unit designators)", and the ever contentious "what kind of hat will we wear."

[stfive]

Exsmokey,

Funny you should mention CDF going to Blues. My brother is a retired CDF Captain, and he definitely was not happy about the change! He’s old-school CDF, and he spent the majority of his career working Schedule B. He’s not real happy with the new “Cal Fire” name either! I don’t know if it’s true or not, but apparently the person that was director at the time of the changeover to the blue uniforms had previously owned the company that was awarded the initial uniform contract. Interesting.

PS…I’m ex-Forest Service as well. I previously worked Hotshot and Engines on the Angeles. My brother used to refer to us as “Brand X.” Back in the old days, with overtime, I would make more money as a FS seasonal than he would make as a permanent CDF Engineer. How times have changed! These days the Forest Service is losing more and more people to CDF every season. Very sad situation!

[duster]

Originally Posted by Exsmokey

I think you indicated in another thread that the younger fire types in CDF didn't like being associated with forestry.

Yep, I did. It was an attitude I was very surprised at. I came to CDF within the year before the change to CAL FIRE, and it was a generational dividing line. The younger guys, mostly engineers and captains, saw CDF as a fire department that happened to have foresters in it. The older generation (which I affiliate myself with) still clung to the CDF idea, and I personally felt (and still feel) that there is a sense of history with being part of Forestry. That's where we began, and resource management is an important part of our mission, which the youngers tend to either forget or ignore. I even heard grumbling about splitting the department into a "CAL FIRE" and a "Department of Forestry"-type of thing, where the resource management became a separate entity. Luckily that never got past dinner-table brainstorming...

[Exsmokey]

There was some concern in the U.S. Forest Service that the fire management function wanted to separate itself from the rest of the Forest Service functions. Some of this was valid and some was based on the erroneous assumption that by fire management wanting to be a professional fire organization, it wanted to become some sort of detached entity within the Forest Service. There has been some talk of having a federal fire service, a separate agency, be created to provide fire management for all federal lands and facilities. Many employees of the Forest Service and the other federal land management agencies support this idea.

My view is that the Forest Service and other land management agencies are managing many resources, each of which affect each other, and fire is no different than the other resources in this regard. You can't separate fire from timber management, from recreation use, from watershed management, from soils, etc. They are all affected by and affect each other. If you have a separate fire organization it will not integrate well with the management of other resources. The way people work together determines how well the resources are managed. This is not an "old school" versus "new school" issue, it is a resource issue. It would seem as though some very gung ho firefighters need to realize why they are there in the first place and it isn't to just fight fire.