The Angeles NF just received a new radio update a few weeks ago to coincide with the changeover to the new admin net and not one of the 400 channels is an R5 tactical frequency. Every tactical channel in the radio is still NIFC 1, 2, and 3. :/
That is interesting considering this memo:
To: All Geographic Center Managers and Aviation Dispatchers.
From: NIFC/NIICD/CDO
Subject: NIFC/NIRSC Tactical Frequencies
Date: March 3, 2015
Issue Limited Radio Frequencies: The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), National Interagency Incident Communications Division (NIICD), Communications Duty Officer (CDO) is having issues with the assigned tactical frequencies, which are a limited resource. The National Incident Radio Cache (NIRSC) is assigned 6 tactical frequencies for wild land firefighting and all-risk incident support. The use of these frequencies must be coordinated with the NIFC/CDO prior to any assigned use.
DISCUSSION: There seems to be a trend for individual forests assigning the NIFC/NIRSC tactical frequencies for day to day use or to support IA/EA incident’s without prior coordination with the NIFC/CDO. This causes issues when there are project fires in the same close proximity. There have been cases when an Incident Management Team (IMT) has been told by a local forest that they cannot use the NIFC assigned tactical frequencies because the local forest is using them for IA/EA. This practice must stop.
The Interagency Standards for Fire and Fire Operations, Chapter 15, Page 15-5 states:
“National Interagency Fire Tactical Frequencies (168.0500 MHz, 168.200 1 MHz, 168.6000 MHz, 168.2500 MHz, 166.7250 MHz, 166.7750 MHz)
These frequencies are used to support ground tactical operations (line of sight) on incidents.
They are not authorized for:
• Air to air communications;
• Air to ground communications;
• Mobile radios with more than 5 watts output power;
• Base stations; or
• Repeater frequencies.
Use of these frequencies will be coordinated between the COML and the NIFC CDO/COMC.
Also the National Interagency Mobilization Guide, 2014, Chapter 20, page 29 states:
“Any of the national frequencies (FS or DOI) are not to be used without prior coordination with the NIRSC CDO”
For those of you not familiar with the acronyms the CDO is the "Communications Duty Officer" at NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center), the nationwide dispatch, coordination and training center for wildland firefighting. The memo means that use of any of the six tactical frequencies in the National Incident Radio Support Cache (NIRSC) must have prior clearance from the CDO for each use, case by case. So the authority to use these frequencies is not held by the dispatch center or the Geographical Area Coordination Center (GACC), but at the highest level of authority in communications at NIFC. In California there are two, North Ops and South Ops. There is no blanket approval for their use or authority delegated to a lower level.
I first got wind of this 2-3 years ago when I came across a memo issued by the Southwest GACC regarding the assignment of three regional tacticals for the National Forests in Arizona and New Mexico. That memo outlined that the NIFC/NIRSC tacticals would not be allowed on any local initial attack, period. The three new regional tacticals were to be used for all initial attacks and the NIFC tacs were to be used on nationally managed incidents only, that is, incidents with a Type I or Type II incident commander in charge. The grey area in my mind is if extended attacks with local Type III incident commanders can use the NIFC frequencies, both tactical and command. I suppose they could, but on a case by case basis subject to the approval of the NIFC CDO.
BLM state offices have been issued tactical frequencies for more than 10 years now that are more or less unique to each state office. I know the Forest Service has issued 3 tactical frequencies in Region 3 (Southwestern), Region 4 (Intermountain) and Region 5 (most of California). In Region 6 (Pacific Northwest) and Region 2 (Rocky Mountain) there are one to two tactical frequencies assigned to each National Forest. In Region 8 (Southern) there is one region wide frequency for tactical use on initial attack, which given how far National Forests are from each other in that area of the country might be sufficient. I'm not sure of Region 1 (Northern - N. Idaho, Montana, N. Dakota) as I've not been able to get info from there for more than 3 years. Region 9 (Eastern) is a place I get little info from. Lastly, Region 10 (Alaska) does not have large fire load as those forests are temperate rain forests and glaciers so they don't have much of a need. As one firefighter from the Tongass National Forest related, "a fire is one tree, a large fire is two trees."
It will be interesting to see the channel plans in Region 5 for 2016, but 2015 saw many forests dropping the NIFC tacs from their initial attack channel groups and only having them in their large incident groups. NIFC Tac 2 was an exception. I think Region 5 was the first to have a separate tactical channel from Forest Nets and when I first got wind of it back in the early 70's it was called "R5 Crew Net." There have been more than one memo telling everyone to stop calling it "Crew Net," but the practice has not been dropped by R5 National Forests as recently as 2015. For some reason many National Forests have kept NIFC Tac 2 in their initial attack groups, perhaps the region still feels some ownership of it.
It surprises me that despite most National Forests in R5 substituting the R5 Tacs for NIFC Tacs in their initial attack frequency groups that the Angeles is not doing so at all. During my time on southern California fires in the 80's and 90's, quite a few where you could be on the Angeles and see additional large fires on the Los Padres, San Bernardino and the Cleveland when you got up to a high point, interference between nationally managed fires was common. It was bad enough having interference from illegal radio use in Mexico come booming in with God know how many hundreds of watts, but when Division A on the Angeles was called by a crew on one or more fires on other National Forests things could get confusing. There were some real safety problems as a result. We could hear tactical traffic from the Ojai RD on the LP, all the way to the Palomar RD on the Cleveland. NIFC Tac 2 was like being in a truck stop and listening to a CB Channel 19 given how much people were talking over each other.
Now mix in initial attack to that and it can be a real mess. Have the ANF radio techs gotten the memos?
