West Valley City Fire

[bneilson]

Does anybody know if West Valley Fire is still using UCAN? They have been very quiet as of late....

I have the following Talk Groups but the RR DB is not showing them listed:

24512 - CH 1
24544 - Ch 2
24576 - Ch 3
24608 - Ch 4
24640 - CH 5

Maybe they joined forces with UFA????

 

[Rolfman]

Fire Departments

The WVC is not part of the Unified Fire Authority. I have not heard them either now that you mention it.

 

[qlajlu]

Does anybody know if West Valley Fire is still using UCAN? They have been very quiet as of late....Maybe they joined forces with UFA????

I hear fire and medical calls being dispatched to West Valley addresses all of the time and they are being dispatched on Unified Fire (VECC) TGs. I am positive that they have become part of Unified Fire to simplify dispatch procedures and coverage after that big flap a few years ago.

There was a lot of controversy because a fire occurred in the county and was dispatched and handled by then County Fire when the fire was actually only a few blocks from a South Salt Lake fire station. Since it was outside South Salt Lake's coverage area, they did not dispatch units. There was heavy loss because of a delayed response due to distance. That was the catalyst for creating Unified Fire (unifying the smaller departments into one) and it absorbed South Salt Lake and Murray, I think. I believe that Midvale, West and South Jordan also had their own departments at the time and all were taken into Unified Fire at least for radio dispatch and radio coverage.

There were a lot of political jealousies at the time and even Salt Lake City Fire got caught up in it. I was surprised...well, not really with Rocky Anderson at the helm...that Salt Lake City did not join also. They did sign an agreement that the closest units, regardless of "jurisdictional boundaries" would be dispatched. That seemed to settle some of the controversy.

Fire departments have been notorious for helping each other. This whole "war" had been a direct result of huge political ambitions and egos. Needless to say, the citizens suffered.

Well, I didn't mean to get off track here, but I was very upset with the narrow-mindedness and power seeking of our politicians at the time at the expense of the property owners. To answer your question though, yes, West Valley Fire is part of Unified Fire now at least for dispatch and radio coverage.

 

[Rolfman]

Mutual Aid

Almost all cities have Mutual Aid Agreements signed with their neighboring jurisdictions to prevent things like you mentioned happening. But WVC’s Fire Department is not part of the UFA. The department might work with the UFA but they are budgeted and paid for out of WVC’s budget. If they were “under” the UFA they would be paid for by them.

After researching the web a little I found a site for VECC. It’s a central dispatch for all valley emergencies, with the noted exception of SL City.

http://www.vecc9-1-1.com

 

[qlajlu]

Okay, I stand corrected on that point.

 

[Rolfman]

This does bring up a good point though about all the politics those guys have to deal with, when all they really want to do is serve.

As mentioned last week with the communication problems SLC Fire was having on that house fire if they were on the VECC system, I think, it would have been much better.

Not a huge fan of Rocky either but is it sad that political decisions make simple things so complicated.

 

[qlajlu]

I think the problem with that house fire was of SLC FD's making. As I mentioned in a post at the time, SLC FD has five TGs assigned (actually six) to it and it only uses two actively. Every time they dispatch a fire on their channel 2, they will move it to channel 1 at the first opportunity. This is just a failure to use available resources and the fact that the city is too cheap to have the proper personnel coverage in the dispatch at any given time to man those additional channels. Their dispatch pool is competent, it just lacks numbers.

Maybe they can't justify the additional personnel ALL the time, but when they need them they are not expendable. This is a very disturbing problem that should be resolved, if they can get off of their hands long enough to look at it.

Another thing I remembered that occurred at the time they had that big flap about sending the closest units was Immigration Canyon. Immigration Canyon is a County responsibility and they were sending units from the County at the time rather than City units. That was a big thing that became a war of its own. That has since been resolved and I believe the County built a fire house in the canyon...however, I could be wrong on that account.