What is NorthOps (CalFire? USFS? Both?)

[RobVallejo]

Okay, someone set me straight here.

Back in the day, whenever I would stop at Ukiah Air Attack Base (CDF), I would hear a great deal of radio traffic relating to aircraft orders. I was told it was the "intercom." Most of the traffic was between various CDF (Ranger) Units and "NorthOps."

So what and where is NorthOps? (a USFS/CDF coordinating center in Sacramento?)

And is it possible to listen in on this intercom traffic? (or is it purely a microwave system)

Any help here is appreciated. Listening to that intercom traffic and hoping to hear an Echo request (I was on an engine) for an out-of-county assignment was one of those formative experiences that got me into scanning in the first place.

 

[reneeroberts]

Are you sure is wasn't Norcom?

Norcom is the Northern CA State Parks communication system.

 

[RobVallejo]

Thanks Renee. I'm sure it had nothing to do with CA State Parks. While they had small pumps on their pick-up trucks, the last I heard, they had no real fire apparatus to speak of. And certainly no airtankers.

I could only hear the traffic at the CDF airbase (I have a hard time typing CalFire, sorry. ) I never went in the Helitack office, but I suspect they had the same intercom.

The typical transmission would be:
"St. Helena, NorthOps. Aircraft order. 1 copter on on Alpha-7. Incident AEU-1931."

They'd give the incident name, bearing and distance, section, township, and range, and probably lat and long, if I'm not mistaken. I think the idea was that the airbase would hear the NorthOps request and the pilots would start their rotors/props turning before the local ECC gave them the call. I also remember something about CDF aircraft being region-wide or statewide resources. Perhaps NorthOps dispatched the aircraft directly from the airbase? That certainly wasn't the case with incidents within the home unit, but perhaps with out of unit incidents.

 

[reneeroberts]

OK. I just thought I'd suggest it, just in case.

 

[RobVallejo]

Thanks again Renee.

I think I found a partial answer in one of Exsmokey's old posts and at a NIFC website:

http://www.radioreference.com/forum...orum/106695-cdf-usfs-aircraft-169-7000-a.html

GACC >About Us

 

[BlueZebra]

NorthOps is the joint State/Federal coordination center located in Redding. (SouthOps is the corresponding Center in Riverside, for Southern Calif). All agencies are there- CalFire, USFS, BLM, Nat'l parks, BIA. OES is there during big fire events, and North Ops is the OES Reg 3 Coordinator on a day to day basis.

What you are hearing is referred to as the Intercom, and is microwave only. You can't listen on a scanner.

The Intercom is used for coordination of limited resources such as aircraft. While aircraft are dispatched on local frequencies for the most part, they are truly owned and controled by North Ops. So your comment on aircraft being statewide resources is on target. Aircraft cover more than one dispatch area, so their dispatch is done both on radio, and on the Intercom. What you heard was probably aircraft being assigned outside their home unit. However, if Mendocino CalFire is dispatching the Ukiah aircraft to a fire in Mendocino, NorthOps must be made aware of the committment of the Ukiah aircraft. This is done on the Intercom.

The Intercom is also used somewhat causally as communication between forest agency dispatch centers in place of the telephone. This is limited to quick interactions, not long conversations. Simply for ease and speed.

 

[RobVallejo]

BlueZebra -- Awesome. Thanks for the information. Now my experiences make perfect sense to me. Too bad there isn't a way to listen in.

 

[SCPD]

North Ops is one of 11 Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACC) in the U.S. Here is the link to them:

National Geographic Area Coordination Center Website Portal

The fire workload is California is sufficient that it is the only state that has two GACC's.

Before there were GACC's in other areas of the county, California had developed the concept of these interagency centers. At that time they were called "zones" with North Zone and South Zone. Up until about 5 years ago the North Ops net was on VHF Low Band. Prior to that VHF High Band was used. The down link repeated the up link so everything could be heard from one mountain top.

South Ops still has a VHF High/UHF area net. It is not used a much as it used to be. Computer communications is used far more often and it is easier to keep track of resources that way. The traffic on the net consists mainly of adjacent dispatch centers requesting resources such as crews/engines/patrols/dozers from each other during initial attack.

The U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Cal Fire fund GACC's with the U.S. Forest Service, BLM, and Cal Fire having the majority of people who actually work in them. In some GACC's the NPS, BIA, and USFWS have personnel assigned to the centers as well depending on the workload in the center.

When resources from two or more GACC's are being sent to an incident, then the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) coordinates the orders for resources. When a GACC commits a "national resource" they have to notify NIFC. National resources consist of all aircraft (fixed wing and rotary wing) and hotshot crews. Type I (highest complexity) incident management teams are ordered from NIFC only and are also a national resource. Type I teams are located in nearly every GACC area, but only NIFC assigns them. Type II teams are located in every GACC area and GACC's can assign them, but when NIFC asks for a Type II team to be used in another area, each GACC then offers up one of its teams for NIFC to assign it.

NIFC also fills orders that result from other countries asking, via the U.S. State Department, for resources. I've visited NIFC once in February and they were very busy sending U.S. resources to Costa Rica. In the mid 80's engines from the four southern California National Forests (Angeles, San Bernardino, Los Padres, and Cleveland) were sent to the Mexico City earthquake that caused a lot of damage, injuries, and death. A Type I team handled the planning and logistics during the World Trade Center disaster. Type I teams and resources such as hotshot crews, dozers, and engines were sent to the southeast during the Katrina disaster. Type I teams, hotshot crews, and Type II crews were tasked for the debris recovery for the Columbia space shuttle, with the Forest Service as the lead agency.

NIFC and the 11 GACC's provide a valuable service for the U.S. and the organization and tools they possess are not duplicated in any other agency or groups of agencies.

 

[BlueZebra]

Exsmokey:

One small adjustment to your as always, excellent explanation.

In California, unique as it is with two GACCs, North and South Ops act as halves of the same office. When South Ops can't fill a request, they place it to North Ops, and vice versa. This is done without going to NIFC, unlike other GACCs would do.

This is because both North and South Ops are in USFS Region 5.

 

[Duster]

Okay, someone set me straight here.

Back in the day, whenever I would stop at Ukiah Air Attack Base (CDF), I would hear a great deal of radio traffic relating to aircraft orders. I was told it was the "intercom." Most of the traffic was between various CDF (Ranger) Units and "NorthOps."

So what and where is NorthOps? (a USFS/CDF coordinating center in Sacramento?)

And is it possible to listen in on this intercom traffic? (or is it purely a microwave system)

Any help here is appreciated. Listening to that intercom traffic and hoping to hear an Echo request (I was on an engine) for an out-of-county assignment was one of those formative experiences that got me into scanning in the first place.

Rob,

North Ops and South Ops are the Northern and Southern Geographical Area Coordination Centers (GACC's) for local, state, and federal firefighting resources in the State of California (and incidentally USFS Region 5). There are GACC's all over the country doing the same job providing nationwide coverage. Their purpose is to act as a clearinghouse for inter-region resource requests for fire-iron (engines, dozers, aircraft, crews). They are staffed by CDF and USFS. North Ops is located in Redding, while South Ops is located in Riverside. The Intercom traffic you heard at Ukiah is a microwave link between North Ops and each CDF ECC in the Northern Region. South Ops has the same setup for the Southern Region. Interestingly, if BEU (San Benito/Monterey Unit) orders something, especially aircraft, you will hear them address South Ops as well, because they are simulcasting on both intercoms (they are a border unit between North and South, so they draw resources from both).

It works like this: You break a big fire, you roll all your IA (initial attack) iron. The fire goes sideways on you and the IC (incident commander) augments the assignment. ANY outside-the-unit resource orders have to go to North Ops via intercom and ROSS (the Resource Ordering Supply System, a logistics computer net), and they have the responsibility to allocate resources to you based upon availability, proximity, and priority of need compared to other requests. Usually rolling-stock orders go by computer, so you likely would never have heard your Echo request on the intercom, but all aircraft orders MUST be voiced over intercom, the intention being that all units can maintain situational awareness. Having spent a summer working ROSS and aircraft dispatch for a CDF unit, I can tell you that you can get a pretty good feel of what a fire is doing by listening to aircraft orders on the intercom. Now, all aircraft (including helo) orders go to GACC on IA, because CDF's aircraft are state resources, not unit resources, even though they are staffed and maintained at the unit level. The unit is REQUIRED to notify the GACC if using an air unit at any time (even training flights) because the GACC's can send any aircraft unit anywhere in the state at a moments notice, and maintain an up-to-the-minute status of every fixed- and rotary-winged craft in CDF or USFS Region 5 service.

As for monitoring the intercom, you cannot, unless you have a way to monitor microwave. There is no radio uplink (that I am aware of, and I checked...I wanted to be able to monitor the intercom from my fire station) and it is a closed system.

That is a quick-and-dirty primer on the GACC's. Feel free to ask any questions, because I'm sure I missed something.

David

 

[SCPD]

Thanks David, for sharing your insight about the GACC's and how orders are processed. Most dispatch centers will announce when an aircraft is assigned outside the units the center dispatches for. This is a good way for a scanner listener to figure out when a fire has gotten large enough to require aircraft. If an aircraft is being sent a long distance you can pretty much figure the fire has escaped initial attack. for example, if the Sierra National Forest Dispatcher announces "All units be advised Air Attack 15 and Helitanker 729 have been committed to a new start on the Klamath," it is probably a good size fire as North Ops has committed a large number of resources and needs some South Ops resources. If you hear later that Porterville is putting together an engine strike team for a Klamath assignment, then you know there is a very large fire.

A comment regarding State Parks. Only the southern dispatch center ID's with "comm." Both Northern and Central ID as "Northern" and "Central." Following that logic I don't understand why "Surcomm" doesn't ID as "Southern." Remember that these three centers dispatch for State Parks and the Dept. of Fish and Game. I'm glad they have finally done this as both used to be dispatched by a variety of entities such as from area offices, that handed dispatching off to a sheriff's department at night and on weekends. Some areas would use a sheriff's dispatch center all the time. A few of the DFG regional offices would dispatch Monday through Friday 8-5 such as "Fresno" and "Yountville." I think officer safety has been enhanced by having consolidated dispatch centers.

 

[RobVallejo]

Exsmokey, BlueZebra, and David - Thanks a bunch. Crystal clear now.

Duster - I never did hear an echo request on the intercom, but being lowly FF's, that didn't stop us from hoping.