171.1125 Tonto HotShots

[N9JIG]

On the way home from Vegas today I saw a convoy of BLM trucks in Kingman and heard them talking C-C on 171.1125. Some mobiles also transmitted PL 162.2 but not all. There were a half dozen trucks and the crews had stopped for lunch and were reforming, doing a radio check as they started out.

I have not seen this in any of the databases but if anyone can confirm this as a regular channel or perhaps this was a one-off.

 

[Fubar]

Nice catch! Did you get them with close call or a frequency search?

This frequency does appear in the DB, but it's weird. It's labeled as a federal frequency, but it appears for "New York City County" in the DB:

Federal (New York City County) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Federal (New York City County)

www.radioreference.com

It does seem to be in the spectrum allocated for federal use and there are some forum posts here that mention it being used for wildland fire fighting. Someone probably thought they were being sneaky by programming in a non-standard frequency for car-to-car and wasn't counting on you catching them

 

[N9JIG]

Yes, it was a CloseCall hit, the convoy had stopped for lunch and were getting back on the road as I drove in for my own lunch.

 

[nd5y]

90.265 Assignment and use of frequencies in the bands allocated for Federal use.

 

[ecps92]

Nice catch! Did you get them with close call or a frequency search?

This frequency does appear in the DB, but it's weird. It's labeled as a federal frequency, but it appears for "New York City County" in the DB:

Federal (New York City County) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Federal (New York City County)

www.radioreference.com

It does seem to be in the spectrum allocated for federal use and there are some forum posts here that mention it being used for wildland fire fighting. Someone probably thought they were being sneaky by programming in a non-standard frequency for car-to-car and wasn't counting on you catching them

In NYC/NJ that is part of the FIO - Federal Interop Network (Inter Agency)

 

[es93546]

On the way home from Vegas today I saw a convoy of BLM trucks in Kingman and heard them talking C-C on 171.1125. Some mobiles also transmitted PL 162.2 but not all. There were a half dozen trucks and the crews had stopped for lunch and were reforming, doing a radio check as they started out.

I have not seen this in any of the databases but if anyone can confirm this as a regular channel or perhaps this was a one-off.

You mentioned both crews and trucks. Should I assume that these were "crew transports" and not engines? The Incident Command System designation of "Truck" only applies to "Ladder Trucks" or "Ladder Companies." If they were crew transports, did you happen to notice any markings on the sides of them, such as on the front door where you might see something like "ID-TFD," which would in this example mean "Idaho State Office - Twin Falls District." If they were crew transports for hotshot crews six vehicles would have been 3 total crews (2 transports per crew). Hotshot crew names are then painted above the rear windows and would read something like "Vale Hotshots" (Oregon) or "Aravaipa Hotshots" (Arizona) like shown in the picture below.

 

[es93546]

Continued . . .

If they were engines the State Office and District will be indicated on the door and the engine number will be on the rear toolbox or the side of the hood. I will try to attach a couple of pictures below.

 

[es93546]

Were you able to tell if the engines or crew transports were northbound or southbound? I suppose in Kingman they could have been east or west bound as well, but in Kingman, in between the two junctions for U.S. 93 it is hard to tell.

The reason I ask these questions, which you might not be able to answer, is that I have a theory. And no matter how much training is conducted not to do this, they might have been on their District frequency in the direct or simplex mode, even though they were likely quite some distance from their home unit. When I was in the U.S. Forest Service and traveling about for fires and investigations I would, from time to time, hear strike teams of crews and engines using their home unit frequencies hundreds and thousands of miles away. This is likely what you heard. Some units might have had their tone box set to Tone 15 (162.2) and some did not. This would indicate that the last time they used their radios on their District's repeater net, they were using Tone 15. I can't hazard a guess as to why some did not have a tone on their transmissions.

I do some poking around in my notebooks of info and see if, by chance, 171.1125 is still a tac frequency in some BLM State Offices or if I can find this frequency used by a particular BLM District.

By the way, six crew transports don't usually travel without a strike team leader who would be in a pickup. Six vehicles, 5 engines and one strike team leader in a pickup would make sense as it would be 6 vehicles total.

In the future, if you make an observation of fire vehicles, it would be helpful if you kept the questions I asked here in mind when you make the observation.

 

[es93546]

Lastly, I see you titled this thread "Tonto Hotshots." The Tonto National Forest has three Interagency Hotshot Crews (IHC), the Mesa IHC, the Payson IHC and the Globe IHC. It does not have a "Tonto IHC." Not only that a hotshot crew from the Tonto NF would have green trucks, not yellow. The only yellow IHC transports in Arizona would be for the Aravaipa IHC as pictured above. Your title of "Tonto Hotshots" is confusing.

I offer up my posts as informational and not criticism. After all, if I had a question about a train or train engine, something I think you are well informed about, I probably would not observe the info on the train engine very well either.

 

[N9JIG]

All the vehicles were USFS Green, and at least 2 were marked as "Tonto Hotshots". There were 5 or 6 vehicles, led by a 4WD pickup (F350ish looking) and had a couple other crew-cab pickups with cargo bed covers. None were engines or ladder trucks, just crew and wildland vehicles (or what us former structural firefighters would call "Squads".

Perhaps this is a new crew or something. They headed west from Kingman, while there were some small fires around that time none directly in the area I was aware of. Perhaps they were returning from a training mission of some sort.

 

[es93546]

All the vehicles were USFS Green, and at least 2 were marked as "Tonto Hotshots". There were 5 or 6 vehicles, led by a 4WD pickup (F350ish looking) and had a couple other crew-cab pickups with cargo bed covers. None were engines or ladder trucks, just crew and wildland vehicles (or what us former structural firefighters would call "Squads".

Perhaps this is a new crew or something. They headed west from Kingman, while there were some small fires around that time none directly in the area I was aware of. Perhaps they were returning from a training mission of some sort.

OK, I was confused by you saying you observed BLM trucks. That is why I posted yellow apparatus. So you accounted for 3 vehicles, the one ton pickup, which is usually the crew boss. The crew cab pickups were likely not part of a hotshot crew, they were likely a Type 2 crew or a "Wildland Fire Module" (WFM) The latter are usually a 10 person crew and their job is to manage fires that where the objective is to not immediately contain the fire. These are usually remote fires and/or fires in designated wilderness areas. Sometimes a WFM will use just one crew transport and look like half of a hotshot crew and that might account for the 4th vehicle. We have now accounted for 3 or 4 trucks. Were there just 2 crew transports? If there wasn't another crew transport and just another pickup with a bed cover and you can't get an entire WFM into one pickup, unless it was just a 5 person crew. There are only two WFM's in the Forest Service's Southwestern Region (R3 - AZ/NM) and they are both located along U.S. 60 in New Mexico. They are at Magdalena and Quemado. There are about 60 of these crews nationwide. WFM crew transports and pickup usually have the name of the crew painted on the side with the relatively publicly unknown moniker "WFM" following their name. The WFM is mainly for other wildland fire resources to recognize what type of crew they are.

I have the latest national list of hotshot crews and I already related the names of those crews. I wonder if they renamed either the Payson IHC or Mesa IHC to the Tonto IHC? The national list has at least one other error so it is possible they haven't picked up on the name change.

 

[es93546]

I forgot the main point here, that is the use of 171.1125 as a travel net. I've only seen the frequency used on large fires as an air to ground or air to air tactical. Why it was used here is anyone's guess. R3 specifies the fed. govt. itinerant of 168.3500 as "travel net."

 

[N9JIG]

OK, I was confused by you saying you observed BLM trucks. That is why I posted yellow apparatus.

They were green, notated as "Tonto Hotshots" but also had BLM markings, I suppose USFS is part of BLM. I am not well versed in wildlands firefighting as I was a structural guy so our equipment and tactics were profoundly different.

As for the use of the 171.1125, I have never logged it before so I don't know if they were using freq-agile radios or what. I was headed east after lunch, they headed west on I-40 so I don't know if they continued north on US-93 further on or carried on to California from there.

 

[es93546]

They were green, notated as "Tonto Hotshots" but also had BLM markings, I suppose USFS is part of BLM. I am not well versed in wildlands firefighting as I was a structural guy so our equipment and tactics were profoundly different.

As for the use of the 171.1125, I have never logged it before so I don't know if they were using freq-agile radios or what. I was headed east after lunch, they headed west on I-40 so I don't know if they continued north on US-93 further on or carried on to California from there.

The USFS is an agency in the Department of Agriculture and the BLM is another agency in the Department of Interior. The USFS is not part of the BLM. The BLM and the USFS often combine their efforts so they might have BLM resources being supervised by a Fire Management Officer in the adjacent National Forest. The National Forest (NF) I retired from had combined the BLM and USFS fire organizations. Instead of following NF ranger district lines they made up 4 divisions that more or less follow ranger district lines, with one large exception on the district I retired from. Land management functions (timber, range, recreation, wildlife, watershed) are two separate entities.

Why is the USFS is in Agriculture? Politics and history of the state of the Dept. of Interior when the USFS was formed in 1905. It should be in the Dept. of Interior as an equal partner in natural resource management under one roof. Conservative western senators and reps scream bloody murder at the mere suggestion of transferring the USFS to Interior. Conservatives view National Forests as only valuable for the commodities that can be harvested. They think the philosophy of Interior is too liberal. Liberals see National Forests as valuable ecosystems that should place commodities in a secondary role. National Forests contain some of the best wildlife habitat in the country. National Forests produce a great deal of clean water. Those are both best served in healthy ecosystems. National Forests accommodate a huge amount of recreation visits and I think Interior is better at recreation management.

Other Department of Interior agencies include: the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (reservations have natural resource management and wildland fire functions). The Forest Service would fit nicely into that team.

Of all the Interior agencies the management of BLM lands is most similar to the management of National Forests. Some have suggested that the two agencies be merged. There are tons of laws that make the two agencies very different as affects the natural resources they manage. The USFS move to Interior and the combining of the USFS/BLM are very controversial and the years go on without any change. In human history the power of the status quo is only occasionally and temporarily overpowered by the power of change.

Being a person from the Midwest you are not familiar with these agencies and their role so I am giving you a little background.

The BLM has a triangular logo and the USFS has a shield/badge like logo. Are you saying that some of the vehicles, although all green, had both logo's on the same vehicle? Which vehicles had these dual markings?

 

[N9JIG]

Out of the 6 or so vehicles I saw going thru the lot all were USFS green and at least 2 had "Tonto Hotshots" marking. At least one of those also said BLM on it, so maybe it was some sort of combined team or something. I don't know what markings the lead vehicle had but it too was green.

 

[es93546]

The BLM and the USFS have entered into a lot of local coop agreements. A BLM engine, with its station off on BLM public lands may be on the automatic dispatch for an area of National Forest land. It all accommodates the "closest resource" concept. If a strike team of Type 3 engines is ordered, it might be 5 BLM engines, or a combination of USFS/BLM engines. The Incident Command System gradually got rid of the idea of separate kingdoms that was present prior to its implementation. The area where BLM/USFS cooperation is most prominent is in dispatch. Often USFS National Forests and BLM Districts line up well to have them served by one dispatch center. In California there are a few colocations of Cal Fire Emergency Command Centers with USFS National Forest dispatch centers. It all depends on the juxtaposition of lands, topography, workloads and functions.

In 1988 at Yellowstone National Park (the year of the large and famous wildland fires) I was a crew boss for a military crew from Ft. Lewis, Washington. I was in a strike team of three crews with all crew bosses from the USFS and a strike team leader from Cal Fire. I made a lot of friends from all the land management agencies, both on normal duties (I worked in recreation and special use permit management) and on wildland fires. We all had things in common.

 

[es93546]

In California there are at least two USFS/NPS coop engines, one in northern Yosemite National Park and the other in northern Lassen Volcanic National Park, where the engine is green at Yosemite, but has both the USFS shield and the National Park Service arrowhead logo on the same truck. At Lassen the engine is white with red stripes like all NPS fire apparatus, but with both logos on it. The engines have staff from both agencies. The crew captain on the green engine is a USFS employee. The crew captain on the white engine is a NPS employee. I have observed a yellow BLM engine with both BLM and USFS logos on the door. I don't think I've seen the reverse of a green engine with both BLM and USFS logos on the door, but it would not surprise me.

 

[N9JIG]

These were not engines, they were what we would have called Squads in structural firefighting. While there were brush pumps on at least one, they were all pickup truck-based vehicles.