Airport Fire 06/06/2007

[bneilson]

There I was starting to get ready for bed when the News broke into programming and advised that they just got word of a fire at the airport and they had crews on the way "More details as soon as we get them." I can get details now; I said to myself and grabbed my scanner. After punching up the Airports Trunked System (Sysid: 3521), I was plugged into all that was happening play by play...

Apparently the tanks that are used to light the training centers dummy aircraft on fire, caught fire and there was a large concern of explosion. Hazmat ordered a 1 mile radius evacuation in the area. Within this 1 mile radius were several of the hangers, Delta reservation center, Maintenance shops and the FAA tower... Yea the tower...

Once again I had the stuff programmed I needed and the event was monitored successfully. Also my friends and I have established an alerting network, so I was also able to alert them of the incident so they could also listen. It is a great feeling when things work.

Go here (http://www.brettneilson.com/files/SLCAirport-00560-20070606.wav) for about 10 minutes of audio from the incident. It includes the evacuation of the FAA Tower and the Final Call saying the fire was out. This audio was all recorded from TalkGroup 560 which was being used for primary Operation coordination.

For my scanner friends out there here are some of the TalkGroups that were active:
560 - Primary incident coordination (EOC & Command)
375 - Some type of APB for the maintenance staff
976 - "Shuttle Vans" transporting evacuees
1296 - "Police C" providing traffic and crowd control
1232 - "Police A" Normal police ops for the rest of the airport
528 - "Maintenance" very active for coordination of equipment
400 - "??" Some type of car to car type of channel

At one point one of the PD officers ask on Police A if the event traffic should be moved to the "5A Event Channel." The request was denied at the time but I did hear some traffic on 1328 and 1168 that might have been the 5A channel.

 

[qlajlu]

Yeah, that was pretty exciting for a time. My scanner just happened to have stopped on the Airport Fire training channel when they spotted the fire and called "quits" to the training. Then it was pandemonium for a short time as they called for "a full assignment" from the SLC FD units.

The senior FD officer in charge of the training became the incident commander until Battalion Chiefs could arrive from the city and for a time that officer was overwhelmed with too many radios on too many channels at once.

I had three scanners going and could not keep up with the traffic because there were so many different things going on at the same time in so many different places on different channels.

Rather exciting for a time and interesting.

Every time I monitor the FD units in a fire situation I am aghast at the number of radio calls that go unanswered, whether it be from the fire dispatch to the command officer, or from/to a fireman inside a structure, or whatever. I know they are operating under a lot of pressure and things are happening all over that need attention at seemingly the same time, but there is a huge amount of calls that go unheeded and to me - not being a fireman - some of these seem extremely important and I find it disturbing that so many calls are ignored.

 

[bneilson]

What is the Airport Fire training channel? Are they also on the 3521 TRS with the Police and stuff? I didn't hear any of that type of activity...

That is the one thing I was missing last night was the actual guys working the fire. I was only hearing the coordination efforts (EOC, Shuttle Vans, Police, etc.).

 

[qlajlu]

What is the Airport Fire training channel? Are they also on the 3521 TRS with the Police and stuff? I didn't hear any of that type of activity...

bneilson, last night when things started I'm pretty sure they were on TGID 1200. Often I will hear them training on TGID 1360 as well but mostly it seems to happen on 1200. When the city units are on the training range, they use a completely different TG.

In the RR Database for the Airport Authority, TGID 1200 is listed as "Salt Lake City Fire Department." It is also listed as "Refueling Trucks" which I think is erroneous because I don't recall ever hearing refueling trucks on this TG. TGID 1360 is listed as "Salt Lake City Fire Department Fireground."

Neither of those two TGIDs shows up in the Salt Lake City Public Safety database (AC33) but they are listed in the Salt Lake City Airport Authority DB.

It was rather funny hearing the Training Officer start yelling, "Training is over, training is over!" They had just started the exercise and apparently had trainees inside the fuselage of the aircraft mock up they use. He is the one that became the Incident Commander until he gave command to one of the Battalion Chiefs from downtown which happened way late in the incident.

By the way, TGID 400 is listed as "Parking Lots & Sidewalks" which is just another maintenance channel.