I have heard a fair amount of chatter on some forestry repeaters about some forest fires west of Calgary the last couple of weeks. Moose Mountain was busy today. It is showing 2 "being held" fires north west of Calgary and a controlled fire southwest of Calgary. Lots of grass fires around and in the city as well. Winds over the last couple of days hasn't helped. Lots of virga west of Calgary but don't know how much rain hit the ground. Humidity should be up with the cool down so should help for awhile. A number of other controlled fires around Rocky Mountain house and further north. With the lack of snow and precipitation in southern Alberta, it may be a long summer for forestry. Rainy months are still coming up, so hopefully will get some rain.
Alberta Forest Fires 2016
- Thread starter robertmac
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It's a busy time of the season, for sure. Imagine how far behind the ball they'd be if they hadn't started ramping crews up a month early this year (March 1 instead of April 1).
Crews from Redwood Meadows assisted Springbank, Cochrane, and Exshaw along with Forestry on a wildfire from roughly 0100 to 0600 Saturday morning near Highway 1 and Highway 68. This fire was right along the edge of the highway - draw your own conclusions. At one point trees were 'crowning' (fire jumping from treetop to treetop) in the high wind conditions.
For those who don't know, there are a couple of sources for fire info on the web, courtesy of ESRD:
Interactive Wildfire Status Map
Provincial Wildfire Situation Report & Active Fire List
Take note that the majority of fires to date in most districts (not including "carry-over" fires in the north part of the province which are technically still burning from 2015) are either human-caused or under investigation (i.e. as-yet undetermined).
EDIT: Also -
OC - Out of Control: Fire is growing in size.
UC - Under Control: Fire is contained within an area and not growing in size.
BH - Being Held: Fire is in the process of being contained and not expected to expand.
TO - Turned Over: Command/control has been relinquished to the responsible party (municipal fire, landowner, etc).
EX - Extinguished: Fire is completely out.
Crews from Redwood Meadows assisted Springbank, Cochrane, and Exshaw along with Forestry on a wildfire from roughly 0100 to 0600 Saturday morning near Highway 1 and Highway 68. This fire was right along the edge of the highway - draw your own conclusions. At one point trees were 'crowning' (fire jumping from treetop to treetop) in the high wind conditions.
For those who don't know, there are a couple of sources for fire info on the web, courtesy of ESRD:
Interactive Wildfire Status Map
Provincial Wildfire Situation Report & Active Fire List
Take note that the majority of fires to date in most districts (not including "carry-over" fires in the north part of the province which are technically still burning from 2015) are either human-caused or under investigation (i.e. as-yet undetermined).
EDIT: Also -
OC - Out of Control: Fire is growing in size.
UC - Under Control: Fire is contained within an area and not growing in size.
BH - Being Held: Fire is in the process of being contained and not expected to expand.
TO - Turned Over: Command/control has been relinquished to the responsible party (municipal fire, landowner, etc).
EX - Extinguished: Fire is completely out.
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Furthermore, radio callsigns you will hear on the 200 series Firenet channels:
XMC26 - the Calgary firebase, which is on Bearspaw Dam Rd underneath Stoney Trail.
Three-letter callsigns, i.e. NIX, TSH, etc - Helicopters. The letters are the last three of their civil aircraft registration ("mark" or "tail number"). Prefix F or G before them in the "Mark" searchbox to get the aircraft info at that link.
Letter-number callsigns - Ground crews/personnel. Still working on full identification.
HAC - Helicopter Attack Crew.
RAP - Rappelling Crew.
XMC26 - the Calgary firebase, which is on Bearspaw Dam Rd underneath Stoney Trail.
Three-letter callsigns, i.e. NIX, TSH, etc - Helicopters. The letters are the last three of their civil aircraft registration ("mark" or "tail number"). Prefix F or G before them in the "Mark" searchbox to get the aircraft info at that link.
Letter-number callsigns - Ground crews/personnel. Still working on full identification.
HAC - Helicopter Attack Crew.
RAP - Rappelling Crew.
The Interactive Wildfire Status Map was the one I was looking at. I take it that the fire along Highway 1 and 68 wasn't caused by a passing train. I still see lots of people chucking lit cigarettes out of vehicle windows. If the dry weather continues will have to listen a lot more closely. I did hear Moose Mountain again today giving coordinates, but I was driving so not paying a lot of attention. Will have to start listening to the Aircraft frequencies as well. I thought one of the aircraft was using AEW or ARW as a call. The ARW, according to the registration, would make more sense.
what parts of alberta has forestry? Looking for scanner feeds with forestry on them.
If you look at the interactive map linked in post #2, you will see the forested areas of the province highlighted in different colors (along with flags indicating the current fires, but that's beside the point for right now).
None of the feeds on Broadcastify currently carry any "FireNet" channels (our forestry operational channels) as far as I know.
None of the feeds on Broadcastify currently carry any "FireNet" channels (our forestry operational channels) as far as I know.
Total fire ban in Alberta. I believe even banning ATV use, or encouraging to be very careful when using ATV on public lands. High forecast for southern Alberta tomorrow is 26-29'C. No shown fires south of a line through Edmonton. Fortunate as a mess in the north. Hopefully can get by tomorrow as cooler with a possibility of rain Sunday and Monday.
maximel
Member
wildfire Listen on Broadcastify ?
Hello,
I like to listen the operation of the wildfire (RCMP, forest, firefighter). Did someone have site or maybe on broadcastify? I understand is isolate place so....
Thanks!
MAx
Hello,
I like to listen the operation of the wildfire (RCMP, forest, firefighter). Did someone have site or maybe on broadcastify? I understand is isolate place so....
Thanks!
MAx
My suspicion is that AFRRCS officials are listening for purposes of gauging how the system performs. (yeah, that's it... performance and QA...) And since AFRRCS is based out of Edmonton...
Not really related to forest fires, but a bush/grass fire in SW Calgary this afternoon, threatened some condos. Elbow Valley ? Forestry Service sent in a Helicopter but I don't think CFD used it. Some other minor grass fires around Calgary.
I think it has more to do with the fire departments who have AFRRCS at home, are listening to their crews. I heard that MD of Wood Buffalo were being given AFRRCS Radio to communicate with incoming crews and in Edmonton the POC is listening to the channels, Thats why around Edmonton they can hear it, but Calgary can't
Technically at this stage, no fire departments have AFRRCS "at home". Even if they did they'd have to have the temporary talkgroup created for this incident programmed into their templates.
I do wonder why they are using a "New" TG and not one of the CET (Combined Event TG)
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