Arlington County Fire

[jmarcel66]

I am currently staying in Arlington County. I have the county's P25 Phase 1 system programmed; dedicated to fire only, but able to search the system.

I have (from RR) programmed the channels listed. However, they have been dispatching companies to calls using Channels 2B, 2C and even 4B. I do not show those listed and when searching the trunked system, they do not come up when searching.

Does anyone know if they are using an additional (or another organizations) system or where those channels might be?

Thanks,
John M

 

[j2brown]

2x channels are City of Alexandria, and 4x channels are Fairfax County. They're running mutual aid calls on those channels. They may also go to 3x for National Airport/MWAA (but usually it's the other way around).

jeff
sdg

 

[QDP2012]

2x channels are City of Alexandria, and 4x channels are Fairfax County. They're running mutual aid calls on those channels. They may also go to 3x for National Airport/MWAA (but usually it's the other way around).

jeff
sdg

The above information and a link to this thread have been added to the Arlington County (VA) RR Wiki page, so more people can learn about this.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[jmarcel66]

Awesome info thanks everyone for the replies.

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[BoxAlarm187]

Automatic aid is used extensively throughout Northern Virginia, so having Fairfax, Arlington, and Alexandria (as well as Prince William depending on your interest level) will give you the best results.

 

[jmarcel66]

Do they all run a common channel plan and that's why Arlington is 1A, Alexandria 2A, etc; and also why the unit ID's are different? Last night they had a reported Fire and the Dispatcher was assigning units definitely not from Arlington.

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[BoxAlarm187]

Yes, it's a fairly standard channel plan amongst all of the agencies. The numbers correlate to the jurisdiction:

1 - Arlington
2 - Alexandria
3 - MWAA
4 - Fairfax
5 - Prince William
6 - Loudoun
7 - Montgomery County, MD

(Others are used as well, but they're further outside the National Capital Region)


There are areas where a reported building fire would get units from Arlington, Alexandra, and Fairfax on the initial alarm. No matter what lettering is on the side of the vehicle, they would all immediately go to the correct operational channel within the jurisdiction where the incident has occurred.

Completely made up assignment: Box 0102 takes Engine 104 (Arlington), Engine 108 (Arlington), Engine 206 (Alexandria), Truck 206 (Alexandria), Rescue 421 (Fairfax), Medic 102 (Arlington), etc. This operation would be on one of the "1" series of channels.

It's one of the most efficient automatic aid systems on the east coast.