I've never heard a Foxtrot strike team being called for suppression. Now I know of at least one instance where someone has. It is rare, but I've heard of them ordered for prevention purposes. I used to drive a 125 gallon unit, but was given a 200 gallon full Type 6 one ton 4WD one year. It had duellies on the rear and was a bit wide for some of the narrow roads I drove it on. It had the full contractors box and that was great.
Foxtrot ST’s are used on a regular basis in CA, and have been for years. I have responded on and been a ST leader on several Foxtrot ST’s.
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Interesting what I don't hear in California because there is this big granite wall to west of me! I know if I parked on top of Mt. Diablo for awhile, I would hear a lot more. I've only had the chance to do so once and it was not during the height of fire season. But, OH BOY, I heard the LPF on Frazier all the way up to the Plumas NF. I didn't pick up the Lassen that day. I heard simplex tactical traffic at both Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings NPs. This not from handhelds, but mobiles. My brother in law had a ham yagi on a rotor and we were able to pick up NPS repeaters on Mt. Hoffman from his home a couple of miles from the Lawrence-Livermore National Lab. He's been a ham since forever, getting it when he was 12 or 13, but he is a techy and worked at the lab.
I wish I could have a scanner on top of Diablo that I could fully control myself. That mountain top has a "seen area" that is spectacular.
Also, Cal Fire doesn't have any patrol units, Type 6 or 7, do they? The Foxtrot strike teams must have been made up of other agency apparatus. The Cal Fire prevention units I've seen were all sedans. Their final two numbers are in the 20 series if I recall correctly, such as 4421.