Cherrywood Fire

[737mech]

New fire on the ranges near NV Test Site Area 18 and the ECS range to the west of Area 18. Directly east of Beatty. They are calling it the Cherrywood Fire. I heard them in contact with Dreamland 126.15 and between each other 168.55. Spotter N688TM and Tanker N470NA. Not sure how large the fire is? Not seeing any smoke from Vegas. Maybe if the wind changes tonight? Correction as of 3:33PM here's the view from Angel Peak near Mt Charleston. ALERTWildfire | BLM Nevada

 

[spanner]

Looking at WildCAD, its last reported at 1700 acres.

 

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13.6K acres....

I miss Nevada sometimes!

 

[es93546]

New fire on the ranges near NV Test Site Area 18 and the ECS range to the west of Area 18. Directly east of Beatty. They are calling it the Cherrywood Fire. I heard them in contact with Dreamland 126.15 and between each other 168.55. Spotter N688TM and Tanker N470NA. Not sure how large the fire is? Not seeing any smoke from Vegas. Maybe if the wind changes tonight? Correction as of 3:33PM here's the view from Angel Peak near Mt Charleston. ALERTWildfire | BLM Nevada

168.5500 has a national authorization for smokejumpers and helicopter rappel crews only. The jumpers use a 123.0 input/output tone and the helicopters use a 110.9 tone. I wonder if jumpers were used to speed up the response due to remoteness. Smokejumpers have temporary bases in New Mexico this time of year or they can come down from Boise.

The BLM Southern Nevada District provides wildland fire protection for most of the test site, except in the old nuclear testing portion. I don't know who or what "Dreamland" is. Air tankers identify with a nationally assigned number such as "Tanker 101," "Tanker 56" and not with their FAA registration or tail number. There isn't an aviation unit that identifies with the term "spotter," they will identify with "air attack" or "lead." Leads only have a pilot, but when a air supervision person is added they identify with "Bravo." It is called an "Air Supervision Module" and can supervise aircraft if there is more than one air tanker or helicopter on scene, without having an "Air Attack" or Air Tactical Group Supervisor on scene.

Thanks for the camera link, I will use it in the next few days.

 

[737mech]

168.5500 has a national authorization for smokejumpers and helicopter rappel crews only. The jumpers use a 123.0 input/output tone and the helicopters use a 110.9 tone. I wonder if jumpers were used to speed up the response due to remoteness. Smokejumpers have temporary bases in New Mexico this time of year or they can come down from Boise.

The BLM Southern Nevada District provides wildland fire protection for most of the test site, except in the old nuclear testing portion. I don't know who or what "Dreamland" is. Air tankers identify with a nationally assigned number such as "Tanker 101," "Tanker 56" and not with their FAA registration or tail number. There isn't an aviation unit that identifies with the term "spotter," they will identify with "air attack" or "lead." Leads only have a pilot, but when a air supervision person is added they identify with "Bravo." It is called an "Air Supervision Module" and can supervise aircraft if there is more than one air tanker or helicopter on scene, without having an "Air Attack" or Air Tactical Group Supervisor on scene.

Thanks for the camera link, I will use it in the next few days.

Dreamland is Area 51 they control the airspace there, published VHF to use is 126.15. I doubt jumpers because of the restricted area thing. Did not hear any talk about Jumpers of anything on the NNSA Trunking talkgroups about it either. No structures in trouble in that area. Tankers are using call signs like you said TANKER 40, Tanker 136 etc'. The spotter used his tail registration number to Dreamland and was very low so I couldn't hear much of anything from him but it was clear by tracking him with adsbexchange what his function was. The 168.55 I heard things like," Tanker 40 to Vegas on National." Didn't catch a tone with it. Sounded like Tanker was updating to a command post and they did relay a message to another tanker that couldn't hear Vegas on National.

 

[zerg901]

Any chance that "National" was actually 168.65 not 168.55?

"National Flight Following" is 168.65 for wildfire aircraft.

 

[737mech]

Good catch I just checked my scanner and sure enough it actually was 168.65. Thanks for the correction.