Coconino/Kaibab wildfire feed

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KDX3CB

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Mar 2, 2007
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Location
Flagstaff, AZ
I have a 24/7 feed on www.scanarizona.us

Tonight the feed was down for approx 6 hours. During this time, I added approx 150 more frequencies that are commonly used in fighting wildfires in and around the Kaibab and Coconino Natl. Forests. Most of the new frequencies are Bureau or land Mgmt and Arizona land dept. along with "HOTSHOT" freqs. All USFS freqs are still included.

Chad
 

SCPD

QRT
Joined
Feb 24, 2001
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Location
Virginia
Thank you for providing this feed. I moved to Flagstaff in 1972 when I transferred to Northern Arizona University to enroll in the School of Forestry. In the fall of 1973 I worked some weekends on the Coconino NF and logged the first wildland fire of my career on one of those weekends. I began working for the Kaibab in the summer of 1974. I graduated in 1975 and lived there almost three more years while I worked for the Kaibab. I was picked up as a permanent employee in 1976 and continued to work in fire management, mostly in fire prevention and fuels. In March of 1978 I transferred to the Cibola National Forest in New Mexico and then on to a couple of National Forests in California before retiring, those being the Toiyabe National Forest and the Inyo National Forest. After leaving the Kaibab I went into recreation and lands management, but stayed involved in fire management for the rest of my career by being a member of what we call the "militia" in fire management. It is made up of people with non fire management jobs who are qualified for positions in the Incident Command System (ICS) and respond to incidents and attend training to maintain or increase the qualifications they have. I retired with six ICS positions on my qualifications card, commonly referred to as "the red card," and logged 108 fires including 5 weeks a crew boss for five weeks during 1988 in Yellowstone National Park.

A co-worker of mine on the Inyo transferred to the Kaibab about 3-4 years ago as a dispatcher. He wasn't that far from retirement so I don't know if he is still working on the Kaibab. With the feeds from Grand Canyon and the one for the Kaibab and Coconino you have now provided I will be able to listen for him. I emailed him about 6 months after he transferred but haven't heard from him since.

Northern Arizona has a special place in my heart as it is the place I was educated and established my career. I will listen often to the feed you have put up. I'm interested in hearing how their procedures have adapted to the Incident Command System and the state of fire management that is current now. Fire management during the 70's in northern Arizona was not as evolved as I found when I transferred to California in 1981, and seems like the dark ages compared to the situation I retired from recently. I don't think we even knew the words "interagency" and "interoperability" in those times. Having grown up in California following the wildland and natural resources fields for many years, I found the situation in northern Arizona to be very much behind the times even in the 1970's. Interagency meant nothing when we watched a smoke grow on the east side of Kendrick from nearby Spring Valley (north of Parks) and we told we could not respond to this fire on the Coconino because in the words of the Coconino Fire Control Officer (fire management officers or FMO's used to be called this) "we kill our own snakes on the Coke." The fact that we (one engine, my patrol, and a cat) were less than 7 miles from the fire and their resources had to respond from Flagstaff and beyond meant nothing. Interoperability with the Coconino meant we had a Coconino radio at the Kendrick lookout and no one else on the Kaibab could talk to the Coconino directly. The same situation existed for "the Park" (Grand Canyon), as Red Butte lookout had a Park handheld.

The dispatchers would talk to each other on the "Air Net" as National Air Guard on 168.625 was called then. They did not have any type of dispatch center intercom or zone net in those days, but could talk with each other via the air net's various remote bases, such as Bill Williams on the Kaibab, Elden on the Coconino, and Mingus on the Prescott. The Coconino could not talk to the Apache-Sitgreaves (A-S, pronounced A bar S, in the USFS for short) remote on Green's Peak near Springerville, so they called Moqui lookout (Coconino with a A-S radio) or Ohaco lookout (Apache-Sitgreaves with a Coconino or "Coke" for short in the USFS) to relay traffic between the dispatchers. I think this was all done to avoid using the phone to save money on long distance charges or because it was more convenient.

With Kendrick having two National Forest radios to monitor and relay traffic (we didn't have repeaters in those days so lookouts relayed traffic in areas blind to the one remote base on the Forest), and having a very large seen area on the two Forests, it was a difficult lookout to work. By far the hardest to work was Promontory Lookout on the Apache-Sitgreaves. It had a seen area (the area it can see from the lookout) on three National Forests, the Coke, the A-S, and the Tonto. It had a radio from each Forest in the lookout. As it is located on the Mogollon Rim where the lightning activity was the heaviest the action became overwhelming and was usually staffed, like Kendrick was, with a dedicated couple who would not leave the tower on their days off, and as a couple their days off we not the same as one spouse worked the relief for the other spouse. Since Promontory was on the A-S, that Forest would sometimes send a third person up to the lookout just to help work one of the radios.

It would be helpful if you would post a list of the frequencies you are using in the scanner you are feeding. I might be able to give you some pointers on frequencies.

I hope my reminiscing is not too much and provides some background to what you hear now. I will be keeping your feed turned on here quite often and hope you keep it up for a long time.
 
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KDX3CB

Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2007
Messages
25
Location
Flagstaff, AZ
Thanks for the reply, I really enjoyed the read! Below is a list of what is being covered on the feed.

Az State Land Dept.

STATE-A2APRI 119.950000 AM 0.0 D
STATE-TAC1 159.330000 FM 0.0 D
STATE-TAC2 159.450000 FM 0.0 D
STATE-TAC3 159.240000 FM 0.0 D
STATELAND-1 151.400000 FM 162.2 D
STATELAND-2 151.415000 FM 123.0 D
STATELAND-3 151.415000 FM 162.2 D
STATELAND-4 151.400000 FM 123.0 D
STATELAND-5 154.280000 FM 100.0 D
STATELAND-6 159.330000 FM 131.8 D
STATELAND-7 159.450000 FM 123.0 D
STATELAND-8 159.240000 FM 173.8 D

NIFS

a-g airtac 1 166.675000 FM 0.0 D
a-g airtac 2 171.575000 FM 0.0 D
a-g airtac 3 169.200000 FM 0.0 D
a-g airtac 4 170.000000 FM 0.0 D
a-g airtac 5 167.950000 FM 0.0 D
a-g GRD EMR 168.625000 FM 0.0 D
Flt Followng 168.650000 FM 0.0 D
a-a Int. ATK 135.625000 AM 0.0 D
a-a Int. Atk 122.575000 AM 0.0 D
a-a Int. Atk 135.650000 AM 0.0 D
a-a int. Atk 122.750000 AM 0.0 D
a-a Int. Atk 122.425000 AM 0.0 D
Helo 122.925000 AM 0.0 D
helo 122.850000 AM 0.0 D
helo 123.025000 AM 0.0 D
helo 123.075000 AM 0.0 D
helo 122.975000 AM 0.0 D
GND tac 1 168.050000 FM 0.0 D
GND tac 2 168.200000 FM 0.0 D
GND tac 3 168.600000 FM 0.0 D
GND tac 4 164.137500 FM 0.0 D
GND tac 5 166.725000 FM 0.0 D
GND tac 6 166.775000 FM 0.0 D
GND tac 7 168.250000 FM 0.0 D
GND tac 8 173.100000 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 1 168.700000 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 2 168.100000 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 3 168.075000 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 4 166.612500 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 5 167.100000 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 6 168.475000 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 7 162.962500 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 8 169.537500 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 9 170.012500 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 10 170.412500 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 11 170.687500 FM 0.0 D
GND cmd 12 173.037500 FM 0.0 D
Air tnkr bse 135.975000 AM 0.0 D
Air tnkr bse 163.100000 AM 0.0 D
Alt air 119.950000 AM 0.0 D
Alt air 118.950000 AM 0.0 D
Alt air 126.900000 AM 0.0 D
Alt air 118.150000 AM 0.0 D
Alt air 118.550000 AM 0.0 D
A-G Helo 123.050000 AM 0.0 D
FAA 169.350000 FM 0.0 D
usfs police 168.025000 FM 0.0 D
govt allcall 163.100000 FM 0.0 D
common 168.550000 FM 0.0 D
common 168.350000 FM 0.0 D
GND Logst 1 414.650000 FM 0.0 D
GND Logst 2 415.400000 FM 0.0 D
GND Logst 3 415.500000 FM 0.0 D
GND Logst 4 417.300000 FM 0.0 D
GND Logst 5 417.350000 FM 0.0 D
GND Logst 6 417.500000 FM 0.0 D
GND Logst 7 417.800000 FM 0.0 D

Coconino NFS

Ch1 Ops S 171.550000 FM 0.0 D
Ch2 Ops N 172.300000 FM 0.0 D
Ch3 Ops Sr 171.550000 FM 0.0 D
Ch4 Ops Nr 172.300000 FM 0.0 D
Ch9 USFS T1 168.050000 FM 0.0 D
Ch10 USFS T2 168.200000 FM 0.0 D
Ch11 USFS T3 168.600000 FM 0.0 D
C12 USF Crew 168.350000 FM 0.0 D
C13 USFS Air 169.150000 FM 0.0 D
Ch14 Mut Aid 154.280000 FM 0.0 D
Admin 169.900000 FM 0.0 D
Air Guard 168.625000 FM 0.0 D
Rgr. Beaver 415.350000 FM 0.0 D
usfs police 168.025000 FM 0.0 D

Kaibab

All north and south ops frequencies
 
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