Crews Fire East of Gilroy, Cal-Fire SCU(Santa Clara Unit) extended attack frequencies

[thebassman3939]

Does anyone know the Rx frequencies for extended attack on this major incident? I know a type 1 Incident Management team is taking over this afternoon. I have several hundred frequencies programed, including NIFC frequencies, NI-NFOG, Vtac, Utac, Air to air, air to base, all the cal fire frequencies on radio reference, frequencies from scansocal website. I live in Santa Clara County and yesterday was hearing everything on this fire. Today its dead silent minus Command 1 and 4 different Tactical channels-taticals you normally only pick up when you are close to the fire. So its weird that I'm only picking up tactical and no Air tac, no air to air. Currently Air Attack 460 (N415DF) is up and flying and has been for a little over an hour now, and tanker 80 (N458DF) has been up for about 30 minutes. Air attack is coming up on Command 1 when he talks to the IC.
I will update if I find out the frequencies later today. And Tanker 79, 85, and 86 are on there way now it sounds like, so I will update if they start coming through once they arrive.

 

[thebassman3939]

one frequency mentioned is 125.825 that air attack is talking to others on.

 

[norcalscan]

Air Tactics 169.2875
A/G 159.270/192.8
Rotor Victor 125.825

Command - CDF CMD1 151.355
Ground Tacs CDF Tac 26, 29, 30, VFIRE25, 26

 

[thebassman3939]

Air Tactics 169.2875
A/G 159.270/192.8
Rotor Victor 125.825

Command - CDF CMD1 151.355
Ground Tacs CDF Tac 26, 29, 30, VFIRE25, 26

Thank you! I picked up on air/ground 2 being what is normally cal fire tac 15, so I am wondering if there is a A/G 1 on this fire also. I just picked up at 168 something frequency of aircraft I’ll try to get that frequency as well.

 

[norcalscan]

Thank you! I picked up on air/ground 2 being what is normally cal fire tac 15, so I am wondering if there is a A/G 1 on this fire also. I just picked up at 168 something frequency of aircraft I’ll try to get that frequency as well.

A fire of this size should not have two air ground frequencies. Usually that happens on a MUCH larger incident with much larger complexities. CalFire A/G 2 is 159.2625, while CalFire Tac 15 is 159.270. Most scanners are not tight enough to distinguish between the two and will stop on either one. You'll need to have a commercial radio to start getting tight enough, and even then if you're right at the scene, you might get a bit of bleed over. The three A/G and the Air Tactics freqs are meant for initial attack only, so during the first night of the fire they'll request replacement temp freqs for the incident, releasing the IA freqs back to the unit for IA. That also helps rule out A/G2 being active on this fire now that it's Day 2.

 

[thebassman3939]

A fire of this size should not have two air ground frequencies. Usually that happens on a MUCH larger incident with much larger complexities. CalFire A/G 2 is 159.2625, while CalFire Tac 15 is 159.270. Most scanners are not tight enough to distinguish between the two and will stop on either one. You'll need to have a commercial radio to start getting tight enough, and even then if you're right at the scene, you might get a bit of bleed over. The three A/G and the Air Tactics freqs are meant for initial attack only, so during the first night of the fire they'll request replacement temp freqs for the incident, releasing the IA freqs back to the unit for IA. That also helps rule out A/G2 being active on this fire now that it's Day 2.

I understand what you are saying, and that bleed through happened yesterday for me all day. A/G came through on tac 21 and tac 7 for me all day, so I just set my scanner to scan all command, tac, air tac and Victor frequencies.

Air attack on frequency 125.825 said A/G2 multiple times earlier, so maybe he was mistaken when he was saying that. he would say Division Lima and Division Mike, I'm trying to reach you on A/G2 and then would start talking on frequency 159.270, which is normally tac 15. In the same time frame, this was just after 11:15, he said he just mapped the fire and that it was 6500 acres, so I imagine it is approaching 10K this afternoon.

How long does it take you to learn all these frequencies and know what frequencies a fire is on? In particular the extended attack frequencies? you seem very knowledgeable compared to me.

 

[norcalscan]

How long does it take you to learn all these frequencies and know what frequencies a fire is on? In particular the extended attack frequencies? you seem very knowledgeable compared to me.

It's a combination of years of monitoring, building up lists of frequencies of extended attack freqs from various IAP sources over the last 5 years and seeing what freqs are favored more in certain areas, and then finally the cheating bit, which is getting official comm intel on fires in the state due to my line of work. The cheating takes the hobby out of the hobby, but it's still doable for nearby fires with searching the fed bands when seeing the aircraft in the air on flightradar24. There's not much pause in their radio traffic so a search should find the new Air Tactics soon. The rotor victor is harder, since that's a combination of absolute random from the FAA, the width of the airband to search, the radio traffic not being as dense as Air Tactics, and the aircraft being much lower in elevation, often in canyons. For Air/Ground, on state fires it almost always will be one of the extended CalFire Tacs 14-34. For federal fires, usually back to the searching game.