Death Valley Freqs

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hotdjdave

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Sierra Nevadas and Owens Valley

I spent much time camping, hiking, and fishing in the Eastern Sierras. Both my step-father and step-grandfather spent a lot of time up there and took my brother and I along. They both worked for the LA Dept. of Water and Power (DWP) and they knew plenty of locations in the Sierras and Owens Valley. In fact, my grandfather worked the Owens River for several years.

The spot we went to most often was Black Lake in the Palisades Glacier region. We would hike the 7-mile trek to Black Lake (the last part being a climb of 1,000 feet in one mile) and then fish the streams and other lakes (First through Seventh). Another favorite was Baker Creek. Whitney Portals was a common spot for us, too. He took us to French Lake once or twice, but that is too long of a hike (14 miles in if I remember) - good fishing though (Golden and German Brown trout). Of course, we had a couple of fishing locations only accessible by DWP employees. I spent some time at Lee Vining as well.

If our family wasn't camping somewhere else in the State, my dad would grab us boys and take us up to the Sierras to go fishing. A few times, he made it a survival training mission for my brother and I. We brought no bait and no food (so he said). We had to catch our own bait (grasshoppers) and catch our dinner. Later, he brought out the food from his backpack.

Sometimes we would spend a whole week up there, but most of the time it was just for the weekend. I was a Boy Scout and our Troop went up there about once or twice a year, as well.

My dad told me a story one time. He told me that he lost his Sierra Cup (a camping cup for backpackers) one time on the way up to Black Lake. He had engraved his initials on it when he first got it. Several years later, he was on the way up again and saw something off the trail. He dug it out and it was his Sierra Cup. It had been stepped on by a horse or mule, obvious by the hoof print. Grandpa confirmed the story.

When I was about 9 (and my brother was 6), we went up to Black Lake in late June. When we got to that last mile, there began to be snow - "Snow in June?!". About half way there, I was up to my waist in show. My dad had to carry my brother the rest of the way on his shoulders, along with his backpack and my brother's. When we got to the lake, it was 95% frozen over. While we were there, my brother and I went out on the middle of the lake. My dad saw us and had a huge fit - "you could have fallen through!" It was too late to go back, so we spent the night. That was one of the coldest nights I ever experienced. The next day we went back and stayed at Lower Sagebrush camp and fished the stream - good fishing that weekend.

One weekend, my dad brought a work buddy (which he occasionally did). We camped at Sagebrush Camp and fished the stream there one day and Baker Creek the other day. The last night, we counted the fish. Between my dad, his friend, my brother and I, we had over 100 trout. That night, a Fish and Game Warden came to our camp to check our licences. Good thing he never asked to see our catch - "Whew!"

If only I had a scanner back then.

My dad used to buy guns with beautifully hand-engraved butts/stocks from an old man up there. I think he was in Cottonwood, north of Bishop, or something.

I enjoyed the Sierra Nevadas very much and long to go back there. I haven't been there in about 14 years. I'm 37 now and my older son is 13 and my older daughter is 12 and I have not taken them (my two younder ones are 4 (girl) and 3 (boy)). Not sure why. I want to go, but I always seem to be too busy.
 
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SCPD

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If I've done my math right the year with all the snow in June may have been 1983, the biggest year for snowfall in the Sierra (overall, not considering each individual snow survey site which may have different record years). I love to hear stories about the trips people have taken to this area.

My parents brought me up to the eastern Sierra a lot until I was about 12 which was 1963. I have so many memories and stories of Convict Lake, Crowley Lake, the Mammoth Lakes Basin, Rock Creek, the Owens River, and Whitney Portal among others in Inyo County. When I started my career with the U.S. Forest Service at the age of 23 little did I know I would retire from the Mammoth Ranger District where so many of these memories were located. It was really special to manage and protect the lands that had been so special to me as a kid. A real privilege, actually.

It was great to watch and see people starting and/or carrying on the same family traditions I was involved in. A recreation manager's reward is being able to enjoy seeing people enjoy themselves. I developed that trait early in my career and it kept me going. People in recreation don't always have something to point to as a reward like the other resources like timber management, range management, or wildlife management where the end product is often a tangible object or objects.

Now for that total fish in possession of 100 fish, you are not welcome back if you intend to do that again! I remember the fine for that many fish being in the thousands of dollars, but I don't remember exactly as I was never involved in a case of over limit. I think the bail schedule counts each fish in determining amount. Most of mine were out of season violations, fishing with bait in fly fishing areas, and similar. I had two cases that had multiple violators where the fines totalled over $8,000 for all the violators. I loved busts like that!
 

hotdjdave

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Death Valley; Inyo County; Game Warden; Ranger

Exsmokey said:
Now for that total fish in possession of 100 fish, you are not welcome back if you intend to do that again!
Hey, I was a nine year old kid at the time...lol. My dad told me that besides a ticket (that came with a fine) the warden could take our gear and catch also.


Exsmokey said:
I love to hear stories about the trips people have taken to this area.
Somehow, I knew you would. ;)


Exsmokey said:
If I've done my math right the year with all the snow in June may have been 1983, the biggest year for snowfall in the Sierra...
It may have been. My age may have been something else also. I just remember it was the snow left over from the prior season that had not yet melted. My dad thought it would be gone by then and said he had never experienced snow that late in June; in September at the end of Sierra fishing season maybe, but not June.


Anyway, we used to always go the the Ranger Station in either Bishop or Independence (can't remember which) to get our permits every year...I wonder if I ever saw you when you were out and about on duty.

I remember on one of our trips in July when I was, I think 12, right at the cut off to take the short cut route to Black Lake (the 1000 feet in 1 mile short cut instead of the long way around which was less incline, but 2 more miles), we saw a ranger jogging by. This was at about 9200 feet above sea level. I guess he was used to the altitude and lack of oxygen and all.


To keep this thread on topic: we used to go camping in Death Valley occasionally. I remember a place called "Boron" or "Borax" or something like that. We used to visit Ghost Towns. We belonged to two camping clubs, "The Wandering Wagons" and "The Ghost Town Club" which was made up of Rocketdyne employees. We used to search out caves and old mines. My dad was an old bottle collector and discovered many finds in Death Valley.


Glad to know a person like you was out there, Exsmokey. Thank you for your service. I was a Ranger for while in my service with the City of Los Angeles.
 
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SCPD

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Anyway, we used to always go the the Ranger Station in either Bishop or Independence (can't remember which) to get our permits every year...I wonder if I ever saw you when you were out and about on duty.

I remember on one of our trips in July when I was, I think 12, right at the cut off to take the short cut route to Black Lake (the 1000 feet in 1 mile short cut instead of the long way around which was less incline, but 2 more miles), we saw a ranger jogging by. This was at about 9200 feet above sea level. I guess he was used to the altitude and lack of oxygen and all.

I didn't arrive in the eastern Sierra until 1981 when I began work on the Bridgeport Ranger District of the Toiyabe National Forest. I transferred to the Mammoth Ranger District of the Inyo National Forest in 1988, so you would not have seen me on duty at the Ranger Station in Bishop or anywhere that far south. The wilderness ranger you saw may have been someone I knew, unless he was a seasonal employee, and if so I only had a chance of running into at wilderness ranger workshops and training, something I was involved in since 1981, with all the Parks and Forests in the central/south Sierra Nevada involved. If the person you saw is someone I know, together he and I made a very significant "snowmobile use in wilderness" bust in the late 1990's.

Yes, we do get acclimated to the lack of oxygen at higer elevations. My last blood test has a note that I have an "abnormal" amount of hemoglobin in my blood. That is the substance in your blood that carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of your body. The count was pretty high, but not out of the ordinary for people who have lived at 6700 or more feet for 33 years, with my present home being only short 150 feet of 8,000. When I go south to visit family I find myself sleepy a lot for about 3 days. I guess there is too much oxygen in the air at 390 feet where my mother lives.

To keep this thread on topic: we used to go camping in Death Valley occasionally. I remember a place called "Boron" or "Borax" or something like that. We used to visit Ghost Towns. We belonged to two camping clubs, "The Wandering Wagons" and "The Ghost Town Club" which was made up of Rocketdyne employees. We used to search out caves and old mines. My dad was an old bottle collector and discovered many finds in Death Valley.

I guess your father was not aware that historical and cultural objects such as bottles more than 50 years old (the more recent ones that are litter are welcome for you to remove!) are illegal to remove from all federal public lands including those in Death Valley National Park, which at the time was probably a National Monument since its designation in 1933. It's been a Park since 1994. Regardless, collecting bottles, arrowheads and the like is illegal on lands administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, since the Antiquities Act of 1906. These objects provide vital clues in piecing together the history of man's presence not only prehistorically but in more recent times also. The removal of these types of objects by countless "collectors" has, in many cases, left significant holes in our knowledge of not only of human culture, but in other fields such as the study of geological plants and animals (read fossils). These objects are owned by the public as a whole, and if collected and displayed should be available for them to view. Their display in private homes does not constitute a display accessible to the public.

Sorry to be serious here, but as my wife says "you can take the ranger out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the ranger".

To get this back on topic, a portion of the radio traffic of the four agencies I listed above is in regards to enforcement of the Antiquities Act. In my patrols, that numbered in the thousands during my career, I was never involved in such a case, but heard traffic about it and was involved in watching key areas of archaeological importance. Several of my co-workers were involved in these types of cases.

The classic three things you don't do in front of a ranger, and which every ranger encourages you to never do, and does not want to hear about you having done them, are one, collecting historical objects, rocks, plants, and the like. All such objects are known as "leverites" just in case you wonder what that rock or other object is. The full name of these objects is "leave er right there". Once that has been established, almost every Ranger will identify it, or get back to you when the Ranger isn't sure right then. Two, picking flowers. Let them die with their roots on, otherwise the seed source that enables you to view those lovely flowers is taken away. Three, feed any animal (every time an animal is fed with human food another letter is placed on its death certificate, a fed bear is a dead bear). While these acts may seem innocent to a lot of people, the impacts of thousands and millions of visitors commiting them is incredibly significant. You would not believe the time and expense, in addition to damage and injury to people, caused by "I just wanted to feed the (bear, squirrel, bird, marmot, deer, moose, elk, bison) to get them closer, or because they are sooooooo cute, as we don't have such things at home, so it can't possibly be a problem" type of behavior we saw and saw the results of more than we needed to. The cost in terms of money that could have been used to maintain and improve visitor facilities, as well as maintaining and restoring the health of the land, was huge.

Then there is one other act a visitor can commit which is worse than these three. I must state I don't believe in capital punishment as most people who have studied it find that it is not a deterrant in the majority of cases, the wrongful execution rate is somewhere at about 10-20%, in the long run it does not satisfy the most of the victims and provide closure, and executing even one innocent person is greater than I'm willing to accept. Besides it costs more to execute a person than to house them in prison for life, so why waste tax dollars doing it. However, the one exception I have is for people who litter. These slobs and idiots should be removed from the gene pool so their numbers will eventually decline.The result of their inconsiderate, self-centered behavior desecrates the view for those who observe and are involved in the world beyond themselves, and costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars to pick up. Money that could be spent on better highway, campground, and other visitor facility operation and maintenance. If you litter and complain about your taxes, the first place you should look is in the mirror.

All of this results in a considerable amount of radio traffic, including the radio systems of Death Valley National Park, the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, the Inyo National Forest, and the California Desert District of the BLM. That is why I included information about these acts in this post about radio.

Yogi, I don't think the ranger is going to like this!
 

Mick

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Hello. I saw your post and thought I'd look that up. Here's what I located:

In fact, there is absolutely no evidence that the death penalty in this country has ever executed even ONE innocent in the past century!
Full report:
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html#risk

United States' courts have repeatedly enforced the obvious, common sense, important distinction between the actually innocent and the legally innocent (5).
Full report:
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/Innocence.htm

"If only people would make sure they know what they are talking about
before they swear a man's life away."
Full report:
http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/wrong/mike.list

Death penalty links:
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm

The case against capital punishment relies on myth, misinformation, and misplaced emotionalism.
Full report:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/06-03-2002/vo18no11_fallacies.htm

All those reports make terrific reading.

Exsmokey said:
I must state I don't believe in capital punishment as most people who have studied it find that it is not a deterrant in the majority of cases, the wrongful execution rate is somewhere at about 10-20%....
 

SCPD

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That portion of the post was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I used some stereotypical statements to lead into an absurd statement that I would actually want to execute someone for littering. It was supposed to be a post which humorously pointed out that littering is a serious problem. Sorry you did not pick up on that.

Thanks for providing the links. I want to look at them at some point. The more one can read about an issue the better.
 
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RonLittle

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ExSmokey and other public employees,
Thanks very much for your service. I really despise bureaucrats and large government. I do, however, appreciate the field workers and the work they do.

ExSmokey, thanks for sharing the laws you spoke of too. Several things I did not know.

Ron

Feel free to stray off topic if you wish, the posts are interesting.
 

SCPD

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RonLittle said:
ExSmokey and other public employees,
Thanks very much for your service. I really despise bureaucrats and large government. I do, however, appreciate the field workers and the work they do.

ExSmokey, thanks for sharing the laws you spoke of too. Several things I did not know.

Ron

Feel free to stray off topic if you wish, the posts are interesting.

I appreciate your thanks. I was involved in four very close calls that would have resulted in my demise except for a foot or second or two, or the luck and skill of two helicopter pilots. Two were during fire suppression/prevention situations and the other two were for normal resource and public assist/law enforcement patrols. I was in some pretty hairy situations a number of times protecting subdivisions in southern California and the town of West Yellowstone in one case. I had a high powered rifle pointed in my direction another time, which I did not find out about for several days, when inspecting an illegally constructed road on National Forest land which resulted in more than half a mile of stream, streambank, and riparian vegetation being bulldozed. The "miner" told his buddy, "I wonder how bad I can hurt hime from this distance" while he had me in his telescopic sight. I had to face some pretty gross situations including the maintenance of vaults in vault toilet buildings (you don't want to know), vomit and excrement messes beyond belief, and a few bodies that had been "significantly altered" by various means. I cleaned toilets, picked up litter, fixed gates, signs, and fences and worked on broken water systems during the middle of the night and during snowstorms every year of my career. I've dug holes and put up signs when anyone else would have wanted a backhoe to dig and lift. This due to a lack of personnel, equipment, and time. A lot of this work resulted from vandalism. I had to be out in dangerous weather conditions when everyone else was inside their place of work, homes, or vehicles. Removing large rocks on a road one day in the winter, I was picked up by the wind 3-5 feet off the ground and desposited 15 feet away. I received a total of about 70-80 bee stings, was struck at on two occasions by rattlesnakes, countless mosqito bites, and was lacerated by brush and barbed wire fences more often than I can remember. I lost three friends and co-workers to on duty fatalities and was in critical stress debriefing sessions several times. I lost a marriage, in part because of the living conditions in two different towns I transferred to. I lived in one town which has been called part of an area "that is the closest one can get to a third world country as one can get inside the boundaries of the United States". I faced belligarent and potenially violent people with backup 20-45 minutes or more away. Some of these people did so because they didn't get their own way, got caught doing something that was clearly illegal or because they just "wanted to break the law", were being influenced by some chemical, or because they had warrants out for their arrest.

For this I was spit on, had various food items thrown at me, and received some late night threatening phone calls at my house. My first wife was ostracized in one town and my second wife was harrassed on her job and has had number of her "friends" reduced because of who I worked for. I was insulted at social occasions in every town I lived in during my career. Once I was called at home when I had a fever of 102 and no voice because a visitor did not get the campsite they wanted. Language that could make a pit bull throw up was directed my direction all the time. I was frequently treated with disrespect by visitors including having the marital status of my parents at the time of my birth questioned on many occassions and was called a "Chinese Communist" a couple of times.

The fallout from the Panorama Fire of 1980 was interesting. It was a large fire near Devore in San Bernardino County that started during cold Santa Ana condidtions in November of that year. I witnessed a fire whirl (little tornardo) that must have been 200 to 300 feet in diameter on that fire. I will never forget the heat blast from it. It was quite sobering. Dozens of homes were saved when airtankers were directed to drop retardent directly on them. I later talked with several accident investigation/claims type folks who fielded angry phone calls from the owners of these homes about how the redardent "ruined their homes" and the resulting claims for repainting. Another "fire prevention technician" (they drive patrol engines and are the basic, everyday, patrol people of the Forest Service) co-worker of mine on another fire told me a story about one of his expereinces on the same fire. He was driving in a subdivision looking for spot fires when he saw a fence on fire in the back yard of one home. The fence went under a car port on a house, and if it continued burning would have ignited the house very efficiently. He backed into the dirveway, pulled out his live reel, and put out the fire on the fence, saving the house. He did this with additional spot fires igniting around him, in a somewhat dicey situation. Nearly a year later he got a call from a Forest Service claims administrator asking him if he recalled doing this. It seems the homeowner filed a claim because he apparently backed into the mailbox during the heat of the moment and didn't realize it. The homewowner claimed an amount that must have been a result of the Taj Mahal of mailboxes being hit.

I remember a conservation officer with Arizona Game and Fish who was driving very fast with all of his lights out while pursuing some suspects late one night so he did not alert the poachers of his presence. There had also been some cattle rustling activity in the area as well. It seems there was a opening in the fence next to the road and a rancher's bull got out onto the road. It was all black and the officer totalled the AGF pickup and broke an ankle in the collision. Turns out this was the "most valuable bull the rancher and the two generations of his family before him ever produced and owned" when he filed the claim. It would have seemed the rancher could have appreciated someone being out at night watching over his herd and taken into account his lack of fence maintenance.

I have dozens of other similar stories.

Although you expect some of this when you take the job on, it can really make your morale suffer over the long run. Public service employees are often criticized for being able to retire at 55 with 30 years of service when private sector employees usually have to wait until 60 or 62. With all the crap public employees have to put up with I'm not sure that more than 30 years of service is a reasonable expectation.

Overall the good times were far more numerous than the bad, but the bad times were pretty tough and seemed to weigh in more during my career. Now you know why I really appreciate your comments!
 
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PeterSz

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I have some info about the fire units at Death Valley.

Approx 1990 info - Death Valley Natl Park Serrvice units - Engine 1 is 1987 Ward LaFrance 1000 GPM with 750 gallon tank of water - Engine 2 is 1977 GMC/ Fire tech 250GPM/300 gal - Engine 3 is 1994 USFS Model 42 125GPM / 285 gallons - Medic 1 is a 1995 Ford / Wheeled Coach Type 1 ambulance - Medic 2 is 1995 Chevrolet / Wheeled Coach Type 1 - Medic 3 is 1978 Chevrolet Type II ambulance.

From WildCAD Jan 2005 - Death Valley NPS shows as - Engine 2 Type 1 out of service at grapevine - Engine 3 is a Type 3 - available in quarters at Stovepipe Wells - and Eng 4 is a Ty3 out of servcie at Wildrose - (Type 1 should be a structural unit - the Type 3s should be combination wildland / structural units)

The NPS website says that most NPS staff live at Cow Wells which is 3 miles north of Furnace Creek.

The concessionaire in the Park also has a FD - or 2 FDs - maybe with 2 or 3 stations - Their stations might be at Furnace Creek Inn, Furnace Creek Hotel, and Stovepipe Wells.

Recent newspaper articles confirm that both NPS and the concession FD respond to structural fires in the death Valley area.

Some of these rigs must have radios on some freqs. My 1990s info showed 170.10R 169.55 in with 2 repeaters.

"DVP" is the 3 letter code for the NPS FD. "DVF" is the 3 letter code for the Furnace Creek VFD (which is the concession run FD I believe).

"DVP" had 2 fulltime staff back around 1990 - a Fire Management Officer & a Wildland Fire Advisor. (DVP was apparently a combined wildland / structural agency)

peter sz
 

SCPD

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Unless the Park Service has done something such as adding ladders, breathing apparatus, and some other tools, Type III engines are not a wildland/structural combination. Type III is the largest wildland engine. Wildrose has some structures so it is possible they have done that. Otherwise the nearest Type I is in Stovepipe. The tank on a Type III is only 300 gallons minimum with 120 gallons per minute (GPM) for the pump rating so you need hydrant access and hope you catch it small. The next engine up has 400 gallons minimum and 500 GPM and a Type I has the same size tank and 1000 GPM.

There is a small 4WD Type I engine that is also rated for wildland. Carrying both wildland and structural tools usually takes up so much space that even when you have both the vehicle is so big it isn't a very good wildland engine.

Most National Parks fire managment personnel have to be rated for both structural and wildland. Concessionaire and NPS buildings are frequently well outside any fire district. Many protection rangers (law enforcement) are wildland, structural, and paramedic qualified. A ranger who responds to each, plus a search and rescue in a 24 hour period, is said to have had a "grand slam". A Death Valley ranger once reached a grand slam in one hour. In the early 80's there was a large wildland fire in this Park near Hunter Mountain that went on for 3 weeks or more. Hotshot crews, engines, water tenders, air tankers, and a fire camp. Most people are surprised to hear this.

By fulltime staff you mean in fire management. The abbrevation of DVP applies to all personnel when they are used in ICS including law enforcement, hazmat, and all the other types of incidents where ICS is used. The three letter abbreviation is for ICS, however the Park Service had a four letter system before ICS came along. They use either the first four letter of the Park name or the first two letters in each word of the Park name. Thus Yosemite is YOSE, Sequioia-Kings is SEKI, and Death Valley is DEVA. You may see this abbreviation used to mark property such as barricades, fire hose, and all sorts of things in a Park. The protection ranger staff was at about 12 the last I heard and they cover 3.3 million acres. I'm not sure what the size of the intrepretation, resource managment, maintenance, and administrative staff is. I believe there are NPS employees on the Furnace Creek volunteer department.

Just for clarification the joint CHP/Inyo Sheriff/Caltrans/NPS work center and housing area is called Cow Creek, not "Cow Wells". Housing is a big problem for the NPS at Death Valley, just as it is in almost every National Park unit. Some married folks wait up to and over 2 years to move to private quarters, living in dormitory rooms in the meantime, which are separated by gender into different buildings. I applied for a job there in 1994, wanting to transfer from the U.S. Forest Service to a intrepretive ranger job in the NPS. My wife and I looked at property in Pahrump, Nevada, a commute of nearly 70 miles. There are some folks doing that now. I didn't get the job and I'm glad looking back on it as I really didn't want to buy property in Nye County, Nevada or live there either. The reasons would take a bit of space to explain.

When it comes to esoteric trivia for natural resource agencies in the federal government I must say I am a master.
 

selgaran

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Exsmokey said:
When it comes to esoteric trivia for natural resource agencies in the federal government I must say I am a master.

I'll say...thanks much for sharing.

I believe the standard is now a 5 letter system that works nationwide - two letter state code plus three letter agency or unit designator.

So, Death Valley is CA-DVP, Yosemite is CA-YNP, etc.
National Parks units tend to end in "P", National Forests in "F", NWS wildlife reservers in "R", and BLM in "D".

Example at:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/fire/intel/ncsc/situation/sitreport.htm
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/fire/south/fwx/operations/osc-archive/sitreport-05/120805-sitreport.html

Complete list of California agency designators (PDF):
http://www.firescope.org/ics-big-fog/ICS420-1AppendixB.pdf
 

SCPD

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Yes, the two letter USPS state code is used with the three letter identifier. When an incident is not large enough to draw out of state resources it's not used. I used to be a Type I Resource Unit Leader, which is the ICS position that tracks order for resources, where those resources are on the incident, and makes the shift assignments for those resources after operations lists their needs at the two daily planning meetings. There is yet another abbreaviation system to identifiy each ICS position, which number in the hundreds. This system is complex enough that I never came close to mastering it.

The public can order publications through Firescope and the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) which explain the basics of wildland fire and the use of ICS. The two I recommend are the Field Operations Guide (called the FOG) with a publication number of ICS-420-1 available through FIRESCOPE and the Fireline Handbook with a publication number of NWCG Handbook 3 (PMS 410-1 and NFES 0065) available through NWCG or through the NIFC publications management system. Search the keywords I've listed above.

These 4 x 7 1/2 books are very basic and concise and allow scanner listeners to understand much of what they hear when monitoring wildland fire agencies.
 

BirkenVogt

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There are a lot of jargon terms that fly around. Some day I want to see a complete definition of the phrase "tie in"...smokey you know what I mean ;)

Birken
 

zerg901

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So apparently there is no NPS structural engine at Cow Creek nor Furnace Creek. Apparantly the Furnace Creek VFD protects the Cow Creek area.

To recap - apparently the structural fire engines in Death Valley are - NPS Engine 2 at Grapevine - and Furnace Creek VFD structural engines at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells.

From the administrative and dispatch point of view - DVP might be a Natl Park Service sponsored fire organization that provides wildfire service, ambulance service, and 1 structural pumper at Grapevine. The Furnace Creek VFD must be a community based - or concessionare based - structural fire agency with pumpers at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells.

Maybe the Furnace Creek VFD operates on 151 Mhz, and the Death Valley FD operates on 170.10R

911 calls might be answered by Inyo County Sheriff, who then transfers the info to the Federal Dispatch center in San Bernardino.

Does anyone ever hear pagers being activated on 170.10?

Peter sz
 

SCPD

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BirkenVogt said:
There are a lot of jargon terms that fly around. Some day I want to see a complete definition of the phrase "tie in"...smokey you know what I mean ;)

Birken

I have a writeup of about 3 pages which defines a great deal of U.S. Forest Service lingo and it is called "Green Speak". I found some of the lingo to be curious when I first started my career, but soon completly adopted it. I thought that after retiring I would begin to find it curious once again, but when I hear it now I don't. It conveys meanings to me that let me know what is really going on when it is combined with my knowledge of the jobs and situations being talked about.

One of the reasons the lingo is so well developed across the country is due to the number of people who transfer around and the mostly annual company picnics, otherwise known as large fires. When you go to lots of them you soon begin to form friendships with people you only see on large incidents and at training sessions. Notice we don't call our training "seminars", which are for folks wearing suits and shoes that need to be polished. Something can start in a particular area, such as southern California or western Montana, and spread nationwide. Some of the lingo comes from some varied sources such as ICS, the natural resources sciences, training materials, computer systems, and the Forest Service manual and handbooks.

For you to bring up "tie in" indicates you have listened to Forest Service radio systems for some time. If you listen to tactical communications on fires the term "bump" is one that may be a curiousity also. I had the same pocket notebook in my fire shirt for my entire year that I used to keep track of the names of my crews and other important incident information. I started to keep a list of wildland fire lingo that I heard frequently. It is still a mystery to me what the difference between "face-to-face" and "tie in" is. "Face-to-face" seems to be used most often on incidents and quite frequently when people are on foot. "Tie in" seems to be for day to day work when vehicles are involved.

I could write a very large Wiki submission on an insider's view of what employees natural resource agencies face in their daily jobs and the lingo they use. I will probably never get the time. I am now in a new profession and am trying to learn the lingo used in it.
 

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zerg901 said:
So apparently there is no NPS structural engine at Cow Creek nor Furnace Creek. Apparantly the Furnace Creek VFD protects the Cow Creek area.

To recap - apparently the structural fire engines in Death Valley are - NPS Engine 2 at Grapevine - and Furnace Creek VFD structural engines at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells.

From the administrative and dispatch point of view - DVP might be a Natl Park Service sponsored fire organization that provides wildfire service, ambulance service, and 1 structural pumper at Grapevine. The Furnace Creek VFD must be a community based - or concessionare based - structural fire agency with pumpers at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells.

Maybe the Furnace Creek VFD operates on 151 Mhz, and the Death Valley FD operates on 170.10R

911 calls might be answered by Inyo County Sheriff, who then transfers the info to the Federal Dispatch center in San Bernardino.

Does anyone ever hear pagers being activated on 170.10?

Peter sz

I believe you are correct that the Furnace Creek VFD covers Cow Creek. Back in my memory of visits to Death Valley I think I heard a dispatch for smoke in one of the residential trailers there. My memory is quite fuzzy on this, but I believe "Control 1", the 911 public safety answering point for Inyo County, dispatched the VFD on 154.430 and brought up a fire siren by some means also. I think this must have been accomplished using a remote base controlled via a dial up connection on commercial phone lines.. There are so few calls that it probably doesn't pencil out putting up a county fire net (153.875) repeater on Rogers to serve Furnance Creek and another on the Tecopa electronic site to cover the southeast portion of the county. Dial up connections can be quite costly, but when you only have a few calls per year, it may be cheaper than the cost of repeater and link installations even in the very long term.

Medical services are provided by the protection ranger organization. In most parks the wildland fire organization is separate from the protection rangers. Parks are typically organized into protection, interpretation, resources, wildland fire, maintenance, and administrative functions. Protection rangers are frequently members of the structural fire protection organization, but so are employees of other functions. The "Chief Ranger" is in charge of protection and typically structural fire is within that organization, even though fire may be considered a resource management function.

The primary reason there is a volunteer fire district at Furnance Creek is the existence of private land and a nearby Shoshone reservation. Since the facility at Cow Creek is interagency, even though on public land, it makes sense to have a fire district cover it. In that way the NPS involves a number of partners into something beneficial and shared by all. Stovepipe is different in that I believe the land there is public. Scotty's Castle is a unique situation in that the value of the historic property there is very high, but the existence of a fire district is not anywhere within more than 50 miles.

I can't say I have ever heard pager tones on 170.100 in my time at Death Valley. I would imagine that the members of the NPS structural fire brigade at Stovepipe and Scotty's/Grapevine pagers are carried as many of the employees are in interpretation and resources who don't stay in service on the radio on a regular basis. They might just use fire sirens instead of pagers. I know some of the employees there, having worked with them in the Forest Service at one time, who might know the answers to all of these esoteric questions. If I bump into them someday I will try to ask.

Death Valley is a unique National Park in that it was a monument where mining claims in existence at the time of the designation in 1933 were and are allowed to continue operation even after Congress designated it a park in 1994. The private land at Furnance Creek, along with the indian reservation are factors also. Added to that is the 1.3 million acres formerly in the California Desert National Scenic Area, designated by Congress, administered by the BLM. There are both patented (privately owned) and unpatented mining claims within the Park boundary. Finally, there are "state school act" lands owned by the State of California scattered in the newer Park boundary and in the former Monument boundary as well. These are usually sections 16 and 36 in every township, depending on the bill establishing the state the lands are located in. Typically these are eventually traded between the state and federal government, but that has not been completed yet. Then there is the presence of a state highway and a county road here or there. Add to this the remoteness and small population of Inyo County, giving the Park Service a sort of responsibility by default for medical and law enforcement typically that of a local authority. Unique for many large National Parks, this is a concurrent and not exclusively federal jurisdication. All of this results in a unique and difficult workload for this Park.
 

zerg901

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Exsmokey - thanks for your help. Slowly but surely I am getting a handle on the public safety picture at Death Valley. If anyone ever gets a picture of a Furnace Creek FD rig - please drop me a note. Peter sz
 

zerg901

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By the way - the "Fireline Handbook" is available online. I downloaded it just the other day. Peter sz
 
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