Fire nearly destroys Superior duplex

[natedawg1604]

This was an interesting call. North Metro Fire units were on DTR Red NW, but everyone else was on Boulder VHF Red-3. I know that Boulder County has a repeater with Red NW, so I was curious why they didn't use Red NW as the primary channel. Does North Metro carry VHF radios along with 800? As far as I can tell they only have 800, but maybe someone can confirm/correct me on this...?

Fire nearly destroys Superior duplex - Boulder Daily Camera

 

[jimmnn]

Believe North Metro just has 800MHz.

Jim<

 

[Spitfire8520]

Checked the archives regarding this incident and it sounds like the initial dispatch were for all Boulder County units at 1211. Red-3 was assigned for the incident at 1214. The additional resources weren't requested until 1324 and North Metro wasn't added to the call until 1328. Given the wide span of time between the initial call and North Metro being added, it would make sense that the original channel assigned was Red-3. Switching in the middle of the incident is generally considered dangerous in the middle of firefighting operations due to the possibility of personnel getting lost. Command could've done a little better with monitoring Red NW since it sounds like the North Metro Battalion Chief ended up organizing their actions more than Command did, but it's understandable that he was probably preoccupied with operations on Red-3 and wasn't able to fully pay attention to Red NW.