Fire Scanning?

[NewbieScoobie]

Hello there!

I am relatively new to the hobby and have begun to focus my interest in scanning wildfires. Given that southern california covers so many jursidictions and cities and counties, where could I find a pretty comprehensive list of appropriate scanner frequencies and systems to be prepared for any major incidents across SoCal? Being from Orange County and using a BCT15, I think I may be kind of spoiled as the County Trunk System is pretty well organized and with my non digital scanner all I get is Fire and EMS. I am often overwhelmed by systems in the RR database for other counties, but I'd like to get systems into the BCT15 before, god forbid, the next big firestorm hits. I guess what I'm looking for is what agencies have jurisdiction in the different areas, maybe forest service or CDF or CalFire. If the question is vague, I'd really just like to know your current strategies and experiences for scanning wildfires.

SN

 

[Eng74]

Most times on wildland fires almost everything will be on tac channels. So unless you are near the area where it is going on you will not hear much. I would add all of the L.A. County Fire (they are in Orange County now after all) and all of L.A. City's channels too. You will be able to follow the fires command channels and hear how thing are going by what is being ordered and how it is being deployed. Since you only have the BCT 15 you now miss out on Verdugo since they went to the ICIS system this year and that is digital. Then add any of the U.S. Forest Sevice and BLM fire channels. That is just off the top of what I can think of.

 

[NewbieScoobie]

Thanks for the tip. I added LA city and county fire. I was surprised I pick up at least some stuff all the way out in northeast orange county.

 

[madnachos]

I have a pretty complete BCT15 config for the So Cal area....I can get you a copy if you want to check it out. Pretty much covers anything you can pickup from OC when using a good external antenna.

 

[NewbieScoobie]

madnachos,

Oddly enough, I've been scanning with that very configuration, or at least a portion of it, for the past year or so. You were kind enough to send it to me last summer. I guess I should take this opportunity to thank you again. That configuration served me well during the Santiago Fire and daily listening. I recently wired up a very crude external antenna on the truck and have been taking advantage of your CHP system, something which i'd never heard much of with the back-of-set antenna on the floorboards.

Thanks Again!

NS

 

[madnachos]

Ahh...glad to hear you got some use out of it! I totally forgot that I had sent you a copy...

 

[SkipSanders]

California wildfires will have multiple agencies involved:
1) The local City Firefighters: These days, mostly trunk systems in any large city, either analog or digital.

2) Local County Firefighters: May be trunked, or large conventional systems.

3) CalFire (California Forestry, old 'CDF'): Large VHF conventional system, BUT, also found on local trunking systems as well!

4) Federal Fire agencies (Forestry and Parks, mostly Forestry): Primarily large VHF conventional systems, moving to digital P25 mode over time.

Monitoring with a single scanner may be tricky. However, unless you are close, as others say above, most fireline comms are low power simplex, and you won't be hearing them. One area to look to is the CalFire VHF aircraft frequencies, both air band and 151 MHz, as the aircraft are easy to hear, and often give overviews of what's happening.

Don't forget to cover the interagency channels, 154.280, 154.295, and 154.265, for simplex traffic between different agencies.

Covering ALL frequencies in use could easily end up with 60 or more frequencies, and all of them very active, leaving you randomly grabbing parts of communications, then skipping to others, etc. You may have to listen, pick out a 'good' command channel, and stick with it, along with associated aircraft coordination channels, to be able to follow much.

The best publication I know of for Southern California would be 'Scannerstuff Southern California Frequency Directory, just released its third edition, I belive, should be found at Ham Radio Outllet, or see: www.CaliforniaScanner.com

 

[SkipSanders]

Updated California Wildland fire frequency info, just found this updated (and renumbered) list, good as of January 17th, 2008!

http://www.firescope.org/macs-docs/MACS-441-1.pdf

This is a complete listing of what fire agencies and others should be using 'out of own area' at major fires, with details about narrow or widebanding, etc., in pdf format.

Same document as ICS 420-1, Appendix A, which is also available at this site, along with the rest of ICS 420, the full major incident manual.