I was monitoring on Sunday afternoon as I drove up to a spot NNE of McKinley Grove, about 15 miles from the Garnet fire. I got to enjoy some mobile HF radio time and pew! pew! fun. I finally got a whiff of the smoke just before 5PM and headed back down before things got worse. The smoke was now in the trees by then and it wasn't until around Chawanakee that I got out of the smoke. People camping overnight up there took a hit on their lungs.
On the way down the four lane I looked down toward Sierra High School and saw heavy smoke low down in that valley. That smoke was coming from the Watts Valley / Tollhouse fire that had just started. The air boss working the Garnet fire couldn't get a good eye on it due to the Garnet fire smoke. It was at that time I heard whomever announcing the road closures and evacuation areas, which I just drove from.
As I was driving I did not look at the scanner, but just kept it on to monitor. Here are the CDF frequencies I have in that scanner. They are for our area with the respective tones. I'm hoping they lift the evacuation order by October as we have a Cal QSO event planned for up there. We shall see.
Anyways, this particular scanner is on 24/7 when I'm up there. Here are the USFS frequencies I also monitor while up there. From 5000-7500' ASL, I can RX quite a bit. I was busy since this morning and did not get to monitor today from home.
