Los Angeles, CA - The need for greater mutual aid radio communications

[Thunderbolt]

LOS ANGELES -- The Station Fire has caused the need to once again re-evaluate the need for a communications system. Radio communications for the most part must be reevaluated so that all public safety participates can communicate freely with one another during any major disaster event. In the Station Fire, there were two firefighters that died. However, to say that better mutual aid radio communications could have saved their lives would be wrong, but the need for a better system may help to prevent future incidents, especially when life is the key.

The need for greater mutual aid radio communications

 

[DaveNF2G]

As the first comment on the article site points out, the author of this editorial failed to consider several well-known facts about the situation before writing.

 

[disp10]

"In Los Angeles County, this lack of communications is well known. Los Angeles County police agencies are usually on a 400 MHz band while fire units are on an 800 MHz band."

LAFD is on 800, but "most" of the fire agencies are on 400 I believe.

 

[bryan_herbert]

The spelling errors alone prove the article should be taken with a grain of salt.

The comm systems here in SoCal look a little something like this.
Los Angeles County...
Los Angeles County Fire Department: 154/470 MHz Analog/Conventional
Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department: 482-483 MHz Analog/Conventional
Los Angeles Fire Department: 800 MHz Analog/Conventional
Los Angeles Police Department: 484/506-507 MHz Digital/Conventional
Los Angeles County Police Department: 800 MHz Analog/Trunked
Verdugo Fire (ICIS): 470MHz Analog/Digital/Trunked/Conventional
Smaller Municipal Departments: 154-156/460-508 MHz
California Highway Patrol: 39/42 MHz Analog/Conventional

Outside Los Angeles County...
Orange County Fire Department: 800 MHz Analog/Digital
Orange County Sheriffs Department: 800 MHz Analog/Digital (Encrypted 24/7)
Ventura County: 154-156 MHz Analog/Conventional
San Bernardino County: 154/460/800 MHz Analog/Trunked
Riverside County 151-155/800 MHz Analog/Trunked
San Diego County: 151/800Mhz Analog/Trunked



As you can see there are literally hundreds of frequencies in play within the County of Los Angeles alone and that list hasnt even scratched the surface. The State of California has a mutual aid radio system in play and has for over 30 years using the CLEMARS and FIREMARS systems with frequencies covering 30-900 MHz. Pretty much all fire departments have the FIREMARS and/or State White freqs programmed in their radios and the same goes for the police agencies with CLEMARS. There is a plan to take all these departments and throw them onto what is currently known as ICIS. ICIS is a radio network that utilizes not only digital and analog voice but trunking and conventional technology. Currently there are roughly a dozen cities that have moved their systems to ICIS and hopefully within the next four years the remainder of Los Angeles County as a whole will have moved over (with the exception of some city services) to complete what is to be known as LA-RICS, the Los Angeles Regional Interopable Communication System.

The final draft report of what the LA-RICS system will look like can be found here

http://la-rics.org/Radio_Interoperability_Project_Final_Report.pdf

In the end LA-RICS will likely end up becoming the largest mixed mode communications system in this country, if not the world.

 

[N_Jay]

Sounds like someone has their public relations company cranked up to help them get money for a new system.

 

[brushfire21]

There is a problem in California (and all over the state and possibly the world) where adjacent agencies are using different radios (IE one fire dept using 150mhz and the neighboring dept using 470-480mhz or 700-800mhz trunking). Only way around this is two have both depts install a 2nd radio usually to communicate with the other.

On large fires (and even daily smaller incidents) where mutual aid is coming in, mobile cross band repeaters are setup so that 150mhz radios are retransmitting on 470mhz systems and also 700-800mhz channels (and vice versa). Its done all the time and works really well, but requires someone to set one up or have one in a command vehicle that can be turned on with a flip of a switch.

With P25 coming down the tube, this will help to some degree but not completely, what is needed is a dual band 150mhz/700-800mhz radios. By having radios that can tx/rx in both the 150mhz and 700/800mhz bands, this would allow fire personal to communicate between each other very effectively and easily across the state. As we all know, 150mhz is great for long range comm and works better in the wildland area's, and 700-800mhz is better for line of sight and urban settings where thousands of users exist... both systems are needed.

For the most part, 90% of the departments in California rely upon VHF 150mhz radios for wildland fire communications and I doubt that a move to 700-800mhz will ever happen because of the advantages of VHF comm in remote areas over line of sight 700-800mhz. But FF's adapt and overcome, and cellphones play a large part in helping with that.

 

[Eng74]

I guess this guy has never heard of CalCord.

 

[ProScan]

This may come as a shock but police and fire don't like each other at least in the agency I work for and don't really care to communicate with each other. I've seen firsthand at many UNIFIED command post where the fire dept. has there own room or building for there CP. In mater of fact I don't recall where the police and fire ever shared the same room and I've been to 552 CP's and roughly 120 have been unified (PD, DOT, ATF, FBI, Parole, school police, The gas company, MTA, etc..)

"In Los Angeles County, this lack of communications is well known. Los Angeles County police agencies are usually on a 400 MHz band while fire units are on an 800 MHz band."

LAFD is on 800, but "most" of the fire agencies are on 400 I believe.

 

[ScannerDude244]

100% of time you should up to a fire in Californian comm's will be VHF.

 

[SCPD]

There is no mention in the article and in previous posts about the National Interagency Radio Support Cache (NIRSC). Although the L.A. County Fire Department (LAC) has a 400 MHz radio system for daily use they also have equipped apparatus with VHF mobiles and handheld radios that include the NIRSC frequencies. Also included are frequencies for the Forest Service, BLM, NPS, and CalFire used in California. These radios have the federal and non-federal national interoperability channels as listed in the Department of Homeland Security's "National Interoperability Field Operations Guide" (FOG). In addition the FOG has similar assignments in the 400 MHz and 800 MHz bands.

CDF and federal natural resource agency radios include the VHF tactical frequencies licensed to the LAC. When I was in Yellowstone NP on the fires in 1988 the rather large group of crew bosses that supervised Army platoons used as fire crews, which I was a member of, all arrived with radios that included the NIRSC frequencies or could be programmed with same. This group included the 10-20 LAC crew captains. Most of those that had 14 channel Kings were knowledgeable enough to pick up the comm plan and program their own radios.

The foothill cities included in the Verdugo fire radio system on ICIS are problematic as are those in San Bernardino County that border the San Bernardino National Forest. The only fire department that I can think of using 800 MHz in L.A. County is the Los Angeles City Fire Department (LFD). This last one presents some problems for interoperability with nearly every other fire department in the county.

One of the first tasks completed in initial attack is to assign a command and tactical frequency(s). There are ample tactical frequencies immediately available on VHF, but local repeater systems must suffice for command until the NIRSC cache command repeaters arrive and are installed.

It would seem as though the necessary tools exist, even though there are some disadvantages, to provide for interoperability for fire departments working wildland fires. Putting those tools into use is problematic. But so is the implementation of ICS. Responders tend to use the daily procedures they are accustomed to for too long after an incident begins, including the use of day to day unit designators (call signs) and their own, instead of interoperability frequencies. Making the transition to extended attack from initial attack is often not smooth.

As for law enforcement interface with a fire incident, this may always be a problem. LEO's don't get involved in mutual aid as often as firefighters. They don't adapt well to ICS and their radio procedures are significantly different. Clear text and ICS terminology are unfamiliar to them. They don't understand their radios nearly as much as firefighters do, and that is an understatement. I've worked around county and local LEO's as well as the CHP on some large wildland fires. To me the attitude of some of them is puzzling. I worked as a volunteer for a sheriff's department in communications on a large fire and all the LE agencies decided to have a command post some distance from and separate from the incident command post where they took behind the back stabs at the incident commander and the wildland fire agencies. I did not manage to bite my tongue at all times!

To make a statement that L.A. County needs some sort of new radio system ignores all of the above. This writer needs to spend some time getting a yellow shirt very dirty, until his eyes sting, and using a rock or a hardhat for a pillow seems really comfortable. It seems to me that much of the solution to the problem this writer presents is not technological, but human with planning, training, practice, and correct use being huge factors. The Station Fire will precipitate a lot of review of these factors, which were stretched beyond their limits considering this is the largest wildland fire in the modern history of L.A. County. I would imagine that their will be solutions put in place that are not glamorous and far from the public and media eyes, but more effective than some big sexy, costly piece of technology that the unknowing public and politicians force down the throats of professionals in the field. These costly tools take money away from the basic tools that are more effective on a fire. Reminds me of the "Pooper Scooper," the Martin Mars, and jumbo jet air tankers. But then what do I know, I've only been on a dozen or so large southern California interface fires, and about 90 in seven other states.