A couple of clarifications might make this less confusing. When L.A. County refers to their tactical channels they can be on their blue system (UHF) or their white system (VHF). They have been adding more blue frequencies of late and using them as tacticals. So you might hear a blue tactical 18 or a white tactical 18.
There are several command teams that a local jurisdiction can employ for large incidents. State teams can be ordered from Cal Fire. OES or now Cal EMA has mutual aid regions and area coordinators and I'm not very familiar with that system.
Cal Fire has a statewide set of command repeaters on Command 1 and 2 (151.255 and 151.265) and now in development, repeaters using commands 3-10. These will (are) assigned to various areas of the state, Southern California utilizes Command 3 (151.340). I have some information about other areas in the state as far as to what command frequencies will be assigned for repeaters in those areas. If I get some time in the not too distant future I will share this info.
The system I'm very familiar with is the agency to South Ops to NIFC. NIFC ia the granddaddy of all wildland dispatch centers. There are 11 Geographical Area Coordination Centers (GACC's) around the country. Most cover more than one state and due to a heavy fire workload California is divided into two GACC's, the Northern California GACC and the Southern California GACC. They are referred to as "North Ops" and "South Ops." Resources ordered include a wide variety of items such a caterers, helicopters, shower units, tool caches, supply caches, single resource people (division supervisors, logistics chiefs claims investigators, situation unit leaders, financial management . . . ), hotshot crews, camps crews, etc., etc. All resources are catagorized by "Type." Interagency Hotshot Crews (IHC's) are "Type I Crews" and the next level down based on experience, equipment, and training is a "Type II IA" crew, which is a crew that can't do all the things an IHC can do but can be used for initial attack. Those resources that are not used enough to be on full time, such as national caterers and shower units, are on NIFC administered contracts.
The administration of this national system is the responsibility of NIFC, who delegates a lot to the GACC's, who in turn delegate to interagency dispatch centers, and then down to local agency units. The National Interagency Incident Communications Division of NIFC is responsible for the National Incident Radio Support Cache, which is used nationally and by a wide variety of agencies and, at times, for more than just wildland fire, such as national political party conventions and Columbia space shuttle debris recovery. There are three sets of frequencies in this system, command, tactical and logistics with the first two being VHF and the last being UHF. They are called Command 3, Tactical 6 and Logistics 7.
It is important to note that the three main mutual aid fire frequencies in California called White 1 (154.280), White 2 (154.265) and White 3 (154.295) are national in use. Some other states even call these White 1, etc.
I hope this helps. I'm taking care of a friend with Alzheimer's and a mother with dementia and am only able to visit this website about 1-2 times per month. As a result information about the Cal Fire Commands 3-10 system in development will be delayed.
