During a wildland event are the County XSD command and tacs in use at all, or are they just a fallback in the event of a RCS failure?
San diego VHF Fire Frequencies
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They are used for most wildfires. Heartland has used them more often than SDFR. SDFR, when they dispatch, will have the XSD channels listed, but seldom uses them except when the fire gets to be a large incident. The recent Santee brush fire was all on XSD channels. SD County fire used to use them more often than they do now. Most of the back area fires tend to be on state coverage areas or on US forest land, which will be handled on their channels.
VHF is the go to frequencies for wild fires. Strike teams from out of the area may not and probably don't have SD trunk radio access. Add in they may use 6 to 10 or more frequencies for the various fire divisions, and like the two OC fires a few weeks ago, there wasn't enough to go around so it's use state and federal inter-agency channels. Also VHF is better for use in canyons & rugged terrain.
I'll add that many of the recent east county wildland fires have been on Cal Fire MVU 1 and MVU 2. If a wildland fire incident is in Heartland or Cal Fire/San Diego County Fire Authority area it will likely be on MVU 1/2 or XSD Commands. Fire originating on federal land (i.e. Cleveland National Forest) will be on USFS frequencies (Valley Fire being a recent example). On the other hand SDFD will run everything on the trunked system including wildland fires. Not entirely sure what the SDFD Metro Fire contract agencies in zone 6 do for wildlands (Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, National City, Coronado etc) but I believe they stay on their trunked talkgroups as well.
good info thanks
Just to add, there was a small vegetation fire in Santee last night. Heartland assigned XSD Command 2 and XSD Tac 1. All responding units responded on XSD Command 2, and there was zero traffic related to the incident on RCS. So I think programming the XSD Commands and Tacs is a must to not miss wildland incidents.
SDBud
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San Diego always gives an XSD cmd and tac in addition to their regular trunked channels, but they almost never use them (for small incidents), as far as I've heard.
Entirely possible. I will check it out tonight. Thanks for the feedback.
As for Heartland, if the call is for a wildland/veg fire, automatically will go to XSD channels. Santee had a couple yesterday and were on XSD channels plus wildland training has been on XSD channels with Mirimar communications the past few days.
Plus, I turned up the volume on the SD County Wildland Fire Operations VHF radio.
Plus, I turned up the volume on the SD County Wildland Fire Operations VHF radio.
Heartland likes 2L 2M for non XSD brush fires.
Also, 10K (RCS) is the "go-to" trunked talkgroup for when a Calfire unit can't get out on their assigned VHF repeater, which happens about 20% of the time.
Paul
Also, 10K (RCS) is the "go-to" trunked talkgroup for when a Calfire unit can't get out on their assigned VHF repeater, which happens about 20% of the time.
Paul
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Just for the record -- all NorthComm dispatched veg fires will be on VHF only as of a week or two ago.
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Pardon the derail, but where in Poway is your antenna? Seems to have pretty decent coverage. I'm also in Poway, but down in a hole.
@firemanjohn, I am not far from the bowling alley area. Kind of in a hole too, but a little bit up on the hill. The radio is connected to a 2m 440 antenna on the roof so pretty good coverage as far as receiving the VHF repeaters.
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Got it. Well, it sounds better than I can usually hear from the Twin Peaks/Community area. Kent Hill blocks me one way and the ridge along Palisades the other.
Need to get a roof mount up. Only lived here 10 years. <eyeroll>
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