I've quoted zerg in bold below:
I am pretty sure that the federal law enforcement people who work for BLM and USFS concentrate on natural resources type crimes. Correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that CHP has primary responsibility for motor vehicle related incidents everywhere in California - even on the National Forests and BLM lands. And the sheriffs have responsibility for criminal matters on unincorporated lands. Which would mean that the federal LEOs would have limited roles.
Nearly every BLM, USFS and NPS law enforcement officers are also deputized state peace officers. It is the county sheriff that deputizing authority in most states. These law enforcement officers work in some remote, low population counties. They become part of the law enforcement community in these counties. They back up county, local and state officers, including state game and fish agencies and state parks and recreation officers. They will form large LE teams when a county, town is overwhelmed with a large event. They commonly enforce state vehicle code, public resources (fire, game and fish, state forestry) and can enforce the full penal code. they leave most of this enforcement to the state and local officers, but will call for those officers and in the interim they secure the scene and may make an arrest or detain individuals until the agency with primary jurisdiction arrives. Now, state and local officers cannot enforce federal law and regulations.
As for traffic accidents on federal maintained roads the agency is exposed to liability for the way the road is built and maintained. In California on national forest lands various employees are given accident investigation training. They might respond to the scene and work with the CHP to investigate the possibility that USFS work is a factor. They also respond to investigate if USFS facilities (fences, cattleguards, gates, bridges, etc.) have been damaged. In that case they need to know how those facilities were damaged and who is responsible. The USFS sent bills to drivers as a result, depending on the circumstances. Money collected goes into a special account and only direct work related costs for repair can be charged to the account. Other USFS regions didn't used to get involved and had fewer claims filed. The legal environment of California results in a heavy workload for both claims and bills for collection being sent to responsible parties. This workload resulted in getting more employees qualified as investigators. THANKS DADDY FOR THIS INFORMATION!!
AFAIK the "Patrols" are pickup type trucks with a small watertank and a crew of 1 or 2 people - I dont know if they are considered to be law enforcement of any type
In most cases in the USFS fire prevention technicians (sometimes given the title of Fire Prevention Officers) are also "Forest Protection Officers."
These are unarmed employees who can enforce federal regulations having to do with nearly everything related to use and occupancy of national forest lands. They are not authorized to make vehicle stops, arrests or work an incident where the subjects are armed or intoxicated. State vehicle code for off highway vehicles is incorporated into federal regulation. State game and fish code is also incorporated into federal regulation. So they can enforce a whole range of state law, such as lack of current OHV state registration stickers, age of operator, lighting, allowing a second passenger on vehicle not equipped for such, etc. USFS and BLM LEO's will enforce the full range of state vehicle and criminal code when they make traffic stops. If a driver has a warrant that calls for arrest they CAN do so. They usually like to call a state/local officer and just hold the subject until those officers arrive. If they can ticket for the warrant they CAN also do so.
No other federal agency has unarmed law enforcement officers. This puts a lot of pressure on BLM LEO's and can be problematic for the NPS in the backcountry areas of a large park. I can see the point, but the USFS relies on these people. Recreation management people used to have a good number of Forest Protection Officers, but the field level of recreation management is nearly non existent in a lot of places.
In some locations, fire prevention technicians might be deputized by the state fire marshal to allow them to enforce the public resource code or similar state laws. The can inspect, when a coop agreement is in place, private lands inside the forest boundary, for vegetation clearance work (defensible space requirements as zoned). Some national forests are paid to provide fire suppression and prevention on private lands inside a national forest boundary. Sometimes the BLM enters into this arrangement when the BLM has stations in a large area where the state has none or don't have local fire departments that can assume this responsibility.
Patrols are usually Type 7 engines and are normally staffed by one person. If fire danger is extreme, sometimes they will be assigned a second person who is firefighter rated. 75 gallon tanks are the usual, but can be 100 or 125 gallons also. 125 gallons and all the gear can get close to the 1500 lb. capacity of a 3/4 ton truck, so they are fewer in number. In some locations the patrol engines are Type 6 and have a 200 gallon tank, the required hose and other gear. The more remote national forests may not be able to afford additional engines, so they have the patrols equipped with a smaller capacity Type 6 engine. They will staff these up when the fire danger is extreme, or if the primary engine at a station is assigned off forest. Can you believe that Daddy knows all this stuff, even though he was a civil engineer? Being sponges for gathering information runs in the family, my late Hubby included.
The Prevention units (PV) are dry units who enforce fire prevention rules - they do not carry any water AFAIK. Correct, however since prevention and patrols are frequently first on scene it is good for them to have a Type 7 engine. Also prevention units frequently put out abandoned and improperly extinguished campfires. They may carry one or several full backpack pumps in the rear of the pickup. For some bonfire sized campfires they have to call either a patrol or an engine. This is inefficient.
My basic question still remains. Who is doing the dispatching and radio comms for the USFS and BLM "engineering" units? (Same for law enforcement?)
All employees are dispatched by the center the BLM District or the National Forest Supervisor Office level in the USFS. For over 25 years the USFS has required check in/out by all employees when they are field bound. It doesn't matter what function they work in, recreation, lands, range, wildlife, soils, engineering, etc. USFS ranger district and BLM Districts/Field Offices do not provide dispatching services. They did 40-50 years ago, but district dispatchers are a thing of the past.
Another aspect of this thread can be - how much geographic info is in the RRDB? Is every BLM and USFS repeater site listed in the database with lats and longs? If the answer is 'yes' - then the casual scanner user probably does not care about the agency administrative details. As long as the active channels get scanned, based on zip code, or city, or county; then the typical scanner user will be happy.
I can't being to tell you what makes the typical scanner listener happy. My late Hubby and now myself have done/doing a lot of research into administrative "details." I've posted threads with geographical information about USFS forest/ranger district boundaries and BLM district/field office boundaries as well. As time allows I'm now gathering information regarding the numerical coding of both agencies units. Both agencies unit identifiers for employees and apparatus are based on this administrative coding. This is Wiki material, but I'm going to post threads with this info. This allows listeners to decipher what they are hearing. When we lived in California, a lot of people in town asked questions about this, so I think more people than we may think, would like to have this info. I've answered quite few PM's where people ask questions about both geographical and unit identifier info. I would say that there is an interest among some RR members.
The Wiki is the place for adding repeater maps for many BLM, NPS, USFS, USFWS and BIA systems. I have quite a few of these. HOWEVER, my daddy and I are allergic to the RR Wiki. The whole thing is pretty convoluted. We would rather spent time researching the information and keep late Hubby's and my Daddy's notebooks up to date. If the computer techie types can use different software for adding and editing the Wiki, I might participate, but not until then.
Repeater information is not in the RR DB, unless each repeater has a unique output tone. Lat and long would take a big effort and is Wiki material. Since I don't visit the Wiki often, I don't know if some pages have lat long info. Late Hubby was researching some of that in California and putting the locations on Google Earth and some DeLorme software. He quit when the software automatically updated and dumped his hard work. I do a little of this when presented with system information that lacks maps. However, this is time consuming to say the least.
I need to take dinner out of the oven at 1830 and be with my parents the rest of the night.