South Florida Firefighting (aircraft)

[batdude]

This guy was heard on National (edit: Flight Following) fire, 168.650 (PL 110.9) calling Tallahassee. Learned something new today - did you know that aircraft conducting fire fighting operations use squawk code 1255? So when you are using ADSB-Exchange, you can filter to that squawk and see all the various aircraft (nationwide) conducting FF efforts --- it is not foolproof, but a good filter!

 

[kd4efm]

✈️ Common Emergency & Special-Purpose Squawk Codes​

Emergency Codes (the famous “7‑series”)​

Code	Meaning	Notes
7500	Hijacking / Unlawful interference	Often remembered as “75 – taken alive.” Controllers may ask the pilot to confirm intentionally.
7600	Radio communication failure	Used when the aircraft loses two‑way radio comms.
7700	General emergency	Covers any emergency not otherwise specified (medical, mechanical, fuel, etc.).

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📡 General Aviation & ATC Codes​

These are widely used, though some vary slightly by region.

Common VFR (Visual Flight Rules) Codes​

Code	Meaning
1200	Standard VFR code in the U.S.
7000	Standard VFR code in much of Europe and parts of the world.
1000	Used for Mode S aircraft in some European airspace under RVSM or assigned by Eurocontrol.

Special Operations / Common Assignments​

Code	Meaning
1255	Used in the U.S. for glider operations (sometimes 1202 is used as well).
1277	Search and rescue operations (U.S.)
0022, 0023	Low‑level military training routes (U.S., varies).
7777	Reserved for military interceptor operations; never used by general traffic.

1255 is weird for FF. But then again, you squawk what ATC tells ya.

 

[kd4efm]

After some digging, found that 1255 is also used for Firefighting.
Stupid AI got me.

 

[batdude]

for those interested:

https://www.nifc.gov/sites/default/files/redbook-files/RedBook_Final.pdf