Hi Fred,
Thanks again for the wonderful info. I really enjoyed BDF. I got a couple of questions?
1. Where are the look outs in BDF ?
2. The p.l. Don't look right for onyx and Bertha. I understand they are near big bear.
3. What's is the purpose for communicating with. ANF and CNF ? Man power? Resources in a pinch ?
4. Does BLM and JTP follow along with the same P.l. And BDF?
5. Why is BDF so darn busy compared to the US?
6 I'm sure the forest academy does not understand 10% of what you know.
Thank you so much Fred.
Here are my answers:
1. Buy a forest visitor map. That way you won't just know their names, you will know their locations as well. They cost about $9-10, are plastic coated and, this might be the best thing about them, they show the township, range and sections. Standard procedure is to announce a dispatch with both a lat and long and the "legal," which the the township range and section. At the time the initial dispatch is sent out you will hear something similar to "north of the Mill Creek Station, tentative legal, township 1 south, range 4 east, northwest quarter of section 22, 34 degrees 14 decimal 59 minutes by 114 degrees 2 decimal 68. With a forest map you can find the township which are numbered north and south from a baseline. Ever hear of baseline road in the San Bernardino area? Yep it is the on the baseline of the San Bernardino Base and Meridian for the public land survey in southern California. Most of the rest of California is measured from the Mt. Diablo Base and Meridian. Ranges are numbered east and west from the meridian. Each township-range square has 36 sections, one square mile each. The forest map will make listening to fires so much more meaningful, so go out and buy one, be there or be square.
2. Onyx is on the eastern boundary of the forest and next to a state highway. I think it is the road between Big Bear and Lucerne Valley . I believe Bertha was a lookout at one time. Anyway, my information shows Tone 5 for Bertha and Tone 6 for Onyx.
3. The Angeles and San Bernardino NFs have each other on their pre-planned dispatch system. For example, Engine 33 located a mile or two west of I-15 on CA 138, will roll to fire reports on the eastern side of the Angeles, such as the Wrightwood area or the Crest Highway west of there. The closest resource first principle of the fire service applies. Engine 38 or 39, I've forgotten which, quartered in the Big Pines station north of Wrightwood is on the auto dispatch system for the San Bernardino as well. As for the Cleveland some engines on the San Jacinto District might be on the Cleveland's auto dispatch for a second alarm on the Palomar District. Each forest might be listed as having the first available engine strike team for the other forests. Hotshot crews run all over the country and often are the first crews available for next wave once a fire starts looking like a medium or major rager.
4. USFS policy is to use the first 8 standardized tones nationwide. Full compliance is about 95+%. Many are using the full FIRESCOPE program 16 standard tones. The Park Service, Forest Service, BLM and US Fish and Wildlife Service use the standard 16 in California as does CDF. At some point, I predict that all wildland fire agencies in the U.S. will get on board with the standard 16. Incompatible tones were cited as a problem on the Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013 where 19/20 members of the Granite Mtn. Hotshots were killed. About half of the repeater access tones used by the Nevada Division of Forestry are not on the standard list of 16 tones. Now, you might also be asking, it wasn't clear, if a BLM repeater on Onyx and the USFS repeater on Onyx will be the same tone. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no and more often no. So the same tone set of 16 is used by the BLM California Desert District and Joshua Tree NP. Yosemite NP and the Northern California District of the BLM utilize the same 16. It's universal in CA and now more work needs to be done nationwide.
5. The most obvious reason is Joshua Tree, Mojave, Death Valley, the San Berdo NF and the California Desert District are within a day's drive of the 16+ million (not counting San Diego Country) megalopolis of southern California. Think of the Imperial Sand Dunes and how much off highway vehicle recreation occurs there. The BLM has two ranger stations for the Dunes alone and I don't think any recreation complex in the BLM in the rest of the U.S. even has one. The BLM land and desert National Parks get used heavily in the fall and winter and the San Bernardino NF in the spring and summer, however, the San Berdo has the best ski area in southern California so it gets use in the winter as well. Also consider the major attractions like the Palm Springs tram. Most of it is located on the San Jacinto Ranger District of the San Berdo and as people are riding an oohing and ahhing at the scenery they are recording recreation use on the NF. Some of the northern and eastern portions of the BLM CA Desert District are used by Las Vegas residents also. The Colorado River doesn't count as the entire corridor, east and west shores are located on the Colorado District of the BLM, Arizona State Office. Southern Californians are spoiled, they have the most public land nearby of any of the large metro areas in the U.S.
6. I doubt that, although I am, by nature, very curious and ask a lot of questions when I'm traveling; when I used to go to fires; conducted claims and personnel misconduct investigations; and went to training sessions. People in the public land management business tend to be incredibly well informed when it comes to geography. People transfer around the country and a lot of good information gets passed around. Thus I've heard some about the management workload of the Pisgah National Forest in South Carolina. I know something about how the "Bob" is managed in Montana, the Bob Marshall Wilderness that is. I worked on the Kaibab National Forest and spent time in the park going to fire training as the western training facility of the NPS is the Albright Training Center at Grand Canyon. Lots of opportunity to mix and mingle.
Land management types like to travel in remote areas and they might not know the Louvre in Paris at all or haven't visited the coliseum in Rome, but they know where "the Maze is." Hint, google Canyonlands National Park. There are people who know a whole lot more than I do. I had at least 6 years of career left in me when a major illness struck me resulting in an early retirement and in those 6 years I could have learned a lot more. I was planning on making my last transfer the last time I moved and going "out to pasture" as so many people in fire, recreation and law enforcement in USFS Region 5 do. They transfer to a place with a fraction of the pressure and know how to solve problems that have vexed other lower stress ranger districts and national forests for years. What seems major to them is something R5'ers have done in their sleep. It can be very satisfying to be able to use your experience to help other parts of the west.
I also received a B of Science Degree in Forestry. Great professors, neat stuff to learn and a camaraderie that the other schools on campus didn't have. We had folks from Connecticut, the Navajo Reservation, Texas, New York, California and other locations. You have a lot of time to learn about other parts of the country that way. I did a lot of backpacking during college (and up to a few years ago until the knees gave out) and you talk with other hikers who have logged miles in states you've only looked at on maps. I also spent 4 weeks at Clemson University at a mid-career recreation management course. We took field trips every weekend. I earned 12 graduate credits in one month. It was neat to see Army Corps of Engineers recreation sites and some of the "cannon ball" National Parks. You know, the little park units with a cannon and a stack of cannonballs next to the flagpole in front of the visitor center?
Now the two regions in the eastern portion of the U.S., Forest Service Regions 8 and 9, not a lot of people from the west transfer back there and the reverse as well. A few hardy souls from the west will transfer into the more densely populated east and humidity of the south along with being around people who put an "r" at the end of every word, but most return. That goes both ways. One of the big issues on the Pisgah NF was how often to mow the campgrounds. They have to, you ought to see the snakes!
As for radio system knowledge, if you've worked on fires on the Cleveland NF half a dozen times, you get an understanding of how their system works. I spent five weeks on the big fires in Yellowstone in 1988. I programmed the park's frequencies in my King and was able to scan them. After 5 weeks you get to know a thing or two.
LIke I say, people who have spent 30 years on a career or in fire management full time know a whole lot more than I do.
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