VHF Conventional Helped Save Boulder,CO Brush Fire

[MtnBiker2005]

VHF Conventional Helped Save Boulder,CO Brush Fire
VHF Radios Key to Interoperability in Boulder Fire

"...analog conventional VHF radio system allowed responders from local, state and federal agencies to interoperate without problems during the destructive Fourmile Canyon Fire (CO) last week.

"...the statewide 800 MHz digital trunked public-safety radio system provided insufficient coverage in the area of the fire"

http://www.radioresourcemag.com/newsArticle.cfm?news_id=6146

 

[rickak]

"...the statewide 800 MHz digital trunked public-safety radio system provided insufficient coverage in the area of the fire"

Well, the statewide 800 Mhz DTRS system is not designed to provide coverage to that area.

Doubt the NIMBYs in Boulder county would allow it anyway, cant even get a sorely needed mountain site in Larimer county.

 

[resq197]

Communications really were very good on this fire. There were plenty of tac channels available and with the mountain and flatlands channel plans, everyone had each others discrete channels in addition to the County and mutual aid channels. Red6 was excellent for the command repeater with its county-wide transmitter coverage and multiple receivers. There was no technical reason that fire couldn't have stayed on the County system even after the Feds arrived. With the NIFC/NIRSC radios and many other agencies bringing their VHF gear, it's hard to imagine a more interoperable system.

-Brian

 

[jeffreyinberthoud]

just proves that you can make anything sound just like you want it to .......

 

[nathancarlson]

from the very beginning they executed their plan to the book! I was very impressed! They obiously have plans in place for incidents like this, and with propper training, even with the different agencies involved, it all worked out very well. The incident commanders were doing a great job, and a few times one would remind another of the procedures that they had in place, resulting in a very well job done by all.

 

[jfab]

Coming from someone who was on scene for the first 24 hours, things went very well. The Boulder County IMT is a very well trained group of people who know what the heck they are doing. Everything, including radio comms, went very well, and I was told the transition from the type 3, to type 2, then eventually to type 1 teams all went extremely smoothly. A great job by all agencies involved, including the Boulder County IMT.

 

[kc0kp]

Coming from someone who was on scene for the first 24 hours, things went very well. The Boulder County IMT is a very well trained group of people who know what the heck they are doing. Everything, including radio comms, went very well, and I was told the transition from the type 3, to type 2, then eventually to type 1 teams all went extremely smoothly. A great job by all agencies involved, including the Boulder County IMT.

I was at Boulder Reservoir for both the type 2 and 1 transitions and they indeed went very well. The frequencies on the 205 went to federal channels for command making recloning of the BKs to the new plan needed. I had to add the federal frequencies to the Motorola XTS and it was good to go. The XTS had all the Boulder channels and all the VTAC channels preloaded in Zone 1, the feds were added to Zone 2.
I need a new BK as my portable will not do per channel narrow/wide band selection. I had to do clones from a cache radio.
The communications transition went well because they started on VHF and stayed on VHF

 

[appalachianscanner]

Great to see common sense somewhere, wheras in contrast...

My local town PD, FD, Public Works, Schools, and Parks/Recs bought a very expensive MotoTRBO system with the expressed intent for having a reliable system for disasters, and to not rely on sibling systems (county/city) .... none of the surrounding agencies have interoperability other than a few handhelds given to the town’s "dignitaries" that work for respective agencies.

Seems like if "for disasters" they would embrace the ability to have all surrounding agencies' mutual aid on the same page... Gotta love small town politics

 

[sank]

Well, the statewide 800 Mhz DTRS system is not designed to provide coverage to that area.

There is an obvious and good reason for that. 800 MHz is terrible in mountainous terrain, which is the majority of Boulder County.

 

[greenthumb]

There is an obvious and good reason for that. 800 MHz is terrible in mountainous terrain, which is the majority of Boulder County.

Just remember that Eagle County, as well as numerous other mountain jurisdictions, use 800 MHz and it does just fine.

Boulder County has elected not to use DTRS.

 

[soundchaser]

I've done some mobile scanning in various parts of western Boulder County and there are a number of places where no DTRS signal is available, or it's so error filled with mulitpath signals that it's not decodable. I've heard the CSP 6C units tell the dispatcher when going into the mountains that they may be out of radio contact. Not to mention my own efforts at receiving a usable 800MHz where I live.

I estimate the county would need at least another 3 sites. There would need to be a larger footprint site above Ward. Then there would probably need to be another couple of small footprint sites like Betasso to fill in the gaps. So who foots the bill for new site installations? The County or the State?

If it's the county's bill, they have a VHF system that works pretty well so why spend the money on the additional sites?

However, I can imagine the City of Boulder and CU Police switching over to DTRS (like Longmont did), since the flat part of the county has good coverage.

 

[jeatock]

That can't be true!

Communications really were very good on this fire. There were plenty of tac channels available and with the mountain and flatlands channel plans, everyone had each others discrete channels in addition to the County and mutual aid channels. Red6 was excellent for the command repeater with its county-wide transmitter coverage and multiple receivers. There was no technical reason that fire couldn't have stayed on the County system even after the Feds arrived. With the NIFC/NIRSC radios and many other agencies bringing their VHF gear, it's hard to imagine a more interoperable system.

-Brian

If this is true (and it simply can't be, or so say the gods of highly engineered statewide systems) it would mean that $400 simplex VHF radios work better for incident interoperability than multi-million dollar tax-supported infrastructure system requiring the use of proprietary sole-source-vendor $5,000 radios.

BLASPHEMY!

(Evil grin)

 

[kc0kp]

Just remember that Eagle County, as well as numerous other mountain jurisdictions, use 800 MHz and it does just fine.

Boulder County has elected not to use DTRS.

Also remember, there has never been a Type 1 incident in Eagle county. Hopefully there never will be one. So far there have only been type 3 incidents on DTRS and they have sunk the system every time.

 

[greenthumb]

I've done some mobile scanning in various parts of western Boulder County and there are a number of places where no DTRS signal is available, or it's so error filled with mulitpath signals that it's not decodable. I've heard the CSP 6C units tell the dispatcher when going into the mountains that they may be out of radio contact. Not to mention my own efforts at receiving a usable 800MHz where I live.

I estimate the county would need at least another 3 sites. There would need to be a larger footprint site above Ward. Then there would probably need to be another couple of small footprint sites like Betasso to fill in the gaps. So who foots the bill for new site installations? The County or the State?

If it's the county's bill, they have a VHF system that works pretty well so why spend the money on the additional sites?

You're absolutely correct that there are many canyon areas in the Boulder County foothills & mountains which need coverage. From some conversations that I have had, those areas have not been built out on DTRS because Boulder County is not on the system and the State doesn't have any money to build out more sites in this economy. I suppose that it's not so much a matter of the system doesn't work in the Boulder County foothills & mountains so much as it's simply not built out there. But both Boulder County and the City of Boulder would benefit from additional interoperability opportunities by becoming a part of DTRS in one fashion or another. From what I have seen on other similar systems (e.g. Wyoming), they don't have to use a single band across the entire DTRS system.

I would caution against defining DTRS coverage based on a scanner since the receivers are not nearly as tight as the public safety radio receivers that DTRS radios use and are much more susceptible to interference and other overload issues.

 

[greenthumb]

If this is true (and it simply can't be, or so say the gods of highly engineered statewide systems) it would mean that $400 simplex VHF radios work better for incident interoperability than multi-million dollar tax-supported infrastructure system requiring the use of proprietary sole-source-vendor $5,000 radios.

BLASPHEMY!

(Evil grin)

Um, only the new multi band radios even come close to that $5,000 price tag, and I hear that there are several radio models available for about $900.00 that will work on the system just fine.

Oh, and there are six different vendors that have radios approved on DTRS:

http://ccncinc.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=24&Itemid=63

 

[greenthumb]

Also remember, there has never been a Type 1 incident in Eagle county. Hopefully there never will be one. So far there have only been type 3 incidents on DTRS and they have sunk the system every time.

The Reservoir Road fire west of Loveland was a Type I incident.

 

[scanlist]

Hearing CSP 6C troopers almost daily asking the GREEN dispatcher to relay information to their dispatch you lean toward coverage in the Western portion of the county is bad even with the betasso site addition.

The city jumping in on DTR in the near term. I don't see it. They're adding to their VHF license portfolio and already have narrowband radios in the field. Change out the PD repeaters, reprogram the field radios for narrowband compliance and done.

C.U. reconfigured and expanded their VHF system last year. I don't see the state shelling out for addtional DTR sites just for C.U. in the near term.

In this most recent fire the Thorodin DTR site was down early into the incident and during that time Boulder County EOC was having difficulties going digital on the DTR TG 9107. When Thorodin was back on the air EOC's problems went away. The comm center has a nice view of Thorodin.

At any rate the debate will roll on. I don't see Boulder or the County jumping on board full tilt anytime soon. However Lafayette and Erie would have improved communications coverage with existing DTR sites.

 

[kc0kp]

The Reservoir Road fire west of Loveland was a Type I incident.

Yes it was. That is until it became a Type 1 incident. The Type 1 team was the same one from the Boulder fire and used VHF almost exclusively for coordination. The command post remained at Boulder Reservoir in the Jefferson County and Denver Fire vehicles.

 

[soundchaser]

But both Boulder County and the City of Boulder would benefit from additional interoperability opportunities by becoming a part of DTRS in one fashion or another.

Today I heard a SO car contacting CSP 6C Dispatch on DTRS. So it appears that some sheriff's cars are now equipped with DTRS radios for interoperability.

I would caution against defining DTRS coverage based on a scanner since the receivers are not nearly as tight as the public safety radio receivers that DTRS radios use and are much more susceptible to interference and other overload issues.

Interference and overload are not the issue. It's an RF blackhole here in the mountains. The issue is no line of sight to any 800MHz site, and multipath reflections of the signals off of canyon/valley walls, which is greatly affected by the weather. But I'll agree that a dedicated radio would probably be more capable than a multiband scanner.

 

[sank]

I concur.

Interference and overload are not the issue. It's an RF blackhole here in the mountains. The issue is no line of sight to any 800MHz site, and multipath reflections of the signals off of canyon/valley walls, which is greatly affected by the weather. But I'll agree that a dedicated radio would probably be more capable than a multiband scanner.