Western Oklahoma wildfires

[trainwreck100]

They've been hot the last couple of days. Calumet worked two on Saturday, and a giant one on Sunday. Saturday's was at the 109 on I-40, and they got mutual aid from El Reno, Geary, Cedar Lake, Hinton, BIA, and FCI. Sunday's was Cedar Lake's fire to start with, but it burned several miles into Calumet's territory, and they got aid from Geary, El Reno, Minco, Union City, Cogar, Lookeba-Sickles, Hinton, Anadarko, FCI, Weatherford, BIA, 6 units from Air Attack, with Okarche on standby, and last I heard there were some unidentified units that turned out to be Moore trucks, I'm sure there were a few that I missed hearing, but that's a good run-down. They also had Hamm and Phillips trucking water for them. I saw it about 1:30, and it's still going now at nearly 8:30, but it's been semi under control for the last hour or so. El Reno sent a command unit to take over from Cedar Lake, and it sounds like now Calumet's chief is running things.

Calumet's staying busy I guess, but can't use their new 250,000 dollar rescue from FEMA, because it's not much of a grass fighter. Right now they've got the one-ton brush pumper, Engine 1, and two 6x6's with 1200 gallon tanks, they're called Tankers 1 & 2, but are really giant brush pumpers with front spray booms.

Greg

 

[zerg901]

Greg - do their radios seem to work OK on these fires? Are they using VHF highband? Maybe 40 watt mobiles? Do comms seem to go OK, or do they have lots of problems getting messages through? Would you care to share your general impressions?

With 20 or 30 units spread out over long distances, I could see things getting complicated (from a radio communications perspective).

Peter Sz

 

[trainwreck100]

They're not seeming to have many problems at all. For the most part all on scene comms are on the mutual aid 154.13 VHF high. I was having some trouble picking them up with my rubber ducky, but I'm about 15 miles away from the closest part. I've got a telescoping antenna I put on when I got home and I'm picking up East division command really good now, but West division is a little shaky. They divided command up about 4:00 I think. Really good response and mutual aid, it's amazing how well these volunteer departments show up and help when things get tight. It started off Calumet was aiding Cedar Lake, but now Calumet's station is empty except for the new rescue unit, and everyone's aiding us.

Greg

 

[fast2okc]

Cedar Lake Fire

Originally, Cedar Lake, Cogar and Minco were working the fire on state fire mutual aid (154.130MHz). Once it jumped the river, they really had two separate incidents. When El Reno got on scene, they took over the north fire and switched to the talkaround channel of their frequency (154.190MHz) for fire attack.

It worked pretty well, but there were some crews on the north side that apparently didn't get the message. When that many different fire departments get involved, the term "herding cats" comes to mind. Add in about three wind shifts during the fire, it makes for some serious logistical challenges.

--fast2okc

 

[zerg901]

I seem to remember reading a long long long time ago that 154.54 was a big party line mutual aid kind of channel in rural Oklahoma. Is that true at all nowadays? Peter Sz

 

[WX5JCH]

Most of the fire traffic from the big wheeler fire is going out on SR-2 154.400. They put out a "all call" last night calling for every available firefighter, first time i've hear that one. I-40 was closed at Shamrock last night. 7 dead so far...

 

[tiawah466]

7 Dead? The Last Report I Saw Had No Injuries Or Deaths. 7 Structures Burned.

 

[WX5JCH]

Massive Texas wildfires leave seven dead

Several small towns evacuated as more than 660,000 acres burned

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11803558/

 

[trainwreck100]

They fought it all night, and through the day Monday also. El Reno stayed there the whole time, but wasn't giving as many orders. East division mostly ran on El Reno's 154.19 today, while West division worked 154.13 commanding Air Attack, who had four more tankers and at least two blackhawk choppers. I think it's nearly out now, but now the department count is up, Purcell, Norman, Mustang, Okarche, and the Shawnee task force also showed up. Today was mostly hot spots in trees and canyons that they couldn't get to, so Air attack helped them out a lot there. They had every dozer in the county out there too I think. Big trouble came later in the day when another fire started a few miles away from them, most of the fire fighters had been out for 24 hours, and there were several equipment failures that stumped things too. I'll add in any action I pick up later. Something kind of interesting I thought was Air Attack always addresses everyone backwards...ie. instead of saying Air Attack Bravo Romeo, Incident Command, they'd say Incident Command, Air attack Bravo Romeo. Kind of confusing for listening to them.

Greg

 

[CommShrek]

Military comms and HAM radio comms usually follow the "6Bravo this is 2Bravo, over" type of format. At my fire department my chief still uses this format but everyone else uses the "2Bravo to 6Bravo" format. One thing that the NIMS and ICS courses I've taken didn't address is this little thing. Oh well.

 

[K5MAR]

Apparently this is addressed somewhere in the ICS program, Stillwater Fire has switched to the called unit/calling unit procedure, and the reason given was to conform to the national ICS plan. It has caused a fair amount of confusion. Especially with the centralized dispatch used here. The dispatchers have to go from "Central to xx" when calling on the PD channels to "Engine xx, Central" when calling a fire unit. I'm glad this old dog is no longer a dispatcher, I don't know if I could learn that new trick!

Mark S.

 

[trainwreck100]

Man, Wednesday makes day 4 on this fire. Tuesday was pretty quiet, and I think everyone went home from patrol except for one Cedar Lake unit. I know Calumet, Cedar Lake, El Reno, Air Attack, Okarche, FCI, and Geary are there now, and there was a Blackhawk headed that way earlier, so I'd say it's gonna be a rough night. Fire chief estimation was 8,000 acres burned, that's what he saw from OHP's plane, but Air Attack guessed 3,000 on Monday and I'm sure that's higher now. Equipment failures are giving them lots of problems now after so long fighting fire, and guys are getting tired on them too. Seems suspicious to me that it keeps restarting after they get all the hot spots out, especially when it's on the edge away from hot spots. Saw a trucker throw a burning cigarette out on I-40 the other day and called Canadian County SO, but they just transferred me to the litter hotline. I figured they'd chase the guy down and shoot him, especially right after this fire.

Greg

 

[trainwreck100]

I heard now that El Reno's command is sending Cedar Lake home due to lack of sleep, and a fresh crew from Warr Acres is coming out to help. He warned them that it would be an all nighter.

Greg