Western U.S. Federal Wildland Fire Interagency Dispatch Centers

[SCPD]

I came across this information useful for those scanning federal and state natural resource agencies involved in wildland fire management.

GACC >Logistics/Dispatch

It is a series of maps of all the western U.S. Federal Interagency Dispatch Centers. These dispatch centers handle traffic for the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and selected nations or tribes under the jurisdictions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Some centers cover one National Park, one National Forest or one Indian Reservation only, but the majority are interagency centers. Some handle fire only, some handle all risk and some do not handle the law enforcement function for National Parks or Indian Reservations. Some cover state natural resource agencies including parks and fish and game, some just the state forestry agencies and some cover local fire departments as well. These specifics can be found in a variety of ways, but Googling the name of the dispatch center might be the easiest.

Many of the statewide files have been zipped. There is a western wide map along with statewide maps and maps of individual dispatch centers. There isn't a California map(s) as the state is only shown on the western wide map with a color depiction of the federal responsibility areas (FRA), the state responsibility areas (SRA) and the local responsibility areas (LRA).

I've not seen such a such a good complete series of maps before. I had to rely on lists before and any maps produced by individual dispatch centers were in different formats, if one was produced at all.

Enjoy!

***EDIT***

I see there is a link for iPAD downloads as well.

 

[zerg901]

http://www.nifc.gov/nicc/logistics/...ch_Boundaries/Dispatching_Boundaries_West.pdf

If you look closely at the labels on this map you will find -

Interagency Comm Center
Dispatch Center
Comm Center
Interagency Coordination Center
District Dispatch
Interagency Dispatch Center
Interagency Fire Center
Forest Dispatch
Fire and Aviation Dispatch Center
Dispatch
Interagency Dispatch

I think the name depends on - is radio traffic handled for more than 1 agency - is some radio traffic from law enforcement units - is some radio traffic from aviation units - is some radio traffic from initial attack units - is some radio traffic from extended attack units - are units "dispatched" or "coordinated"

I think the primary difference are - is more than 1 agency dispatched - are only minor incidents dispatched - are only major incidents handled - are state units as well as federal units dispatched

This can all be sorted out by looking at the various Fire Mobilization Plans for the various GACCs - but it will take a lot of work

(I see that I have basically said the same thing that exsmokey said in his first paragraph)

 

[SCPD]

The term used most often is "Interagency Dispatch Center." Taking a quick look at those termed "Fire Center" I remember those places having a significant aviation resource present, such as a tanker base or smokejumper base. Some fire centers have a large training facility as well and may also have a large fire cache.

Some look like what is present in large organizations were a lot of authority is based closer to the field level. So there are some minor differences in how centers function. When those differences start to cause problems for nationwide resources in a local area to function properly then direction comes down from above to change it. I think it is a bit silly to have such differences.

Utah is calling all of their dispatch centers, fire centers. I don't think all of them have a tanker base. I know Cedar City does as well as having a training center. The difference at Yellowstone is the large size of an exclusive jurisdiction National Park. The aviation center is actually in West Yellowstone outside of the park, which probably has more Forest Service activity than NPS activity so who knows.

If I recall correctly, the Vale BLM District only dispatches for that district, but I could be wrong. I've forgotten if there are Forest Service resources stationed in that area.

As a side note, the BLM District with the highest fire load is the Elko District in Nevada.