Wildfires in Oklahoma City area today.

[papadoc]

Wow! Sounds like a busy day! OKCFD has run out of brush pumpers to send on wildfires, and dispatch is having computer problems.

 

[papadoc]

And as fast as they got busy, things get back to normal, until the next round of alarms. Such is the life of a firefighter.

 

[papadoc]

Things are getting busy again. Massive white and gray smoke column east of the city, but I'm not sure what it is, or if it's even in OKC's fire district. For some reason, I'm not hearing the TAC channels either, just the dispatch channel. Why is that?

 

[papadoc]

Now that I'm home with my scanners, it's the Spencer fire. Needless to say, there's lot's of traffic on the County channels.

 

[papadoc]

Ok, I have a question. I keep hearing command tell people to go to V TAC 12 and V TAC 13. But the RR database only has V TAC 1 through 4. Are there other frequencies between 4 and 13 that are not on the database?

 

[SABRE46]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.2; en-us; Droid Build/FRG83G) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Whenever the county departments provide mutual aid to OKC, they patch to VTAC 3 for interop.

 

[papadoc]

Whenever the county departments provide mutual aid to OKC, they patch to VTAC 3 for interop.

So is VTAC 3 the same as them saying 13?

 

[nd5y]

Ok, I have a question. I keep hearing command tell people to go to V TAC 12 and V TAC 13. But the RR database only has V TAC 1 through 4. Are there other frequencies between 4 and 13 that are not on the database?

The nationwide interoperability channel names where changed a couple years ago.
The current ones can that are supposed to be used are here: Common Public Safety - The RadioReference Wiki
They may be different in your area.

 

[papadoc]

Thanks, sentrymechanic. I never heard anything on VTAC 3 yesterday.

And thanks for that link, Tom. Never would have thought to look for it.

 

[papadoc]

Since I moved here from Georgia 8 years ago, I've wondered why the FD's around OKC don't use plows on fires like this. I worked for the Georgia Forestry Commission for 6 years, and drove a John Deere 450C tractor with a blade on the front and plow on the back for fire suppression. Granted, I worked in Carroll County, which is a rural county with a lot of farmland and timber land. But on a fire like the one yesterday, seems like a plow would really help out at the head of the fire, as opposed to using brush pumpers.

 

[papadoc]

Looks like the Spencer fire is going again. Out building totally involved and fire headed for unburned area with structures.

 

[SABRE46]

Some departments will call for dozers when the need arises... We've done it a time or two, but for the most part we have equipment that will go anywhere within reason. We run mostly ex military 1 ton pickups with skid units and also have a deuce and a half that we use for really dirty work.