Yosemite Natl Park - ?????

[zerg901]

Yosemite National Park (CA) - The RadioReference Wiki

The wiki info does not match the database info completely - which channels are parkwide? - which channels are police vs fire? - which channels are used by roads crews? Are there any backcountry nets still in use?

I think that 170.90 for air to ground should be 170.00

What channel do the ambulances operate on?

What channel do the structural fire units operate on?

Where is the fire station in Hodgdon Meadows? Is it interagency with USFS?

How many fire stations are at El Portal? Are they right next to each other? (I think that the structural units and ambulance are in one building - one county engine (?E34) + 1 NPS engine - partially staffed by County firemen and partially staffed by Yosemite firemen). (The wildfire units might be in the other building - possibly NPS engines and USFS engine?) You can see the county fire station on Google Street View - http://www.mariposacounty.org/index.aspx?NID=643

Are firefighters paged on a Yosemite channel?

To recap for El Portal - I think they have 1 USFS wildfire engine, 1 NPS wildfire engine, 1 NPS structural engine, 1 county owned structural engine, 1 NPS ambulance, 1 rescue truck (maybe county or NPS), and maybe a NPS watertender - all staffed by a mixture of NPS, county, USFS, and maybe concessionaire employees). There might be a USFS hand crew there also with crew carrier trucks.

 

[zerg901]

http://www.cflhd.gov/contracting/construction/documents/RoadReport.pdf

I think they I figured out part of this. If you look on Page 288 of the Road Report (above), you will see a Interagency Fire Station. That matches El Portal.

Therefore, my guess is that the El Portal Interagency Fire Station (the newer bld) houses a NPS wildfire engine, 1 watertender, and a USFS wildfire engine. The older fire station that is one bld away probably houses 1 County structural engine, 1 NPS structural engine, and 1 rescue truck. I dont know where the ambulance is based - maybe at the ranger station or mtnce bld.

 

[lbfd09]

Yosemite National Park (CA) - The RadioReference Wiki

The wiki info does not match the database info completely - which channels are parkwide? - which channels are police vs fire? - which channels are used by roads crews? Are there any backcountry nets still in use?

I think that 170.90 for air to ground should be 170.00

Park Net and Fire Net are park wide from my monitoring. However they will use Valley Net when in the Valley (makes logical sense). When the snows hit, Park Net is very busy with rangers. law enforcement, plows (and other snow removal equip), and the tow services. They will use various project and tactical channels as needed. All 4 Nets (Park, Valley, Fire, & Law) are used as dispatch, command and on smaller incidents tactical.

You are right 170.000 is the air-grnd frequency; the other entry is a typo that you caught.

What channel do the ambulances operate on?

What channel do the structural fire units operate on?

... .... ....

Are firefighters paged on a Yosemite channel?

... ... ...

The ambulance is normally operating on Fire Net and sometimes will take priority on that frequency. Med traffic for the hospital or helicopter is often heard on this channel for major transports.

The fire units are normally dispatched over the radio on Fire Net or via phone lines.

The rangers and fire crews will use the other's channels as needed. I can't speak to the use of the Law Net as being a fire guy I am more interested in the park ops and fire stuff.that's going on. And I get enough of their DL checks and traffic stops on the Park Net to endure me, so I lock out Law Net.

Can't answer as to who's what, where, or any of that....

 

[zerg901]

lbfd09 thanks alot for your help.

Let me try to start to pull together the radio info -

Park Net - parkwide - all users

Fire Net - parkwide - fire units and ambulances

Valley Net - maybe El Portal and Valley maintenance units primarily ?

Law Net - maybe El Portal and Valley police units primarily ?

Tuolumne Meadows has an ambulance IIRC. They are way over by Lee Vining. If I had to guess, I would guess that they would primarily operate on maybe Fire Net or Park Net ? Mtnce units are on Park Net ?

Wauwona fire and ambulance units are probably on Fire Net. Wauwona police units are probably on Law Net ? Mtnce units are on Park Net ?

Hodgden Meadows and Foresta units are probably on Fire Net, Park Net, and Law Net ?

Maybe I am making this too complicated. Maybe all fire and ambulance units are on Fire Net. Maybe all police units are on Law Net. Maybe everyone else is on Valley Net or Park Net.

 

[inigo88]

Pretty much that last part. Law enforcement (ie resource protection rangers, not police units) can use law net, or park/valley net.

 

[zerg901]

I think I figured out the Hodgdon Meadow deal.

If you put "Hodgdon Meadow Calif" into Google maps, you should get to the place marker for the campground at Hodgdon Meadow. If you go to satellite view and zoom out a bit, you will see a large building on Meadow View Lane. I think thats the place.

WildCAD for Yosemite shows an Capt 46, Asst Capt 46, and E46 (Type 3 wildland engine) at Hodgdon

WildCAD for Stanislaus Natl Forest shows an Eng 46 at Hodgdon.

This would make sense. It seems that Engine 46 is a wildland pumper staffed by a combined crew of Stansilaus NF firemen and Yosemite NP firemen. Therefore Hodgdon Meadows is an Interagency Fire Station. (I tried Googling that name - it never got me anywhere)

http://66.134.213.74/WildWeb/WCCA-YNP.htm - click on Resource Status on the left to see al the wildfire units at Yosemite - there are some 500 series numbers along the top left side that might be useful when scanning Yosemite NP

 

[zerg901]

Yosemite info seems to be in 3 locations now

National Park Service Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=4302

And in the wiki

Should the LE freq be listed as Law Dispatch?

Maybe it would be best to list Yosemite as if it was a county of its own - or maybe the location of the HQ can be determined - and the info could be listed under the county where the HQ bld is located - with appropriate notations in all of the countys which the Park extends into - Tuolumne County, Mariposa County, and Madera County per the first sentence here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_National_Park

 

[SCPD]

Yosemite info seems to be in 3 locations now

National Park Service Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Yosemite National Park Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

And in the wiki

Should the LE freq be listed as Law Dispatch?

Maybe it would be best to list Yosemite as if it was a county of its own - or maybe the location of the HQ can be determined - and the info could be listed under the county where the HQ bld is located - with appropriate notations in all of the countys which the Park extends into - Tuolumne County, Mariposa County, and Madera County per the first sentence here - Yosemite National Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The park HQ is in Mariposa County. Yosemite National Park, like most of the older and large parks, is an exclusive jurisdiction where the state ceded it authority to the federal government. These are often referred to as federal islands. Most military bases are federal islands as well. Almost every large national park and every national forest are located in multiple counties. Yosemite National Park is presently shown in the "California Areawide {sic}Frequency" list. This is common in most of various state databases. If all the federal listings are buried in individual counties it makes it very difficult to find them. As I see it this park is listed in the correct place in the database. Most states have a similar category and this is as it should be.

I suspect your conclusion regarding Engine 46 may not be correct. The old station for this engine, located about 5-8 miles from the Big Oak Flat entrance to the park on State Route 120, was no longer suitable for its purpose. Rather than trying to procure funding to replace it, the Stanislaus NF entered into a coop agreement with the NPS to utilize its facilities. I don't think the captain, assistant captain, or the engineer are NPS employees. They are listed on the Yosemite NP CAD and the Stanislaus CAD because there is, no doubt, a system of this engine automatically responding to fires in portions of the park. This was the case prior to the move into the NPS facilities.

The only interagency (NPS and USFS) engine I'm aware of is a coop agreement between the Lassen NF and Lassen NP. It is stationed just outside the north entrance of Lassen NP. The captain and engineer are USFS employees, with the three firefighters drawn from both agencies. The automatic dispatch system there has this engine responding in the park as well as the forest. A very good type of coop arrangement I did not see when I started my USFS career in 1974. The phrase "We kill our own snakes here" was very often the attitude many federal agency managers had then. It was inefficient both from the response times and redundant apparatus required for each entity staffing up not considering any other jurisdiction and from the financial side. The Incident Command System (ICS) initiated moving toward these types of coop agreements.

Also, and I hope I'm not being too picky, ICS does not contain the term "pumper." An engine is an engine. It is not a truck, pumper or other words I've heard used to describe it. Common terminology and resource typing is a key concept in the ICS.

 

[zerg901]

http://www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/upload/2009.fire.op.doc.pdf - Yosemite Fire Management Plan 2009

Page 59 of 79 mentions a NPS Station Captain at Hodgdon. It also mentions that both El Portal Fire Station and Hodgdon Fire Station are interagency with the USFS. (However, neither CAD mentions any USFS engine at El Portal).

In the mix here are NPS hand crews, NPS wildland engine crews, NPS structural engine crews, USFS wildland engine(s), and maybe USFS hand crew(s). Plus 1 or 2 county engines at El Portal plus a rescue truck (NPS or county or both or shared or whatever). (I dont think I have ever seen a photo of the Yosemite Rescue truck). (Yosemite CAD shows 2 dozers at the Valley Fire Station - I dont think I have ever seen photos of them either).

Ex-Smokey - any chance you have an exact lat and long for the Hodgdon Fire Station?

(It just occurred to me - maybe both the El Portal Station and the Hodgdon Fire Station might both have 2 Type 3 engines each - 1 NPS and 1 USFS)

On the other hand - maybe the NPS Station Captain at Hodgdon is actually the Crane Meadows HeliBase Captain.

The possibilities are endless. (Which makes it kind of hard to figure out their operation - which in turn makes it hard to figure out what you might hear on a scanner).

 

[inigo88]

I see only one way to resolve your questions. Road trip to Yosemite. Talk to the staff there. Visit all the stations, take pictures.

I've been in the YOSAR cache at their ranger station in the valley (there are several ambulances based in that complex) and the people who work there are outstanding, I'm sure they'd be willing to answer a lot of your questions if you took a visit.

 

[Radio_Lady]

Don't forget the Yosemite Concession Services Co's structure engine, "DNC Engine 7" (and crew) required by contract to respond to fires, traffic collisions, and other emergencies at or near concessioners' facilities in the Valley. Their station is located east of the the Yosemite Village Store. They have about ten paid on-call fully-certified firefighters who are regular DNC employees when not involved in their emergency response duties.

I believe they are dispatched along with NPS on YNP Fire 172.775, and are also equipped with their company VHF radios.

The current rig, which they bought in 1998 from the Feasterville PA Fire Company, is a 1991 Pierce Arrow.

For the 20 years prior to that, the previous Engine 7 was already arguably the most famous engine in the world, having been the second "Engine 51" from the television show "Emergency!" The photo below, from 2008, shows DNC execs handing back the keys and DMV registration to representatives from the L.A. County Fire Museum, who now own and are beginning to restore it to its TV-series appearance. Check out their YouTube link.

 

[zerg901]

Using the Google Image search, I found a few photos of Engine 1, Rescue 1, Hazmat 3, etc at Yosemite. One site said that E1 was at Wawona - a different site said that E1 was at El Portal. Oh well - at least I know what the rigs look like.

PS - I search for the terms "Yosemite fire truck" and "Yosemite fire station"

 

[Radio_Lady]

The current rig, which they bought in 1998 from the Feasterville PA Fire Company, is a 1991 Pierce Arrow.

Correction on that. They bought the Feasterville engine in 2008, after having used the "Emergency!" 1974 Ward LaFrance from 1988-2008. Notice in the picture that the latter is loaded on a flatbed trailer for its trip home to Los Angeles.

 

[LowBat]

I took a few pics in June of 2006. Note the license plate.

 

[zerg901]

WildWeb

I dont see Yosemite listed anymore. Anyone know why?

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http://66.134.213.74/WildWeb/WCCA-YNP.htm

This link still works but it shows Oct 26 info

 

[zerg901]

WCCA-YNP

Yosemite is back on the WildWeb - they show an available helicopter today