Cal Fire Live Radio
Cal Fire Live Radio
CDF
streaming radio
~ Broadcasting from Danville in Contra Costa at 700 feet elevation~
Broadcasting with a 15' tall "high gain" antenna mounted on a 40' tower:
 |
Air Attack: (122.925, 151.220, 151.295, and
151.310) Santa Clara Ranger Unit (Contra Costa & Alameda Counties) San Mateo - Santa Cruz Ranger Unit Lake - Napa Ranger Unit (Sonoma & Yolo Counties) Marin County Fire (low band comes in only sometimes) Nevada - Yuba - Placer Ranger Unit Amador - El Dorado Ranger Unit Mendocino Ranger Unit Butte Ranger Unit CDF Command 1 and 2 Cal Fire Tacs White 2 ** During a fire only air attack, tac channel, and local net will stream ** |
Line of site with Mt. St. Helena to Mt.
Vaca
.
** ABC 7 Weather updated 4 times a day **
Sausalito
Vacation Rental
** $448 per night **
Click here for:
www.WildlandFire.com
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF, or CAL FIRE) is
the State of California's agency responsible for the administration of the
state's private and public forests. It is often referred to as The California
Department of Forestry, which was the name of the department before the 1990s.
In the 1970s and before, it was known as the California Division of Forestry.
They also provide firefighting capability to prevent and extinguish wildfires in
the state's forests. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
is also the largest full service all risk fire department in the Western United
States and operates more fire stations year round than do the New York (FDNY),
Los Angeles (LAFD), and Chicago (CFD) fire departments combined.
CDF is a department of the California Resources Agency, a state cabinet-level
department that also comprises the California Department of Parks and
Recreation, California Department of Fish and Game, and the California
Department of Water Resources. The Department or Forestry works with employees
of California Conservation Corps for firefighting and vegetation management. CDF
uses inmate labor of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
to assist with fire suppression and logistics. Programs to control wood boring
insects and diseases of trees are under forestry programs managed by CDF. The
vehicle fleet is managed from an office in Davis, California.[2] The
Department's Director is Del Walters, who was appointed by Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger February 1, 2009.
CDF operations can be viewed as fitting into two categories: Schedule A and
Schedule "B". Schedule B is defined as Resources Agency/CDF-funded, it is the
Wildland side of CAL FIRE (CDF). Schedule "A" activities include county fire
departments run by CDF under contracts with county governments. From north to
south, Butte, Tuolumne, Merced, San Luis Obispo, and Riverside counties are
examples of county fire departments operated by CDF under contract. Another
commonly-heard CDF term is SRA which refers to State Responsibility Area: lands
or area for which CDF has the primary responsibility to manage the public safety
during a fire incident.
Starting on January 24, 2007, CDF has changed its "informal" name to CAL FIRE.
The purpose is to bring CDF's name in line with other state agencies such as
Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) and Cal Boating (California
Department of Boating and Waterways).
Firefighters employed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection are represented by CDF Firefighters[4], which represents 4,000
members within CDF Firefighters and is also associated with the California
Professional Firefighters (CPF)[5] and the International Association of
Firefighters (IAFF)[6].
Wildland
Firefighting
Wildfire · Bushfire
Wildfire suppression
National Interagency Fire Center
USFS · BLM
CALFIRE · CALFIRE Aviation
New South Wales Rural Fire Service · Country Fire Authority, Victoria · Country
Fire Service, South Australia
Tactics & Equipment
Incident Command System
Aerial firefighting
Controlled burn
Firebreak · Fire trail
Fire lookout tower
Fire-retardant gel
Fire-fighting foam
Fire retardant · MAFFS
Helicopter bucket · Driptorch
Handcrew · Hotshots
Helitack · Smokejumper
Rappeller · Engine crew
The CDF website states: "The Department of Forestry and Fire Protection protects
the people of California from fires, responds to emergencies, and protects and
enhances forest, range, and watershed values providing social, economic, and
environmental benefits to rural and urban citizens."
The most visible part of CDF operations is fire suppression. Operations are
divided into 21 Operational Units, which geographically follow county lines.
Each unit consists of the area of one to three counties. Operational Units are
grouped under two regions: Coast-Cascade and Sierra-South.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal is part of CDF and oversees activities
including fire prevention, regulation of fire safety, and pipeline safety.
All gas cans sold in California, for example, must be approved by the Office of
the State Fire Marshal and marked with the Office's seal.
CDF owns and operates its own fleet of air tankers, air tactical aircraft and
helicopters, which are managed under the Aviation Management Program. Additional
aviation resources are leased by the program.
A statewide CDF training academy is operated at Ione, east of Sacramento. The
facility is contiguous to Mule Creek State Prison
Operational Units are organizations designed to address fire suppression over a
geographic area. They vary widely in size and terrain.
For example, Lassen-Modoc Operational Unit encompasses two rural counties and
consists of eight fire stations and 13 pieces of equipment. The unit shares an
interagency emergency command center with federal agencies including the US
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. An interagency center contributes
to economies of scale, supports cooperation, and lends itself to a more seamless
operation. The area has fragmented jurisdictions across a large rural area along
the Nevada and Oregon state lines.
Riverside Operational Unit, by itself is one of the largest fire departments in
the nation, with 95 fire stations and about 230 pieces of equipment. The
Riverside Operational Unit operates the Riverside County Fire Department under
contract as well operate eighteen city fire departments and one community
services district fire department. Nine of these stations belong to the state,
with rest owned by the respective local government enity. The unit operates its
own emergency command center in Perris. Terrain served includes urban and
suburban areas of the Inland Empire and communities in the metropolitan Palm
Springs area. The area includes forested mountains, the Colorado River basin,
the Mojave Desert and Interstate 10.
Northern Region-
* Mendocino Unit
* San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit
* Santa Clara Unit (Including Contra Costa, Alameda, & parts of San Joaquin, &
Stanislaus Counties)
* Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit (Including Colusa, Yolo and Solano Counties)
* Humboldt-Del Norte Unit
* Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit (Including Sutter & Sierra Counties)
* Lassen-Modoc Unit (Including Plumas County as of June 2008)
* Amador-El Dorado Unit (Including Sacramento & Alpine Counties)
* Shasta-Trinity Unit
* Siskiyou Unit
* Tehama-Glenn Unit
* Butte Unit
Southern Region-
* San Luis Obispo Unit
* San Diego Unit (Including Imperial County)
* San Bernardino Unit (Including Inyo & Mono Counties)
* Riverside Unit
* Fresno-Kings Unit
* Madera-Mariposa-Merced Unit
* San Benito-Monterey Unit
* Tulare Unit
* Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit (Including portions of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and
Alpine counties)
The counties of Marin, Kern, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange are
paid by Cal Fire to provide fire protection to state responsibility areas within
those counties rather than Cal Fire providing direct fire protection, and are
commonly known as the "Contract Counties".
Lawmakers in Sacramento have mandated that every Operational Unit develop and
implement an annual fire management plan. The plan will develop cooperation and
community programs to reduce damage from, and costs of, fires in California
One metric used by fire suppression units is initial attack success: fires
stopped by the initial resources, (equipment and people,) sent to the incident.
Apparatus
CAL FIRE uses various apparatus to accomplish their daily responses. Engines
fall under two categories, either being state owned—mostly wildland, or
city/county owned, which CAL FIRE operates under contract.
For the wildland portion, most engines are manufactured with West-mark or
Westates bodies on an International chassis. Commonly seen models of wildland
engines include the Model 5, 9, 14, and 15. CDF Models 24 and 25 were test-bed
models, with only a few of each model fielded. The newest versions of these
engines are CDF model 34 (4WD) and 35 (2WD), manufactured by Rosenbauer and
Placer Fire Equipment. Model 34/35's are currently being fielded statewide. As
of 2009 Model 35's have been discontinued and Model 34's from HME Apparatus are
the new standard. Fact sheets on all of CAL FIRE's current-service Type 3 (wildland)
engine models can be found on the CAL FIRE web site under Mobile Equipment.
Most type I and II engines that are operated under contract are Westates bodies
on HME(formerly Hendrickson) 1871 Series chassis, the same configuration used by
the California Office of Emergency Services (OES) engines that are distributed
throughout the state.
CAL FIRE has contracted with 10 Tanker Air Carrier for three years' of exclusive
use of their DC-10 "super tanker" known as Tanker 910, at a cost of $5 million
per year.
Type-3 Wildland Engine, CDF Model 14
Type-3 Wildland Engine, CDF Model 5
Type-3 Wildland Engine, CDF Model 24
Type-1 Pierce Pumper, owned by the Cypress FPD -- operated by CDF under contract
Pierce Aerial Ladder (Truck), owned by Napa County -- operated by CDF under contract
Smeal Midship Pumper, owned by San Luis Obispo County -- operated by CDF under contract |
Technologies
CDF uses several enterprise IT systems to manage operations. Altaris CAD, a
computer-assisted dispatch system made by Northrop Grumman, is employed by each
unit's Emergency Command Center (ECC) to track available resources and
assignments. Each Operational Unit has a stand-alone system which includes
detailed address and mapping information. Information about fires is
batch-uploaded into a statewide statistical analysis system which is used to
drive improvements to fire suppression and prevention. Resource Ordering Status
System is used to cooperatively manage equipment and staff from other agencies
at campaign-type fires.
The three largest state government land-mobile radio systems would include
California Highway Patrol, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans),
and California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Any of these three
systems might be considered largest depending on what constitutes the factors of
"largest." If some combination of the number of mobiles, overall number of
transmitters, total number of users, annual number of incidents, number of radio
transmissions carried, or geographic area served were considerations, one of
these three would be largest.
CDF is a major user on the State of California, Department of General Services,
Public Safety Microwave Network (PSMN). The network is used for the state's
Green Phone telephone network, a telephone system used for communications
between public safety agencies. The system primarily serves state agencies.
Intercoms between ECCs use audio paths supported by microwave radio. These
intercoms usually appear as circuits on communications consoles in dispatching
centers.
Aircraft are a prominent feature of CDF, especially during the summer fire
season. Both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft are employed.Helicopters, or
rotary-wing aircraft, are used to transport firefighting hand crews into fire
areas. They also drop water and retardant chemicals on fires. Fixed wing
aircraft are used for command, observation, and to drop retardant chemicals on
fires.
Walters has more than 30 years of service at CAL FIRE and played a key roles in
combating the 2007 and 2008 firestorms. He has the experience and leadership
capabilities to implement the highest standards of fire prevention and fire
fighting while ensuring all Californians are protected.
Walters has served as the executive officer for CAL FIRE since 2008. He began
his career as a firefighter in 1971. Prior to promoting to executive officer, he
was the assistant region chief then staff chief of operations for the Northern
Region. Prior to that, Walters was the deputy chief for the Shasta-Trinity Unit.
He previously worked for the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit as the assistant chief of
administration, battalion chief, vegetation management program coordinator
forester I and fire captain. He has also served as a fire captain, fire
apparatus engineer and firefighter for the San Benito-Monterey Unit. Walters has
been a California State Peace Officer since 1986.
Walters, of Redding, received his Bachelor of Science degree in forest resource
management from Humboldt State University.
Telecom history circa 1970
As of the early 1970s, CDF systems used VHF "high band" (151 MHz repeater/159
MHz mobile) stand-alone repeaters on State of California communications sites.
CDF was an early adopter of hand held radios but the radios did not perform to
modern public safety system standards. The systems served their purpose but were
not originally engineered for hand held coverage because of the enormous
coverage areas, the difficult terrain, and the lack of infrastructure to support
a complex system. Sites had commercial power but many lacked reliable telephone
lines or microwave radio connectivity. In terms of geography, CDF served mostly
rural areas and the radio repeater sites to cover these areas were located in
remote wilderness. Voting was in its infancy and, in CDF repeater systems, was
unheard-of. Users understood this and used radios in entrepreneurial ways. For
example, if an engine arriving at a fire could not find a spot where they had a
radio path to reach dispatch, they would call another engine that could
communicate and ask the staff to relay their message. The unit might see if they
could get through by switching to an alternate channel, such as State net, which
had repeaters at different sites, and consequently, a different coverage area.
The smallest geographic division of CDF Fire is the Operational Unit. Examples
of Operational Units are Lassen-Modoc Operational Unit and Tuolumne-Calaveras
Operational Unit. Operational Units are named for counties served. In the 1970s
Operational Units were referred to as Ranger Units. Ranger Units were grouped
into six CDF Regions, which may have been called Districts in earlier years.
Radios were configured in a hierarchy with channel selections for Local (serving
a Ranger Unit), District/Region, and State nets. By switching to the State
channel, any two CDF radios statewide could communicate. Fire units from
different Ranger Units but within the same district or region could communicate
on the Region channel.
Signaling
1970s CDF systems used single tone or tone burst to select repeaters. The system
had five tones statewide, allowing up to five repeaters in overlapping radio
coverage areas on the same channel. Tones used, in order from tone 1 through 5,
were: 1,800 Hz, 1,950 Hz, 2,200 Hz, 2,400 Hz and 2,552 Hz. Station ringdowns and
some volunteer sirens were actuated using a Motorola selective calling scheme
called Quik Call I.
During the conversion from tone burst to CTCSS in the early 1980s, Department of
General Services (DoGS) technicians modified repeaters to work with either burst
tones or CTCSS (sub-audible) tones. This allowed repeaters to be used with
either type of signaling as the tone burst mobiles were swapped out for newer
models.
Equipment
Like most State equipment, CDF used a mix of radios from several manufacturers
varying from one contract bid to the next. Scanning, selectable tone burst, six
channel transmit, and three channel receive were beyond the capabilities of most
off-the-shelf mobile radios in 1970. Custom-made General Electric MASTR
Professional hybrid tube/solid state mobiles were bought in one early 1970s
contract. CDF was an early adopter of scanning: this radio incorporated General
Electric's scanning feature, called Priority Search Lock Monitor.[20] Many of
the CDF repeaters in service in 2009 are GE/MA-COM Mastr III synthesized base
stations.
In the 1970s, at least some CDF repeaters were RCA Series 1000 units. These had
solid state receivers and exciters with continuous duty tube final power
amplifiers. They produced transmitter output powers in the range of 100-120
watts.
The earliest fully solid state mobile radios were used in the CTCSS conversion.
They were 99-channel Midland radios. An early 1980s discovery was that users had
to carry cards with lists of the channels. The radios had many channels and no
alphanumeric display describing who you would talk to when the display said
channel 65, for example. The Midland mobiles used flat, computer-hard-disk-style
ribbon cable to connect the control head on the vehicle dash with the radio unit
drawer. To improve reliability, some units used segments of discarded
inch-and-a-half hose as a jacket to protect the easily-abraded ribbon cable.
Current CAL FIRE radio equipment in use is the Kenwood TK-790 mobile radio with
a CDF-custom firmware package giving 254-channel capability, plus the ability to
create a 'command group' for incident frequency management in one bank. Bendix-King
GPH-CMD portable radios (HT's) give the same functionality in a 500-channel
handheld. All older mobile and portable radios, including older BK EPH
portables, either have been or are in process of being phased out, due to the
pending requirement for all public safety radio nets to be narrow-banded.
Hearing a distant voice from a radio speaker, it was unclear what path the
caller was using to reach you. This was especially true of dispatch consoles,
which routed audio from many channels to one or two speakers. Radio protocol
provided that users announce which channel and tone they were using in order
that the called party would answer on the same channel and tone. A typical
transmission where an engine was calling, preparing to tell something to
dispatch, might be phrased, "San Andreas, Forty Six Eighty Eight, Local Net,
Tone One." This queued the San Andreas dispatcher to manually select Local, Tone
One or L1 to answer.
Administration
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the appointment of Del Walters as
director of CAL FIRE. He is the second CAL FIRE director who came from within
the CALFIRE ranks. The first was Dick Ernest.
San Francisco Cam:
"new"
Streaming Webcam
Website by: Doug Kunst, San Ramon Valley Fire Captain
