To begin, all USFS repeaters were nonoperational on the central zone of the fire unit. Apparently this was a known issue since the previous day and may have been an issue that was known about since the 2018 winter.
When we arrived at our hike-in spot (the Maroon Bells National Recreation Area, a paved trailhead with restroom facilities and over 320,000 visitors a year) we were unable to contact dispatch. We were able to talk on a USFS repeater (Loge) with another fire unit, but we could not reach dispatch. There was a spot along the drive in, about 5-10 minute drive down the road where you can hit a BLM repeater, BLM Sunlight, but it is very scratchy and somewhat unreadable, however a simple emergency transmission could probably be relayed. Two firefighters further down the road were able to talk to dispatch via radio/cell phone and let dispatch know that we were hiking on a well-established trail to observe the fire, but not engage.
When we reached the lookout spot along the trail, approximately 1-2 miles away from the smoke report, we were still unable to hit a repeater that could reach dispatch and there was no cellphone service. We were able to reach the two firefighters, who were not hiking into the fire, on a line-of-sight radio channel. They had moved to our hike-in spot, the Maroon Bells parking lot, to have better communication with us and to try and locate the fire with binoculars. Communications between us and the two firefighters were clear, however we had no communications with dispatch. We were able to take observations of the fuels and location of the smoke report for resource advisors, however, we never saw any active indicators of fire. We departed the lookout area right after dark to see if any flames would be visible at night, which they were not.
Hiking back to the vehicle, one firefighter slipped and fell, but did not injure himself. He was checked by a physician the following day and cleared for immediate return to duty.
It seems unreasonable that while we are entering a highly active fire season and working in an area that has extremely high visitor use, that we should have no communications with a dispatch center. The area we were working in has the potential for a variety of visitor/official incidents that will require a solid/stable radio platform. |
