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Wildland Fire Safety & Health Reporting Network

SAFENET Event Information
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SAFENET ID:
20190625-0001        [Corrective Actions]
Event Start Date:
06/21/2019 1700
Event Stop Date:
 
Incident Name:
2019 LBF Storm Response
Fire Number:
 
State:
Kentucky
Jurisdiction:
USFS
Local Unit:
Land Between the Lakes
Incident Type:
All Hazard
Incident Activity:
Line, Support, Transport to/from, Readiness/Preparedness
Stage of Incident:
Initial Attack, Extended Attack, Transfer of Command
Position Title:
Forest Fire Prevention Officer 
Task:
 
Management Level:
3
Resources Involved:
hazard tree assessment 
Contributing Factors
Contributing Factors:
Communications
Human Factors:
 
Other Factors:
 
Narrative
Describe in detail what happened including the concern or potential issue, the environment (weather, terrain, fire behavior, etc), and the resulting health issue.
INCIDENT ONE:

On June 21 2019, at about 1700 a string of storms past over the Land Between the Lakes area and continued through June 24th 2019.

From the start of the incident we had little to no radio communication, this has been an on going problem with the work around always going to cell phone(unsafe).
During the operational period on the 24th we had an incident with in an incident LE(Law Enforcement) had a report of an individual threatening to take there own life; this individual was in the area of one of our tree assessment teams with no cell service in the area and no radio. LE could not access the point where the individual was and was on able to communicate with the team in the area; however they were able to make face-to-face contact with the assessment team and utilizing that team were able to remove debris from the roadways to make access to the individual. this situation was resolved with little to no issues however the possibilities are endless of the dangerous to the assessment team. once again we were lucky, we are constantly asking our people to go out and make public contacts, respond to emergency incidence of all hazards with lack of communication. The basics for all of are operations is LCES and we are lacking the "C" it is only a matter of time before we are not lucky.

INCIDENT TWO:

The following is a synopsis of the issues I ran into during prescribed fire operations on 3/6/2019 and a storm damage assessment operation on 3/15/2019.

Immediately after departing the fire cache with the Engine, I noticed a communications issue. I called dispatch on the Golden Pond repeater to notify that we were en-route and their acknowledgement was very garbled and unreadable. After arriving at the burn, I noticed the same problem talking with other resources on the unit before firing operations began. The firing boss was communicating with the RXB2 on the same repeater and again the radio traffic was very garbled and mostly unreadable. Within 30 minutes of the commencement of firing activities, I as the holding boss, attempted to call one of my holding resources on our tac channel. Despite being less than a half-mile away, they were unable to hear me calling them after multiple attempts. When I eventually tied in with that resource, we did a radio check and it was determined that neither radio was hearing the other, though there was some static heard while keying-up. It was decided that I would clone their radios directly off of mine to hopefully solve the problem. After cloning the radio and confirming we were both on the same digital tac, we continued to have problems throughout the rest of the day. Another resource from the pacific northwest was also among the holding group and was also having similar problems on both the repeater and tac channel. One of them made the comment “we thought our communications out west were bad”, referring to the very poor communications on our unit compared to theirs in Washington. The problems continued throughout the day with numerous resources on the burn.
Similarly during the storm damage assessment on 3/15/2019, the same problems were noted on the repeater channel when talking to dispatch. When calling en-route to the assessment area, dispatch was very garbled on the Golden Pond repeater, even though I was only about a mile from it. After a few attempts I finally called dispatch by phone to provide them the message. They stated that they did not have problems hearing us, but the resources here were having problems hearing them.

Please let me know if you need any additional information.

INCCIDENT THREE

We can’t gain access to the Model repeater building to resolve the broken repeater.
We had a problem with the WKMS repeater not functioning correctly and it needed a check.
We can’t talk well, sometimes never, on a handheld across the unit with any certainty.
We have to rely on mobile (truck) radios but many times we don’t work next to or in a truck.
Every coordinated response on this unit I have participated in over the last 60 days (one prescribed fire and one road/storm issue) our radio network has failed to function as needed.

No one I have spoken to here relies on the radio network here. They all have work arounds. That’s a big problem. (It was the exact same case in both of my previous assignments-no one trusted the system.) I am truly not calling attention to the problem to stir things up but this is a safety issue. We ask our people to respond to things daily that have the potential to become big incidents. Most times they do not. But when they do, we need a radio system that works to support our employees and gives reliable communication.
It will take time and commitment, and possibly funding, to resolve this issue but once we find the problem(s) and resolve them. It will all be worth it.


Three different field going personal with three separate incidents were we got lucky and no one was hurt or killed and no damage to property. we can not keep relying on luck to get us through these incidents.
Immediate Action Taken
Reporting Individual : please describe actions you took to correct or mitigate the unsafe/unhealthful event.
As always we used cell phones with spotty service. I do not fell safe during normal operation at work.


Agency Response

20190625-0001-CA001

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