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SAFENET

Wildland Fire Safety & Health Reporting Network

SAFENET Event Information

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SAFENET ID:

20240305-0001

Event Start Date:

03/02/2024 1800

Event Stop Date:

 

Incident Name:

CY24 DBNF Fire Support

Fire Number:

KY-DBF-240001 

State:

Kentucky

Jurisdiction:

USFS

Local Unit:

Redbird District

Incident Type:

Wildland, Prescribed/Fuels Treatment, All Hazard

Incident Activity:

Line, Support, Readiness/Preparedness

Stage of Incident:

Other

Position Title:

Center Manager 

Task:

Support/Aviation 

Management Level:

N/A

Resources Involved:

All district resources.  

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.

The receive module on the UHF link from the Peabody Repeater site down to the Redbird district office failed resulting in loss of communications from the district to the dispatch center. The UHF link has an older system that requires the module to be sent to Canada to be tuned to the right frequency and then sent back. No local replacement device available for a quick swap. A newer style module has the ability to be frequency tuned on site and swapped out quickly but one was not available. The current system is based on a VHF to UHF link system to transmit from the repeater site down to the district office where there is FS network access.

Immediate Action Taken

Reporting Individual : please describe actions you took to correct or mitigate the unsafe/unhealthful event.

Immediately sent a dispatcher down to the Redbird work center to act as a forward operating dispatcher to maintain a communications link from the district back to dispatch. The communications tech quickly identified the issue and has worked to find a "like" device in the country that can be shipped/sent to the DBNF to be swapped in to mitigate the issue until the current module can be shipped off for tuning. The swapped out device may or may not work based on its current tuning, it is tuned to 170.4000 and the required Freq is 170.5250. The Freq range is close enough that it has been sent up to LMR engineers to make sure the system will work with the "like" module. If the LMR engineers determine the "like" module will not work, then the district could be without radio network access for 7-10 days. An additional IA dispatcher has been ordered to staff the district office until the module swap can occur.

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