Friday, March 30, 2007

Lunchtime and Lost Comms


Invariably, the big stuff goes down when I'm at a meal and far away from my scanner. In fact, the last time a huge structure fire dropped in Beverly Hills, I was sitting at the same joint watching BHFD and LAFD units cruise by. Of course, I'm sans scanner the whole time so I don't find out what's cracking until I get to my radio!


This time, as I swung a right on Wilshire I look up to see heavy smoke sitting overhead, but my view is obscured by high-rises, so I couldn't see the origin. Thought at first it was a big commercial structure since it was putting out a ton of dark smoke, but when I finally got a glimpse of the hills a few minutes later, could see the smoke charging over the ridge on the Valley-side. By the time I got up to my office, had a great view of the fire and the helos were but little specks in the distance making water runs.


Turned to OCD 9, but all the fun was pretty much over by then. Just the usual mid-incident requests for random crap. The traffic on the Tac Channels was also pretty routine about fire roads, flare ups and hose lays. I missed all the unit dispatches, which is usually the best shit.


Anyway, they're getting a good handle on it right now and never ceases to amaze me how good these LAFD and LACoFD guys are when it comes to this stuff. Burbank FD got in on it, too.
photo: deposee

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