Dear Santa Monica Fire...

...please, kindly, when talking on the radio, just STFU!

For a variety of ridiculous reasons, I found myself wide awake at 0330 hours this morning, and flipped on the scanner, which I hoped would lull me back to sleep. Also, we were in the midst of a gnarly windstorm here in L.A. so I figured things would be hopping with the LAFD (surprisingly, they weren't). But it was almost impossible to find out what was happening with the LAFD, LAPD, BHPD and others because the Santa Monica Fire Department was working a structure fire somewheres on Wilshire Boulevard with ONE ROOM involved that required constant communication on the Tac channel and to OCD on channel 7.

The most egregious offender was the captain on Truck 121 (above) who felt the need to tell. the. BC. every. little. fucking. thing. he. was. doing.

Example:

"Truck 121 to Wilshire IC, we've cut another small ventilation hole in the roof, which makes two small holes, plus two skylights and we're using the rotary saw."

"Roger Truck 121."

"Truck 121 to Wilshire IC, we're going to get ready to come down the ladder now since our truck work ventilation appears to be done and there is no more smoke coming from the fire room."

"Roger Truck 121."

"Truck 121 to Wilshire IC, we're getting ready to leave the scene and we just want you to know that we have left two shovels and a salvage cover inside the hallway next to the fire room so once the arson investigators show up, those can be used by whoever is here to do more salvage work and we can either pick them up later or blah, blah, blah, blah....."

"Roger Truck 121."

Wilshire IC himself--Battalion 22--wasn't much better as he constantly badgered OCD with one inane transmission after another. I mean, it's four o'fucking clock in the morning. I felt bad for the poor bastards at OCD who were just trying to get through the last few hours of what had been a really busy shift.

I mean look, I know I'm spoiled because I live in an area where the two biggest fire department's catch working structure fires like flies to honey, but still, last night's little structure fire wasn't the SMFD's first trip to the Show. I realize that working fires can be few and far between in smaller cities like Santa Monica and Culver City and Beverly Hills, etc., but still...I mean the shit coming out of SMFD's radios last night awoke distant memories of my years living in northern New England listening (and observing) as the local vollie departments would catch their one big fire of the year.....painful!

photo: Santa Monica Fire Department

Airplanes

Did a little flying in the past two weeks (as a passenger) and departed KLAX on a beautiful Thursday afternoon in the midst of L.A.'s annual January heat wave. Upon takeoff from Rwy 25R, glimpsed one of the LAFD's ARFF trucks doing a welcoming spray for what appeared to be a Virgin America A320 taxiing into its terminal. They must've been inaugurating a new service.

Upon my landing at KEGE roughly two hours later, fired up the BlackBerry to discover the first reports of US Airways flight 1549's unscheduled water landing. There's obviously nothing I can add to the incident other than to say 1.) "Sully" can be my wingman anytime and 2.) I bet I could've done the same thing on MS FlightSim 2004, except that there are absolutely no decent Airbus add-on products that I've found for the sim.

Since I'm about two weeks late posting this, I'll add this postscript: Watching live-streaming video of a fatal aircraft down at KSMO this evening. Looks like a two-seater aerobatic-type had engine problems after departure on Runway 21 and tried to make it back. Crashed on Runway 3 and skid off onto a northern taxiway, where it burst into flames. Two died. SMFD crash units and airport PD is on scene. Airport will be closed for awhile for the invest. Sadly, the pilot couldn't survive the crash landing and attempted the dubious trick of returning to the runway he just departed from; but his death on the runway avoided potential carnage in the residential area just west of the airport.

LAFD's New Voices

So, I thought mine ears were deceiving me earlier today when I turned on the scanner and heard Santa Monica Engine 121 going "available in quarters"on LAFD's dispatch channel 7. I automatically assumed the SMFD engine had been called out on a mutual aid run with a Venice (63), Mar Vista (62) or Palisades (23, 69) LAFD station, which is sometimes the case. I figured they'd been canceled and were just telling OCD they were off the call.

A few hours later, I heard a full blown dispatch in the city of Santa Monica, with SMFD resources and a Gerber ambulance all check in, going en route on OCD 7 (859.4375). Then, I heard a SMFD EMS run on OCD 4--the city's EMS dispatch channel. Could it be???? Was LAFD suddenly dispatching for SMFD? Was this the beginning of the Apocalypse?

The answer is yes, and maybe. Thanks to Kerry over at LACountyfire.com, LA City is now contracting out dispatching services with SMFD as part of an arrangement to test out radio cooperation between fire agencies in Region A. Region A is a grouping of fire departments that all offer mutual aid with each other and mix and match when forming Strike Forces to fight brush fires.

According to Kerry, if it's successful, LAFD could begin dispatching for other agencies on contract, since the City is the region coordinator! Holy shit. This is actually pretty big news and a pretty big adjustment for the extremely territorial City boys.

Already, because SMFD isn't hooked up to the LAFD's mobile computer system, they have to do all of their updates via the radio; they can't just punch a key on the computer to let dispatch see their status. That's virtually a doubling of LAFD's radio traffic, which is a pretty quiet affair these days.

In general, LAFD will "simulcast" all major incidents via the radio and over the nice computerized lady system that now "rings down" at each fire station. Instead of hearing loud bells and buzzers of days past, followed by a grizzled old dispatcher's voice, the men and women of the LAFD are now treated to a steady warble, followed by the smooth voice of a woman from Utah who recorded all of the dispatch combination possibilities. She calmly announces the call: so when a triple GSW comes in, there's no drama on the station intercom, just a middle-American voice telling the units they're going to a shooting.

The live dispatchers will still broadcast major incident dispatches over the air--ones that usually require multiple units from different stations. They also still dispatch any unit over the radio that's out of quarters and driving around the city. But at night, things get super-quiet. That's because all of the EMS dispatches that don't require fire company resources (ambulances without fire engines) are dispatched over the telephone--literally.

It's a throwback from the days when the firefighters didn't want to be awoken by numerous middle of the night EMS calls. Never mind that the opposite isn't the case! If an engine or truck company gets a call that doesn't require EMS, they still get rung down on the overhead speakers and all the station lights go on automatically....who cares about the medics' and EMTs' sleep, right?

Anyway, now that SMFD will need verbal dispatches 24/7 look for the frequencies to get busier. If this experiment works out, it's possible that Culver City, Beverly Hills and others (maybe the South Bay FDs) will all get dispatched by the City. Region C, which includes the Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena departments, already has this centralized system, known as Verdugo Dispatch.

As a side note, I was wondering why the SMFD unit identifiers changed in the last few weeks. What was previously "Engine 1" is now "Engine 121" etc. Must be to align the units with other departments in Region A. I suspect we'll see BHFD changing their identifiers eventually, as well.

Also, be interesting to hear SMFD adopt LAFD terminology.

Let the games begin.