Visit to Downstown: Dispatch

I'd like to thank my friends at Downstown for the photo of their dispatch center and permission to share it with you.  The radios include radios used to communicate with airplanes on the frequencies that are used in aviation, these are sometimes referred to as AM radios because the frequencies are at the lower end of the band. There are a different set of frequencies, on the higher end of the spectrum that are used by the NJ Forest Fire Service to communicate with their ground forces as well as for air to ground communications, these radios are sometimes referred to as FM radios.

Downstown Aero Crop Services Dispatch Center

The map that you see on the wall to the right of the radios is a map of NJ Forest Fire Service Division C (southern NJ). The NJ Forest Fire Service Division C towers are in the middle of the large circles you see, where these large circles are similar to compass roses. In this case, the compass rose shows the degrees from 0 to 360 degrees so that a location can be marked on the map as seen from the tower.

I am pretty certain that the spring wildfire season in New Jersey is from March 15 to May 15, the last SEAT went off contract (i.e. no more mandatory availability) on May 9. New Jersey's fire towers are staffed and operational during the spring fire season and at other times of high fire danger. The fire tower observer can see 360 degrees. S/he uses a special piece of equipment known as an Alidade or an Osborne Fire Finder to plot the position of the smoke/fire.. As I understand it these are plotting devices with a telescope mounted on a plane table located in the middle of the fire tower. All 360 degrees are imprinted on the plane table. The observer sites the smoke/fire using this plotting device calculating the distance and position of the fire.  Go here to see some photos of NJ Forest Fire Service (NJFFS) fire towers on the NJFFS Section B-10 website.

Let's look an hypothetical example to see how this might work.The observer in tower A might see a smoke/fire at 240 degrees and five miles from Tower A. The observer then reports the fire or smoke over a NJFFS radio frequency. When possible, a second tower in the area, tower B, will then look for the fire/smoke using the information that the tower A observer has reported. These two observations are used to locate the exact position (triangulate) of the fire.

Once the position of the fire/smoke is confirmed, the tower observer is ready to dispatch ground crews and equipment, and aerial resources (SEAT). Sometimes the tower observer will make a call to the incident commander (IC) before dispatching a SEAT to see if there is a burn permit in the area where they observed the smoke. Other times the tower may get a call from county 911 saying the local fire departments have been dispatched to a wildfire before the tower observer has seen the smoke.

Moving on, the tower observer in NJFFS Division C is ready to dispatch ground and aerial resources to the fire dispatching a SEAT along with ground resources. The Downstown dispatcher receives the order for a SEAT and are given coordinates by the tower observer. SEAT base personnel at Downstown then locate the fire on the map in the dispatch center using these coordinates. An added benefit is when the SEAT pilot has years of experience flying in the Division where they may know the location of the fire just be hearing the dispatch order over the radio.

Five minutes after the Downstown SEAT base gets the word over the radio to deploy the SEAT, the SEAT will be in the air and on the way to the fire.

When all the NJFFS contracted SEATs are off contract (no more mandatory availability), SEAT dispatch happens differently. SEATs are not dispatched until the State declares a wildfire emergency. Once a wild fire emergency is declared, the dispatch order for SEATs comes from the NJFFS office in Trenton NJ. After the SEATs go off contract, Downstown continues with their other agricultural aerial work. My friends at Downstown tell me that while their pilots are out on spraying missions during the summer months when the towers are not up they may spot wildfires on the ground, assisting NJFFS in directing ground crews to the fire.

I'd like to thank my friends at Downstown for their assistance with this article. While written with NJFFS Division C as a reference point, I hope that what I have written here applies to dispatching SEATs in NJFFS Division A and B.

Next up on May 14: SEAT loading operations