I checked the list of areas covered and was happy to see expansion in North Dakota and Idaho, where I was communicating with friends who were in fire situations. They both have it now.
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Oddly enough, I made the first post in this feed. I got to witness exactly what my gripe was in October on the Salmon Challis National Forest: Watch Duty is great. My only caution to anybody relying upon it in the community, is they shouldn’t rely upon it as their soul source of situational awareness. Encourage people to sign up for local alerts as well. I have noticed, especially the more rural you go like deep in Idaho, Watch Duty doesn’t necessarily have timely updates (which is no fault of their own). I was on a fire last year that showed on monitor status. We had a wind event and the fire grew rapidly and dangerously (I think it 50k in 18 hours in timber.) It was a long time before the growth showed and a dying fire had caused evacuations and potentially structure threats. I think a lot of the delay has to do with a team managing the fire and little to no radio traffic with the forest. While we needed more resources, they weren’t going to be able to do much do to conditions and even if we had been making a significant order (which came later) no resources were readily available. This likely wouldn’t be in an issue in most of CA as there are people everywhere and cameras blanketing the terrain. Just be careful out on the National Forests in the middle of nowhere, because things might be going very badly and Watch Duty doesn’t reflect the changes as they have no way of knowing.
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I’ll repeat my plea from a year ago:
Watch Duty reporters rely on remote scanners, along with other sources of information. If people are in an area without current remote scanner coverage, volunteering to host a scanner at their house is a pretty awesome way to help out. That may not have been the case with this specific fire, but it will certainly help in a lot of areas.
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I don’t think much would’ve made a difference with this one. 45 minutes in from the pavement. Radio traffic on tac. Wasn’t much to say other than is everybody off the line? But I second your plea.
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Solid points @Twigpig
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