Reporting Wildfires

iamtheari

iamtheari

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I went flying on Independence Day and spotted a wildfire in a neighboring county. I took some pictures, which I've spent some time looking at now and realize that I don't see any human response to the fire. It makes me realize that I don't know the best way to report a wildfire that I have spotted from the air. I reached out to my local emergency management person to brainstorm ideas. Have the rest of you already solved this problem?

The options I see are:
  • Call 911 from the air. Major problem: Being in a remote area, the call is likely to be dropped and/or garbled and emergency response resources will be wasted sending people out to the last tower ping from my cell phone, which is moving at 200 mph cross-country.
  • Call the state dispatch office's non-emergency number. Same problem as calling 911, although without the wasted emergency response. I want to make sure I can get specific coordinates through.
  • Call 121.5. Problem: Salt Lake Center has aircraft to deal with, they don't need to be googling county emergency response departments to try to make a land-line call.
  • Call Unicom at an airport where the chart supplement claims "Unicom located at Sheriff's Office." Problem: Those claims are, as far as I can tell, somewhere between optimistic and just plain not true.
  • Find a number I can text on a statewide or county-by-county basis. This is ideal, if such a number exists.
 
Bingo. Approach or tower will forward the info. Not uncommon around the Anch area, unfortunately.
 
I've always reported to whoever I am talking to at the time, or if not talking, look up closest and give it to them whether it be center or tracon.
 
The nearest approach or tower is about 120 nm from where I spotted this fire. I could have tried but I only get handed off to them within 30 or 40 miles so I don't know if they have the radar or radio range to pick me up. Of course, I can just spiral up until they see me, so that probably would work out.

EdFred said:
I've always reported to whoever I am talking to at the time, or if not talking, look up closest and give it to them whether it be center or tracon.
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This came in while I was typing the above. Center hasn't had any problem passing the report on? I don't know how much knowledge Center would have of the ground assets potentially a thousand miles away from their scope.
 
iamtheari said:
I went flying on Independence Day and spotted a wildfire in a neighboring county. I took some pictures, which I've spent some time looking at now and realize that I don't see any human response to the fire. It makes me realize that I don't know the best way to report a wildfire that I have spotted from the air. I reached out to my local emergency management person to brainstorm ideas. Have the rest of you already solved this problem

The options I see are:
  • Call 911 from the air. Major problem: Being in a remote area, the call is likely to be dropped and/or garbled and emergency response resources will be wasted sending people out to the last tower ping from my cell phone, which is moving at 200 mph cross-country.
  • Call the state dispatch office's non-emergency number. Same problem as calling 911, although without the wasted emergency response. I want to make sure I can get specific coordinates through.
  • Call 121.5. Problem: Salt Lake Center has aircraft to deal with, they don't need to be googling county emergency response departments to try to make a land-line call.
  • Call Unicom at an airport where the chart supplement claims "Unicom located at Sheriff's Office." Problem: Those claims are, as far as I can tell, somewhere between optimistic and just plain not true.
  • Find a number I can text on a statewide or county-by-county basis. This is ideal, if such a number exists.
Click to expand...

ATC or FSS, you should be able to reach one just about anywhere. ATC gets these occasionally and forwards them to a the Fire Dudes.
 
iamtheari said:
The nearest approach or tower is about 120 nm from where I spotted this fire. I could have tried but I only get handed off to them within 30 or 40 miles so I don't know if they have the radar or radio range to pick me up. Of course, I can just spiral up until they see me, so that probably would work out.


This came in while I was typing the above. Center hasn't had any problem passing the report on? I don't know how much knowledge Center would have of the ground assets potentially a thousand miles away from their scope.
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They got a Rolodex with numbers for just about anything that can come up
 
"Just about anywhere" is the operative phrase, but in general I'm sure I can get in touch with Center most of the time, or write down where I was and call it in later if Center can't hear me right away.
 
iamtheari said:
The nearest approach or tower is about 120 nm from where I spotted this fire. I could have tried but I only get handed off to them within 30 or 40 miles so I don't know if they have the radar or radio range to pick me up. Of course, I can just spiral up until they see me, so that probably would work out.


This came in while I was typing the above. Center hasn't had any problem passing the report on? I don't know how much knowledge Center would have of the ground assets potentially a thousand miles away from their scope.
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Well, I'm not calling Fort Worth Center if I'm in northern Michigan. LOL If you're talking to center, you're on their scope, not 1000 miles away from it. ;)
 
EdFred said:
Well, I'm not calling Fort Worth Center if I'm in northern Michigan. LOL If you're talking to center, you're on their scope, not 1000 miles away from it. ;)
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I mean that the physical location of the person I'm talking to is 1,000 miles (slight exaggeration, but in my case it's over 500 nm from SLC to the fire) away from the fire, so for all I know they haven't even heard of the state I am flying over. I don't want to waste anyone's time if there is a better option. But with @luvflyin mentioning the Rolodex they have for this kind of situation, I'm probably overthinking that aspect.
 
iamtheari said:
I mean that the physical location of the person I'm talking to is 1,000 miles (slight exaggeration, but in my case it's over 500 nm from SLC to the fire) away from the fire, so for all I know they haven't even heard of the state I am flying over. I don't want to waste anyone's time if there is a better option. But with @luvflyin mentioning the Rolodex they have for this kind of situation, I'm probably overthinking that aspect.
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Well ZMP covers way more ground than ZLC does, and they know where the towns and stuff are when I talk to them.

Edit: Might be about the same sq mi area. But east to west is bigger.
 
EdFred said:
Well ZMP covers way more ground than ZLC does, and they know where the towns and stuff are when I talk to them.

Edit: Might be about the same sq mi area. But east to west is bigger.
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I live near the boundary between ZMP and ZLC. It's a nuisance because most of my IFR trips are eastbound across the line, and neither of them can hear me until I'm around 6000 feet, so I'm supposed to call ZLC to pick up my clearance but they universally tell me to call ZMP for it. They're both big centers and I usually call from the very edge of whichever one I am talking to.
 
I've just let whatever center I happen to be talking to know. I'm sure if they need the report to go elsewhere they'll tell you that.
 
iamtheari said:
I live near the boundary between ZMP and ZLC. It's a nuisance because most of my IFR trips are eastbound across the line, and neither of them can hear me until I'm around 6000 feet, so I'm supposed to call ZLC to pick up my clearance but they universally tell me to call ZMP for it. They're both big centers and I usually call from the very edge of whichever one I am talking to.
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Call em on the phone and get a clearance void? I couldn't get ZMP until I was above 5k yesterday too.
 
EdFred said:
Call em on the phone and get a clearance void? I couldn't get ZMP until I was above 5k yesterday too.
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The problem is more that I cross the boundary by the time I can reach them by radio. Even with a telephone clearance, I seem to recall getting "contact Salt Lake Center on 126.85" by phone, but then getting an immediate handoff to ZMP when I actually called in the air since I was well over the line by then. It's not a big problem, but if I ever move I'm going to look at the dashed blue lines on the IFR chart before I choose where to live. :)
 
iamtheari said:
I mean that the physical location of the person I'm talking to is 1,000 miles (slight exaggeration, but in my case it's over 500 nm from SLC to the fire) away from the fire, so for all I know they haven't even heard of the state I am flying over. I don't want to waste anyone's time if there is a better option. But with @luvflyin mentioning the Rolodex they have for this kind of situation, I'm probably overthinking that aspect.
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Location and distance is irrelevant. If you contact any ATC, they will forward to the appropriate organization/authorities. Each state, even individual counties within states, have specific procedures and contacts. If you provide ATC with general location (GPS is even better) and date/timestamp, it will be routed accordingly. I've spotted smoke flying over Arizona and let ATC know. Many times they already know and appropriate air & ground ops are already in place.
 
At ZTL when we got pilot reports for forest fires we had a list of numbers to call depending on the geographic location of the fire.
 
murphey said:
Location and distance is irrelevant. If you contact any ATC, they will forward to the appropriate organization/authorities. Each state, even individual counties within states, have specific procedures and contacts. If you provide ATC with general location (GPS is even better) and date/timestamp, it will be routed accordingly. I've spotted smoke flying over Arizona and let ATC know. Many times they already know and appropriate air & ground ops are already in place.
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Yup. Fire reports usually come in clusters. Ya get the info from the first one and say thanks. After that it’s, “already got it, thanks.”
 
iamtheari said:
I mean that the physical location of the person I'm talking to is 1,000 miles (slight exaggeration, but in my case it's over 500 nm from SLC to the fire) away from the fire, so for all I know they haven't even heard of the state I am flying over. I don't want to waste anyone's time if there is a better option. But with @luvflyin mentioning the Rolodex they have for this kind of situation, I'm probably overthinking that aspect.
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The individual controller you get don’t really matter. That ‘Rolodex’ is at the Managers desk. Controller calls the floorwalker(supervisor) over and says ‘this guy says there’s a fire here.’ Sup walks over to his desk and calls the Big Cheese at the big desk, who in turn calls the Cavalry. Or is that Calvary?
 
:) Is FSS/"Radio" not an option in that area? Those guys always seem so happy to hear from me, I bet I could order up a pizza and they'd oblige me.

I treat them like my airborne concierge. No way I'd try placing a 911 voice call off of my cell while airborne, the reliability would be terribad.
 
schmookeeg said:
:) Is FSS/"Radio" not an option in that area? Those guys always seem so happy to hear from me, I bet I could order up a pizza and they'd oblige me.

I treat them like my airborne concierge. No way I'd try placing a 911 voice call off of my cell while airborne, the reliability would be terribad.
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FSS, what's that? :)

I could give them a shot. There's a VOR about 50 miles from where I was that has Radio on 122.2. Hadn't even thought of that, sadly enough. And you're right, they're lonesome enough that they'd probably be happy to hear "Radio, Bugsmasher 123 Bravo, can you read a bedtime story for the kids on the plane?"
 
I’ve reported several wildfires to ATC and orbited over 2 of them at ATC’s request, I assume so they could get a good fix on my position. I fly over some remote areas of Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Montana on a regular basis and I would guess some of those fires could be unreported for a significant period of time. Here in the PNW, we are already burning up. Unfortunately we are going to have a fire season that is going to be terrible unless we get some significant moisture and there is none in the forecast. I tend to think I will be grounded most of August and part of September because of IFR conditions, but worst, the smoke will make is almost impossible to breathe, even at say 9-10,000’. So please if you see a fire report it.
 
Flying Denver back to Salt Lake reported a fire to Denver Center while on FF. They were quite inquisitive about it. Asking distance off my wing and such. I offered to circle it and they said it was fine, they had the location marked and passed off the info to whomever.

I imagine a FSS would be a good contact option if not on FF.
 
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Wild fires in SE AK are rare. If I came across one I guess I would call FSS. No cell service in most of the area to phone something in. The coast guard may be dispatched to investigate or the Forest Service.
 
I forwarded a fire call through our local Unicom after witnessing a meth lab blow a detached garage sky high one afternoon. Flying patterns with my student and was turning crosswind when I felt the plane bounce and noticed a mushroom cloud growing up towards us.

The freaking fire department didn’t show up for another 45 minutes which had allowed the fire to also burn down two neighboring houses. :rolleyes: Got to love BFE small town fire departments.
 
ARFlyer said:
The freaking fire department didn’t show up for another 45 minutes which had allowed the fire to also burn down two neighboring houses. :rolleyes: Got to love BFE small town fire departments.
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Have to realize, those departments are 99.9% volunteer only. The guys in the fire trucks probably had to leave work, drive to the station, then go to the fire. In a lot of small rural communities, there isn't much place to work in town, so they probably work in a neighboring town. My department often gets called to go assist the smaller surrounding communities, because there just isn't anyone available to respond during the day.

As to the OP's question, calling 911 from a cell phone is a crapshoot on a good day. Through the mystical nature of the cell phone network, your phone may be connected to a far away tower or switching station, and the 911 call gets routed to a dispatcher far, far away. We had a cardiac arrest call in our town once that was routed to a dispatch center on the other side of the state, I kid you not. It took the dispatcher a few minutes to determine the street names were not familiar and figure out what was going on. Unfortunately by the time the caller was re-routed to us, many critical minutes had passed and it did not end well. May not have changed the outcome, but certainly didn't help.
 
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