DENVER — Communication is critical during emergency response. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is turning to 10 new communication kits to improve radio interoperability during wildfires.
The kits are meant to help streamline communication for crews who may be working with different radio systems that, in turn, work off different frequencies.
"These kits are radio integrated communication systems," said Morgan Gill, a telecommunications specialist with BLM. "Anyone from around the world can come to a fire, we can tap them into our system and make them communicate, and they provide a push-to-talk app that incident commanders and crews can use to enhance radio coverage and do a lot of other neat things."
The communication kits are a part of a BLM pilot program that received a nearly $13 million investment. The hope is that the kits can help solve radio communication issues long-term.
"What we've seen lately is people wanting to bring their own radios to a fire. They're familiar with it. They know the button configuration, everything," Gill said. "So, any radio, any phone, tablet, computer, can use the application, and we kind of wanted like a multi-tool type of sort that wouldn't rely on one singular piece to operate."
Weeks ago, the BLM held a training session for a select number of communications specialists from around the country so they could familiarize themselves with the kits should they ever end up in their region. One person from the Colorado Department of Public Safety was a part of the training.
Last year, a Denver Fire Department firefighter got to demo the kit while helping battle a wildfire in Oregon.
"I was a comms tech at the Oregon Falls Fire last year," said Kien Vu, a firefighter with DFD. "When I got there, I met Morgan Gill, and he had mentioned that we were going to be testing some new equipment that could be potentially used in the new incoming fire seasons."
"It's this new fancy device that the wildland world hasn't really been exposed to recently," Vu added. "It's where multiple different radio types can come together and they get meshed together, and then they're able to communicate with everyone on the wildland world."
Vu told Denver7 the communication kit came in handy after an incident fighting the Oregon fire.
"Where this device actually truly shined was, unfortunately, we had what we call an IWI, which stands for an incident within an incident," Vu explained. "We had an air tanker crash within the fire. This device came in, truly in handy because we had one radio transmission come over, and all it said was, 'We've got a missing airplane.'"
"No one really truly expects to hear that, so everyone kind of looked at each other, and we're like, 'Did they just say there's an airplane missing?'" he added.
"We were able to look at the little screen, and it truly said, 'Hey, we've got an airplane missing.' So that extremely came in handy, and we were able to just utilize that instantly right then," Vu continued. "The communication between us and the world out there, it was instantaneous. We were able to look at the screen like, 'Yep, that truly happened.'"
The kits are expected to head to fires throughout the country depending on an array of factors. Vu told Denver7 it's exciting to see technology advance and hopes to use the kit more in the future.
"That was truly awesome to be able to utilize that in a real-world aspect and not in a training aspect. Utilizing that on a true incident was awesome," Vu said. "It would be pretty cool to have the use of it instantly here in Colorado."
