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September 3, 2010
Cowboy Fire required HPWREN to deploy its seventh firefighter
Incident Command Post connection
On September 2, 2010 the Cowboy Fire started at approximately 13:10
near the Pacific Crest Trail, between Campo and Potrero and southwest
of the community of Lake Morena. With an Incident Command Post being
deployed, Cal Fire Emergency Command Center Captain Dan Pagni emailed
Hans-Werner Braun on September 3 at about 11:10, with a request for
HPWREN communications support. Braun called Jim Hale about picking
up the needed equipment in Ramona and called Dan Pagni at 11:22,
confirming that HPWREN will respond. Hans-Werner Braun then collected,
tested, and configured the equipment for Jim Hale, and met with him
for a coordination meeting and equipment pickup. At 12:45 Hans-Werner
Braun informed Dan Pagni that Jim Hale has left with the equipment
and was on his way to the ICP at the Potrero County Park. Hans-Werner
Braun then reconfigured the equipment on Lyons Peak, which includes
a pre-deployed radio and antenna on a microwave tower to support
ICPs at Potrero. Jim Hale had to deploy a wireless and battery
powered relay near the ICP, which became reachable at 15:07, and
he finished the second link between the relay and the ICP itself
by 15:42. Hence about 4.5 hours after the initial contact by Cal
Fire, the link to the ICP was functional. However, such a quick
response was only possible because the radio and antenna for a link
to a Potrero ICP was already pre-positioned on Lyons Peak's HPWREN
backbone site. Otherwise it would have been necessary to also deploy
a team to an HPWREN backbone site to install the necessary assets
to reach the ICP.
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This photo by Jim Hale shows the small battery-powered relay
near the Incident Command Post at Potrero County Park. The top antenna
is pointing towards the HPWREN backbone site on Lyons Peak, the bottom
antenna is for the short distance link to the Cal Fire Comms trailer
at the ICP, with the receiving antenna visible on a tripod in the
background.
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One of the HPWREN network cameras on Lyons Peak captured the Cowboy
Fire progression from its beginning. A 20MB F4V video, as well as
a 77MB 720P H.264 video of
the time lapse animation are available. Those include two long night
times.
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More ICP photos are at
/Photos/20100903/.
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