Back to Aerial Firefighting

Air Administration
Here you will hear air dispatches, flight following, in-flight emergencies, and all call.
168.625 Air Guard

EVERY firefighting aircraft and dispatch center monitors this frequency. Emergency use and calling purposes only. (Much like Marine Ch 16)

168.650 Flight Following

Dispatch centers keep track of aircraft here

123.975 Air Base Operations

The comms between the ground crew and tankers at the air base. A MUST if visiting an airbase

Air to Ground
Here you will hear aircraft talking to ground crews for whatever reason. On a large incident these come in handy but on a small incident they aren't normally used. The air attack can monitor the ground tactical instead.
169.750 Dept of Interior
170.000 USFS
167.950 BLM
151.220 CDF

I've also picked up Air to Ground on 172.275

Air Tactics
Where the action is. Here you will find the Air Attack talking and coordinating at scene with the tankers and directing drops. These are the primary air tactics frequencies. This is standard for all of USFS Region 5 and CA State CDF. Obviously because aircraft fly pretty high, there will be interference from nearby incidents with other aircraft over them. Having 6 different channels with one as primary default allows 6 different air operations to occur in relatively a small area. However, bleed over still occurs during high fire activity and safety is in jeopardy as different incidents share the same frequency.
166.675 Air Tactics 1
169.150 Air Tactics 2
169.200 Air Tactics 3
151.280 Air Tactics 4 (formally CDF Blue)
151.295 Air Tactics 5 (formally CDF Green)
151.310 Air Tactics 6 (formally CDF Yellow)
151.2725 Air Tactics 21 (narrowband)
151.2875 Air Tactics 22 (narrowband)

CDF North primary air tactics
AEU Air Tactics 4
BTU Air Tactics 5
CZU Air Tactics 5
HUU Air Tactics 6
LNU Air Tactics 6
LMU Air Tactics 4
MEU Air Tactics 6
MRN Air Tactics 6
NEU Air Tactics 4
SCU Air Tactics 5
SHU Air Tactics 5
SKU Air Tactics 4
TGU Air Tactics 5

Victor Net
Unlike all other air traffic heard on above frequencies in FM mode, these frequencies are transmitted in AM mode. Victor Nets are used as sub-air tactics. If there are a lot of tanker operations, helicopter operations, recon flights, medical flights, and fire torching going on over one incident, that is a lot of radio traffic on one Air Tactics frequency. Air Attack will then direct all helicopters onto a Victor Net so they can coordinate themselves without distrupting tanker traffic. Same with recon flights and fire crew shuttling. In this scenario, Air Tactics becomes the "Air Command" and the Victor Nets become Air Tactics. There are 7 standard Victor Nets known to all firefighting aircraft although there are hundreds of frequencies available if "all hell breaks loose and every stinkin bird is over this fire" between 118 and 134Mhz.

122.925 Victor Net 1
122.900 Victor Net 2
122.975 Victor Net 3
122.850 Victor Net 4
123.075 Victor Net 5
123.050 Victor Net 6
135.975 Victor Net 7 (low altitude advisory net)

I have also tagged firefighting ops during such times when "all hell broke loose" on 134.875, 118.950, 123.025, 124.200.