Monitoring Butte County (Public Safety)

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County Fire - Calfire
151.400 Local Net
154.190 County Net
154.415 Butte Support Net
153.815 Oroville Fire Net
153.890 Oroville Tact 1
156.120 Oroville Tact 2
154.310 Gridley Fire Net
151.250 Tact 5
151.385 Tact 9
151.460 Tact 12
156.075 Calcord
154.220 OES Fire 2B
151.355 Command 1
151.265 Command 2
151.460 Command 7 (Cascade Support)
154.890 County Interop (EOC)

Official website
Station Locations

Butte County Calfire and County Fire are dispatched by Calfire Emergency Communications Center in Oroville. All fire equipment other than Chico and Paradise City are dispatched on Calfire Local Net. Oroville and Gridley recently moved to Local Net, leaving their old dispatch freqs to become "city fire nets" for tactical purposes. This allows much faster and more efficient dispatching.

It takes only four frequencies to monitor every fire dispatch from within the county. Calfire Local Net will cover all but Plumas USFS, Paradise and Chico FD's. Those other three have their own dispatch system. All four agencies have excellent mutual aid programs and without hesitation will assist each other in any type of call.

Butte Support Net is a county-wide repeater system that allows for additional command and logistics traffic on a large incident. This is a must-have for fire season monitoring. This relieves Calfire Command Nets to be utilized elsewhere. Also, OES Fire 2 has been utilized for command in south county, as well as fire incident-base operations.

County fire stations are numbered and the engines and equipment in the stations are numbered accordingly to the station. The primary engine for Station 41 would be "Engine 41". The secondary engine is "Engine 241" or Engine "941" and the squad would be "Squad 41". There may be a "Rescue 41" and "Watertender 41". This makes it VERY easy to tell what stations have responded to a fire. If you happen upon an incident and don't know where it is - hearing the general engine numbers can give you an area where the incident it occuring.

USFS
170.550 Plumas Forest Net
172.225 Lassen Forest Net

USFS Freq Details here

Plumas NF covers the majority of southeastern Butte County. With fire dispatch in Mohawk, and quite the terrain throughout the forest, there is an extensive microwave network to link the transmitters on the Butte side of the Plumas with those on the east side near Quincy/Portola.

Lassen NF extends into the northern portion of Butte County, with plenty of action out of Butte Meadows

CHP Chico, Oroville
44.700 Base (repeated)
42.200 Mobiles
42.360/44.840 Blue2
154.905 mobile extenders
122.875 CHP Air Net

CHP Chico dispatches for Oroville, Chico, Willows and Williams CHP offices in the Butte, Glenn and Colusa counties. It covers the Hwy 99, 70, 20 and I5 in those counties. Mobiles transmitting on 42.400 are rebroadcasted over 44.700. This makes scanning CHP easy in this area, only needing to monitor one frequency and hearing distant mobiles.

As of 12/15/09 CHP Chico will be on this new frequency plan, part of CHP's Enhanced Radio System upgrade. 42.400/44.700 is Brown 2 and 42.360/44.840 is Blue 2

Oroville units - 35, Chico units - 105, Willows units - 93, Williams units - 39

Other State agencies
151.415 Fish and Game
151.430 Fish and Game
154.680 Dept of Justice
153.740 CSU Chico PD
857.9375 State Parks - Gold

Fish and Game monitored by Northern Dispatch out of Sacramento.

State Parks covers Lake Oroville State Recreation Area Rangers

Butte County Sheriff Dept
154.725 Dispatch "Main Net"
155.910 Channel 2
151.490 Repeater 2 "BOAR Net"
159.075 mobile extenders

155.160 SARNET
155.940 Local Govt (SAR)

155.010 Jail
153.860 Courts
154.025 Juvenile Hall
153.920 DA Office
154.890 County Interop
45.920 Interagency
855.4625 County Depts

Dispatched out of Oroville - sub station in Chico. Repeater 2 has been used as a secondary repeater to Channel 1. I've heard it referenced over the air as "R2", and "SO Platte/Sunset/Bloomer" (for the particular repeater site). Extenders help the units when they are in the larger buildings such as the casinos.

Unit numbering is simple, like many other norcal Sheriff depts. Deputies are 2 digit numbers 10-99. S (sam) units are Seargents, L (lincoln) units are Lieutenants, etc. Reserve units are 100's. Office employees are 200's, SAR is 300 and 500 units, Posse are 400 units, STARS are 600 and 900 units.

Local Govt (LG) is used as Search and Rescue's dispatch net. During the day, Animal Control, Building Inspectors and STARS will also utilize this channel. SO Dispatch will tone out SAR volunteers over LG just like fire, dispatching an all-call for any rescues. You will hear "S & R Control" take over SAR communications at that point.

Butte Sheriff, with help from CAMP (federal Campaign Against Marijuana Program) funding, utilizes two helicopters on a daily basis. H1 is an OH-58 and is often used on technical rescues and aerial law enforcement, as well as north-state marijuana eradication. H2 is an MD-500.
Chico City Fire Dept.
453.750 Dispatch (Blue)
453.550 Tactical (Yellow)
453.400 Tactical (Red)
453.700 Tactical (Brown)

Official Website
Station Map and Apparatus

Chico Fire has 6 stations. One of the only fire departments in over 200 square miles that operates in the UHF band, all personnel carry two radios on them to maintain interoperabiltiy with the County Fire and Calfire. County Station 45 is located within the city limits near the fairgrounds, and will often respond mutual aid to city calls for medicals and fires. They will simply come up on Calfire local net and state they are committed to the city.

Chico City Police Dept.
154.875 Dispatch
154.040 (Public Works) PD Ch 2 as needed
158.955 Tactical
155.475 NALEMARS "The Top"
154.920 CLEMARS
156.075 CALCORD

Official Website

Chico Police Dept is a pretty busy department. Having a State University known for their partying doesn't help in keeping the city calm on a Friday night. Holloween and St Patricks Day are the two nightmares of Chico's party scene. All day street parties (and all night) provide non-stop radio traffic as Chico PD, and the additional officers from nearby communities help patrol the streets. Monitor mutual aid freqs at all times during these incidents. They share a channel with Public Works for tactical purposes, and are licensed for a third tactical frequency. When officers refer to "the top" they will be on NALEMARS.

Gridley/Biggs City Police Dept.
155.040 Dispatch

Official Website

Gridley PD serves the quaint little town of Gridley, as well as its neighbor Biggs. They receive approx 13,000 calls for service annually.

Oroville City Police Dept.
154.785 Dispatch
155.580 Tactical
159.165 Tactical

Official Website

Oroville is the county seat of Butte County. There are two Indian gaming casinos here as well as the gateway to the Lake Oroville State Recreation Area, which is served by State Rangers on 857.9375.

Paradise City Police Dept.
155.715 Dispatch
154.920 CLEMARS
159.210 Channel 6

Official Website

Born and raised in Paradise, this quaint town has grown in many ways - yet still has plenty of small town charm to it. PD traffic can be quiet for hours on end, so no, your scanner is not broken.

Paradise City Fire Dept.
153.950 Dispatch
154.430 Tactical

Official Website

Station 1 - Birch St. at Almond - downtown
Station 2 - South Libby at Pearson - southeast
Station 3 - condemned, equipment moved to ButteCo St35 on upper Clark

Medical
MedCom Lineup

Medcom-1 463.000
First Responders "Control"
Medcom-2 463.025
Glenn County
Medcom-3 463.050
Enloe (South County)
Medcom-4 463.075
Enloe (North County)
Medcom-5 463.100
Tehama County
Medcom-6 463.125
Tactical
Medcom-7 463.150
Tactical
Medcom-8 463.175
Oroville
Medcom-9 462.950
Enloe Chico
Medcom-10 462.975
AMR Dispatch

155.325 Enloe
460.675 Enloe Flight Care "Business"
151.865 Feather River
45.960 Feather River

First Resonders, a private company like AMR, provides ambulance service for much of Butte County. Enloe Hospital in Chico provides additional Butte ambulance coverage (as well as Glenn and Colusa counties), and Flight Care air ambulance.