Shasta County Fire's radio system is a typical CALFIRE system, dispatched out of their ECC in Redding, with the standard local net, county net and tacticals. However, the county still has hold of some of their frequencies before they were fully branded by CDF. The Anderson, Cottonwood, Happy Valley and Shasta Lake City "District nets" are utilized by department training or tactical overflow. During the 4th of July or other major Fairgrounds based operations, Anderson District Net is cooking.

The fire danger in Shasta County should just be tagged as extreme for the duration of Fire Season. The county is where the urban valley floor meets the forest and wildland. This is called the Urban/Rural Interface Zone or I-Zone for short. There are countless houses built for urbanization in and around wildland vegetation. During a wildland fire, these houses don't stand a chance unless the state mandated 100ft clearance is placed around the house and there's enough resources to protect the houses. With the geographics of the Redding basin, 30mph winds can whip up the 110 degree heat and the slightest spark will start off a large fire.

Recent I-Zone fires in Shasta County have been:
Fountain Fire - Aug 1992 - 636 structures and 63,960 acres
Canyon Fire - Sept 1999 - 230 structures and 2,580 acres
Jones Fire - Oct 1999 - 954 structures and 26,200 acres with 1 death
Whitmore Fire - Oct 2003 - 0 homes (plenty saved) and 1200 acres
Bear Fire - Aug 2004 - 110 structures and 10,484 acres
French Fire - Aug 2004 - 26 homes, 1 commercial, 76 outbuildings and 13,005 acres

Detailed USFS frequencies can be found on USFS page.

Whiskeytown has its own Rangers and fire resources. For any fire larger than a spot, they will request CALFIRE mutual aid. Radio raffic can be pretty busy during summer days and weekends.

Redding CHP Communications Center serves a wide geographic area, including the Red Bluff, Redding, Burney and Weaverville CHP stations. They also dispatch for Caltrans in the off hours, cover the Fish and Game and old UHF State Law Nets. Because of this, you may hear the same dispatcher talking on 42.440, 47.100, 151.415, 460.025 and 858.7375. You can see how to monitor CHP to understand their radio ID's and radio operations.

Red Bluff City Fire is dispatched by CDF Tehama/Glenn. They retain their old repeater 154.145 for logistical needs. Red Bluff City and CALFIRE are in a very active mutual response agreement, sending resources across "the border" in both directions as needed. Calcord and County Net are utilized when medivac is needed on a freeway accident etc.

City responses have 3 layers, the On-Duty response, Company response, and Fire response. On-Duty will be toned for medical aids and other small calls that only require a single resource. Typically, on-duty staffing can handle 2 calls at a time. Company A or B will be toned out when additional staffing is needed from the reserves to cover the station if On-Duty is busy. Company response will also be toned for traffic collisions, and alarm calls. For all confirmed fire calls, a Fire response will be toned out (both companies) requesting all personnel to respond.

Red Bluff PD is another simple conventional radio system. At times, mobiles will talk simplex in the city and not go over the repeater, limiting the listeners' ability to hear mobiles from outside the city limits. Most routine or secure traffic goes over their MDC system (shared with county) but there's plenty to hear over the radio also. Dispatch name is "Red Bluff." Mobiles are easily identified also. Sam units are seargents, Lincoln units are Lieutenants although you will rarely hear them on the air, Charles units are Commanders, again rarely heard unless something big is happening, David units are detectives. 100 units (without a prefix) are traffic officers. 800 units are Community Service Workers (animal control, meter reading, etc.)

Red Bluff City Police is an excellent department. They handle themselves wonderfully for the demographics they serve. The dept has the small town charm while still maintaining a "city" like attitude and keeping the trouble off the street. This feature of the dept helps shape how you hear them on the radio. They can have a touch of hometown and with their size, everybody knows just about everybody else. You'll hear a joke or two over the air at times.

Corning PD is fairly busy. However I don't monitor them often enough to learn the details of how they operate over the radio. Their squelch tail is pretty long, eleminating the need for the delay setting on your scanner for that channel. As I monitor them more I will have more info to share here.

Corning City Fire is a small department that responds within the city limits of Corning. They have their own dispatch center at the station, set aside from Corning PD, and CALFIRE. During Fire Season you may hear Corning Engine 9 responding mutual aid to fires just outside of the city limits. 154.400 is also the Glenn County Fire Dispatch (PL 100.0) - just 9 miles south of Corning. I'm not sure the reasoning behind using the same frequency

Saint Elizabeth's Community Hospital in south Red Bluff is the county's primary hospital. Ambulances are named "Red Bluff" or "Corning" depending on where they are staged throughout the county. Typically one is at the hospital, one is staged at mid-county (County Fire Station 9) and one is in Corning (south-county). For extreme north calls, an ambulance from the Anderson area can respond and for southern calls, Westside Ambulance out of Orland can respond. They will usually have a unit on standby on any large event at the fairgrounds also, such as the rodeo, motorcross racing, etc.