Tehama County has a multitude of fire response possibilities. It also has hosted one of California's top ten sizeable fires in history. While most fires are within the I-Zone, where residential and wildland zones meet, on both sides of the valley in the foothills the scrub oak and manzanita can get very dry in the summer. Fire season typically lasts from June 1st to October 31st each year.

The new ECC Dispatch Center houses 3 dispatch/call taking points built in with room to expand in the future if needed. The joint dispatch serves CalFire Tehama/Glenn Unit, Red Bluff City Fire, Hamilton City Fire, and Saint Elizabeth's Ambulances all on TGU Local Net. Aside from Corning City Fire which has their own very small dispatch, Tehama/Glenn ECC manages every fire and medical related call in Tehama County. CalFire incidents will use a higher toned, 3 beep pre-alert while non-CalFire agencies are pre-alerted with a lower toned 3 beeps.

TGU CalFire is responsible for the state land west of the 500KV power lines in Glenn County west of I5. They staff the Elk Creek Station and will send mutual aid into Mendocino Forest and vice versa, as well as calls as far south as Stonyford for mutual aid with Lake/Napa/Sonoma Unit. CalFire Butte Unit is responsible for the state land in far eastern Tehama County bording the Ishi Wilderness, all south of the Mill Creek canyon. All road access through that area is from Hwy32 and Cohasset Road, which is out of Chico. North of Mill Creek Canyon is accessed faster via Ponderosa Way out of Paynes Creek and Ponderosa Sky Ranch area of TGU. This area has been home to some major fires, one of the top ten in California history. Due to the remote access and very rough terrain, it is hard to get resources in quickly, and then establish anchor points. Any wind in the area, regardless of direction, is amplified by the 2000ft deep canyons that have alignment both north-south and east-west, causing massive ridgetop turbulance, further spreading fire with ease.

Tehama County has three National Forests bordering its east and west sides. Detailed radio info can be found here for the USFS.

Lassen Volcanic National Park sits in the far eastern upper corner of Tehama County. The primary repeater site for Tehama County coverage is Turner Mtn. Their radio system is hybrid Analog and Digital, and the radios are programmed to use either. This means you may hear one side of the conversation in analog, while the reply is in P25 digital. This can be annoying to analog-only scanner listeners. If you have a digital scanner, be sure to program the channels to decode both analog and digital. Each of the 4 repeaters are simulcasted so you only need to program one in order to hear the entire park.

Red Bluff CHP Office #36 serves all of Tehama County as well as the Cottonwood Inspection Facility. The officers are dispatched out of the Redding CHP Communications Center, which serves Shasta, Tehama and Trinity Counties.

CHP is in a long-term transition over to an upgraded radio system. They are gaining additional channels, radio sites, and alleviating interference. Currently Redding CHP is still utilizing channel Red-1 for all radio traffic. When the new system comes online, they will be switching to the Red-2 and Blue-2 channels. In late 2012, some Tehama County CHP radio sites activated their Red-2 channels and simulcasts whatever comes over Red-1.

CHP Dispatch always transmits on the Base frequency. CHP mobile resources will respond on the Mobile frequency. Mobiles will talk car-to-car on the Base frequency. For tactical use, aircraft support etc. they may switch over to the Blue channel. CHP UHF net is for other state agencies that CHP dispatches for, such as DMV inpsectors etc. Extendors will allow an officer on a handheld to talk back to their car on the extendor frequency, which then repeats it using the car's radio back to Dispatch.

Listening to the County Sheriff is pretty easy. It is a 2 channel conventional radio system with nothing fancy added on. Currently an MDC system is in place shared I think between Corning and Red Bluff PD also. Plans are to link it between various northstate counties using homeland security grants. Mobiles can also TX on Red Bluff and Corning PD channels, and also chat with CHP units using their scanner to monitor CHP's lowband transmissions and vice-versa.

Unit numbering scheme is fairly simple, with a Rank-Badge number scheme.
Paul - Deputy Patrol
David - Detective
Sam - Sergeant
Lincoln - Lieutenant
Charles - Captain
700 units are Coronors

So Paul-180 is a patrol deputy with badge number 180. If 180 is promoted, they will become David or Sam-180, etc. Boats are numbered according to whatever deputy is staffing it at the time. Marine patrol areas are upper and lower Sacramento River (split at the dam) and Black Butte Lake and are active during heavy water use.

Red Bluff City Fire is dispatched by Calfire 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 2 layers, the On-Duty response and the Company Reserve response. Typically the city will have a Captain, 2 engineers and a reserve FF on duty at a time. If on-duty is tied up on multiple calls, a Company tone-out will request additional Reserves to cover the station. All freeway accidents and all fire calls will be toned out with both On-Duty and Company Reserve response.

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 sergeants, 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 ("Saint Ez") 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 mid-county 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. Seneca Ambulance out of Chester covers calls east of Morgan Summit on Hwy36 and all of Hwy 32. Saint Ez will usually have a unit on standby on any large event at the fairgrounds also, such as the rodeo, motorcross racing, etc.