Fire scanner transcripts

2007-10-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

Here is some information fished out of fire department radio channels:

~8AM Threat to the (Ramona?) airbase
8:20AM Activity in Ramona? on 7th st between B and Main
8:23AM Positions taken in the Cedar - Ash - Montecito Way area of Ramona
1:42PM Del Norte in Poway - no fire yet
1:50PM 17776 Bellechase Circle, RB is on fire
2:18PM Fire on crossing of Ipai and Carranza, San Diego
2:20PM 1775 Coyote Bush Drive, RB 4 engines take a stand
2:26PM 17807 Corazon Pl, San Diego is on fire
2:42PM 17725? Rose Garden Ct on fire?
2:42PM 14400 Twin Peaks Rd, Poway - brush fire
2:43PM 18665 Old Coach Way, Poway is on fire
2:44PM 17783 Weaving Ln, RB on fire
2:47PM Caminito De Las Palmas, San Diego - fire approaching houses
3:05PM Crossing of Artesian Rd and Camino Del Sur - brush fire
11:14PM Evacuation along Mission Rd, San Diego (RSF)
11:17PM Fire on Via Santa Rosa (RSF?)

10/23

3:45AM 1800 Almendro Ln, San Diego - structure protection
10:19AM Fire at the base of Palomar mountain, "significant threat", "implement evacuation"

Fire in San Diego and journalism

2007-10-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

Well, it turns out that most journalists in San Diego do not know how to work. There is a major fire raging in the neighborhood (Witch Creek), yet the local news channels rehash news that are few hours old, and shut down for the night. Any professional worth his/her salt would have worked through the night during such a rare opportunity to show off the skills.

The county emergency site, http://www.sdcountyemergency.com/ , was completely down for more than a day. The other site, http://www.211sandiego.org/, is not faring much better. If more than few hundred dollars were spent on development, the tax moneys were wasted in both cases.

OK, so here are few pointers for clueless residents and journalists alike:

Nate's Twitter feed contains a lot of short extremely up-to-date messages about the fire. This is the best source for an up-to-date, but unverified information.

Fire/police scanning site (under heavy load now, but still working. Use MP3 Tune-in button in the third row): http://www.scansandiego.net

Another fire scanner by KG6FWO

Jim 2.0 blog, http://jamesewelch.wordpress.com/, contains lots of useful links.

The maps from the official source, http://www.sdcountyemergency.com/, are finally of good quality and up-to-date, yet huge and take long time to download.

A good map maintained through public input (by KPBS)

Satellite fire detection data (at least few hours late, still better than NBC and Fox. Already down at 8:30AM): http://www.firedetect.noaa.gov/viewer.htm

This map was very good: Unofficial Google fire map, now discontinued due to complaints from clueless folks.

Palacio Musings

Fire scanner transcripts

Fire in San Diego and journalism