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 county is covered in the winter by 3 Schedule A stations, CDF contract engines at Bowman and Red Bluff, and volunteer county stations throughout the county. During fire season, CDF will staff more stations scattered throughout the county. Dry lightning, coupled with wind can be disasterous here.

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 CDF Tehama/Glenn Unit, Red Bluff City Fire, Hamilton City Fire, Gerber Volunteer Fire, and Saint Elizabeth's Ambulances all on CDF 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. CDF Calls will use a higher toned, 3 beep pre-alert while non-CDF agencies are pre-alerted with a lower toned 3 beeps.

Red Bluff CHP Office 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 a wide geographic area. You can see how to monitor CHP to understand their radio ID's and radio operations.

For a while Red Bluff would typically have 2 officers, one north and one south county, and a roving Seargant. Any wreck would usually tie up an officer and the Sgt. I'm not sure of their staffing now.

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 all deputies being 23##. Sgts are Sam units, Lts are Lincoln units, and Captains are Charles units. Coronors are 700 units. Boats are numbered according to whatever deputy/sgt is staffing it at the time. Marine patrol areas are upper and lower Sacramento River (split at the dam) and Black Butte Lake.

Red Bluff City Fire is dispatched by CDF Tehama/Glenn. They retain their old repeater 154.145 for logistical needs. Red Bluff City and CDF 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 most 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, parking, 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 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 CDF. 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 1 is at the hospital, 1 is staged at Proberta (mid-county) and 1 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. For calls east of Mineral on Hwy 36 or Hwy 32, Seneca Ambulance out of Chester will respond. They will usually have a unit on standby on any large event at the fairgrounds also, such as the rodeo, motorcross racing, etc.

They are dispatched by CDF, and will respond back to the hospital with patient information on MedCom5.