Signal Penetrates Walls : New Fire Radios Prove Worth in High-Rise Blaze

The new hand-held radios the Los Angeles Fire Department is testing these days are expensive--about $2,200 to $2,700 each. But firefighters say the quick, successful battle to control the Union Bank blaze proved that they are worth it.

“We could talk to people within the building on each floor as they were fighting the fire, without interference, and they could talk to the command post down on the street,” Fire Inspector Ed Reed said Tuesday. “When you can’t talk, you’re blind.”

Reed said that during the much longer and more difficult fight against the First Interstate Bank fire last May, firefighters had trouble talking to each other within the building, and commanders had a hard time directing their resources.

‘Extremely Difficult’

“In that one, they couldn’t talk without stepping on each other,” Reed said. “And, like in any high-rise, we couldn’t really use runners. The old (radio) system really couldn’t do it. It was extremely difficult.”

The new radios have two features that make them superior to the older models, Reed explained.

One is that they have more channels--individual frequencies permitting a number of conversations to occur simultaneously without interfering, or “stepping on,” one another.

The other feature is that these frequencies are in the relatively high 800 megahertz range, which permits broadcasts through and within buildings.

“The 800-megahertz range will penetrate walls--steel, concrete, things like that--much better than the conventional radios at 30 megahertz or so,” said radio specialist Chuck Cohen, who services such equipment in the Los Angeles area. “Those low-band frequencies will go farther, but they don’t penetrate as well.”

Technology Is Costly

Cohen said the high-band radios are costly because the technology employed to design them and the components used in their manufacture are both relatively expensive.

“These things are designed to military specifications,” he said. “They’re good.”

Reed said the department has about a dozen of the new radios that are being tested by hazardous materials squads stationed near Union Station downtown, in Hollywood and in the San Fernando Valley.

“There were lessons learned at First Interstate,” Reed said. “When Deputy Chief Don Anthony got on this fire, he put a call out for the new radios, and they were brought to the scene.”

He said the new radios will be introduced throughout the department beginning in October.