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Wildfire Dispatch Center Opens In Redmond

REDMOND, OR -- State and federal forestry officials cut the ribbon on the new Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch (COID) center, Thursday morning. Speakers at the ceremony noted how the new facility next to the Redmond Airport is dramatically larger and more efficient than the previous COID center in Prineville.

 
Mike Shaw is the Central Oregon District Forester for Oregon's Department of Forestry. He tells KBND News it also provides a way for the multiple agencies that respond to wildfires to work better together. He says the multi-agency project has been in the works for about 20 years, "I think this really kind of shows the value of those relationships and how we come together in emergency situations and the things we encounter in our individual agencies. As a group, we just do a really good job together and this just kind of exemplifies that effort."
 
The new facility puts dispatchers on-site with the crews they're sending out to fight wildfires. Shaw says, "This is state of the art, it gives us a little more space and the ability to grow and expand as necessary. But really, the key is the technology and the space and the ability to allow our dispatchers to do their job more efficiently and effectively."
 
Beyond Central Oregon's fire season, the new COID center is expected to help mobilize units responding elsewhere in the region and across the country. "When we support other regions in their fire season, we use these facilities to filter resources through and help mobilize them to help out in other areas. So this will now be able to be utilized as a hub in that arena, so that resources from the northwest can be sent other places and they can come through here and mobilize and be dispatched out of here," says Shaw. And, there are plans for the site, in the event of a catastrophic Cascadia Quake. "This now has the technology, if something occurs on the west side and there's challenges with certain infrastructure, we have some abilities here that we didn't have before. So, it really opens up a lot of doors, is really what it boils down to."
 
The new COID center has already been put to the test ... It was used during last week's Cougar Butte fire southwest of Bend. Shaw said aside from a few minor hiccups - which they expected - everything performed well.

 

Photos: 

Top: The heads of the Deschutes National Forest, Prineville BLM and Crooked River National Grassland join the Redmond Mayor, Oregon Dept. of Forestry Central Oregon Forester and the USFS Director of Fire Aviation to cut the ribbon outside COID's new facility in Redmond.

Upper Right: Dispatchers now utilize more efficient workstations and "exponentially larger" wall maps at the new facility, compared to what they had in Prineville.

Left: The new dispatch center is at the Redmond Air Center, putting dispatchers on site with the aerial fire crews they send out to fight wildfires. 

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