This picture is a photo of a California transmitting site after one of the California wildfires. It could just as easily be a photo of a New Mexico transmitting site after one of the current and recent wildfires. And it could be your site!
A few weeks ago the FCC asked for reports of broadcast and communications, including cell phone, facilities in New Mexico due to wildfires. In that report no broadcast stations reported losing facilities, although there were reports of stations using alternate tower facilities not in the burn areas. A number of cell sites and 2-way radio facilities were rendered unusable by the fires.
If you have a remote transmitter site, or have remote translator sites, you could be next!
Wildfires naturally go up inclines, which favors flames headed up mountaintops. And where do we put towers for translators and FM and TV transmitters? Atop hills and mountaintops, of course.
Simply clearing the brush around your site could save your site. If whoever owns the site where you have translators and transmitters will let you clear encroaching trees, you’re well advised to do so.
In addition to the prospect of your building burning down there are two other strong threats which may not be quite so obvious but are dangers nonetheless.
Even if the fire never reaches your building, smoke from the fire can take you off the air. Believe it or not, smoke conducts electricity. There’s nothing like a conductive cloud of smoke entering your building shorting out the electricity! In extreme cases, smoke can so badly damage a transmitter that it’s not economical to repair.
And then there’s your tower. It’s made of steel. Surely the fire can’t damage it, right?
Wrong.
Steel that’s allowed to cool slowly, like from a wildfire engulfing it, becomes weaker than steel that’s quickly cooled. Slowly cooling hot metals is called “annealing,” and results in more bendable metal – great for some applications, but not for towers.
And trees weakened from the fire can easily fall into your tower’s guy wires, snapping one or more of them, dropping the tower to the ground. In addition, one or more trees can fall right onto your building, damaging the walls, the roof, and the equipment inside.
Can there be any other problems? You bet. After a wildfire in areas with lots of trees, the trees will begin to fall down. Some number of them are guaranteed to fall across the access road to your site. Just one more good reason to have clear space both in and adjacent to your site and your access road.
In some areas the local Soil and Water Conservation District may help with the cost of removing brush and trees within your transmitter site. The Cuidad Soil and Water Conservation District which includes Albuquerque’s Sandia Crest years ago offered to cover 50 cents of every dollar spent making the Sandia Crest Electronic Use Site more wildfire proof.
Wildfires are all around us. Here’s hoping you never experience one firsthand threatening your station’s remote sites!
