Radio interoperability failures between agencies persist on multi-jurisdictional fires

On large wildfire incidents, crews from the Forest Service, BLM, state agencies, county fire departments, and private contractors converge, each operating on different radio frequencies (VHF, UHF, 700/800 MHz). These systems cannot natively communicate with each other. The workaround is human repeaters: someone physically carries multiple radios and relays messages between channels, which introduces delay, garbles information, and fails completely when that person is overwhelmed or out of range. This killed 19 firefighters on the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, where radio problems were cited as a contributing factor in the Granite Mountain Hotshots' deaths. The interoperability gap persists because each agency procured its radio system independently over decades, replacement cycles are 10-15 years, no single entity has authority to mandate a unified standard across federal, state, and local agencies, and the terrain where wildfires burn (steep canyons, dense timber) creates dead zones that defeat even compatible systems.