Good morning all,
Hopefully this smoke will clear soon and we can get back to breathing easier. Other than traffic picking up like crazy, there hasn’t been much to update you on. Our MOU meetings were rescheduled again, right now, we’re scheduled for the 31st and 1st. I have expressed concern over pushing this too far and affecting January leave slots, but the front office has assured us they won’t cancel again.
Wildfire Activity
While all the areas have TFRs due to fires, the fires in the C Area currently pose the greatest impact on air traffic control. There is a possibility that GEG will have to evacuate and, in turn, have to divest the YKM, PSC, and GEG airspaces back to us. As of right now, there has already been a transmitter, a VORTAC, and a RADAR site affected by the fire and shut down due to the fire destroying the power lines leading to these sites. The techs were able to return to the area and survey it, and sent back THESE pictures of the damage. The C area currently has 7/11 combined until further notice because of the outages. Currently no restrictions as a result of this, but that could change anytime.
SOC Desk Construction
There will be some re-arranging of the SOC area within the next 2 days. I have been assured that it will have minimal impact on air traffic but if for whatever reason it gets too loud, please let the OM know and they should be able to mitigate that.
Thank you for all your hard work,
Amy