International Interference With Dispatch Audio at Lebanon Fire Confirmed

LEBANON, Maine -- Southern Maine Communications has confirmed "covering" over of emergency broadcasts occurred during a two-alarm fire that destroyed a mobile home Saturday afternoon.

The Maine Fire Marshal's office reports the cause of the blaze as "undetermined" and based on witness accounts, states it started in the kitchen near the front of the mobile home.

Local officials expressed their concerns wrapping up the rest of the case, however, reflecting on some errors which occurred during emergency response, attributed in part to illegal "covering," or the intentional interference into local dispatch radio transmissions.

On Saturday at 2:45 p.m. Lebanon Fire responded to an emergency call at 9 Evergreen Lane in West Lebanon for a fire that engulfed a mobile home and damaged two others nearby.

The homeowner of the destroyed residence reported his cat died in the flames, which also destroyed half of his parked vehicle, rendering it unusable. Two nearby abutting mobile homes were singed by the fire, receiving exterior damage described by Lebanon Fire Chief Skip Wood as minor.

Officials also initially reported a firefighter was injured on scene, although it was revealed the injury was not related to the scene but to a pre-existing condition.

While some officials such as Lebanon Rescue Assistant Chief Jason Cole said he believed there could have been too much talking on the radio at once for clear messages to be sent across, Cole said he had heard from Southern Maine Communications that covering had indeed occurred during the incident.

Sanford Regional Communications Director John Lavallee did not return calls for comment, although members of the Lebanon Fire Department commended the regional dispatchers who put out a notice across the radio that afternoon, warning whomever was tampering with communications to stop their illegal actions according to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) standards.

"It seemed to pretty much calm down after that," Assistant Chief Dan Roy said.

Wood reported officials were called back to the scene early Monday morning when neighbors reported smoke at the site of the fire, though he said there was no cause for alarm. Smoldering is a common occurrence after large fires, he explained. He added that officials never suspected arson or other malicious intentions behind the origins of the fire.

"I would think it's an accident because there's too many people around to have anybody there (starting a fire)," he said.

Prior to this incident of radio transmission "covering,"the most recent covering was last reported on April 22, also in Lebanon, when responders requesting advanced life support and additional manpower for an incident were covered over by other radio transmissions, requiring emergency crews to leave the patient to make phone calls outside the home for emergency services.

Cole told Foster's at that time it appeared in the past two months that the same person had been covering the emergency communication lines. Whenever the lines were covered, he said he heard a similar whistling sound. He noted the individual seemed to be targeting a lot of the same properties where the emergency calls were being made.

A representative from the Maine Attorney General's Office said an ongoing investigation surveying these incidents is in the hands of the federal government, but could not say which department was responsible for the investigation.

Maine State Police and the Attorney General's office confirmed they are not conducting investigations at this time.

Representatives from FCC did not return calls for comment.

Wood said he was hopeful an arrest will be made in stopping the individual or individuals tampering with local communications.

"There are some leads in that area," he insisted. " -- It's easy enough to do and people get a kick out of it."

The homeowner of the mobile home, Jonathan Harlow, 31, told Foster's on Saturday he felt his house could have been saved if responders had worked more swiftly, which officials maintain was not the case, even with the illegal radio interference. Wood said when officials arrived, the home was already largely destroyed.

However, another snag in communications possibly unrelated to covering, according to Cole, occurred when official departments from the west side of Lebanon, including Alfred, Acton and Sanford, were called to the scene first before closer communities such as Berwick and Rochester and Milton, N.H.

Roy told Foster's the latter communities should have been called first and Cole said he had no idea how the error occurred, and whether that mistake could be "fairly" attributed to illegal covering.

He described the system that notifies surrounding towns as an "automatic" one and said more investigation will continue regarding this matter.

Additionally, Cole said Lebanon Fire Department had incorrectly communicated information that a key piece of equipment firefighters needed at the scene -- a tanker from Rochester that holds 3,000 gallons of water -- did not arrive due to covering.

Rochester Fire Assistant Chief Mark Dupuis said that was not the case.

Dupuis said his department received the message but could not access the truck because it had been in for repair for days so they sent a regular fire truck instead.

"I want to make it clear there was no communication gap with what was being requested at the scene by Rochester Fire," Dupuis said.

Cole said his Rescue Department is working furiously to determine how these errors were communicated and more importantly, how errors occurred at the scene. He said his department is launching its own investigation, stating once the Rescue Department obtains the recordings of the dispatch communications, his department will send those to the FCC.

Cole said his colleagues have to exercise patience when using the radio, and since they all share one channel, for the future, there must be smoother communication among departments.

"We do know there was some intentional covering, but there was also quite a bit of too many people trying to talk at the same time," he said.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service