This year’s fire season has provided a test of Klickitat County’s new emergency communications system, and so far it’s proving its worth.  County Commissioner Jim Sizemore says the recent Highway 8 Fire near Roosevelt was a prime example of how the additional towers helped emergency personnel be able to do their jobs.  He added Washington State incident command used the County’s communications channels because it was better than what they had.  The new system has also been of assistance in the recent Cougar Creek Fire.  Sizemore noted the system is broken down into west, central, and east operations systems.  The state is currently using the west system on the Cougar Creek Fire.