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Classic Manhattan

Merry Christmas Jack, to you, Seth and all the great staff of EMTBravo. You guys all give so unselfishly of yourselves; countless dozens of hours put in keeping things in order, and running here on the boards. You guys are very much appreciated for all that you do, so thank you and here's wishing all a safe and healthy 2011.

I'm 100 percent with you on this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbbdPuqpU10 youtube credit: Penarthjam

I'm 100 percent with you on this.

The danger of total collapse involving a bow string truss roof became a graphic reality yesterday in Chicago. The following photos give a glimpse of the peaked bow string roof, and the poor condition of the roof structure. In photo one from the street, you cannot even see that the roof apparently has different structural components and designs. The bow string section is in the rear. In photo two you can see the chimney in the corner of the 3-4 exposure of the fire building in the lower right corner of the photo, partially obstructed by the trees. Disregard where the address is marking the building, the storefront that burned and area of collapse is below it, opposite the parking lot: Moving closer the shape of the truss becomes apparent. Compare it to the flat roofs immediately surrounding it: In this photo you can see clearly one of the broken trusses leaning against the far wall inside the collapse zone. Be sure to click through the photo gallery and you will see more evidence of the broken truss system. http://abclocal.go.com/wls/gallery?section=news/local&id=7858152&photo=1

Republicans voted en-mass against the bill. They're not giving anybody anything unless they get their billionaires tax cuts. Nice job Republicans, message to sick and dying from 9/11: DROP DEAD! http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=7831203&rss=rss-wabc-article-7831203

I attended the funeral for Trooper Ambrose in December of 2002. In the aftermath of the year of funerals/memorials that were conducted for NYC Uniformed Personnel, FDNY/NYPD/PAPD this funeral took place on Long Island, I think Floral Park. It was a particularly horrifying crash that took this young Trooper's life, as stated in previous posts. The controversy raged about that "bolt" and the gas tank of the Crown Vics. I didn't know Trooper Ambrose personally, but like so many of us back in those days, we were just on automatic for getting in the Class A's and attending out of respect, and the call of duty to fill the ranks. Those days were so frustrating. The monstrous, horrific losses sustained on 9/11.....this Trooper's death added to the feeling like it would never end. Today in Chicago it just brings the focus back on the enormous danger cops and firefighters face. His loved one's/fellow Troopers constructed a beautiful website in his memory: http://www.trooperambrose.com/ What a tragic waste of a young man's life, yet now a piece of legislation bearing his name COULD save a comrade-in-arms in the future....If people respect and are made aware of the law as Barry said, it needs to be put out there for the public to grasp it's importance. Here in Monroe County, Fl, the Sheriff does a great job with the MCSO Blog. I remember in particular, and found the piece he wrote about the move over law we have had in place here in Florida for a while: http://floridakeyssheriff.blogspot.com/2010/09/sheriff-reminds-people-about-move-over.html The sheriff's post came in the aftermath of another vicious wreck that took the life of a young FHP Trooper on the Florida Turnpike. On the Overseas Highway AKA Route 1, we have a turning lane in the center. Mindful of these tragedies in the past, I'll always take the turning lane, slow down 20 mph and hit my hazard lights on. I always have to shake my head at the ignorance of so many from the mainland that come down here like Martians, passing through on their way to Key West, not a clue and to make matters worse, I'll check my rearview mirror and I can tell if it's a local or a tourist behind me; if he follows my lead he lives here...if not....he's from Miami. But the MCSO do take them down sometimes for not following the move over law, as it should be. Best of luck up there; be especially careful on the Sprain Parkway, that seems to draw the drag-racer out of every Bronx Borough resident in a Nissan Sentra headed to who knows where up north. It's a damned dangerous world for cops and firefighters. That's why we get paid, that's why we retire and get a pension. Go on out there and dodge these maniacs for two decades. If you make it through, and thankfully most of you do, you deserve every damned penny in that pension for the rest of your life. God Rest all our heroes, today is an overwhelming day of remembrance.

A couple of days ago, while mulling around the house trying to think about something interesting to write about, I pulled out a soft cover book from under the coffee table. It’s a little cookbook, and I’ve had it for so long I know quite a few of the recipes by heart, so I hadn’t really looked at it for some time. So here I am holding “The Firefighter’s Cookbook”, John Sineno. “Award Winning Recipes From a Fire-Fighting Chef.” The book is a compilation of recipes, submitted by members of the FDNY. It contains drawings of firehouse scenes, sketched by one Robert Paul Scudellari. The first one is so simple and peaceful on page 2; two turnout coats hanging on hooks, two pairs of folded down rubber boots beneath. Only a couple of pages in, and there’s some info: A Vintage Original First Edition August 1986 by John Sineno It dawns on me; I bought this book about five months after I got on the job. This soft-cover book that has somehow stayed quite intact, save the rounded corners, and the dripped clam sauce on page 77‘s recipe, “Linguine with Clam Sauce” submitted by a Lt. J. Shea, of the Brooklyn/Queens Holy Name Society. An Introduction John Sineno was appointed to the New York City Fire Department on October 2, 1962. He describes his attitude as “cavalier” and his wife worrying, when after graduating probie school he get’s assigned to the “Fire Factory,” home to Engine 58 and Ladder 26, in the heart of Harlem. He is concerned on his first day reporting for duty. Can he live up to the job? The only question asked of him was from the then Captain of Ladder 26, Raymond Kelly, “Can you cook?” I slump back into the couch, realizing this book had become much more than a cookbook. It’s also become a history book. A very gracious look back in time, when fires were constantly raging, but within the firehouse a calmness, decency and Brotherhood. I remember looking at the illustrations and thinking they were kind of boring back in 1986. Just simple sketches of daily firehouse life: A child visiting the firehouse with his mom, and the chauffeur standing next to the open door of the cab, having lifted that child behind the wheel. A probie standing at the slop sink, wringing out the mop. On page 46 a dish entitled “A Polish Farewell To Lent.” Sketch of a hook and a leather helmet, hanging on the railing of the engine cover in the open jump seat. There are numerous sketches of men working in the kitchen of the firehouse. But now I see the beauty in these drawings. The purpose of this book obviously, was not to convey the horrors of fire, or the danger these men faced, working in the busiest firehouse “on earth.” There are plenty of other books written about the fire service, particularly the FDNY, that have all the tension and seriousness of the business a fireman is faced with. No, this one is special. It’s about the kitchen, the hub of life in any firehouse. It’s about the in-between time, the before time, and the after time in a very dangerous profession. The prep time for meals; “some good, some not so good, some great.” It’s about the chops busting and laughter that goes on in a firehouse kitchen. And it’s about the food. Recipes. Smiling on the cover, wearing their gear with a table load of prepared dishes on a red tablecloth, and a Mack fire engine behind them; John Sineno E-58, and three Brothers, all from different firehouses around the city; E-202, E-248 and L-156. Sineno, who referred to his Italian grandmother in the introduction, is holding his award winning cheesecake, coupled with an appearance on the Phil Donahue that actually set the wheels in motion for this book to be made. I stare at this cover. I can almost hear laughter in the background coming from behind the rig. Members joking around. What a great day this must have been. What a great day later on, for John Sineno to see his cookbook published. There was however a greater purpose described within this wonderful book. It started with the Harvard Business Club visiting the Fire Factory; eighty people. John and company fed them well, even though they had no idea how many people would show up that day. John and two fellow firemen, Jack Meara and Joe Hickey, were trying to establish a Burn Center in New York city. They felt “too many people were succumbing to burn injuries, and something had to be done about it.” That connection with the Harvard Business Club ended up with the formation of The New York Firefighters Burn Center Foundation. The book states that “persons receiving third-degree burns in excess of 25 percent of their anatomy were for all practical purposes dead, unless transported to a burn center.” Do you relate to the compassion and dedication, to want to do something so incredibly humane? Not only did they pull the victims out, but now wanted to establish a state of the art burn center, so the victims might live. And they did it with New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, establishing what firemen referred too as “The Miracle on 68th Street.” John gave away half the proceeds of the book to the Burn Center. In the book there’s a request to make a donation to the Burn Center Foundation. I started out not knowing where this entry would end up. But I think we should acknowledge with extreme gratitude, the work these men did in helping get the first Burn Center in NYC established. Something I imagine today, with Level One trauma centers here and there, might not have the same meaning it did back in the days when burn victims were “the most neglected of hospital patients.” Thank you John Sineno, who passed away on April 2, 2003, and all the Brothers that fought those fires, made the saves, and then helped get a hospital built for the victims. And thank you for the cookbook. I think tonight I’m going to make the Shrimp Parmesan, page 12, and continue to think about this great little book and the heroes behind it. A cookbook that literally saved lives. NEVER FORGET! Book is out of print, Vintage publishers out of business, but still available from some on-line bookstores. Photo and description of book from my own purchased copy.

God Rest the two Brothers. Prayers for the other two and the whole Chicago Fire Department. Sad day Brothers.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/firefighters-trapped-building-chicago-20101222 http://www.wgntv.com/videobeta/?watchId=7de14fc2-2184-4c0f-aace-f2e1b6a1a32d

Prayers for the injured....and the trapped....nightmare.

Well Brother I guess a lot of people care, or are at least interested in what ladder trucks FDNY is buying and planning on augmenting the Seagrave fleet with, as it's generated 5 pages of discussion here. Without going back explicitly to see who from the FDNY said it here; I think it was M'Ave, who gave us the insight that the members there don't really mind what rig they are riding in, as long as it can do the job. I guess when fire apparatus are truly put to the test in places like the FDNY, Yonkers, Mt. Vernon, New Rochelle, many firefighters from other places are curious right out of the gate to see the process of change occurring, and then to see going forward how this new manufacturer for a specific type of fire apparatus will perform, and hold up through the rigors of urban firefighting. Many times this influences other departments future purchases of their own apparatus I imagine. Of course many of us here would rather be discussing the PASSAGE of the Zadroga Bill, or the rehiring of laid off firefighters around the state, but so far not much to report there....

Do you remember what dish you made Cap? Also, how about some of the other members sharing their memories of the book? Did any of you use it to help you prepare meals in your firehouse? PS: If you have a copy of this book hold onto it. You might be able to see the price in the upper left corner @$7.95. I saw one listed on a website; used, close to $100!

Those photos are from the Ferrara site Eli. I saw them on the rant and thought they were from a recent FDNY visit to the plant. I asked the poster for permission to share them here. He got back to me and stated they were from the site. If you look at the production link you'll see those and a few more. By now they might even have a few compartments bolted on.

http://www.ferrarafire.com./CustomerSupport/InProduction/InProduction.html Co's to receive these new rigs supposedly are: BOT, 137, 156, 19, 81, 29, 55, 123, 24, 169, 32, 42, 154 and others... (thanks HaliganHook @The Rant)

Congrats Buchanan and really an exceptional award for Eastchester. Congratulations Brothers and Merry Christmas. My understanding is EFD is purchasing new SCBA. In this day and age it's more important than EVER to go after any grant money that may be available to your department. AFG is still out there, I think this is the eighth year for the program. If you get the award, you get the positive press, and get to play it up big in your community. Nothing more the taxpayers want to hear than they are getting money from their fire departments' efforts to offset costs. Every department should still be applying for AFGs!

Keeping your friend in my prayers.

You are so right. It's really difficult to make the transition into a leadership role on the smaller jobs, and I imagine in volunteer departments as well. In the City, they transfer you out of your Battalion, your Division, your Borough in most cases right? Take a small job with five firehouses and 70 members. Where are you going to go and make the change? Right in your same five houses, with the same 70 members. Now you go to FLiPs, come back, in my case with two bars on the collar. That went over well at Randall's Island too. There was a guy in Flips from upstate that was a chief. Firefighter to chief. Talk about a leap. I spent half the time I was at the Rock explaining why we didn't have Lieutenants at the time. Now the job has Lts, much better transition for a firefighter to go to company officer then to tour command, than to skip the company officer part. But a lot of us do/did. Even jobs like FDMV, NRFD; they aren't so huge that you can take a new officer and start over in a whole new environment. You want to practice the book and try to live by it. But you get back, with all the knowledge you've absorbed from Flips, even though much of the classtime was devoted to FDNY operations, and now your brothers are calling you sir and you have a new level of performance you have to bring to the job every day. It gets tested, guys have issues, problems arise, how do you handle them, do you help the brothers stay out of trouble, do you become hard nosed, do you want to be loved or feared? I always took the meaning of my job to protect my guys as just that. Protect them in every possible way I could, so they could go home at the end of their tours to their families. There's a way to ensure bail-out systems get inspected and serviced regularly, and the members get to be trained and retrained. Commanders just have to be enabled with the authority and responsibility to carry it out. Too much micro-management on smaller jobs. Too many times a tour commander will get squeezed between a chief and his squad. A really good boss will give the tour commander the authority, he'll pass it to company officers and the whole system works like it supposed to. Good judgement by the commander is neccesary; we can't take our leadership roles to the extremes; laxidical or authoritarian. In some cases if it isn't going well for a leader, it's because they can't listen and adapt to what is being told to them. A good commander is a good listener, in my opinion.

Friday, December 17. 2010 a firefighting family legacy comes to an end. Eastchester Firefighter Joseph Iamonico is doing his last tour of duty. After 27 years of dedicated service to the Town of Eastchster, Villages of Tuckahoe, and Bronxville, working for the fire dept., he shall be retired. His grandfather was one of the first career firefighters for the city of Mt. Vernon. His father and his brother worked for decades for Eastchester FD as well. All combined, it's roughly two centuries of public service from one family. That's simply amazing. Joe, want to wish you the best in your retirement, joining your brother Robert. Any time I worked the tour with you, I always had supreme confidence that the man behind the wheel of 2102 could and would take care of business. And now it's time for you to move on. God Bless, enjoy your well deserved retirement, and thank you for all the extra effort you put in to the Association as well. KBR-359 signing off....

Hey you got promoted? Congrats Brother. I think the most important reminder the dispatcher can give IC's in Westchester, is fire duration reminders. Okay, they're for your staff chief's to listen too. But in many of the smaller less manned departments in Westchester, be they career or volunteer, the IC frequently, by necessity, ends up with more than his hands full. The fire duration reminder is in fact what I consider to be the most important information coming from dispatch to an IC. As Joe pointed out, the fact that the county is all divided up into different departments, that may be needed, they'd like to have a heads up, and Control as well, as to what the progress is. The lack of uniformity in the outer Counties surrounding NYC is truly antiquated.