spin_the_wheel

Question to the Volunteer dept.s out there...does any Dept. accept members as Fire Police status only? Can they join as a Class B for fire police duties only? I think most dept.s with a Fire Police unit, the unit is a squad and members are part of the other firefighting companies and were at one time class A status f/f's. Anyone allow members for just Fire Police??? Thanks, and be safe all.

You would think if the "pump and roll" feature is standard....any sort of safety, warning device or gauge that would be associated with the feature would also come standard...oh well.

Did the Fire Police members enter the dept as Fire Police only? Or were they at one time Interior, then retired to the rank of Fire Police. I am getting some interest from people in the community that are not able to be interior f/f's, but as Beekman stated want to help out the community in some way, and have an interest in the fd. We have never done tis before, you had to have been an interior f/f prior to joining the fire police squad. Thanks guys for the feedback.

Sorry...Class A is scba qualified interior f/f...Class B is exterior only status, probably only Volunteer depts would know this. I guess in a career dept it would be light duty members, doing support only work.

$5 does not seem alot agreed, but the most you can make is $6000 a year. If you are a very active guy, or someone new with a shift work schedule you can shoot for the $6000. Depending on the payment schedule I'd take it 2 times a year. A check for $3000 right before the summer June, and one in Dec. is not a bad incentive I think. JMO Depts in Jersey have been doing this for years...Fort lee for one and it works great. I would rather have this in place then the LOSAP that is in my Dept. now....and I bet 90% of the membership would rather get soemthing now then wait till 55. So it's not volunteer anymore, call it what you will. I think this system is better then the LOSAP.

Something to think about for the future for Chiefs or Officers running parades, we just hosted one in June and sent out a list of DO NOT DO's for the visiting Dept.s. It was simple if they could not comply with our requests they dont come and march, nobody complained at all, because deep down they knew all of our DO NOT DO's were the right thing to DO...that sounded like a Yogism!

I would first ask Mr. marc W. Bono if he ever was an emergency service dispatcher of any sort, or a 911 calltaker. It's very easy for a "consultant" to say whats best but it runs much deeper then just $ and cents. I'm for consolidations as long as the Fire dispatchers remain fire and the PD remain PD. I also think having all the FD's being dispatched from one agency as well as the PD is a move in the right direction. BUT if there is going to be cross training it has to be a serious effort AND the people involved have to want to know the others job. Time is of the utmost importance on the fire end of it. Just like PD dispatch has its own nuances. A few years back I think in MD a dispatcher was disciplined because she was asking to many questions to the caller that was not needed, and delayed the alarm of a working house fire. She was a PD/911 dispatcher that now was interrogating fire calls for the first time without any real training on the fire end. The center had recently consolidated all dispatch. Most fire,ems calls that are recieved are happening at the time of the call..."My house is on fire", "I think this guy just had a heart attack he just fell over" "This car just crashed into this building", the emergnecy is in its begining stage and process time is very important...while most of PD calls have happened already..."I think my house was robbed", "I just walked out and my car was gone", "Someone just ran off with my purse" the emergency has passed and the calltaker has more time to gather the info needed. Details and descriptions are more important on the PD side. Look at all the problems NY City is having with this consolidation plan, and again this was the brainchild of someone who never sat in the dispatchers seat. Serious planning is needed if an agency is going to throw all the eggs in one basket, more then a consultant showing pie charts of how much $ we can save on office supplies and chairs. Again JMO.

Interesting, but if it will save all the classes at the County School it's a no brainer. Hey we all spend more then that for a night out, I think it's a great way to help fill a budget hole and wouldnt think twice about paying it. Creative.

It's important for all departments to have a rehab policy in place, we have a dedicated van we use as a rehab unit for all working fires. The van also goes out to the fire school with companies and on any drills that the Officer requests it at. Any departments have a "dress down" signal for those really hot days? A signal the IC can use to tell the incoming units no scba required and you can take off the turnout coat. For volunteer Depts that have class B exterior only firefighters, I have always felt these members should still be able to use hip boots. I know many will argue this, but most of the time its people who have never used them. I see no reason why exterior firefighters should have to wear bunker bottoms...any other thoughts? Stay safe.

The old saying...its not personal its business comes to mind with the unions. Its simple their is much power in numbers. Hey they have every right to get the best for their employees, Im a union guy. BUT dont take a stance of "its for the public best interest to have a paid force" and "career this and career that" look what happened with Rural Metro, they are paid career firefighters....but non union..they are a for profit organization, and so not only did the Volunteers not want them around the career union did not as well. I think career non union guys are looked at in a worse light then volunteers, because they really are taking union jobs away from career union firefighters. This is why the local is coming down so hard on this new proposal. An old city Chief that was in my Dept once told me "the best way for the volunteers to get along with the career guys would be for all the volunteers to pay union dues." He might have had something there. But again the union wants union jobs for the members and perspective members, its their job to do this, they cannot stand by when the area next to them is going to hire non union guys.

I was looking at the 60 control apparatus listings....the reserved #'s...did an apparatus once have the specific #? Or was it a plan for the future when this system started to make room for growing Departments? Thanks be safe all!

I thought we were on the same side here...isnt the public what matters? In one breath some of you scream about doing the right thing for the public, and manpower and response. And in the next breath you go out of your way to knock everything Volunteer of FASNY related. In reality this bill wont be much but if it helps get 1 or 2 more people out to a major incident isnt it worth it? Isnt it worth it to the Chief in charge or IC at the "big one?", not to mention the rest of the firefighters on scene? Whatever happened to supporting the idea of goodwill and helping your community?? Most of the Dept.s this bill is aimed for probably get 1 or 2 "big ones" a year if that. We are not talking about workers leaving for every alarm every day. I doubt it will have any "economic impact" your pulling at straws with that one, there are way to many other things to worry about as an employer then if an employee misses 2 days work during the year at a fire. I doubt his company is going to suffer a "reliabilty hit" because his worker was fighting a major fire, in fact some poeple might look upon that as an admirable thing to do for the emploee and employer. I bet the company could get some good press out of doing something like that, run some ads with a picture of the employee and the fire "We care about our communities" Again JMO

What the??? Arent we all "Brothers" (yeah right)... if this bill helps one Brother Volunteer Firefighter save his job, it's worth it. Case closed. JMO

I guess 60 control will get Ossining FD full time 24/7 if this goes through. PD still does the dispatch, except for some part time FD self dispatch during the hours of 7-10pm or something alog those lines?

I guess there are a group of people who want to do away with the "village" Board. This is the problem with the consoladation bill as it is written. Someone pisses someone off and now all it takes is a small amount of people to set in chain these actions, which could in the end be a waste of time and money, and 2 months after it's settled someone can start it all over again. Osining has their own PD and Sanitation Dept.s correct? I guess these agencies would be consoladated with nearby agencies or County agencies. The FD would become a District but those lines would have to defined. If I am right they cover some areas outside the incorprated village now. The Ossining Fire District could bid with other Fire Districts in those areas for the fire protection. It can get complicated.

I agree, this has been going on now without a bill. You have to know what your boss will allow and what your responsibilities are. I know many f/f's who are allowed to leave their jobs now for BIG fires, not the everyday automatic alarm, but a big worker. Many village employees allow f/f's to leave work. I know a village where the 3 man sanitation truck is all f/f's and lets this truck go to the fire house on alarms. This is not a busy village fire call wise but they do what they have to do. In Nassau County ALL county workers get fire day hours, meaning if a large worker or other serious emergency happens, they can take time off from their next scheduled shift. This is used when they are off...so this would cover the other post about someone at a fire all night then have to report for a day shift and operate a bulldozer. No one takes advantage of this, and it has been in place for decades. There are just some people who always want to chime in on the negative side whenever it is a volunteer issue. But I understand to many it's buisness not personel..it's a union thing and its all good, I understand that, but sometimes it seems they really go out of their way to try and find negatives all the time. Good news is these people will be long retired, and the Volunteer Fire Service will still be responding to alarms!

Your right I was just thinking of new spots, and thinking any city f/f's would be reassigned. I would think that the fair way would be for any laid off f/f's to be offered the spots first without a test, but I dont know if that could happen, maybe you would know the laws better then I would. At the very least extra credit should be given to them as well. Again I am not sure of al the civil service rules, if this did happen and one of the individuals was hired by the new Dept....then a spot became open in the SFRD would they be able to go back to that Dept.? Sometimes first laid off are first re-hired, would taking a spot in the new FD nullify this sort of thing?

How about making it an open competitive civil service test but give extra credit to current Volunteers or to residents in the districts that the new FD will cover. This makes the jobs open to all, but alo gives some recognition to Residents and/or volunteers.

Briarcliff Manor?

Agreed, the paid driver example has nothing to do with the Stamford situation, I was using that as an example towards the "career guy always having more experience then a volunteer" just because of a title? Will the volunteer be better, no, but I would suspect he could be on equal terms many of the time....we will agree to disagree.

I agree that the "busy" all Volunteer Dept. may be rare, but maybe not as rare as you think. As for the nuances about knox boxes, pre-plans, hazzards, ect... if you have a good dispatch system your dispatcher can give the needed info over the radio, or it can be sent to the firehouses in run sheets. A timely "prompt" by your dispatcher can help as well if they know the IC may be forgetting something. I know one dept. by me who has "target buildings" announced by the Dispatch center as "pre-plan #1 or #5 or whatever # the building is, the rigs all know where to go, if they are unsure there is a book in each rig going over where they should stage. Almost all the Depts. have automatic m/a multi alarm procedures so all the IC has to do is call a signal and the m/a is filled in. Crews, although not as consistent with a career crew, most volunteer depts. especially in the day rely on the same core nucleus of guys. So in that respect you do know the guys on your "crew". I know the same guys each company will turn out for day calls, day after day. in fact if one of the shift worker day crew guys changes his hours it will be known, "so and so just switched to 8-4's this week." As far as being familiar with the equipment, in my Dept. if you don't know the equipment, then you don't ride the rig, its' that simple. It aint rocket science. Some times my views are slanted because of the system I have been involved with for 26 years. Despite what alot of you may say about LI Fire Departments (lidsville, I think some of you fellas like to say) There are many, many busy FD's who get alot of work. So that said I may be disillusioned that this is the norm in other areas, maybe I focus to much on the Port Chester's, Ossining's and Mamoronecks when I think about Westchester as far as size of Dept. But again this is all about Stamford, not Westchester or Long Island. I had said in an earlier post that I thought the Volunteer companies in Stamford should have consolidated long ago, maybe some of this would have been prevented. I also had posted in the thread bout the fire that agreed with all the sentiments posted that the Chief did a disgraceful job handling that fire. You are right it was pride about "let's beat the city in and cancel them" before they even were on scene. The "culture" of lets not let the career city guys in our area came back to bite them. As for the pint I'll buy the first round!! Be safe.

It all depends on the Department, just becasue you are a career Firefighter does not mean you always will be better at the job, or less prepared I should say. There are some very busy all Volunteer Dept.s that have dozens of workers year after year. An active 15 year member in one of those Dept.s you say woud always be less ready for the job at hand then someone with a title of career Firefighter? The career Firefighter may be in a Dept. that runs to 3 automatic alarms a day and 2 workers a year? Not to mention the career guy works once every 4 days, and would have to be working to catch the job. What are some fine details or nuances you speak of? Don't compare flying an airplane to firefighting. I'm sure since you are not an everyday pilot, you don't have access to a plane everyday. That said of course your skills may have dropped off. A voulnteer in a busy Dept. will be going to runs everyday, have access to "hanging" out in the firehouse everyday, even if its for an hour or so after work. Just because you are a Volunteer does not mean you put your gear on once a month. I know, I know there may be some but dont group all Volunteer Depts as always below the standard of someone with a career title. How about a "career" Firefighter that in reality is a paid driver? When was the lat time he crawled down a hallway? In those Depts. its the volunteers who do the actual firefighting. Would you consider him better then the guys on the line? Using the Pilot example he would be less, sure he drives the rig every 3rd day but he has not had the knob in 7 years, so his profency level is less. Of course I dont believe this but dont say someone will always be less skilled or prepared just because they have the title of Volunteer.

Izzy Brother can you get half your paycheck in comps?

Thats about the time Nassau did away with the Hazmat awareness class. The classes offered now are Hazmat operations, which is required in my dept. (We provide a Hazmat Engine for the 7th Batt. decon unit) and Hazmat technician.

Although not apparatus related....I bought something interesting, developed by a Syracuse Rescue Co. Fireman, it's called the Search Sleeve..... www.searchsleeve.com its a sleeve that fits over the Bunker Gear jacket sleeve above the wrist and a Streamlight 3C or a Pelican Sabre 2000 fits into the sleeve. The "sleeve" is black with reflective stripes like most Gear jackets. It's treated with a fire resistant chemical and sewn with kevlar thread. As you search and sweep with your tool it lights up the way, good for light when pulling ceilings, plus you can never have to many lights with you at times. He said Syracuse Firefighters have been using something like this for years. Gonna try it out, it was only $40 for the sleeve and the light. Check it out. Be safe all.