spin_the_wheel

Elmont FD Nassau County LI total 1949. Fire 1118 (includes MVA's) 831 ambulance requests. 11 working fires, 36 mutual aid fire requests including 16 FAST team requests.

I think in most Departments you need to be a member for 5 years before you get vested for anything. At least in my place the dead wood people who have joined for the wrong reasons are weeded out way before the 5 year mark. I don't think it really helped getting any new members but has retained some good guys who have stayed around for 20 or 25 years instead of leaving at the 10 or 15 year mark. I still think the best system to attract if your not going paid is the pay on call system...so we dont call ourselves volunteers anymore, I think it is more attractive to a younger person knowing they will get a check for a certain amount of $ every 4 or 6 months. Fort Lee NJ has been doing this for decades now...anyone from the area know if this works well? As for me I could care less about the LOSAP, it wasnt there when I joined and if it went away tomorrow I wouldnt miss a beat. Oh and I have always lived close to the firehouse so a blue light never mattered. I remember my old fireball in the winter would not work sometimes because of the cold..I would bang on it and it would finally start a slow rotate as I was pulling into the lot of the firehouse...but I do flash my high beams.

Nassau County has written plans in place, like other areas we had many Dept.s freelance and go to ground zero. I cant say for sure that this wont happen again but at least there is a plan in place on what units go where. (all relocating to stations in Queens and Brooklyn) Nassau units have done a few drills with FDNY the last few years on a Sunday morning. Sections of the M/A plan are put into place where assigned units meet at designated staging areas in Nassau County, meeting with units from the Nassau County Fire Marshals Office. The units then go into the city and to their assigned stations and drill with the FDNY, have lunch with the crews and then head back. All in all these drills work out well. I cant say for sure what will happen God forbid something of this magnitude ever happens again, but from what I understand freelance units will not be accepted into the city without the Fire Marshal escort. City OEM notifies Nassau Fire Communications which sets in motion the plans for what units are needed where, this is the ONLY OFFICIAL way a unit from Nassau can go into the city on mutual aid.

Wow a 4...I did not know that, very interesting how they rate the city. Makes you wonder why the Fire Patrol was cutout, you would think if they were graded like that, a dedicated salvage unit like the Patrol would have been kept in service or even increased.

I guess it will depend on how old the area and Fire dept. is, Nyack is a very old Dept. with companies close to 150 years old, I think they were built more near the center of the "town" so to speak, homes were spread out more with more property, separating them, but were in the vicinity of the center of town.. It paid to protect the commercial interests. My Depts. first 3 stations were built around the School, Hotel, stores, post office and Belmont Race Track, August Belmont actually helped fund 2 of the first 3 companies, (see Firehouse magazine Aug.2009 for more history of how we protect the race track) After the main "town" area were homes and farms on large parcels of land. And then as you say when other areas began to develop other Firehouses/companies were built to protect these areas. But in general I think the oldest part of these towns would have the biggest cluster of close firehouses/companies.

I see nothing wrong with having multiple firehouses with individual companies operating in a close area. FDNY even has some stations in very close proximity to each other and look what happens every time the city tries to close a house, the community stands by their firehouse. For the most part Departments like this are very large in membership and very active, as well as having loyal support from their communities. One exception I can think of off the top of my head is the city of Hudson VFD. They to had many single company firehouses close to each other, they consolidated 3 or 4 stations into one large building for other reasons...like ALL the buildings had become very very unsafe and to small for the newer rigs plus the membership in the companies dwindled down to almost nothing. Consolidating was a good idea for them. Nyack is a very active Dept. and the system they have works well for them, the issue is the building...not how many stations they have or apparatus. I dont know any other all volunteer dept. running 2 tiller rigs, that should speak about their active membership. Hey if it could happen Id like a firehouse on every other street!!!

This is the station as it looked before circa 2002 or so...

Nyack is not unlike many, many older East coast volunteer depts. where there are many firehouses, some around the block from one another. This exists in part from the formation of the towns themselves and the fire departments way back when. The center of town needed the fire protection and companies would form, rivalries were heated and individual companies would form to "compete" with each other where the "action" was...the center of town with the most structures. As towns grew and areas were built up other companies would form to protect these new areas, so you look on a map and there is a cluster of houses in the center of town, then other stations near the borders and outlaying areas of the districts. Another thing to note in many cases these houses are owned by the individual companies. My dept. is like Nyack, 7 stations, 4 are owned by the individual companies, you cant just close them down, especially without an uproar from the residents in the area, it's not easy to close down a firehouse that has been in a neighborhood for 100 years.

I agree and the same goes for the Volunteers not being able to drive rigs in Peekskill, when a rig has no driver its out of service. Does 60 control do Port Chester full time? Maybe all the career staff for a shift can run 1 rig. I had heard the 2 station 2 engine system was done for dispatch back in the day.

Res6cue...post that video of the tiller responding to the job a few months back if you have it.....now that was some cool stuff!!! Sorry to hear it failed, I was sure there would be no end to this rig in first line service.

In Nassau County it's time in the system, when we were facing layoffs last year a guy who came from corrections would have bumped someone with more time in fire communications, but had less time overall in the civil service system. Years before that when we were facing layoffs some Chief dispatch supervisors were going to be bumped back down to dispatchers, one of the guys being bumped down had the title longer then one of the newer supervisors who had been on the job longer. Again as it always plays out the rumors and scenarios are always talked about,and many different spins come from it, wrong ones at that. But I do know that last years situation was addressed by our head boss who did tell the guys affected they would be the ones to go, and the corrections guy was not one of them.

The County Executive race is over! Congrats to Ed Mangano, the Nassau County Fire service voted as 1 voice and proved we CAN make a difference, imagine what we ALL could do on a state wide level next Nov. Mr. Suozzi underestimated us. We held voter registration drives within the Nassau Departments to make sure everyone was registered to vote and made sure our members and families came out to vote on election day. The 400 or so vote difference was no doubt due to our efforts and we tilt this election. Ed's Grandfather was a Nassau F/F, his Brother is a F/F and his son is an explorer. http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/suozzi-concedes-defeat-mangano-to-take-helm-in-nassau-1.1631322

What station are they planning to build and replace?

14. the creation of the Hurst tool by George Hurst in the early 70's.

13. 9-1-1 systems...96% of the geographic U.S. has some form of 911 system in place.

11. How about communication systems, every rig now has a radio and almost all crew members now have a portable radio of their own to communicate with each other and the dispatch center.

I think they had 2 Maxim mid mounts at the same time.

The old MSA masks I started with you could put the face piece hose inside your turnout coat. AAhhhhh the days of pull up boots, fireball gloves and wheat lights!!!!!

I was surprised to see FDNY going to 2000gpm. M Ave answered as to why, but as is the case many times, once it becomes the norm in FDNY, many other Departments will follow.

No problem. Yes my department actually has 3 FDNY dispatchers.

Easy on the LIDsville, no need to go there.

It's sad that is a nice little gig you have, and the city is gonna F it up, what's the old saying..if it is'nt broke don't fix it, why does'nt the FDNY brass get involved here and put a stop to some of this nonsense. I know you lost a good man in M.James recently coming out to the Island, if this continues you are going to loose more talent. Hang in there Brothers.

Your right Izzy, there are many volunteer houses all over with multiple companies, Hudson NY is another one that put 3 or 4 houses into 1, and each company kept there name. I was just giving an example of how they could keep the names if you eliminate apparatus from those companies. If companies 3-8 combine I dont think you would need 6 Engines in the new house. Hell you could even put 3 company names on one rig, again anything can be done as long as everyone wants to do it.

In Lancaster County PA. Columbia Boro had 5 separate fire companies protecting the area. Not uncommon for many older east coast volunteer areas, there were 5 stations, some very close to one another, 3 of those companies formed...Columbia Consolidated Fire Company. On the new companies maltese cross logo all 3 names of the original individual companies are represented. It's possible to not loose your individual identities altogether. So you could have Danbury consolidated Fire company #1 consisting of 2 or 3 companies...consolidated fire company #2 with another 2 or 3....you get the point. Anything can be done as long as the companies are willing to accept change, which is the hardest part about these things. I am all for tradition and keeping things that work the way they are, but if it is a matter of not existing at all or not giving the service you are suppose to be giving, then it's better to make change on your terms rather then have it forced on you by someone else.

What apparatus do they operate, each company has an Engine and a first due area so to speak? Does a volunteer company get assigned to every alarm, or only on working fires? Interesting.