spin_the_wheel

A volunteer can go months before the next "school" is held and will do much more then 40 hours before a formal school. Plus its 24/7 the opportunity to learn, the carrer guy is not responding to the station at 9pm on an alarm during his probie week, and as you know you can learn something new every run you go on, no matter how small. To a probie a milk run automatic alarm is an adventure. And you even said it "in the 40 hours he learns about our job, and our equipment"....so does the volunteer why can't he learn as much as well? But hey we can go back and forth with this, it's a different culture on Long Island for better or worse however you look at it, love it or hate it. I can only state with 100% certainty the system I grew up with, it's still a strong volunteer system. And I also can say with 100% certainty, I never have been told don't get on the rig or you will loose your seat at the bar, and have never been discouraged from going to fire schools, and I go back to 1984 as an active f/f and years before that as an explorer and firehouse brat..

I only posted that because I know how reporters and newspapers get things wrong all the time. One other thing...JMO I think to much is made over the "hours" of the courses, when it should be the tests and the practical exams. A career F/F does not set foot in a firehouse in most places untill he finishes the probie school, he has no idea what a set of "irons" are before going to school. The classes and "hours" may be longer then needed for someone who is in a volunteer system. The hours a volunteer learns things at the station does not count toward anything but he is still learning. Does a volunteer need to spend as long on a topic about how to don your protective gear when he learns this in house? Or on ground ladders and stretching hose, when this stuff is learned at the station. If he can complete the practical exam task so be it. Again JMO, and I'm going with my observation of probies in my Dept. they learn alot of "basics" without going into fires before they attend the needed schools. The hours of "in house" training don't count anywhere toward a standard.

The last paragraph does state "volunteer firefighters graduate with the minimum requirements for volunteer firefightres" so...are there 2 sets of standards?

This could effect small paid or combo dept.s as well......if Dept. B has a combo Dept. 12 paid staff and 14 Volunteers and combines with Dept. A with a strong Volunteer system of 60 guys and Dept. C with a strong Volunteer system of 75...the combined new Dept. D may not need a paid staff anymore as you have introduced more men into the system.

Best bet is to go to nassaufdrant.com

Nice house, looks as if it's split down the middle, apparatus floor and company rooms, no crossing the floor allowed

Years back I saw the then "new" tower ladder and an engine at that house. They still had the mack CF tower ladder, I remember thinking to myself they may have been running 2 trucks, but the mack went out of service since then.

Many "Volunteer" dept.s have in house stamdbys. Not so much in our areas, Westchester, Rockland, Nassau, Suffolk Ect... I have always said instead of crying for a paid system try this system instead, before you go the paid route. Most dept's I would say have a system now where you need to make a certain % of the calls for a year. If someone works a steady 8-4 job weekdays and is out of the house at 6am and comes home at 6pm he can't afford to blow off a call at 11pm. Most dept's would agree the bulk of the alarms are during the day. It's very hard to maintain a %, your family and job. So why not change the % a year you need to make to hours. That same guy may be able to give you a 6 or 12 hour shift on the weekend each month, and maybe some hours during the week. Give credit to the hours not the calls. He could hang around the firehouse on a Friday from 7pm till 1 am for a month and not get any alarms in the old % system, and get no credit at all for his time. But this is what he can give you, meanwhile Thursday nights for the same month there were 6 alarms that he was not available for, other people who happen to be off are getting credit. I know it's a crap shoot but if you base it on hours instead of call #'s your getting credit for your time. There are other methods to explore.

Another note on doing an assessment of your area, this includes mutual aide your dept. may go on, on a "regular basis". So if your district has only 2 story pd's and 1 or 2 story taxpayers BUT you go mutual aide on a regular basis (not 1 or 2 times a year) to a dept. that has 4 story buildings, then you need a system in place to play.

East Meadow and Westbury both got rid of Closed cab CF's where is this from? Anybody anybody?

Izzy My Brother good thread, my Dept. had the largest Gamewell System in Nassau County at one time 285 street and Master boxes. 15 sirens and 1 diaphone horn at our Fire Alarm building that would blast the box #. The audibles were turned off in 1983. The Gamewell boxes were pulled in 1986 and replaced with King fisher radio boxes on main streets only and Master radio boxes for buildings. Belmont Race Track still has Game well boxes on the barns but the system is converted to the King Fisher type transmitter. The box # will transmit to the dispatcher all at once no waiting for the tape punch. As of 1-1-09 Belmont Race Track security monitors all the boxes in the track and notifies the Elmont dispatcher (Nassau Firecom) if a box call has to be transmitted. We have about 17 street and Master boxes left that are monitored at Nassau Firecom. Some interesting stories, years back 60's early 70's when you became a Chief, if you wanted, the fire alarm division would install a small siren on a pole near your home so you would hear the audibles better! There were stories of 1 company reading, say box 172 and another company reading it backwards thanks to a probie as 271 and passing each other on the Tpke! And the last good one, years back on the midnight shift there would be a dispatcher who would balance soda cans (at least that's what he said heheh) on the game well tape punch, lean them against the tape and the wall, this way if he fell asleep on the overnight, if a box kicked in the falling cans would wake him! Some good old school memories for sure. In Nassau County the only Gamewell systems still in place are Bellerose village, Bellerose Terrace and New Hyde Park. Elmont has some King Fisher radio boxes, but thats all. As far as I know, there are none left in Suffolk county of any sort.

I'm not 100% sure but I think I remember a case where a NYPD Officer could not run for a spot on the Board in his hometown FD, something written in the NYPD...anyone know of anything like this?

Boy I come to this site from time to time and this is one of the threads I always look at, I hate to say it but I think the window of opportunity for all the Volunteer companies to have gotten together, pool resources, $, buildings, rigs, manpower ect, and keep the response area all Volunteer and in the 5 companies hands has closed.

It was 3 in the afternoon, security was on scene at an on campus location and they go to the college for alarms probably about 200 times a year between aided cases and fire alarms something like this has never happened before. Do they need to re think sog's in regards to Chief cars on scene, no doubt about it. But I would not call this person "insanely irresponsible" because of the actions of some jackass stupid student. No way does he DESERVE to be bashed.

Hofstra College is a fantastic campus in a world of its own compared to the surrounding area no way a Mt.Vernon. It's where the Jets used to practice if anyone has been there.

Depending on the area of the county if you call 911 you either get the PD amb or the FD if they are primary, most villages are primary..East Rockaway, Lynbrook, Floral Park are some. In Uniondale's case when you dial 911 you get the PD amb....if the 2 or 3 PD ambulances are busy it goes to the FD to handle the call.

On the Fire end of things add to the layoffs 5 Dispatchers from the County Fire Communications division and 7 Fire inspectors from the Fire Marshals office. Both divisions are under staffed to begin with and below levels that they should be at.

Back in the late 60's and early 70's how many stations did they have compared to the # of stations now. Also the Volunteer force was very strong back then I'm told? Were there more volunteer companies and stations?

Whats a "routine test run" were they driving this rig "hot" for nothing?

Bingo....is'nt there some Westchester paid dept.s that skip the closest volunteer Depts to go to the next paid dept.? I'm sure they have their reasons for doing this, is that corrupt? I dont think so.

The history between Newsday and the fire service on LI goes further back then the articles and why the fire service took it the way they did but thats another story. The only thing the articles did was call to the carpet the few dept.s/districts that were out of line with the spending, and changes were made. Fire districts (statewide) are held to more scrutiny with spending and taxpayers are now made aware or have the means to see what is going on better then they had before the articles. No one disputes the fact that there were some districts that went way out of bounds, but all these "perks" really had no affect on the average backstep firefighter. The fact is for most of LI the bang for the buck in fire protection is excellent. The tax money being paid is nothing compared to the rest of your tax bill. People in my community support us. As far as response, a few dept.s have automatic mutual aide when one dept.s station may be closer then the dept. getting alerted for that particular alarm, and I dont know of any dept. with a mutual aide plan that has a dept. traveling through 1 or 2 other districts that have not already been alerted mutual aide, unless it is a special unit request.

Hey big 5, as I posted before it would be better to change things on your terms, then to have an "outside" source change it for you.....this may be the start of the "outside" source changing things. Be safe.

It's amazing what a "hook" can do for someone. Just think of the next guy on the list who would probably do justice to the job and he has to wait or was probably passed over for this guy. Wonder what hi REAL test score was, probably got some help getting into this class to egine with.

x129...it's safe to say you have a future cover of Firehouse, or Fire Engineering, or Fire Rescue or..........you get the point fantastic photos.

47...do you have in house crews or is it a home response? Do you think merging the 5 volunteer dept.s into 1 would help you guys as a whole for the long term? You would not really have to loose your history, create 1 joint fire district, each dept. now would be a company, you may have to combine some houses and manpower, eliminate an engine or 2 but in the long run I think it would work if the other departments are not as strong as you are. have 5 chiefs one from each company each year it rotates from company to company who will be "chief" of the combined department, the other 4 are assistants. Each company would have 3 line officers a Capt. and 2 Lt.s. I dont know how its worked now but you may loose some Chiefs and officers but this system would still allow for an all Volunteer system in this I would assume large area. Plus the city and the paid department would only have to deal with 1 unified system on all levels the buisness end and firematic end.