Newburgher

Absolutely! I am a fan of pullboxes. As I have said in other threads, sometimes all we get is a single pullbox to notify us of an incident. The activation starts our response immediately, saving a minute or more sometimes.

That's not always a good thing. In my area, we have departments that can't get very many interior Firefighters out for a simple alarm, instead relying on mutual aid routinely, yet still have the money to by the biggest and best of everything, whether it's needed or not. It seems, to justify this expense, more times than I can count, an aerial or tower gets set up for a single story ranch or split level home. While it's more labor to throw a ground ladder, in most cases it is quicker. And as far as setting up to a residence or structure less than 2 stories, you still have to climb up to the turntable, before you start walking out along the bridge that you just set up. In my opinion, it is less hassle, and quicker to just throw the correct ground ladder. On the other hand, some of the areas around here have old estates with very old, large houses. A 35' ground ladder for some of these houses won't even come close to getting you to the roof. It would make sense that the fire department protecting these neighborhoods would have the equipment needed, if they can afford to. But, what kind of ground stability is needed for this kind of Truck? Can you even set up with your outriggers landing on a lawn after a week we just had? How long are they? (Wheelbase and tailswing) Can you even manuever them into a driveway to begin with?

This is a link to a test our Union did on turnout gear buoyancy a few years ago. The results were pretty surprising for some of us.

Bedbugs and roaches are not a pleasant gift to bring home to your family either. How many fires have you been to where the room is pretty much incinerated, yet , the cockroaches are still alive?

I can tell you that we use the 1 1/2 on our aerials, because we don't have million dollar ladder trucks and towers with pumps. Our ladder pipes are fed from substandard water systems to an engine, through 2 1/2 hose into the ladder. We keep the size on there because we can flow that gpm quickly. We have 3- 3 man companies on duty. Sometimes, there are exposures before you get there. Our response time is 3 minutes or less, depending on whether the initial call was a pull box or phone call, so "putting BIG GPM on the fire FAST as possible and you won't have exposures" is not always true. Using a fog nozzle to make a water curtain, is also not very effective. I believe the term water curtain is what was the method used in the old days of spraying water between the fire and the exposure. If the water is not being sprayed on the exposure, it will not stop the radiant heat. The way I was taught, exposure protection is wetting down the exposure, keeping it cool. We have found this to be about the only thing fog nozzles are good for. Something else that isn't very effective, is spraying water down from a ladder pipe onto a perfectly good roof. Roofs repell water from a nozzle, just as well as rain. The best way to apply the water, is through windows and openings into the heat, bouncing the stream, as best as possible, off the room interiors, drowning as much of the burning areas as you can. Again, it works for us, that's how we do it. I'm sure everyone who is on here has a different way that works in their towns and cities.

It is a shame. There are plenty of ways to cut spending, but something that is proven effective, and after 120 years no less, is not the place to make the cuts

Telegraph fire alarm boxes are still used in Newburgh. We get alot of false alarms, but also, a lot of legitimate fire and emergency calls off of them. All schools and colleges, and several commercial and high occupancy buildings are tied into a fire alarm box instead of a central monitoring agency. There is no delay for a response to these facilities, the companies are already in motion in most cases before the dispatcher can even announce the address. I understand the expense of a system such as this, but it does work, even when technology doesn't. And even in the age of cell phones in everyone's pocket, we have pulled up to some pretty spectacular fires, in broad daylight and a huge crowd, with not one phone call and only a single pull box activation.

In our department, we use stacked tips on our aerials. They are kept with the 1 and 1/2 inch as the smallest. Penetration and ease of aiming through a window seem to be the benefits. We carry the adjustable fog nozzles that came with the rigs in a compartment, in case they are needed for exposure protection. Our engines use stacked tips as well, and are kept with 1 and 3/8 as the smallest. We don't have any tower ladders in the city.

Structurally, the house is rebuildable. Damage was held at the plaster. Clean it out, sheetrock and windows, good to go. Not bad for 9 guys....

I must be missing something. I just read this thread, after reading the link. Did this kid activate a pull station, or pull a wire? Some posters are referring to this as pulling a box, but the article doesn't say that. What am I missing here?

When I first got into the volunteers, I wore a metro helmet, the same 3/4 coat with corduroy collar, rubber pull-up boots, fireball gloves and steel bottle MSA air-packs with the elephant trunk. Nobody had nomex hoods, and bunker pants were only on the firemen in the TV show, EMERGENCY! The turnout gear was kept on a rail along the top of the hosebed. One guy would jump up and start passing gear down, and we would start to put it on while riding on the back step! If you got the right size boots, they were without fail, both left boots. The rigs were all manual transmission, bias ply tires, and a few of them were still gas motored with manual chokes. Remember the wet road/dry road selector switch?

There is no gate because it's a public boat ramp. It's open 24 hours. The city isn't going to pay someone to babysit a gate for the occasional boat. I have never heard of a public boat ramp that's gated, at least not around here. There are no railings because it is surrounded by docks. It is pretty far from any housing.

In my city, it's routine to find apartments with multiple beds in each room, not just bedrooms. Very scary sometimes to see what people have to do to keep a roof over their heads.

Tons of things to contend with. In my experience, we have come across: People who will not leave Rooms stacked litterally to the ceiling, and occupants sleeping on top of the pile Buckets being used as toilets, which are easily knocked over, spilling their contents People trying to re-enter the building, behind the hoseline, and generally getting in the way. As for locks, most of the time, not too substantial. Mostly, wooden doors in wooden jambs. The big deal about the forcible entry is that is turns into a big job just because of the amount of doors. We have buildings with several dozen occupants, all behind several dozen locked doors. You can't assume the room is empty if there is a padlock on the outside either. I have found occupants inside the padlocked room at fires. In my city, we also find occupied rooms without windows. Just a start, far from seeing it all.

Not to sound like a know-it-all, but a simple question: Why did that rig even leave the street? When you go to a fire that is burning a field, or any fire that doesn't have an immediate exposure, and life is not in danger, quite often, we bring the highest dollar exposures, and park them in harms way, then put a bunch of life hazards(our people) into the mix. Don't get me wrong, not trying to criticize, and I know it is only a small snapshot into what is happening there, but it puzzles me. From what I can see, it looks like it was a field. If there is no humans, animals, or buildings/equipment in the way, how big a deal is it really? Keep the rig (which in this case appears to have been two wheel drive?) on the pavement, and stretch a line or two to it. After the spring we have had, it's surprising the truck isn't sunk in the mud anyway. If there was a building involved, I would think it is connected to the road by a driveway. To me, seeing a burned up pumper in the middle of a burned field, with no hose stretched, just doesn't make sense.

http://www.historybu...shirtwaist.html Tomorrow is the 100th Anniversary of this tragedy. Resulted in Strengthening collective bargaining, as well as Building Codes.

Could they be affiliated with KJFD?