mfc2257

Chipolte is great... I highly recommend the Burrito Bol (sic) with chicken, black beans, rice, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, and hot salsa.

I believe there is an A&S in Millwood across from Rocky's and one in Croton.

It would be benificial for there to be a handful of these in a county (as in not every department gets one so that there are ten of them within a few miles of each other like the tower / cascade craze that northern westchester got into) If there were 4 in the whole county I think that would be more than enough. It looks like it does a lot more than just bust through concrete. It can run as a pumper the majority of the time, and then be used for master stream, rescue, crane, penetrating deluge, foam, etc as necessary. It would be a great piece to have on automatic mutual aid to all factory / manufacturing / petroleum facilities.

I absolutely agree with the reasons above for wearing waist straps. There is one reason to wear your waist straps that effects you every single time you've got your pack on, not just when you need to be rescued etc..... Exhaustion. The #1 cause of FF deaths in the US is still heart attacks, yet we all to often don't do the simple things to prevent them. When you don your pak, don't give into the temptation to jerk down on the shoulder straps.... Tighten them just enough so that they aren't falling off. Then buckle your waist and sinch your pak up so that it rests above your hip bones. Tighten it as tight as you can but so that it is still comfortable. Then return to your shoulder straps and gently snug them again. The end result is the entire weight of the pack is transferred down to your legs through your hips as opposed to your upper body which will fatigue you rapidly. You should be able to take your thumb and slide it between your T/O coat and the back of the shoulder straps with little or no resistance.

FAST is easier to understand over the radio than RIT... But I agree when you say each word that the letters stand for, Rapid Intervention Team sounds much better.

County fire dispatch is by far and away the best choice. I've got no issues with the PD, but at the end of the day, the dispatchers at 60 control have the training, know how, and all the resources that a FD needs. When 60 control dispatches, it is uniform and 99% of the time clear, well spoken and understandable. I cannot say the same is true for PD's, where the desk officer isn't necessarily a trained dispatcher. If the crap hits the fan, there is usually only one officer on the desk. It is impossible for him/her to be handling mutiple situations with his RMP's, taking multiple 911 calls, dispatching FD, dispatching EMS, and calling for additional resources. Let them answer the 911 call, and if the FD is needed, send it on to 60 control. The PD (usually) cannot account for automatic mutual aid, they aren't familiar with other FD/EMS agencies that support the first due, and the propensity to send an RMP to a call to "check it out" happens all too often. This being said, it's not a bash on the PD dispatchers.... Just that 60 control is trained and equipped to do the job and has more resources at their fingertips. 60 control dispatchers have uniform training and SOP/SOG's.

I incorrectly typed that Chappaqua's TL is #23 in my previous post. It's correct designation is TL-27.

Ladder 47 in North White Plains is a Quint Ladder 55 in Elmsford is a Quint Tower Ladder 23 in Chappaqua is a Quint (you wouldn't necessarily call a tower a quint, but it satisfies all the requirements to be one) There are a handful of others in the county (some mentioned in prior posts in this thread) as well as Mohegans and Millwood's TeleSquirts Engine's 250 & 245 (TeleSquirts usually don't meet the requirements for ground ladders on Quints which is generally accepted at 85 feet of ground ladders, vs a minimum of 115 feet for a Truck/Ladder) Quints work great for many departments, especially those in residential areas. The first due piece in the driveway, if it's a quint, is able to take advantage of the best positioning. Close enough for preconnects to reach the building, and for it to be laddered at the same time. If the ladder pipe on the Quint is set up properly, there will be a function for a direct ladder feed from another pump. Thus, the second due engine can supply the stick directly to protect exposures, while the fire pump on the quint can safely be used for hoselines. There are several citys that encorporate Quints into their line up especially for stations that only have a single piece of apparatus. You don't often see a quint and an engine sharing a station. St. Louis went to an all quint setup a few years back, but I don't know it it's still in effect. The biggest argument against quints is that they should perform one function or another at a call. The crew of that rig shouldn't be performing truck and engine functions. When a quint arrives, the crew should have a clear indication from the IC as to whether or not they are performing the function of a truck OR an engine. When the next rig arrives, they can be assigned to abandon their engine, ambulance, whatever it is... and pick up the function of the quint that the first due crew isn't doing... either truck or engine work.... This will work in a department where everyone is cross trained on apparatus. Where you would run into problems might be (for example ONLY) in Mount Kisco, where there are separate companies... If L-43 was a quint (I realize it's not) and it arrived first at a job and was assinged an engine function by the IC, then when E105 rolls up behind it, the operator of that rig would need to be trained to work the turntable as well as the crew would need to be experienced in truck work. Personally, even though I prefer truck work, I love the quint concept.

I believe Rescue 9 (Valhalla) has a pump and a small tank. Rescue 47 (Pleasantville) has a pump. If I recall correctly there are several engines in the county that can nearly double as light-medium rescues with the equipment they carry.... E-270 (Yorktown) E-248 (Millwood) E-235 or E-236 (Archville) E-92 (Briarcliff) I believe most if not all of Mohegan's engines (E-250 thru E-258) carry full extrication setups too. Rumor had it that Thornwood was building a Rescue/Engine I'm sure there are many more engines that carry combi-tools or older tools moved off of dedicated Rescue trucks when new equipment was purchased, as well as other rescue equipment.

This is definately a factor. In places where the box assignement is filled out right away, there is always the chance that you'll get smoked by a mutual aid rig into certain parts of your own territory. I've been part of two departments in PA/MD where this happens. Most of the time when we were on the first alarm, we were out the door before the company that was first due. Often times they were picking up our line, but occasionally they would beat us to our territory. This becomes less of a problem when the ego's relax. You'll find out that your rigs will get out faster because your guys don't want to pick up someone elses line in thier own territory. The net benifit of all of this, is that you've got 3+ engines, a ladder, rescue, ambulance and often a handfull of tankers arriving well staffed within minutes of each other as upposed to when the mutual aid process is left for the chief to arrive and begin calling for help after he realizes that he needs a full assignement but the only apparatus on the road are the ladder and the first engine.

Wow ! An anticipated post... That's a lot of pressure to perform... Where should I begin... Automatic mutual aid is something that folks (read ego's) in Westchester County have been fighting for decades. It is a wonderful resource that is completely underused. Today, too many departments wait for a chief to arrive and determine "on the fly" what mutual aid apparatus he wants and where they want it from. This is crazy. 60 Control isn't packed full of stupid dispatchers. When they take a call, they are capable of determining the severity of the intitial response. SO why not have a list (referred to just about every where else as a box card that corresponds to a specific geographic area in a fire department's first due area) so that the dispatcher can assign apparatus on the initial response that the chief is going to have to stop and call for anyway. This all works out very simply. (Example) Millwood is dispatched to a structure fire, where the dispatcher has already assertained that the fire is 1) Legimit in nature 2) Severe enough that additional apparatus will most likely be needed, 3) any number of other factors that may throw a flag in their mind.... They simply go to a pre-made box assignment for the first alarm in that area (box area) of Millwood's territory. So for example if it's on Allapartus Road, instead of just Millwood being dispatched, the following would be dispatched... Millwood, Ossining E-97 & E-98/U51 FAST, Briarcliff R-37, Croton T-10, Yorktown T-14, OVAC. Once 2251 arrives or Millwood apparatus establishes command, 60 control gives a roll call of dispatched and responding apparatus to the Chief (notice that he hasn't had to worry about any mutual aid requests, JUST whats going on with the fire) At this point, if the chief needs to upgrade to a 2nd alarm he can... But guess what it's already in the CAD under the box assignment for that geographic location and as soon as the command is given L-42, E-119, E-270, T-11, T-12, T-16 are added without the chief having to think about it. Once again leaving them to command the fire operations. If one of the assigned apparatus is OOS or fails to respond, chief doesn't need to be called and radio cluttered up, the dispatcher simply moves to the next piece of apparatus on the system. The chief is able to make all the apparatus decisions for a fire/accident/etc in an office instead of on the fireground. It just takes a little bit of research to see which apparatus, in what order you want from which departments. Not all engines are the same... So saying over the radio while the craps hitting the fan at 4am that you need an engine from XYZ department isn't enough any more. I use the example of Chappaqua all the time... E-144, E-145, E-146 are all very different and highly effective pieces of fire apparatus... E-145's hose reel does be no good when I need 5in. E-144 does me no good when I need foam in a hurry... But E-146 is prepiped. Same goes for Ladders... L-42 and L-44 sure are different aren't they. Calling 60 control and asking for a ladder from Croton will deliver a rear mounted tower ladder to your scene (Allapartus Road is about as narrow as a one lane path)... That would be a great rig to have at a fire near the A&P in Millwood... Not in the middle of the woods where L-42 from Ossining would suit much better... It's a lot nicer when the decision to call for a 100FT straight stick from Ossining was made after some deep thought behind a desk... Not when you've got 4 guys in an attic that may need a way off the top floor of a house 10 minutes from now. Food for thought!

I stand corrected about E-144... I do however think that Ladder 3 was a Hahn... Am I wrong?

Don't want to step on any toes, but every Song flight I've ever been on they do serve food..... And great food at that.... They don't offer it as part of your ticket price (if you don't want to eat, you're not forced to incur that price as part of your ticket) What they do is contract with a food providor like the folks that put sandwiches in Starbucks and other places where you need good food, but the staff isn't going to make it at that location. Song offers, premium menu items like wraps, salads, etc along with typical snack that you can find in a deli from chips to candy bars. They even mix real (as in like shaken not stirred Mr. Bond) martinis right in the isles. Maybe I should be a Song marketing officer.

I flew Song from LGA to Orlando every weekend from Thanksgiving until the end of January and at least once every other month for 3 years.... I have to say that they are top notch. Food, service, ontime, decent amount of airports, and they only fly heavy's so seats don't fill up as quickly as other discount carriers. Jet Blue is good, but they only have 1 route out of LGA... Everywhere else you have to fly out of JFK which is a pain in the back step.

Seems like it was an accident caused by pure stupidity.... see link below http://www.emsvillage.com/forums/messagevi...6&threadid=2433

Chappaqua's Ladder 3 (Retired) and Engine 144 (Refurbed to Pierce Lance I believe) were late '70s Hahn's if I recall correctly. Archville may still run a Hahn as well (E-235) but I'm not positive on that.

Ladder 4 does indeed have a mechanical siren.

To add.... Mid mount's (especially towers) should be positioned as often as possible, diagonally at the corners of buildings. This allows them to perform a rescue from two different sides of the structure. Rear mount's should be backed into driveways/up to buildings as opposed to fronting in. 35-50% of a rear mount truck's aerial effectiveness is lost when it has to reach out over itself to get to the building. Some departments have SOP's that require a truck operator to back into all scenes unless it is physically impossible OR told to do otherwise by the OIC. In a world of drivethrough bays and rearward facing cameras however, more and more new drivers don't have the knack for threading the needle backwards anymore.

Two tags... Red and Green each with your personal info on them. Red tag comes off and is clipped onto a ring on the rig you rode up on so that the safety officer can eventually collect them... Green tag comes off and is given to another designated officer when entering a structure fire, HAZMAT hot zone, large brush fire, USAR or any other area where you might become disoriented and lost. All class "A" FF's (a ff with no restrictions on what they can do) has an additional orange tag that stays attached to the green tag so that a safety officer / IC can identify that they are a FF that can "do everything" on the fire ground. Anyone without an orange tag is considered support personnel who cannot enter a structure fire or operate on the roof/ladder of a structure fire. The additional orange identifier is a good way to let officers keep tabs on people from a distance to ensure everyone's overall safety.

MFC runs a case-by-case scenerio. Some members are permitted to carry gear with them if they live within response distance of either of our stations. Typically Captain and LT's were able to keep their gear in thier cars. However members that only responded to one station on a "regular" basis were generally required to keep their gear at that station. Keeping gear in cars so that members could respond via POV was never really a factor in the decision making process. We operated under the policy that unless it was absolutely necessary under the circumstances for a specific call, that members responded to a fire-station and not to the scene with POV's. Not to say that responding with POV's is bad for all departments, but the road conditions in many parts of New Castle and the surrounding area aren't POV parking friendly at emergency scenes, especially when rigs like Tankers 10, 14, 15, 16, etc are trying to negotiate a shuttle operation around lots of parked cars.

That Berwyn Heights Squad is a nasty rig... Then again, it turns out of Prince Georges County, MD on the D.C. border. Some of the busiest and best vollie departments in the country are located there. They take a lot of time to spec apparatus, as they get put to the test every day in a major way on the Capital Beltway.

I've never been known for my "lack of intensity" around the firehouse / fireground, however on this web page I am developing a level of agitation with the way folks seem to have a chip on their shoulders. It would appear that some folks (some who have made a significant level of posts and thus aren't new to the discussion) haven't figured out that some topics are meant to be "as is" such as incident alerts. Others are intended for brain storming such as those posted regarding training or fire rescue operations. And finally other topics are just meant for fun and don't need Chief Killjoy and his engine crew of Kurmudgens to make condecending comments about the light hearted banter that is going on in them. It's not really that hard to figure what's fun and whats serious. SO.... I don't think I need to name the topics that are meant for fun, nor do I need to mention who Chief Killjoy's crew is because most individuals posting here are mature, intelligent emergency service related personnel and can figure out what's appropriate.... Those who can't play nice in the sandbox should just go find another sandbox to play in.

I just moved from NYC/Millwood to the Orlando Metro area. Disney/Epcot etc is 3.5 hours via car in good traffic. The E-one plant in Ocala is going to be close to a 5 hour hop each way and aside from horseracing farms, and Big Daddy Don Garlit's Drag Racing Museum, there isn't anything up there. True... Florida has huge ambulances... The entire state is almost 100% career (most ambulances are called Rescue's and they have extended commercial chassis with a combi tool on most and a small CAFS pump on some... Ambulances are staffed with FF/Medics and usually run nose to tail with an Engine on all calls..) There are very few vollie departments in the entire state at this point even in ultra rural areas. Effecient air travel and the invention of household a/c brought too many people to the state too fast and the vollies couldn't keep up with what turned out to be a population explosion in the late 70's through the 80's. Most departments replaced vollies long ago. Ft. Lauderdale isn't a far drive from Miami so if you've got time, it's a faster trip to Miami than to Orlando. The Space Center is about 2 hours from Ft. Lauderdale give or take.

Quick Chicken Pot Pie (4-6 people) 2 frozen deep dish pie crusts 2 cans Campells Cream of Chicken or Cream of Mushroom Soup 1 Grocery store rotissery or roasted chicken 1 can whole kernal corn 1 package frozen baby peas 1 package "baby" carrots" Take one pie crust let it sit 10 minutes to warm up a little (leave the other one in the freezer). Prick with fork and bake empty 10-14 minutes @ 375. Take chicken, remove all skin (discard) and then strip it of every ounce of usuable meat. Dice the meat. Slice into nickle size pieces aprox half of the carrots (save the rest for another meal) and quickly boil them for 3 or so minutes until reasonabaly tender.. Combine, half the peas, corn, carrots, two cans of soup (don't add water) and as much of the chicken as you want into a pot and heat. (by this time the crust in the oven should be done.) Save the remainder of the chicken to make chicken salad for lunch the next day. Pour the mix of chix, soup, and veggies into the pie crust. Salt, pepper, oregeno, other spices to your own taste. Take the frozen pie crust and turn it upside down on top of the cooked crust that is full of mix. Eventually the crust will begin to defrost and fall out of the tin. Remove tin without ripping top crust. Message the top crust around the top of the pie to seal it and place back into the oven for 10 minutes (give or take). After aprox 10 minutes switch to broiler to brown crust for 2 mintues. Usually served with naked (no gravy) mashed potatos this is a big hit. Shouldn't take more than 20minutes (maybe more the first time out) from start to finish.

Rocky's Millwood Deli (preferably made by Sue) Double egg, bacon, cheese on a roll (they usually butter the roll and put it on the grill to toast it).... Black pepper with just a touch of mayo ....... Cut in half of course for easy consumption during southbound trip on the TSP.