mfc2257

My point exactly about the 23 year old assistant chief.  Yes, many young firefighters are good officer material...but in most suburban or rural volunteer departments, how many working fires has a 23 year old been to...training is great, but it needs to be combined with experience.  Let the young firefighters put in a few years as firefighters and perhaps lieutenants actually going into fires and getting to know the capabilities of their fellow department members...then let them become captains and chiefs as they become more mature.

And, yes AJSbear, the department I was refering to has some very young lieutenants also.

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I'm not hearing any solutions to this issue.

How about starting here.... If it looks like (for whatever reason) there is a young officer that is coming up in the near future, lets have some senior members of the department step up to mentor such an individual by helping them understand the complexities of being an officer at such a young age. Also, if there are any senior members who were officers at young ages then even better to mentor the current youngblood. ALSO it is easy to get frustrated inside the confines of a single organization when there is no one who is well suited to mentoring a young officer (just because someone is old and salty doesn't mean they are the best choice to help a young officer do the best job possible). Don't let pride get in the way. Sit the young officer down and explain what you want to do in order to better help him in is role as a leader. Then, shop around to some other departments that might offer good young leaders as examples to live by.

Whatever we do though, don't let a young officer fail because no one wanted to spend the time to help him or her.

You think that's bad, I know of a department were the ASST CHIEF is 23 years old...really makes you wonder about the state of today's Fire Service.....

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I agree that we must be wary of young officers. However there are some out there that are the exception to the rule and even though this conversation isn't ment to offend, we should commend those who are capable of filling slots as young officers... One of them is a close friend of mine. He is a 26-27 year old Assistant Fire Chief in Gettysburg, PA. (click on the link below for his bio) A department that runs 500+ fire and 1500+ ems runs annually. He was also a Career FF with Franklin County Company 7 (Fayetteville - Chambersburg) at age 20 and a Career FF with Washington DCFD at age 24 or so. I can honestly say that at his age he is perfectly qualified to fill his role as the Asst. Chief of a busy Volunteer FD. Besides having 10 years of Vol. FF experience and 7 years of career FF experience he's got the pro-board qualifications to back it up.

http://www.gettysburgfd.com/eiker.html

I too was a young officer (So was Remember585) and had I not taken a year to live in the city after college, I probably would have been an Asst. chief at 27 as well. So if you do see a young officer don't necessarily label them as worthless. Listen for a minute, they may be wise beyond their years.

No offense, but the other day you posted how you barely have time to post photos that we send you, and now you're starting a new website?

How much time will this take to do each week and how much will it take away from the original site?

I don't think its a good idea. Just keep posting photos thats what we all want to see. Notice how no one pays attention to your topics anymore? Thats because no one cares! Because all we really care about is that you post the photos you are sent, stop trying to make us think you have "no time" or are "too busy", and just post photos! Thats what this site is mainly here for.

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I'm pretty sure that your opinion isn't shared by most of the other folks that view this site.

Instead of making inflammatory comments and hiding behind a screen name, why don't you show some proof of your statements.

The site administrator can do whatever he wants with this site, his time, or any other site for that matter. Go find another site to jerk off to if all your looking for are pictures.

Find some old carpet (1/2inch) that has a good glue fiber backing. Cut a piece about 6 inches long by 3.5 wide. Take a scrub brush and cut all the bristles off and apoxy carpet upside down to the bottom of the carpet. Apply Mothers/Noxon or whatever you use liberally to surface and work it with the carpet. Have someone else follow right away with a good towel to get excess. Buff after drying as ususal.

Another interesting fact is that trains travel around the terminal. There are a few tracks that are under 42nd street alowing a train to travel south and turn around and go back north..

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If I recall there are four tracks on the lower level that circle around. There aren't used any more mostly due to the fact that the wider electric cars used in todays trains were getting damaged while traveling through the loops. With the lack of a defined front and back to an electric train there is no need to turn it around. I also believe that the diesels are all running these days with the locomotives on the north end of the train (for the most part) and thus they don't need to be turned around either.

I dont know much about trains, but doesnt the MNCX marking mean it was used by Metro North Commuter Rail (which coincides with what lfdR1 was saying...). Thats a pretty cool find!

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The Metro North Commuter Railroad was not named as such 50 years ago or whenever that car was last used. The New York Central Railroad would have been a proper name for the time and it was originally founded as the New York and Harlem Railroad.

MNRR wasn't founded until 1983 when the MTA took over Conrail's operation of commuter service on the line.

I would guess that any markings referencing MNRR on a car that old, would have either been added after it was already sitting there, OR they were coincidental.

MFC, I've seen your scenario many times.  Whenever I have a vehicle in front of me responding I either attempt to take an alternate route, or I stay way behind them.  I teach this in EVOC, as well as using a different siren and often that wailing on it isn't always the best if you are in a urban or downtown area.  You need to be able to recognize if another vehicle is coming so you do not "push" traffic into their lane as well.

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Agreed... I used to get a ton of crap from folks who thought it was annoying to ride with me when I would run the electronic siren on high-low along with the "Q". Much of the reason why many European juristictions continue to use air powered high-low warning is the fact that the change in pitch is what gets drivers attention, not the volume. Along the same line, a Federal Q or any other mechanical siren is actually at its most effective when spun all the way up, and then allowed to growl down at least half way. Don't get me wrong, when I'm frustrated I'll pin the "Q" but its a bad habit.

As far as keeping distance from apparatus in front, I can't agree more. Unfortunatly the scenerio while responding as the 2nd due engine to Kings College presented some situations that placed 2251 and myself in E-247 nose to tail for a short period of time. The details will bore everyone, but my crew and I as well as a motorist that wasn't paying attention were lucky that a buddy of mine shared his unfortunate story with me.

Going to the Kings College Fire a few years back I recall an instance where I was following the at the time 2251 SB on RT100 in E-247. A motorist moved over for him. I moved into the empty oncoming traffic lane just in case. It was a good thing that I did, because the motorist didn't pay attention to anything but the chiefs vehicle and pulled directly back into the SB lane of traffic.

I'm not really sure how it all happened to come to my mind at once, but I moved far to the left because of a story that I was told from a buddy of mine in PA who was driving the wagon behind the truck on the way to a long distance mutual aid call on PA Rt30 towards Chambersburg. Same scenerio, the motorist pulled over for the truck, but back in front of the wagon and got hit. Thankfully no injuries.

Had I not heard that story, the "Q" would have been sitting in the back seat of the car that yeilded to 2251 and not E-247.

BTW my pet peeve is when an emergency unit passes, and cars don't have the decency to slow down so that those who yeilded to the unit can pull safely back into the lane of travel instead of sitting in a dangerous spot on the shoulder.

Why does Pelham Manor respond to a highway job, that's County's turf....

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If it's in Pelham PD's territory it doesn't matter if it's on the highway or secondary road, they still have the ability to patrol and enforce. County and State PD may have the assigned responsibility to patrol highways in Westchester, but I'm nearly positive that local PD's juristiction isn't limited to the town roads.

On the same line sharing a little something I picked up over the years.....

I towed a 44 foot 5th wheel tri axle race car trailer with a Ford F-350 Diesel Dually. Unfortunatly the truck was bought by my brother to get our race cars to the track, but he also wanted his wife to be able to drive it in a pinch so it was an automatic.

We found that an aluminum finned oversize tranny pan as well as a similar differential cover had the greatest effect on temp.

Going to Watkins Glen heading up the huge hills out of Montour Falls the tranny nearly got cooked the first time. After the new pans were installed, the temp never passed 200 degrees. For the Fords it seemed that sustained temps above 215-225 were where damage started to occur.

I will tell anyone who tows heavy loads (or just heavy for the type of vehicle that you are towing with) that the single worst thing you can do for an automatic tranny while towing is to have it downshift while under a load. Don't allow it to sit in drive heading up a huge hill until it's lugging near 1000rpm and then BANG it drops to the next gear.... Learn when the tranny is getting close to it's shift point, get off the trottle, shift it to the next gear manually, and then put your foot back in it. The second item to be aware of is hitting a stretch of road where the tranny is seeking into and out of overdrive. This creates a ton of excess heat and wear. Lock the tranny out of the gear that it keeps seeking in and out of and run the motor at a higher RPM for a period of time. This won't waste as much fuel as you think. Those repeated shifts suck a ton of fuel. This can significantly add to the life of a transmission that is used to tow extreme loads.

DISCLAIMER: The following reflects my individual views only.  They are now way a reflection of any agency I am, or have been, affiliated with. 

Thanks mfc for the quick response.  I guess the point I was getting at was the following.  Assuming you meet for drills 48 weeks a year, and you go to 8 parades every year and you have one inspection dinner a year.  Let's assume that you spend the drill night before the inspection dinner/parade detailing the trucks.  The means 9/48 training nights (one for each parade plus one for the inspection dinner) are spent on detailing rigs, an activity that most likely won't do too much to enhance the training of your members. 9/48=0.1875, or nearly 20% of your training nights are spent on what is essentially a non-essential task. 

Sorry, I just think the amount of time and effort spent on parades is detrimental to the Volunteer Fire Service and is a tradition that should be gotten rid of.

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Jared -

0% of our training nights were spent on washing apparatus for parades. If you reviewed my post, I indicated that 3/4 Tuesdays were spent on training, rigs were washed on Mondays (for a Wednesday parade) or Thursday (for a Friday - Saturday parade).

Sure parades are a non-essential firematic task. There is no doubt about that. But for many people, after they've worked a long week, been to their regularly scheduled training, put dinner on the table, helped the kids with their homework, fought off the flu that got picked up at daycare, and ran 5 calls between the hours of midnight and 6 am that week... etc etc etc etc.... A parade is a nice way to hang out with your buddies.

NOT everything in the world has to be all serious all the time. Maybe we should write to the FDNY and Boston FD hockey teams and tell them that they should stop playing because they could use that time to do more training.

People are allowed a break.

Of your regularly scheduled drill/training nights, how many of them are spent preparing your apparatus and department for parades, inspections, or other non-firematic activities.  Please include the approximate number of drill/training nights you have a year in addition to how many of those are spent on this sort of activity.  This does not includes regular vehicle maintainence or washing off the rig quickly after driving in the snow, or when very dirty.

To paid department members, how many parades does your department participate in a year, what type of apparatus do you send, what sort of coverage do you have for your department when you go to parades.

Thanks in advance for the info.

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In short, very rarely did preparing apparatus for parades conflict with training.

In detail.......When I was Captain in Millwood, in a 4 week month we had 3 Tuesday operations drills, from 7-9:30 or 10:00pm plus a company meeting on the remaining Tuesday. I also hosted Captain's drills or drivers training on Wednesday nights every 3 weeks or so where younger members or folks looking for refreshers could work with me on Q&A items and hands on examples. Parade prep was usually done on the Monday or Thursday before a parade. If possible the current 2252 coodinates with the younger more motivated members to wash the apparatus on thier own time then the company would get together to detail the apparatus on the Monday or Thursday immeadiatly before the parade assuming that it didn't run a messy job in the time following its washing.

Main Entry: bur·glary

Function: noun

Pronunciation: 'b&r-gl&-re also -g&-l&-re also -g&l-re

Inflected Form(s): plural -glar·ies

: the act of breaking and entering a dwelling at night to commit a felony (as theft) ; broadly : the entering of a building with the intent to commit a crime

- bur·glar·i·ous/"b&r-'glar-e-&s, -'gler-/ adjective

- bur·glar·i·ous·ly adverb

Next»Back to resultsMain Entry: rob·bery

Function: noun

Pronunciation: 'rä-b(&-)re

Inflected Form(s): plural -ber·ies

: the act or practice of robbing ; specifically : larceny from the person or presence of another by violence or threat

It was a robbery, according to the dictionary.  Sorry, former educator here...

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The station that I used to run out of had a great system to prevent this. After the tones dropped, there was a system that unlocked all the exterior pedestrian doors to the apparatus bay for 5 minutes. In addition, any bay door opened via the garage door opener in the apparatus itself closed as soon as the apparatus had crossed the threshold of the bay. So not only did you not need a key to get in if you were responding (side doors open for 5 minutes) but once the units responded the bays were closed. Kind of a cool system. I've never seen it replicated.

I'm certainly no expert, but by definition a robbery is larceny from the person or presence of another by violence or threat..... If there was no violence or threat, and the victim wasn't present, it sounds like a burglary...

For those who haven't read this yet...

July 25, 2006 -- Doctors amputated the right leg of an elite firefighter who was badly hurt when an out-of-control taxi cab pinned him against a firetruck on the Upper West Side last week, sources said yesterday. John Walters, 37, of Rescue 1, had his legs crushed in last Wednesday's tragic accident, which also injured firefighter buddy Mike Schunk.

A team of doctors at Bellevue Hospital worked nearly 12 hours to stabilize the more seriously injured Walters.

The firefighters, who had stopped to buy dinner, were walking behind their rig, double-parked at 71st Street and Columbus Avenue, at around 10:30 p.m. when they were hit.

Cabby Mohammed Ali Kharmis told cops he was cut off by another car and forced into the lane where the firetruck was parked. Kharmis was not charged.

Schunk was in stable condition at New York Hospital

Mamaroneck spent alot of money implementing with great success the fire ground plan here, we were able to make sure a portable radio is available for every interior FF and additional are available for Exterior crews too.  We dont use repeaters and we seem to work just fine.

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It is great that individual departments have allocated funding and resources to their own communications initiatives. This does not solve however, the massive county wide problem that exists when most agencies aren't on the same page.

Every department should have the same core frequencies in their radios both on apparatus and portables. If a department wants to add a talkaround freq for drill, or non emergency items thats fine.

The county needs to license 8 fire freqs for use aside from 46.26. Assign 4 freqs to the southern end of the county, and 4 to the northern end (with all 8 freq's being programmed into all apparatus regardless of their location for use in those rare occasions when a unit from northern Westchester ends up down county). Dispatch on 46.26 and when a unit calls 10-17 the dispatcher acknowledges the response and assigns them a channel immeadiatly to switch to. The apparatus switches to that channel and never speaks over 46.26 again.

But until the county mandates the way apparatus communicate instead of letting departments choose on thier own, there is still going to be a rats nest of communicatios problems in the county.

The entire county wide system is a piece of junk. I've said it here a million times with concrete examples of how to make it work....

But again the way to make it work isn't to have more dispatching agencies.

The way to make it work is to hire a county fire coordinator who is successful in taking a totally unorganized county like Westchester and setting a standard for communications and operations for the entire county. The problem is that everyone is still communicating the way that they "want" to... Instead of the way that the county should mandate them to. If frequencies were set and SOP's for communicating crossed municipality lines by mandate, this problem wouldn't exist.

Until someone is willing to take Grasslands by the horns the county will continue to be a communications mess.

This is a fact !

In my opnion if your fire district has the money now to put on paid staff, SHAME on you for not doing so. Lets think about the customers/tax payers first. They deserve the best service. Now I know not every dept has the money to do so. For those that do and you know who you are shame on you! Face it the day of the volunteer is coming to a end. Let prepare for the future now. 

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So.... Shame on everyone... Huh... Well I'm not anti career or overly pro volunteer... But if the days of the volunteer are over, why does Ossining consistantly turn out 5 engines two trucks and a rescue with over 50 FF's at the average fire when the average career department runs a 2-3 man rig at best. Even the smaller Westchester volly departments get out with 4 or more on a rig.

This career vs vollie garbage has to stop.... When it's time to switch to a career service, it'll be completely clear. Bravo to Peekskill, Mohegan, etc. where th combination of vollies and career FF's is working. Bravo to Yonkers, Hardsdale, Whiteplains, etc. who have awesome career services... BUT at the very same time, BRAVO to Yorktown, Bedford Hills, Pound Ridge, MILLWOOD, Croton, Purchase, Somers, Irvington, Dobbs Ferry, etc etc etc etc etc who are getting it done......... Straight up Volunteer...

I look forward to seeing the next Westchester department that adds a career supplement for the RIGHT reasons. I also look forward to seeing the next career department in Westchester that moves to a 4 man engine and a 5 man truck. I don't look forward to ever seeing a department bullied into stepping aside for career staffing if they are getting the job done.

For the departments that cannot provide fire protection to their community, sure maybe it's time to start exploring adding career FF's to supplement the vollies.

But shame on no one when there is a dedicated set of vollies that are getting the job done. Go to Pennsylvania, Virginina, Maryland, Upstate NY, Ohio, and say shame on you. I'd love to see the response you get.

In my mind, if you are committed to a certain facility then that's where you are going, unless you get a report that the facility in question is on divert itself due to a lack of beds for the class of patient that you have OR if the patients condition changes and requires a different type of facility.

If you have departed for a particular facility and the patient changes their mind, they can be checked into the hospital that you are originally enroute to, and moved at a later date via an ambulance service.

My opinion is, that Acute Emergency (911 dispatched) EMS providers are not taxi drivers. It is their obligation to take the patient to the nearest facility that can treat the condition which the patient is suffering. Beyond that, it is up to the patient or their family to get them to a facility of preference after the Emergency Room as stabilized the patient and prepared them for admission. Emergency care should be transferred to a medical facility ASAP so that the patient not only has the full resources of a hospital ASAP, but so the unit that transported them can return to service ASAP.

Just my two or three cents.

Armed or not, isnt this thing still a rocket, has to be dangerous?

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Not necessarily. This type of ordinance isn't transported in a ready to launch mode. The fuel cell or propulsion system were most likely disabled or removed.

A 9000 gallon fuel tanker in the same accident represents a much more dangerous risk.

I feel like BHFD TL 57 is a tower ladder for about 15 municipalities.

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Well... They kind of are.... Think of it this way

Aside from running thier RIT operations off the Tower....

They are most likely first due in the following municipalities:

Bedford Village, Katonah, Pound Ridge, most of South Salem, most of Goldens Bridge, parts of Armonk, parts of Vista... All departments without an aerial device who don't necessarily need to go purchase one either.

They are second due to:

Mt. Kisco, Somers, Banksville, parts of Yorktown, parts of Croton Falls (I think),

They are third due to parts of Chappaqua, parts of Millwood, and even parts of Croton possibly (it's not far across 35 down to 129 and into Croton's eastern box)

SO if you get a big job (remember there are big houses as well as commercial property in those juristictions) chances are there might be three trucks there. Chances are Bedford Hills is going to be one of them, especially if other departments in between have already been tapped for Engines or Tankers.

Given TPWS's indication that this forum should have been about departments not providing mutual aid if they aren't prepared to still protect thier own first due, then I totally agree and I'll delete my littany of quoted replies to his prior posts which you may have seen in this space a moment ago.

Example of Backfilling: Patterson relocates to Brewster while Brewster is tied up at a job. Patterson gets something while relocated to Brewster and Kent is relocated to fill Brewsters house.  We do this all the time to keep a sufficient amount of coverage.

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Back filling doesn't appear to be the hot button here. Just packing up and leaving a "scene or station" because you want to, are sick of being there, or for another call isn't right under any scenerio.

If you are on the scene, you are committed to the scene.

If you are filling someone's quarters, and there a county wide accepted system for backfilling, and the department for which you are standing by for participates in such a system then fine you can leave to take the call so long as a next due unit is alerted immeadiatly to cover your assignement for the standby.

Overall though, outside of large citys, I wouldn't favor a system of backfilling. It's easy to move Truck 16 across Central Park to fill Truck 4's quarters. It's the same department. If Brewster is relying on Patterson to fill their quarters, I wouldn't want to worry about Patterson leaving to take calls, locking the building, waiting for Kent to arrive, make sure someone can unlock the building.... etc. I would hope that if Patterson has a rig in Brewster, that the remainder of Patterson's department is aware of that and diligent about covering calls in their box. If they get a job that requires additional resources, activate the mutual aid system again.

Just my 2 cents....

Very catchy.....I like it

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Ditto

I'll tell you what's really dumb and ignorant is not having enough men and equipment to respond and suppress a single alarm fire including having a FAST TEAM standing bye, which 99.9% of the time is not needed. M/A is suppose to be used for the BIG ONE, not your everyday bread and butter job, which eventually becomes a big BUFF Convention! I'll take everyone's advice though, and be sure to tell the people who are standing on their front lawn watching their house burn in my juristiction, that I can't help them because I have to respond to a neighboring town for standby. I'll shout it over the rigs PA system as we pass them bye.  I'm sure that's what they want to hear. M/A is an agreement between municipalities, not a LAW. There's nothing written in stone that governs this policy. You're not going to be charged with abandonment as if your performing CPR on a patient and you decide to leave for another call. Let's all wake up and get our priorities straight fellows, before someone needlessly gets seriously injured or dies! Like I, along with many of my collegues in the Fire Service in West.Cnty. always state, the M/A system is a debacle and abused too often, to supplement another Depts. inadequate staffing and equipment levels! And don't say you can't pick up and leave a scene or station to respond back to your own juristiction. It was done to our Dept. 2 yrs ago by neighboring m/a depts. operating at a General Alarm and also by my Dept. standing bye in a neighboring city's station on at least 2 occassions that I know of. Our own come first in my opinion, especially if your not engaged in an aggressive offensive operation and it's nothing but another surround and drown operation!

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WOW..... I can't believe you actually posted that..... Just because someone else left your job doesn't mean that it's ok for you to do it to someone else. When your tones are dropped for a M/A response, you are part of that fire command and the scope of their needs until released. Even if there isn't chapter and verse to say so (which I'm sure there is something in the county M/A charter that says that there is) it's common respect to stay until you're not needed. THEN even after you aren't needed any more it's the right thing to ask if the department would like your assistance back in quarters to finish getting back in service.

WOW... WOW... WOW.....

I think the use of hybrid electric busses is great. Not because I think there is any weight behind all the crybaby global warming complaints that Al Gore and crew are shooting around (the earth heats and cools in cycles over hundredes & thousands of years) but because of all the obvious benefits to practicality.

Less moving parts (no transmission), smoother ride (no annoying shifts from the bus driver who loves to mash on the throttle then lift all the way off), smaller diesel engines (a 5.9L was quoted which sounds like the Cummins powerplant that is offered in Ram's and light commercial applications versus a huge 60 series or M11 etc.) less fuel costs, less soot to cover the winshield of my car when following etc....

I think there are other places where this can be implemented sooner than later... Garbage trucks make a perfect fit for this. They are on the road every day making tons of stops where regenerative braking will benefit and their automatic transmissions take a massive beating (again... garbage truck chauffers love to jam on the throttle, run 1st gear to redline, lift off just in time to have the tranny shift, then pounce on the brakes to make another stop.)