dwcfireman

This is the story for every volunteer department. We all need more volunteers. We need more firefighters to fill the seats and to respond to even the most mundane alarms. Spreading the word through news and social media definitely helps, as does recruitment drives. It would be nice to one day say that we have enough trained personnel on all of the rigs, but that day is far away. I would also like to note that the second article (literally just below this one) is for a puppy stuck in a tree. How does that happen? haha

Neither Snorkel nor Tele-squrt....Just a bada$$ with a boom! Hahaha

I've watched this thread since Seth started it, and I've seen a bunch of people quote "experience" as a top priority for pilots. I wholeheartedly agree that pilots need greater levels of experience to fly the bigger planes. So, I'm going to throw a little aviation knowledge at you folks. The way it right now to become an airline pilot (that is to make it to Delta, United, American, etc.) you need thousands of hours of flight time. To get to the top, and not even talking about the 747's and A380's, there are a lot of stepping stones along the way. First, you have to get your pilot license, then get your IFR (instrument flight rules) rating, multi-engine, commercial, and turbo/jet ratings. On top of this, the airlines also prefer that you complete a four year college degree, more specifically in flight operations. Whether you complete your flight time/ratings and college separately or together, you have already spent close to $180,000! This may vary depending on your skills, whether you complete college early, or if you require extra hours. Now you're at the point to be hired by some dinky little airline that flies short legs with tiny airplanes carrying less than 10 passengers...Cape Air comes to mind. After you build up enough hours, now you're ready to move to a regional airline, flying the regional jets with 20 to 70 passengers (p.s. you start this part of your career making about $25,000). Again, you build up some hours, you work your way up to captain on the largest of the regional jets, and now you're ready to move onto a mainstream airline. Let's say you get hired by Delta; they train you to fly the MD80. Not a jumbo jet by any means, but it's much larger. You again work your way up to captain, and hopefully bump up to something larger....let's say a 757. You keep repeating the process, graduating to larger aircraft, gaining more hours, graduating to the next larger aircraft, until you hit the mandatory retirement age of 65. If you happen to be one of the lucky few that actually did make it to a jumbo jet, then you are sitting well. Unfortunately the majority of pilots don't get to make it that far (or any where close, for that matter), and settle for a more measly retirement package. Now, what jetBlue wants to do is make it easier for their pilots to get into that right seat (Flight Officer/Co-Pilot). By taking people off the street with little to no flight experience, jetBlue can train you to fly their aircraft, and SPECIFICALLY their aircraft. Their training program will mold your skills and knowledge to blend with their expectations and ensure that their pilots are flying their planes the way they want you to. It may cost you $125,000 up front, but you will start flying an E190 at $50,000 (estimated). From what I understand, talking to jetBlue employees, is that this program is designed to create career pilots that will stay with jetBlue, especially since there is going to be a nation wide pilot shortage in the near future (same as with air traffic controllers, which is why the FAA is doing the same thing). This, in my opinion, is a far better deal than starting from scratch on your own. But, before I end my educational post, I'm going to throw in my two cents over the "experience" issue. As many of you know, and if you don't just look at my profile picture, I am an Aircraft Rescue Firefighter. In my experience, pilots with fewer hours tend to declare the most emergencies. There is a multitude of reasons why they decide to declare, but I have noticed in my career that emergencies are declared less by experienced pilots. An example of this is the belly landing we had this past December at HPN. The pilot said he stayed in the air for a couple hours troubleshooting and trying to find a way to get his gear down. When he couldn't find a solution, he did a low pass to confirm the problem, and very gently put his plane down on our secondary runway. It was a beautiful job. An example of a less experienced pilot, he had a landing gear indicator light saying the gear wasn't down. But, he forgot to change the bulb to see if that was the problem first. He very well could have avoided declaring an emergency and save himself a little embarrassment by remembering his training and checklists. So, what I'm getting at here is that experience does makes things run smoother, especially for pilots. The more experience they have, the more hours they fly (especially over a long range of aircraft), the better they are at flying. I'm knocking jetBlue's plan to hire and train new pilots, as many European airlines already implement this program, but experience does show when an emergency pops up midflight.

Of course backing in a midmount will get you better reach an maneuverability, but I think in most cases, since the truck is already moving forward, a little bit of tunnel vision keeps the truck moving forward into the grass. This definitely always overlooked when "beaching." Thankfully, there aren't too many of these concerns in residential neighborhood front yards, but then again, you never know. Also, septic tanks and oil tanks tend to be closer to the building (I'm not saying they always are, there are some weird set ups when you start talking about terrain and access issues). But, when you get into housing developments and apartments buildings (or even commercial and industrial developments), it truly is no man's land underground. We have no idea what is beneath are feet.

Back home we used to "beach" our quint ALL the time (1999 RD Murray pictured below). I cannot speak for AerialScope, but if you need to place a ladder in a specific spot, go for it. You can always call for a wrecker to pull the rig out of the mud (and our quint got stuck quite a few times). From what I've witnessed, soft terrain was never an issue for stabilizing the truck. The outriggers just compact the ground below with the use of 3X3' steel pads. With that said let me explain why we always "beached" this truck. The village has wide streets, and every house is 50' or more from the roadway centerline. By "beaching" the quint we always guaranteed the ladder in the front (the quint was first due any way), and also got the turntable underneath or past the power lines above. The village is well hydranted, so water supply was never an issue as the first due. But the front yards of burning homes was the quint's spot. I don't remember who took the photo. And I apologize, I don't have any in-service shots.

Huuuge! Beautiful, but HUGE!

For those of you who are unaware, the biannual MCI drill at the Westchester County Airport is being held on Saturday May 7, 2016. This is a cool two months away, so if any of your departments have been invited, I strongly encourage you to take part in the drill. It is definitely a learning experience, and it is also a long day. So, if you are coming, be prepared to be outside for a long period of time (And please pay attention to the weather. Dress for the temperature and precipitation, and STAY HYDRATED!). Now that my general announcement is out of the way, let's get into some questions... I've been with the airport for eight years now, and I've had the pleasure to meet many people from different of backgrounds that do respond to the airport under the airport's emergency response plan for aircraft emergencies. I'm starting this thread to try to get a handle on various responders' knowledge of airport and aircraft familiarity, as well as their respective roles when they respond to the airport for an emergency. How many of you out there have any type of aircraft rescue firefighter (ARFF) training? Is there anyone out there that has a good understanding of the airfield layout (taxiways, runways, ramps, etc.)? How well do you know aircraft? What is role when you do respond (other than sit in the staging area)? I would also like to use this thread to answer any questions anyone may have about the emergency response plan and what is supposed to happen during an aircraft emergency. And, NO, I don't have any insider information of what the drill scenario is going to be (haha).

Well, considering an alert could happen at any time, including in the middle of a weekday when a lot of volunteers are at work, we're probably not going to get full crews on fire apparatus. However, the airport and the county have worked together to adjust for that. Example: Engine 1 responds with 4 firefighters (including the driver), E2 with 3, and E3 with 5. That's 3 engines with 12 firefighters (3 being drivers). Since an aircraft accident requires more manpower than it does equipment, we'll take the 2 firefighters from E2 and throw them on E1 so we can have an engine with a full crew on the field. E3 has a full crew so they can come to the field, too. This means that E2 and it's driver will remain at the staging area, waiting for its crew to return at the end of the accident. This also doubles as a safety and security measure by limiting the number of vehicles on the field while also keeping the accident site unclogged of unnecessary apparatus. Astorino doesn't necessarily want to add more flights. He has plans to expand the airport and commercial service to include more of the larger aircraft, reduce the number of smaller, noisier aircraft, and make commercial passenger service more flexible. With that said, even if the airport gets a longer runway and/or adds more flights, the airfield will always remain a Design Group III airport under the Airport Reference Code. Group III restricts the wingspan of aircraft up to (but not including) 118 feet. Essentially, the airport is designed to handle a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 at the largest, and we will never see larger aircraft than that. With that said, we will also never see a passenger load on an aircraft more than 155 (including crew members). So, the need to change the response is not necessary, including the fact that the airport will never have to change its ARFF index, either.

While I agree with you on this, there's no better leader than the one that gets out there and does the same training as everyone else. Yes, the chief needs to worry about those meetings, the safety issues, the rig maintenance, etc. But, every once in a while, a great leader needs to get out there and show that he/she still has the skills and can still do the job. This is partly because the chief still needs to know how to do the ob, especially in a day and age where science is proving different fireground conditions, equipment is becoming more integrated and innovative, and just to keep the skills up in general. A great leader needs to be just as reliable on the fireground as followers. The other thing that is great about this is the chief is showing that he hasn't left the workers in the dust. He hasn't forgotten about them and the work that they do. A lot of career chiefs just settle into their offices and never go back into the line of duty. But, if you go out there and show the front line personnel that you can still do the job, you earn their respect 1,000 times over. The firefighters know that you can still do what they do, and that you haven't become just a political desk jockey. The fire service needs leaders, not bosses with bright white coats and helmets. Lead by example, lead with courage!

We have two Oshkosh Striker 4X4's and a Chevy Tahoe that are staffed by the Airport Operations Department. The Tahoe (Airport 1/2951) is staffed by the airport operations supervisor who establishes Airport Command and is the incident commander until it's transferred to a mutual aid chief. The strikers (Airport 7 and 11) are staffed by a minimum of two airport operations coordinators, so one in each truck. During the weekdays we have additional staffing, so you'll see two in each truck. Our job is the initial containment of the fire and to assist victims with evacuation from the aircraft. Once mutual aid is on scene with us, we become the technical advisers for the strike teams operating in and around the aircraft. As for training, I'll preface this by stating that we only do ARFF; We don't do any structural firefighting at the airport (but we will take care of car fires and brush fires on the field). We are all certified by FAA standards to be ARFF personnel (IMO that's definitely not enough training). Some have been to FAA approved 40 hours basic ARFF classes, and few have been to the advanced classes. So, overall, there isn't a lot of initial hands on fire training (mostly because NYS is a home rule state and we can get away with meeting the FAA minimums). There are a few of us that are or have been volunteer firefighters, so we do bring a lot of experience and knowledge to the table, and everybody learns from us who do have real experience. The operations department does meet monthly to conduct re-certification training in the 11 ARFF areas that we need to train in, and we also throw in extracurricular classes such as first aid, CPR, incident command, and general OSHA training. We do train with some of the responding agencies. Again, IMO we don't train with them enough, especially since we only tend to conduct nursing drills feed the ARFF trucks. I would love to see more training with all of the responding agencies in all of the aspects of the emergency response plan like handline work, aircraft extrication, triage, airport familiarization, etc. So, tell your chief that you want to train at the airport more and do more than just flow water to a giant masterstream on wheel! haha

Biannual can mean twice per year OR once every two years/every other year (the English language is funny like that). Essentially, it's the live exercise on even years, and a table top on odd years.

I'm pretty sure Seth put up disclaimers saying that it was rumor first before he edited his post to be fact. And I heard about the situation from someone in ROCHESTER (mind you that is a 6 hour drive away) before I heard about it here in Westchester. The facts are here. But, whatever, you're not on this site any more, or so you say.

"When I am called to duty, God" This is the opening line of the Fireman's Prayer. God is the seventh word. Just saying. But, in all honesty, who cares? If that community and department is heavily religious, then let them have "In God We Trust" on the rigs. If it offends enough people, then the decal can be removed. With all of the political correctness that we have to endure, it's nice to see people showing what they believe in and practicing their First Amendment rights.

I received the letter from an anonymous source. Please don't ask how I obtained a copy.

One of my friends that works for Rural Metro said they're sending a crew to cover a 96 hour tour in White Plains. I don't have any other details.

Sad to see a brand new rig beat up like that. It didn't look like it was in bad shape...Maybe a few repairs needed.

They missed on opportunity here....BARC! (Basic Animal Rescue Course) It's closer to BARK than BART is.....

I got bored....If you're going off a FDNY designed rescue, you're probably right. But lets look at a few things: Manhattan is 33.77 sq mi, covered by 1.5 rescues (Rescue 1, and Rescue 3 covers Harlem) Westchester County is 500 sq mi. This means that if Westchester had the same population density as Manhattan, we would need 22 Rescues! I'll also add that NYC in total is 304.6 sq mi covered by 5 rescues (I thought a sixth was added after 9/11, if any body can provide better info on that). But in terms of population, Westchester would need 1 rescue....And if Manhattan had the population density of Westchester they would require 0.35 of a rescue. Realistically, Westchester could get away with having 2-4 heavy rescues, with maybe 5 or 6 medium duty rescues to supplement the distances and area coverage. P.S. I wanted to include the call volume for alarms that required a response by a rescue, but I came up empty. Those numbers would definitely shed light on how equipment is designed and allocated.

http://www.oshkoshairport.com/en/SnowTrucks.aspx This is some of the stuff we use (H series brooms and blowers, P series plows...)

Yeah, my prediction was off by a few inches haha. However, it's nice to be home after plowing the airport for two days (PS HPN stayed open the whole storm!)

I don't know, Seth...It looks like the models are pushing the storm southward, and the majority of forecasts are now saying 4 to 12 inches (as to possibly up to 30 inches as forecasted earlier this week). My guess: 6 inches.

First, I appreciate you taking the time to provide the numbers. Second, my intention was not to offend any body. My point was that you cannot guarantee a large number of volunteers for every call (trust me, I'm a volunteer, too, and I speak from experience) to supplement a small paid staff. And, since volunteers have to work other jobs to earn livable wages, you can't guarantee that enough of them will be around for every call. This is where having an aggressive recruitment AND retention program works. Get them in and keep them in. Third, if you think I'm belittling the paid staff in your fire house...I'm not. You assumed that I meant that the paid staff IS paid drivers rather than what I ACTUALLY meant: They get the apparatus to the scene. At no point did I ever mention that they just sit at the pump, sit on the turntable, or just hang out in the driver seat. I know that plenty of departments with small staffs utilize their drivers for on-scene operations (some supplemented by volunteers, some without). It's just the way it is around southern Westchester...hell, even around the country!

Even though there's 17 career firefighters, there's only 3 on duty at a time, and they're essentially paid drivers. And of the 18 volunteers, most of them probably have 9-5 jobs and aren't around for the majority of calls. I'm sure some of them even have second (or third) jobs, too. Which leaves the question, how many volunteers are responding on average to an alarm? 3? 5? 10? Unless there's a huge volunteer on every alarm, the staffing levels are dangerously low.

It's still too early to tell. At the airport we don't take weather seriously until within 48 hours of the event. Within 24 hours we start preparing snow removal teams and informing the airlines of the latest trends and models from the NWS. This one is probably going to be a doozy. Buy some food, some booze, and sit back and relax!

Because that's the way it is in America. I'm sure if the taxpayers knew exactly what was going on, how the money is being spent, then maybe someone will step to the plate and petition the problem. Until then, status quo. I commend the leadership in the City of Rye for acknowledging that there is a problem in their emergency services AND that they want to fix it. Unfortunately, you and I both know that getting volunteers this day and age is extremely difficult. Who knows what the solution will be? I just hope the mayor and city manager think things out before declaring an idea as a solution.