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It definitely was not Briarcliff. While we road tested a Ward LaFrance for our single station Scarborough Engine Company in the early 70's, we purchased the Mack CF instead, which was replaced by our current Pierce. Archville had a Hahn which they replaced with a Pierce.

I was a volunteer for 37 years in three different FD's and two different VAC's. Just before leaving the area my Dept. started one of those LOSAP programs. I didn't stay long enough to get vested. Wouldn't have mattered anyway. I did it for the job, the commaraderie,the good feeling you got when you intervened in someone's worst day to help them through it. If you need incentive beyond that to be 'retained' maybe you need to find something else to do.

Just asking. "They want you to make more money and be taxed less" How do you pay a civil service employee more, without raising taxes? Taxes and Fees are the basic revenue streams available to pay civil service wages and benefits. You can't have higher wages and more benefits without more revenue (taxes and fees) from the general public and private companies.

Residential sprinklers is the right answer. And, if your in a rural area, dependent on wells for water supply, the cost of a buried 3000 gal water tank and pump for your home sprinkler would be negligable for any McMansion. Probably not more than the cost of the swimming pool you put in to only use a couple months a year. Value that against the life of your family and your property. I never understood why people in CA with all the wild fires, don't have both interior and exterior sprinkler systems using their pools as a supply. How many photos of burned out shells do you see with a pool full of water in the backyard. People will spend money on just about anything but their basic safety needs.

There was a Chief in a CT town years ago that must have had a radio implant. The second the County finished the dispatch, the Chief signed on as responding. Somehow I think there must have been some lag times before he was truly in his role as Chief and initiating an effective response. No matter what criteria 'we' use to establish these times, the only one that matters is the time between the person summoning our assistance and our ability to intervene and assist. Not a first responder getting there and holding their hand telling them more help is on the way, actually being able to provide them sufficient equipment and members to deal with their situation, be it fire, ems or other. Anything else is just creative accounting.

You know, these staffing issues, whether rural Pennsylvania or suburban Westchester, boil down to this. If you want to rely on a volunteer system, you will sometimes get an adequate response of dedicated, professional citizen firefighters who will bust their buts to save your life and property. Sometimes, Not. Thats not a negative criticism, its reality. In a volunteer system you can get a huge response or no response depending on time of day, time of year, whatever. You want a guaranteed 24/7 response. You have to go paid and the taxpayers have to be willing to accept the increase in cost to offset the benefit.

We just dodged Hurricane Rina, the last possible storm to affect us this season, which ends Tuesday. So, another year with no storms. Ironically, 'you' got the only Hurricane to hit the East coast this year. Now its just 60's to 80's typical till next June. I moved South because of the cold and snow. I'll take the occasional Hurricane anytime to four months of constant cold and frequent snow storms.

You don't say where in Florida you are, but Palm Beach State College (formerly Palm Beach Community College) in Lake Worth, offers EMT training. They are in the process of expanding and building a new Public Safety education building for EMS and CSI training.

I guess I'm missing something here. If a vehicle, car of truck, presumably loaded with explosives, is heading into a planned collision with a structure, etc., it would be ok for the police to 'open fire' to 'take out' the vehicle before it completes its mission, but they can't do the same if its a plane? Would they have to stop firing on the vehicle if it hits a bump and becomes airborne for a few feet? It's nice to think the military can intervene, but on 9/11 all the military jets that were scrambled lacked armament. Has that changed since 9/11? Is the military now ready to do battle on a moments notice? Part of the underlying theme that I took away from the 60 minutes interview was that NYC was saying to the Feds, 'thanks but no thanks, despite all your resources we're not going to rely on you, or count on you to take care of our business'

Again, if true, it's just Somers being pro-active and putting the needs of the community first. This is the obvious future for much of the fire service, combination departments replacing formerly volunteer only departments. Works in lots of town, can work in lots more, all to the benefit of the citizens the departments are meant to serve and protect.

I think most deparatments have a standard mutual aid plan for themselves. In my department, my engine company was not typically the mutual aid engine. But when our department was called for mutual aid, essentially drawing down our own response capabilities, a number of my engine company members would come down to our station to be available should a call come in. What I find most disconcerting is the lack of coverage within the district during parade season. Its your most active members who participate in the parades and we have never had a formal plan in place to leave a crew 'on duty' while everyone is out of town for the parade. I remember one time when we had all congregated waiting to leave for the parade, looked around at who was going and collectively wondered, Uh, who's left to respond? I stayed behind with another interior firefigher/EMT and the Chief told us to respond to anything in the district whether or not it was our normal response area. We took in two calls that days, both non-events but at least there was a response to deal with it. With a volunteer department you don't know if your response is 1, 2, 10 or 30. If your going to send apparatus and/or manpower out of town, you should ensure that your own district is covered.

I didn't see this identified. It's Briarcliff Manor, replaced by a new building a couple hundred feet down the road in the mid/late 60's.

Never felt comfortable along that stretch of the TSP. Way back in the 70's we (Briarcliff) used to have numerous, sometimes multiple fatalities in a single accident, every year along our stretch before it was all redone improving the grades and sightlines. Since then the accidents became less severe, the fatalities much less. Much of the upper TSP has also been 'fixed' over the years, but this stretch simple does not allow for much improvement due to the terrain. When I signed on and saw it was TSP at Peekskill Hollow Road, I was not surprised.

Sikorsky used to have its own station down at the Southside plant there, in addition to their station at the main plant in Stratford. I don't think its still in service. The Sirkorsky plant has a pretty impressive industrial department. And what about Bridgeport's fireboat?

I think NJMedic covered it as well as it can be. Its about the lost ones and those they left behind, not the ones who went to help, whose actions have been acknowledged but for which no special recognition should be necessary. That was the job then, its the job now and its not supposed to be about recognition. To approach it otherwise, I think, diminishes the selfless acts of so many professionals and volunteers who came for no other reason than the instinct within them to help.

Why would the assumption be that that these individuals work would be inferior? and, 'scab' is a union reference meant to inflame the situation by demeaning the replacement workers. Don't complain about the business practices or compensation of Verizon executives if you are just a service subscriber. Its none of your business what they are paid and their business strategies, including moving jobs off shore are meant to benefit the bottom line of the company and its stockholders. If your a Verizon stockholder and are unhappy with the companies performance or practives, then you have a right to complain. Verizon execs are not accountable to anyone other than its stockholders for its' practices or performance. Start complaining to your Congressional representatives to change the laws and regulations that make it so inviting to send the jobs off shore rather than keeping them here. The corporate execs are going to do whatever makes the company the most money, thereby enriching themselves in the process. If they could do that as easily in this country as foreign countries, they would. It really is that simple, Let them make as much money here and we all benefit. Congress (all of them, not just Democrats, not just Republicans) doesn't 'get it'. And it they don't 'get it', we won't get it either.

Maybe Bnechis will see this post and have the answer. If its legit maybe it has to do with the fact that on some bridges there is no way to give the right of way and by coming up on someone with lights and sirens you could cause them to panic and just stop dead in their tracks, blocking any further progress. Just a thought.

Some departments, particularly rural areas, don't have the luxury of waiting until their members reach 21 or 25 or whatever. We all know 18 year olds with more maturity than some 40 year olds. I think you have to deal with it on a department by department, individual by individual basis depending on its specific needs. Regardless of the age, training is crucial, especially with tankers as they offer their own particular operating difficulties. One of our local departments rolled their tanker a few years back and it was being driven by one of their most mature and experienced members. It happens.

My point was only to highlight the overlap in services provided by different agencies to the same locale. While there is no "County Fire Department" the County has taken over the majority of dispatch, maintains the training center, the C&O Teams, the County Coordinators on mutual aid calls, maintains apparatus at the training center and I'm not 100% sure but doesn't it have a hazmat unit and other assets that respond to incidents around the County? I don't think it would take much for the County to get into the active suppression phase of firefighting, particularly if someone comes up with a cost benefit proposal that will save a cash strapped Village/Town/City some money. As our politicians are quick to say these days, "everything is on the table".

Forward thinking in terms of years down the road. Locally there are many examples of different agencies covering the same 'jurisdiction'. Briarcliff, for example, covers the Village of Briarcliff and some, not all, of certain unincorporated areas in the Town of Ossining and the Town of Mt. Pleasant. Other parts of these same Towns are covered by Archville, Pocantico Hills, Pleasantville, Ossining, Hawthorne and maybe some others. And, EMS coverage may be provided by other agencies. I also lived in Millbrook, in Dutchess County. Need a cop? You could call the Millbrook PD, the Dutchess County Sheriffs or the State Police. Take your pick. Respond to a PIAA with Briarcliff and you might meet up with a Village of Briarcliff cop, a Town of Ossining (now Westchester County) cop, a Town of Mt. Pleasant cop, or a State Trooper. The Westchester County Police overlaps many local jurisdictions and just absorbed the Town of Ossining PD. Who's next? What if the Town of Ossining wanted to 'contract' its fire service to the County instead of to the Village of Briarcliff FD and Village of Ossining FD? What if the Town of Mt. Pleasant went to the County and said instead of getting fire coverage from three or four departments it wanted the County to do it? One day push will come to shove and a transition will begin. It may take 20 years but it will eventually happen. Where I live now, in Palm Beach County, FL., the County last year absorbed the fire and police services of the City of Lake Worth, a City that previously had its own paid police and fire. Those City cops and firefighters became County employees. And that same scenario has become commonplace here and also in other areas of the Country. Overlapping, duplication of services is common place. Locally we have Village, Town, County and State governments and all kinds of 'quasi' governmental agencies, like taxing fire districts, all with many overlapping functions. Consolidation of the volunteer fire service or transitioning to a different form or fire service will take many years. There are generations of volunteers who hold the traditions of the volunteer service near and dear, myself included. What the Texas model did was provide a 'guaranteed' daytime response capability to augment the volunteer companies. Anybody who monitors the scanners knows that it sometimes takes a little time to get some apparatus on the road. One day you might have several members that just happen to be at the firehouse when a call comes in, then again maybe a lot of people are out of town on a particular day. If your house is on fire should you care that the four guys approved to drive the Tanker went to the Yankee game together? All Texas did was make sure that the call would be covered in a timely, consistent manner. Initially, a little duplication of services might save some lives or property and that's what we're supposed to be all about, aren't we? Government wastes so much money on so many useless endeavors, I think spending some money to ensure a timely Fire/EMS response would be a good thing.

This is not completely unlike my suggestion in a previous thread for a "fly" engine to cover a couple of towns/villages, staffed by one or two members of each department daily, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm and available to respond immediately to any calls in the combined villages. It 'guarantees' a quick response and spreads the load. On a County wide level, the County could place a paid engine/crew in strategically located local firehouses that have the available apparatus space and amenities for a daytime crew. From there, they can be dispatched to various local communities as an initial response to supplement the local volunteer departments. Looking forward, compact quints would make the ideal first response apparatus. The biggest drawback would be if the local volunteers reduced their response in light of "the County truck will take care of it". What Texas did is forward thinking, solution oriented action. It's commendable. As I also said in a previous thread, it's unfortunate to see so many new firehouse being built or renovated without any accommodation for bunk space. That's not forward thinking.

Oh boy, airing dirty laundry? Let me know! Having been an OVAC member and a Briarcliff member I've got lots of interesting and historical stories of great calls and not so great, really not so great, on both departments. Aside from that, one of the most reassuring aspects of being a local Fire/EMS member was knowing that when, not if, but when, I or my fellow members needed assistance, a crew from Ossining, Millwood, Pleasantville, Archville or Pocantico would be there to back us up. I'd like to think they felt the same. We've all needed back up from time to time and we've all had our cyclical membership ups and downs. Things are different now and more and more departments are having a hard time getting adequate personnel for calls, particularly on the EMS side. So, now many departments are looking into paid day time personnel. Briarcliff went to a paid EMT two days a week because the one person that carries the bulk of the load has to go the their paid job those two days. Want to think about Briarcliff's ability to respond without that one person??? I don't. I was also fortunate to have served with Lewisboro VAC, South Salem Fire and Croton Falls Fire. All good departments, good people, but if you learn anything after being on numerous agencies, its that no one should put a lot of energy into being critical of another department. All departments, like their members have good days and bad days and they are, for better or worse, reflected in our Fire/EMS performance.

I simultaneously joined my college fire department and my local fire department. At the college department we had pull up rubber boots, rubber coats and steel helmets. The local department (Briarcliff) had pull up rubber boots, polycarbonate helmets, cotton duck coats. In short order I purchased my own nomex bunker pants, nomex coat, gloves, boots, cairns new yorker helmet. A lot of years went by before the department issued PPE as good as what I bought for myself. In the days of Plectron home recievers I also purchased my own Minitor when they first came out. You could do things like that then when you were single and working. I also had wig-wags in my POV long before they appeared on the police cars. You didn't need a blue light with a pair of wig wags back in the mid 70's. Our scott air packs were in cases stored in a cabinet before it became standard practice to mount them and there weren't enough to go around. We also rode the rear step and sometimes 'geared up' on the hose bed while responding. We got one of the very first hurst tools, I think in '75, when the department that ordered it couldn't write the check and our chief could. Back then fatal MVA's on our stretch of the Taconic occurred on a regular basis. That same hurst tool is still on our engine today. (Its been refurbished). When I joined we had an open cap, no doors 1948 Mack. At the time Briarcliff was all Mack. We replaced it in 1972 with a CF Mack with the first automatic transmission in our department. The ambulances were all cadillacs then and I was among the first group of 5 EMT's in our department. When we got our first modular it was like treating someone in a ballroom by comparison. We did a bus disaster drill in Ossining one time, I was also with OVAC, and we had two patients suspended from the ceiling, one on the bench and one on the stretcher in the cadillacs. About a month later and a couple days apart we had car vs bus accidents on North Highland Avenue by the Highland Diner. I think the best thing about the fire/EMS business is that you never forget the old memories and everyday gives you the opportunity for a new one. It never gets old, even though we do.

I moved to Florida 8 years ago from Millbrook. The school was two miles down the road from my farm. I had an acquantance who was involved with the property in some manner and had always hoped that he could generate some interest and money for its restoration to some kind of useful existance. While I appreciated his enthusiasm, given its condition then I am surprised it took this long for even a partial structural collapse to occur. Better it be torn down before it's struck by 'lightning' as was the case with the old King's College in Briarcliff. Like Bennett College, it too had originally been a hotel prior to its life as a college and then later abandoned.

Yes, Seton Hall. I've about exhausted myself on this thread. Its not going anywhere anymore. I thought the forums were more for sharing of information and ideas. However, with those like Bnechis who break apart and criticize every comment, statement or thought, I understand why there is not a more varied response or participation by others. When so much uncontestable knowledge is available from one source, there's no point in anyone else offering an idea, comment or opinion.