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Not only did O'Reilly cover this on his show tonight, my local Savannah news station covered it.

This also shows the proper times for flying the flag at half staff. Something that is being done too often for inappropriate reasons.

I personally believe there is a concerted effort on the part of many to shut down expressions of patriotism. This appears especially true in Government controlled/supervised areas where bureaucrats can direct these expressions be removed from publicly owned or subsidized properties. I believe it is part and parcel with the 'all inclusive' philosophy that seeks to stifle our ability to have a common language, our own customs and a defined border.

It's easy, of course, to analyze post incident, the actions of the department. Suffice to say, the outcome would have been much different if an engine arrived at the same time the Chief officer did. There is no doubting that the added volunteer response time of up to 5 minutes or more, gives the fire the opportunity to grow exponentially and cause significantly more damage. In this case going from major damage to the garage to significant if not total loss of the whole house. This increased damage is the cost the public must be willing to accept or pay the difference between a volunteer department and a paid department through increased taxes. A question? is this an incident where a command vehicle with a CAFS system could be utilized to either extinguish or temporarily suppress the fire till the cavalry shows up? Rather than standing around looking like your working on a plan, wouldn't you rather have the capability to actually do something?

Is there no other City agency or volunteer agency like Red Cross that could send someone over twice a day to assist? How about a hospital style bed that they could maybe utilize themselves? How about renting out a room to someone who could assist? At least send over the two FF in a command car rather than tying up the engine. If a call comes in they can meet up with the engine.

It's a piece of history, replace the wiper blades with the red overspray, clean the paint off the headlights, get some wax and a buffer and some tire-shine.

Since I am not that well versed in the make up of the paid departments in Westchester, perhaps I could get some clarification from others more familiar with the make up of the various departments involved. It was my understanding that of all the Westchester paid depts Yonkers has the most resources and personnel per apparatus than the other depts. So, if they are one of your border depts wouldn't it be to your dept's and your citizens best interest to have them on your M/A list? At this particular incident, travel times of your M/A units appears to be moot since the switch to exterior operations occurred 13 minutes after dispatch, 10 minutes after the incident commander declared the 10-75 and just 7 minutes after requesting the 2nd alarm. My other question is how do Pelham and Pelham Manor provide M/A? Don't they both operate just 1+1 with minimal staffing? When one provides an out of town engine and the other a ladder, do they then do automatic response to each others calls till the M/A is resolved?

I would not be surprised to find this to be the case with most 'major' urban/suburban counties. If you took all the budgets for all the departments, paid and volunteer, I'm sure you could fund a very well equipped, single paid department to adequately cover the County. Are those 100 rescue trucks on LI dedicated rescues? or also rescue/engines. Seems like as soon as you add a haligan tool to an engine its a rescue engine which qualifies for that T-shirt upgrade.

I've never been a fan of the Black Helmet garments. I've always been a traditionalist preferring the maltese cross to scull and crossbones. It seems to promote some over the top macho image I don't emulate or appreciate. I was in it to help, not draw attention to myself. In the 'old' days, we had to ride the rear step as we didn't have the cab capacity we have today. Went from hang on, to safety harnesses on the rear step and safety bars on the jump seats to all inside. Only got the crap scared out of me once.

50 Candlepower. Unless they have updated to account for halogen, strobe, LCD and LED's, which I doubt. I don't think you can even buy a 50 candlepower light anymore.

Just want to say that yesterday was some kind of a miracle. The crane fell across all lanes, North and South and nobody got killed or seriously injured. The bridge has been no stranger to tragedy, yesterday could have been one of the worst, glad it wasn't.

Where to begin without being a Monday Morning Quarterback. Maybe someone with more knowledge of the situation can offer some insight unavailable from simply viewing the video. Why was Rochelle Parks TL put in service rather than Saddle Brooks? I assume the additional departments were for manpower and relief due to the heat. I assume it was hot since the one SB Chief was in tennis sneakers and the other in shorts. This appears to be another example of why I have previously called for the utility companies to maintain 24/7 lights and siren response to emergencies such as this. Nothing like standing around watching a house burn while the service feeds continue to arc.

My small town in GA that borders two paid department cities, Savannah and Pooler, was an all volunteer FD with a full time paid Chief. They had an automatic mutual aid agreement with Pooler which was recently discontinued because of political issues. They will still be dispatched if my town doesn't sign on in a timely manner and will come in if called. At this weeks town council meeting, the monthly fire fee was essentially doubled depending on various factors, and effective July 1 the local FD will be hiring enough firefighters to have one paid man per shift 24/7 and also to pay volunteers for each call made. In addition, the County, which provides EMS, stations an ambulance in our local firehouse. The current service provides two EMS persons who are also Firefighters. So starting July 1, we will have the two EMS/FF plus the newly hired FF 24/7 along with the paid Chief during the day. Also during the day, members of the Maintenance Dept. who are also volunteers respond to the scene or to the firehouse as the Maint Bldg is next to the FH. The town is expanding a little so the Chief expects there will be increases in manpower commensurate with that expansion in the coming years. The local dept operates three engines, two E-Ones and one Pierce. One is first out to structure fires, One is first out for Auto/Rescue and One for 'open' fires. The new paid firefighters will be paid $11.00 an hour. Pooler is paying around $11.50, neighboring Effingham County is around $15.00. Yes there is difference in the cost of living here in the South, but, damn.

There are too many stories similar to this one and then add in all the stories of financial mis-deeds that we keep finding and learning about. The fire service is unique in many ways but not immune to the common thread that is people. Unfortunately people don't seem to consider honor, integrity and leadership as importantly as in years past. That is not to say that these issues did not present themselves in years past, but there seemed to be less of them and they held a stigma not recognized today. Corruption is so prevalent at every level of business and government today that it only merits mention when it is so egregious. From the smallest meeting room in the smallest towns to the hallowed halls of Congress, people who lack honor, integrity and leadership are chipping away at the foundation of the Country. So far, there have been enough good people to keep patching it up. What happens when there aren't enough good people left?

I guess I'll throw in my cents based on a personal experience. I was in uniform, we were all assembled and then we started looking around and realized that most everyone who would be responding to alarms was going to the parade. The Chief asked me to stay behind at my station and respond to any calls we received within the district. My nephew was working up the road from the firehouse and would come down in the event of a call so we would be a minimum of two and of course others may show up but at least there would be one engine responding. We ended up taking in one EMS call and one AFA during the time of the parade. I think before you send your dept out of town, for any reason, you should make sure you have left behind at least a minimum set crew for one engine, your ladder and your ambulance. And, depending on the size of your dept. if you leave town for MA or Training Ctr. you should have a crew stand-by in qtrs for your own dept. If you can't fill out that stand by, you shouldn't be sending your resources out of town. If you need to take your ladder out of town for training, you should have a neighboring dept stand by in qtrs while your out. If their already in qtrs it will save the response to the FH time.

After reading the latest, I think somebody's career is ending.

Why so slick top? What do you have to get under that's so low? So I went to their web site and sure enough, not much clearance. Don't bounce going in or out. It was also nice to see 'old' stations that appear to have had the TLC to keep them so nice. It's a shame so many of the down County dept's haven't been able to maintain their buildings. Of course at some point, the buildings can no longer accommodate the new apparatus and technologies, it's just a shame they are so decrepit by the time they are replaced.

Innocence lost. When we practiced years past for an MCI it was a bus accident or plane crash. Maniacs and Terrorists weren't on the radar then. Now you never know what you may be rolling up to.

Remember in the earlier days. up till they started going to light bars, LA had two lights on the roof. They alternated yellow to the rear, one in front stayed on steady red, the other front facing red flashed. That way when someone looked in their rear view mirror, they always saw at least one red light bearing down on them.

Did you check the glove box?

Don't forget the funeral homes that are using purple lights. When we first added a blue light on our engine we took some criticism over it, and we had to switch the lense back to red for parades lest we receive demerits for improper lighting. Now you see blue everywhere. In the end, colors aside, nothing beats white wig wags to get attention. Not wimpy strobes in the headlight, real dual headlight wig wags. Has NY ever changed the regs for volunteer firefighters? One (1) flashing blue light of 50 candlepower! Don't think many paid attention to that regulation. I don't think you can even buy a light like that anymore.

The thing I think about when I see this photo, and the early episodes of Emergency, is that the Crown fire apparatus is no longer. Crown had a lock on LA, as Mack had on NY yet they both went out of the fire apparatus business. I would have thought they could have survived as stand alone businesses just from the respective West Coast and East Coast business.

Since I left Westchester I first lived in Palm Beach County, FL. then Marion County, FL. Both these County wide department effectively provided Fire and Paramedic/EMS with standardized equipment and strategically placed stations. Then I moved to a small town outside Savannah with a volunteer department with a paid Chief. They had an automatic mutual aid agreement with the paid dept in the neighboring city. I saw the neighboring city come into our town on numerous occasions when no local apparatus left the firehouse. At one working structure fire, a fully engulfed quonset hut storage building about 30x40, only one local engine responded, supported by one engine and a tower ladder from the next city and one engine from the next county which operates a paid countywide department. I was recently informed by one of my neighbors who is on the town council that the AMA agreement has been discontinued due to small town politics, some sort of issue between members of the respective town/city councils that have a personal beef unrelated to their governmental duties. Small town BS politics. They will come MA if called, but not AMA on the local dispatch. He told me they are considering increasing the fire tax, we currently pay $12.00 per month for fire protection (its $21.00 for trash collection), so they can hire a full time paid firefighter to man the station during the day. The thought process is a paid man can get the truck to the scene and be met by the Maintenance Dept. guys who are members of the FD and can respond from, wherever, as well as other volunteers responding to the scene of the station for additional apparatus. The department has three engines, no trucks. Will the needs of the public ever be put before the egos of the politicians?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you are an exterior firefighter when you can still perform duties such as driving, organizing, setting up and supporting fireground equipment and operations but are not physically up to wearing SCBA, advancing an interior line or bailing out if need be, etc. Or to put it another way, you can still help out and be of use even if you are older and maybe too out of shape to go inside to extinguish the fire. That's not necessarily a knock, there are alot of functions to be performed at a fire and it takes a team effort. Not every player can carry the ball. Somebody has to set up the play, hand off and block. They didn't have the distinction between interior and exterior when I joined in the early 70's. It came much later.

This is the same problem at every level of every government agency from local to national. We can't seem to find 'leaders' more concerned with the people than with themselves. Very sad, and I don't see it changing, ever.