JohnnyOV

How big is the "district"

Agreed, but rather then us question whether there was one in place since we cannot see what was occurring inside, we should let the investigation determine that. Regardless of what happened with these brothers, we should remind everyone that for venting, you must communicate with the engine company and IC to request that ventilation begin and notify its about to occur. This is operational procedures taught at the lowest level of any firefighting class. Windows generally shouldn't be taken without a charged hose line in place and ready for water to flow. As seen here, the moment the windows were vented, the smoke when from gray, low density/wispy under no pressure to thick, black smoke under a lot of pressure, then flashed almost instantaneously. Along those lines as well, we must also make sure that ventilation is occurring in the right place. Vertical ventilation should occur directly above the seat of the fire as possible, and horizontal should generally only be used in rooms currently involved in fire. Doing anything besides that runs the risk of pulling the heat and flames to the new vent hole and spreading the fire.

Date: 1/8/2011 Time: approx 1400 Location: Safeway Supermarket, Tuscon, AZ Departments: Description:Congress woman shot, multiple gun shot victims Links: http://www.msnbc.msn...17/ns/politics/ Congress woman Giffords was the target of multiple threats over the last few days. Reports now that 7 are dead Writer:

The smell of diesel exhaust in the firehouse / the ability to not have to wait for your rig to say its ok to move. Pretty soon, we wont be able to make a single move on a fire ground without being filmed/video taped from some point, be it a Camera in a store, or a brother's helmet. Actually having to use search patterns and remember your last move and feel your way around a building, rather then having a helmet mounted TIC show you whats in front of you and how to get out. Scene size up, you'll arrive on scene, or even before that, and every company and crew will have a computer show you the entire building's plans and layouts, different hazards and not worry about the "what ifs" of the building Accountability - every person on the fireground will have an RFID tag that instantly lets the IC know exactly what they're doing and where they're at. Firemen will no longer have to guess and use basic search skills to find their lost or trapped brothers For the EMS side, no sales plug here, but with IBM's DeepQA project (jeopardy game show that will feature a computer vs. 2 world champions, will be coming out in February ) they're predicting that you'll no longer have to wonder whats wrong with your patient. Simply ask (speak) to your computer what the presenting problems are, and you'll have an accurate answer in seconds. No more second guessing or using your brain to figure out whats wrong, while good for the patient, bad for our deductive reasoning skills.

The Secret List had this in their latest email update, and I felt it was appropriate to share with everyone. From the email:

Heres the deal, a working fire in a single/two story residential home with a great distance between the next exposure is a lot different then a fire in a multiple story, high rise, or a row house fire. Your department might be able to work with limited crews because of the lack of exposure problem and you might not need 6 guys on a truck because you don't need 6 guys on a truck. When you're dealing with the extreme hazards that the FDNY deals with in fire spread, property loss, and life loss, an abundance of firemen is what you need in a short period of time... not 10 minutes from now. Your department might have to deal with help coming from 10 minutes away when you have a fire, with limited manpower, because well lets face it, its volunteer. Its what you have to work with. You don't have the staffing, or even know who is going to show up when unless you have duty crews running. Its not a knock on you or your department, but its just the facts, if you could wish for 1 thing at a fire, what would it be? 9 times out of 10 for a volunteer department, and I would bet a lot of money on it, would be more man power in the initial stages of the attack. In order to successfully attack, and stop the progression of the fire, you need to do so in a highly effective, organized swarm. By removing a body from each company you effectively start to increase the time it takes to accomplish certain tasks. Venting, searching, stretching hose up multiple floors, the more people or entire company you remove from the equation, the harder it will be to accomplish your goals in a timely fashion before additional resources need to be called in... then when you call for additional resources, you're now stripping other areas of their first due companies, and backfilling which means a larger coverage area for the back filled companies to protect, which means you're now stretching your resources even thinner, over a broader area. Your argument of having a engine and truck company is a little absurd, and you know that already, but lets be honest, with the population density that NYC has, the number or working fire / call volume alone that they run, the thought that anyone would want to place the lives of the citizens they elected into a game of chance is beyond me. I don't know much about FDNY's operating procedures, but they look like a well oiled machine every time they go to work. It is that well oiled machine, coupled with the the fact the swarm and overtake the fire like ants on honey, makes them very efficient at what they do.

God forbid your family is trapped in a fire that turns fatal, and there is a brownout company on your block thats closed for the night. Live that horror, then rethink your post and get back to all of us please. Life safety should be the LAST item cut from any budget especially, over butterfly gardens, skate parks and landscaping. Its crap

Most of your fatal fires occur at night, although a majority of your runs occur during the day. Closing companies or preforming rolling blackouts is just a bad idea all around, regardless of whether it occurs during the day, or at night.

While operating at an accident last night on the Taconic, we had 2 of the 3 lanes shut down, leaving the left lane open for traffic to flow with no room on the shoulder to drive. I'm assuming this places the 'slow down to a prudent speed" part of the law into place, but at what speed is prudent for the given traffic conditions; 30 in a 60? 20 in a 55? 10 in a 30? Is it up to the Officers discretion for a subjective interpretation? The accident took place at 2:45am and there were barely enough cars on the road to back traffic up, but cars were "shooting the gap" sometimes at full speed. Others slowed down to 10-15 mph. oh and for the buffs... http://www.yorktownfire.org/apps/public/news/newsView.cfm?News_ID=280

Yorktown Heights: ~610 Fire / 0 EMS... 4 away from our record set 2 years ago. If you include every chief tone/ officer notification from 60-Control - 623

Hello all, I know this is last minute, but the Holiday Party for Yorktown FD was postponed due to the blizzard from yesterday, until today at 6:30pm at the Main Station on Commerce St in Yorktown Heights. All are welcome to attend as there will be food and beverages provided, and as you know, plenty of good times with the Yorktown Crew. We look forward to seeing you all there!

He was too busy filming another training video to make it...

No need to tell you, but you are absolutely correct. If having 1 engine out of 2 engines is such an emergency/hazard, then why allow single engine aircraft to fly at all? 37% of aircraft flying are commercial, 37% are general aviation flights, with a vast majority being single engine planes, putting around strictly for the joy of flying. In 2008 there were on average 156,000 recorded flights per day, and on average for every 1 recorded flight with a flight plan, there are approximately 2 flights without a flight plan or a pilot ever contacting an air traffic control center or popping up on radar, so those go unrecorded and are almost impossible to track.

As a pilot myself, from 35,000 feet, a slow, controlled, decent would be much more productive then a quick decent to the nearest airport on one engine. Gives you much more time to plan your options, and more time to figure out what to do in case of another engine failure. Engine failures are a very uncommon occurrence, and the possibility of having 2 engines fail is almost astronomical if you're not running out of fuel. Out of the 4 standard arrivals for Westchester, the BOUNO Four STAR (standard terminal arrival) would have the aircraft crossing over the first way point over new jersey at 18,000 feet (above sea level) and seems like the most sensible since the rest place the aircraft coming in from the north. I know most of this will be jargon to most of you, but here is the BOUNO Four arrival: http://204.108.4.16/.../00651BOUNO.PDF (if that doesn't work - http://www.airnav.com/airport/KHPN - scroll down to STAR Arrivals and its the first one) He probably chose the ILS runway 34 arrival which would take him off of the BOUNO Four once he arrived at the Deer park VOR which would give him basically a direct shot north to the airport http://204.108.4.16/...3/00651IL34.PDF quick sum: Plane can travel on one engine and preform at a slower speed / reduce handling, but will not fall out of the sky. 189 nm from the first waypoint to the last point, not including the holding pattern. if the pilot declared an emergency, we would be given priority, and not have to hold, rather be vectored directly to a runway of his choosing if he so chose to do so. Long 6500 foot runway at Westchester is ideal for an aircraft this size, and you wont be tying up larger commercial aircraft who now have you yield for you in your emergency More then enough ARFF units for a plane this size Plane had more of a chance of crashing on decent due to icing, then due to 2nd engine out Good move by the Pilot in my decision to continue his trip

IIRC, the national standard is either 7-8 minutes 90% of the time

Merry Christmas to all, and to those who are working to keep us safe for the next 48 hours, please stay safe yourselves.

http://www.yorktownfire.org/apps/public/news/newsView.cfm?News_ID=277 Yorktown's 2010 Santa run. Once again, santa run was interrupted for the second year in a row for a working house fire. Crews entered and found a semi-extinguished kitchen fire that had consumed most of the kitchen prior to the homeowners return home. This year Santa was lucky and was not put to work manning the hydrant.... he got off easy.

It amazes me with the pamphlets mailed to homes, signs on the roads, sides of our firehouses, "volunteers" plastered on the sides of some rigs (not mine), fire preventions and other interactions with the public, about 50% of our town's people still have zero clue that we're volunteer. I cant tell you how many times, someone who has lived in town for 10-15 years comes to one of our events and give us the "I moved up from the city 15 years ago, what do you mean you're volunteer... No one stays here 24/7? How does that work? This doesn't make any sense to me, you mean you don't get paid... AT ALL?! Who comes if my house catches fire!?" They cannot fathom that people would volunteer their time to help others out. I've even had someone yell at me, "I pay your salary!" oh yeah? Thanks for the fat paycheck each week.... Maybe its the way society has raised most of its generation today, or maybe it just people don't give a rats azz about anyone but themselves anymore, but it seems like the more we try to inform people who we are and what we do, they just don't care at all. All they care about is when 911 is pushed into their phone, we're supposed there 30 seconds before they finish dialing with droves of manpower. I really wish there was a vested interest in what we do from the general public so they could understand how and why we operate so we could get the manpower and staffing that we need. It was hard enough to get my parents to understand the smallest portion of the fire service when I first started out, and they still have zero clue, even after multiple conversations with them about how their taxes are used, and how we operate. Try getting people who have ZERO affiliation with the service to sit and try and listen to that.

Believe it or not, pictures made it into the hands of 2531 this evening... Complete with the small job we caught. 2nd year in a row for us handling a fire during our Santa run.

Date: 12/20/2010 Time: approx 23:30 Location: Rt 35 Frequency: 46.26 Fire 13 Units Operating: South Salem FD, 45-Medic, Lewisboro VAC Weather Conditions: Freezing, Clear Description Of Incident: MVA with car fire/explosion - driver in traumatic arrest. Car off the road into a telephone pole and then trees, which then subsequently caught fire. Driver partially ejected/pinned in vehicle w/ lower extremity amputation. PT Tx to NWHC ALS. BHFD Car 2031 was on location giving updates for SSFD prior to their arrival. sorry for a light IA, tuned in as the 45-Medic was giving his update to the ER.... PM for any further info Reporters: emsjunkie712, spike2231 Writer:

If i remember correctly from my interviews with FDNY dispatch, the dispatchers are technically the IC of that incident until the first unit arrives on scene... so based off what was told to me, your dispatcher/ supervisor took the information given to them , and proceeded to assign appropriate units off the given information. Sounds like an OK move to me. From what I understand in Westchester with 60-control, they are not allowed to make any command decisions based off of 911 information, and must take all orders from the IC of the incident. Even if they're getting 30 different 911 calls for people trapped on the 3rd floor of an OMD, with fire out 4 windows on the second floor, the OIC of that incident is responsible for adding or removing units from the assignment. I've heard dispatchers asking/persuading the OIC if he wants an upgraded alarm, or asking if a FASTeam is required etc etc, but never taken control of a situation themselves. Its also all about the wording the requester is using too. Numerous times I have heard a unit on scene stating they have a working fire, and then dead air. 60 then asks if they want the 10-75 assignment, and the units reply is "yes." In this county unless the transmission of "10-75" is stated, working fire or any other variation will not get you your pre planned assignments. Maybe its time we allow our dispatchers to make a little bit of command decisions based off of the information that they have. By them advising the incoming units of an updated condition and waiting for a reply, you're delaying the response of your MA companies. Again, this comes down to the "everyone's in charge of their own little kingdom," which I wish we could really get away from.<br>

As soon as "Onlocation" shares the photos he took of us, I'm sure we'd be more then willing to share

Lucky for us, our wonderful police dispatchers send us to only what they feel is necessary.... <br>

Took the words right out of my mouth

I'll see if I can snap some behind the scene photos of the set up and of Trebek while I'm working.