Dinosaur

I don't know what makes you think that the cops of Orange County are better than those anywhere else but if they were facing a potential sniper, they wouldn't be able to go in and extract the down officer either. It's tragic and I'm sure they will be spending a lot of time trying to figure out how that time could have been reduced. Snipers change the battlefield dramatically. Ask anyone who ever served in the military!

Yup. It's also division not sector or zone.

Trash me all you want. Bottom line is that grants like this are nothing more than pork barrel gifts to select groups. I'm not hating on Tarrytown. I just think it is time for us to get serious about preparedness and buying more toys (trucks, boats, etc.) does little to insure that they're staffed or available.

There could be an EMS IC serving in a unified command. Of course, we don't do unified command very well. I think the point about needing to learn and follow ICS applies equally to FD and PD as well. They don't always do it and often don't do it right.

You mean they don't have the tools to get the job done now? This is just a way for the state and developers to appease critics of the new bridge and shut up opposition. Nobody in Tarrytown is going to object to the bridge when their fire department is getting a purty new toy. This isn't about doing something during construction. It's about buying off the locals so they don't oppose the plan. And those that are saying Tarrytown taxpayers deserve it, aren't considering the taxpayers that will be paying for it and never receive a benefit from it. That's the problem! Dude, seriously? Try a few other buttons - like SHIFT and SPELL CHECK!!!!

That's not quite true. Even a civil service chief is accountable to the elected officials who approve their budget and other things under the municipal charter. Some may be more outspoken than others but they all still have a boss. As for appointed ones, they're not all puppets.

I don't know about the Coast Guard but as for the grant, why should Yonkers or New Rochelle (or anywhere else in the state or country) subsidize new apparatus for Tarrytown? Sure, the Tarrytown taxpayers will benefit but why are they more worthy than Cobleskill or Tappan? All the money comes from us, the taxpayers. It's been said here often, there ain't no such thing as "free"!

The time has come for municipalities to be held responsible for EMS, not a club like the Lions, Elks, or Masons. Sorry folks, but a VAC is really no different than those organizations. Despite all the best intentions, the volunteer era is on life support and it must really be people elected to positions of responsibility to address the issue on a long-term basis. This may mean contracts with successful volunteer organizations, contracts with commercial services, or hiring and staffing their own service. But the days of nobody being responsible have to end.

Just wondering why the need for four FAST teams?

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry defines alarm levels and it can change every time the chief changes in some departments. It ought to be standard so everyone knows the severity of the incident but if you compare a 3rd alarm in X to a 3rd alarm in Z they could be completely different. As was said, first alarm: 3 engines, 2 ladders, rescue, chief. Second alarm, 2 engines, 1 ladder, mask service, chief. Third and subsquent, 2 engines, 1 ladder... If you need something special, ask for it. That's why they say "special call".

A 360 degree size-up is nice but that should follow the initial size-up as you arrive. We don't live in a portable radio friendly system and if you get out of your truck without saying anything and encounter something problematic on the backside of the building, nobody will know it. A brief size-up upon arrival should simply be the way we operate.

And the purpose of this discussion is what? To reminisce about all our big failures and the fact that we haven't corrected any of the problems that helped create them? It pains me to think of all this big jobs that kicked our asses and yet we haven't done diddly to fix the problems - like water supply problems.

So much for brotherhood. That sucks!

Personally I don't think the airport manager should be depicted as a fire chief because his airport fire brigade training is dwarfed by the amount of training a fire chief gets. Look at the Port Authority, they just got told the PD can't be an FD at the airport so they need to hire a real fire chief. Saying that the airport manager, a bureaucrat, administrator, politician (at times) and manager is a fire chief goes right along with the statement about staying at a Holiday Inn Express last night. This is not a shot at the guy personally, but he's not a fire chief. That's a secondary duty and one that has been given only superficial attention for years. I am glad to see the airport has finally realized that the IC needs to be the IC and not the initial attack guy at the end of a snozzle. That's a step forward. Now if they could trade in his truck for a desk in the ICP, you'd really be on the right track. If there's a crash inside the airport perimeter, does the ATC handle really matter? They're going to be closing the place anyway. Call it FIRE 1 - that will get everyone's attention - when there is a crash. The rest of the time call it OPS 1 or IHOP 1 (breakfast time) or Whopper 1 (lunchtime). Once the you know what hits the fan, his title should be AIRPORT COMMAND! Geez....

This isn't paid/volunteer at all. You may be right that there is a engendered reliance on FD's by small-town PD's but is this truly a problem or just your perception? Is it a mutually advantageous situation where the FD benefits by having more to do and the PD benefits by having more hands available in an emergency. Every cop is trained in as at least a First Responder so they're not "flying as fast as they can to the scene with no EMS capabilities". They also have to get there to make the scene safe, direct traffic, and investigate the accident. As for the PD leaving the FD to wrap up the scene, in my almost 30 year career I don't think I ever saw that. PD was always on scene when we departed and they never expected us to hold it down so they could clear. It was their job, not ours, once the victims were removed. I've also never heard of PD "not wanting to close a road". Maybe the issue is 10 roads to close and only 2 cars on duty. That's an entirely different issue and is a budgetary one. What do you mean that Union houses take time and miss fires? Career houses never close, that is unless they're browned out by dirtbag politicians.

Can't say anything about the work from the pictures. They're just the apparatus. No shots of anyone really doing anything.

Could have been one or two FF with the trailer if necessary but as others point out, it ain't rocket science to run one. Let the PD operate it instead of babysitting the thing all night. BUT, it could have been that they're getting their "points" by being on that "call" so there's a bunch of them just standing around. Great picture for the fire service.

Unfortunately in most cases the Chief's have their hands full just keeping the department going and they're not trained, equipped, or interested in tackling systemic problems when they have their own little local problems to contend with.

Some volunteer FD's have just hit a bump in the road but many have been in this downward cycle for years and it is not getting any better. When do you decide enough is enough. Your anti-paid position is clear enough and that's fine but don't misunderstand me. Consolidation doesn't mean paid and it doesn't mean a loss of pride or a "mega FD" as you describe it. Don't you think there is pride in the companies of the FDNY or large regional departments (that are combination by the way) in MD or VA? There's tons of pride and individual company patches to promote it. Pride is what you make it, it's not a paycheck and it exists in lots of places. Of course you don't see the problem with your little FD having 5 pieces of apparatus and 3 chiefs cars and a budget of 600K. You're looking at this whole thing through a paper towel tube. Drop the blinders and look at the big picture. Let's say there are nine departments like yours in your town. That's 45 pieces of apparatus, 27 chiefs cars, and a 4.5 million dollar budget for the same call volume and population. Let's say we wave the magic wand and consolidate into a single town sized department. We no longer need 45 pieces of apparatus (savings), we no longer need 27 chiefs cars (savings), we no longer need 9 different insurance policies and various contracts (savings), and our pool of available FF is bigger so call coverage improves. All this and we do it for less money. With the possible exception of an administrator (non-operations), you don't hire anyone. Now you get the 2 guys from two "stations" staffing an engine together and they have the same training, same policies, and same equipment. Wow, imagine that. Automatic mutual aid is not a solution. It's a temporary fix that we've been trying for decades in some places. Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Couldn't be more true than in the fire service where we're often proud to say "150 years of tradition unimpeded by progress". We have these discussions all the time because some story comes up about how screwed up we are but we never get to the root of the problem and actually fix anything. As for the taxes your little department spends being only 1% of the overall tax bill, that's may be true. In other places it may be 5%. Whatever. You have to recognize though that it is one of the budgets that local government can change and the tide is shifting in that direction. They're going to see that they need to cut taxes somewhere to get reelected and they have no control over the school or the county so they're going to go after the local budget and eventually YOUR budget. Look at what has gone on with Westchester County. Astorino came in and promised to cut taxes but found that he only controls a small portion of it. So it gutted it, cut it to the bone, and proclaimed he was saving us money. Now the weeds on the Bronx River Parkway are higher than a corn field and there are fewer county employees doing essential jobs than ever before. But he can campaign on cutting taxes. We live in glass houses. Paid or volunteer we are under a microscope right now and we have to be smart enough to show that we know it.

How about just starting with the Town of Greenburgh's 9 departments or Mount Pleasants 6-7 departments or the Sound Shore's departments? That would be a start. On the career side, how about implementing that study that called for the regionalization of Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Pelham, Pelham Manor, Eastchester, Mamaroneck, Larchmont and Scarsdale? Personally I think White Plains should be included as the big city on the north side of that area but whatever. Start somewhere! It doesn't have to be "major". It just has to happen.

You're confusing consolidation with converting to paid personnel. That's apples and oranges. I'm advocating consolidating. The need to consider paid personnel would be done after this was assessed. You can study things until the trucks rust and current FF's are all in the FF Home and nothing will change. Someone has to DO something and nobody is willing or able to step up. I suggest that a lot of the research you're talking about has already been done and simple consolidations at the town level (instead of 9 FD's in a town, go to one) would be a great start, save money and make more FF available for calls.

When do you have to? When you can no longer get out for anything or when you have so few members you're ineffective? NOW is the time to start regionalizing and consolidating small departments to make viable, effective ones.

I was bored today and figured out that that is one entire fire department for every 16,481 residents of the county or one FD for 8.1 square miles. There are single engine companies in NYC that cover more people than an entire department up here. LOL If you take Yonkers out of the equation (because they have the most population and the biggest FD), its one entire FD for every 3,463 residents or 7.75 square miles.

Unfortunately for many there are no big boy pants hanging in the closet. They stomp their feet and curse YOU when you correctly point out that they aren't doing the job. Instead of attacking the problem, they often attack you as the messenger. There is a set of standards. They're from the NFPA and even they made adjustments for staffed vs. on-call (doesn't matter whether you're paid or not, it matters whether you're in the firehouse or not!). Look them up if you're not familiar with them and then talk to your FD about what standards YOU meet. Someday this is going to become an issue and we're all going to wish we did something about it before "they" did.

That's for mutual aid. It doesn't cover what to do when the agency having jurisdiction doesn't answer the phone when you call 'em!