Dinosaur

I wish the brothers a speedy recovery. I myself was sidelined by a major illness and am only now getting back up to speed so I can appreciate the long road ahead of them. Stay safe!

Won't help. People will just find a new and improved way to kill each other/themselves.

Training for most everyone is inadequate. To make matters worse, when you finally get butts in seats the first question is usually "what time are we getting out tonight?"

Promoted until the next round of layoffs.

If they have the same training why the distinction? All the firematic jobs on the fireground should be done by firefighters. Not by "helpers", not by cops, and not by public works. Your thinly veiled contempt of injured FF designated temporarily as light duty is unwarranted too. None of the guys I know who are on light duty want to be for a minute longer than necessary and warranted by their injury and they are contributing to the department even if not on the fireground while they're working. What's the problem with that?

Guys that are on light-duty are generally recovering from an injury or illness and have no business being on a fireground. They have the same training as any "full-duty" FF so your attempt at a comparison is flawed.

Here's another part of the problem. Some departments call every member a firefighter whether they have training or not. They all have uniforms, they all march in parades, and when the town asks, they're counted in the head count of "firefighters". This only makes the problem of understaffing worse when we lie to ourselves and our constituents. Some departments only have a handful of "interior" firefighters and rely heavily on others to assist them. Is that the right thing to do? One standard for FF statewide in NY would be a great first step toward eliminating the rift between career and volunteer. But so long as FASNY has anything to say about it, we'll just suffer with the different standards and misrepresentation.

According to Lohud, the FD tender is at the hospital already. If this doesn't get resolved shortly Westchester may need a strike team or two. If they move many more tankers into Yonkers, the rest of the County will need back-fill coverage as well. Interesting development for sure. I wonder how the mayor feels about his plans to close companies now.

Rest in peace, CPL. Semper Fi!

If you've given up, get the hell out of the classroom. I've sat in classes taught by instructors that have "given up" and they usually suck! The best classes, and those that fill up the fastest, are taught by people with passion for the subject and their job as the instructor and more than just a little knowledge/experience. If you've got the knowledge and experience, dig up some passion and keep trying to educate the youth in the fire service. You may not be able to change the minds of other dinosaurs like me but we're not the ones that you have to pass the baton to. We've all banged our heads against rock walls when people simply refuse to change or adapt. But as I read this thread you're doing the same thing. You're saying that we can't increase the standard because volunteers simply don't have the time and we should further water down our training and make it on-line. Most on-line training sucks. Most people don't actually train, they just look for the answers to the test questions and their fancy certificate. That's not training. We need to cut the BS and establish a real standard for FF training in NY. Virtually every other state has done it and we can too. There's no reason for career FF to have one standard and volunteer FF to have another (that may not even be enforced). The time has come to do away with this interior/exterior crap and make everyone a firefighter. Can't do it? Fine, we'll find some other role for you but it won't be called firefighter. We've been whittling away at this stuff for too long and it makes me sick. There's one standard for everyone else. Cop, EMT, paramedic, barber, cosmetologist. All one standard. FF, there's nothing. Unless you're a career FF and you have to meet the 229 regs. Other states do it, we can to. We just have to stop making excuses and start making changes! Let's say the standard is 400 hours to be designated a firefighter. There's no reason why you can't break that down into courses that volunteers can take on a part-time schedule. Time to stop the nonsense and start fixing this problem!

More squandered grant money. No offense to you or your department but the narrowbanding issue has been coming for years and most departments simply built it into their long term plan and made it work. If they needed to buy new hardware they did it during the years we've known this was coming. Instead of dealing with it, yours and many other departments ignored it and waited until it became a crisis and took federal dollars to fix it. There are still departments trying to buy 2 channel portable handie-talkies for their 2 fireground frequencies instead of buying real radios that cost the same amount but can have all the interoperable frequencies and fireground frequencies put in them. More squandered opportunities. Home rule just plain sucks because there's no standardization, no common practices or procedures, and a myriad of different radio systems, hardware, and protocols. It's just stupid that some departments refuse to align themselves with their neighbors because with their one or two calls a day they know better than everyone else.

Are you sure about that? The entire NYPD is in that band and they're not going to rebuild their entire radio system from scratch. Are they? That would be BILLIONS of dollars.

Ha. That's funny. EMS and FD already b**** that their training programs are too long and too difficult. Wah wah. Do you really think they're going to sit for weeks of peace officer training on the off chance that something might happen to them? Doubt it! Instead of looking for ways around it we should lobby our legislative bodies and fraternal groups like FASNY to change the benefits laws and protect us!

Sonny, you really need to lighten up! This wasn't an annual inspection or an emergency response. It was a parade and they were having fun, as they should. I thought it was funny and I knew none of the back story or the relationship between Mill Plains and Brewster (thanks FitzJr for sharing). I think the "skit" as fitz described it is a pleasant distraction from the line of trucks and the rigid formations of uniforms. So people may not have known the inner workings of the relationship between the departments but they had to laugh at the folly and the departure from the norm. Personally, I'm glad someone was having fun! "LIKE" to the boys (and girls) from Mill Plains.

Yonkers PD had ALSFR before they were called ALSFR. What is now the ESU was known as "e-rigs" and the ESU cops were all trained as paramedics and responded with the contract ambulance service. This was back in the 70's and 80's when paramedics were fairly new (at least in this area). I believe some of the Yonkers medics were in Jacobi's early medic classes and were in the first medic class at White Plains Hospital for sure. Guilderland and other PD's up in the capital district have also been providing police-based ALSFR for years. Though not that common, it is certainly not unprecedented.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/01/12506125-power-firm-coned-locks-out-union-workers-as-talks-stall?lite

NYS decides that for us. However I do believe that if you do have the time you should be training. But not everyone has as much time as others. Remember most Vollies are trying to hold down a job, Take care of a family and their houses while keeping up the hours at the firehouse and train. I do not believe that a little reward is such a big deal weather it come from donations or not, Remember we are getting up when the tones drop and leaving our families to take care of others without every knowing if we will see ours again. Like I said before Career or Vollie the Job does not care. Sorry but NYS doesn't decide who does and doesn't take training. Each individual volunteer fire department establishes its minimum training requirements and decides if they're going to enforce them. Do you have any idea how many times I heard officers saying "well, he's not meeting the training requirements but he's a nice guy (or) he shows up at calls". So they let a substandard member skate based on popularity. And without training what good is he showing up anyway! Career departments have a state mandated training program that every firefighter must complete before being called a firefighter. This disparity and the ongoing opposition to any minimum training standard for volunteer FF's in NYS is what fuels this stupid us vs. them BS. So long as there are two different training standards and absolutely no enforcement of the one on the volunteer side of the house there will be this argument. You know why paid and volunteer guys get along so easily in other places? Because they all have the same training! If you don't have the time to get the training, you shouldn't be responding to emergencies. Do you go to an auto mechanic who doesn't have any training or do you want your car fixed by someone that actually knows what's wrong with it. Untrained people on the fireground are hazards to us all but we don't do anything about it. In fact we support organizations that fight against common standards, common training, and a single definition of FF. So what you get up when the tones drop? That's what you signed up for. Do the job but do it right whether you collect a paycheck or not! This is over a 5 year span and people are feuding about it. Sorry but maybe those should get out of bed at 3AM to do the job!!! People are merely pointing out that the excursions to Lake George and extravagant parties at the Ritz and other similar places are what make people suspicious of the use of funds. Some of these parties are over the top and wildly expensive. That's a tough one to sell to the public in this economy. That's the point. How much was spent on these parties over the five year span. If it's a 100K that's a lot of training, equipment or reductions in tax subsidies. And don't forget the additional "tax" we all pay that gets squandered - the 2% monies!

Sad that even the political appointees can't work with their masters.

I didn't read it that way at all. With the possible exception of Yonkers, there's no department in the County (career, combo, or volunteer) that can handle a job like that without help. I thought the point was that there has been little or no pre-planning, training and drills, and real meaningful preparedness for a job like that one.

How much time in an average department is spent on drills relating to incidents like this? Whether it be standpipe operations, long hose stretches, complex forcible entry, ventilation, do we actually do drills on this or do we focus on other skills? Unfortunately I think very few departments actually do drills that properly prepare their FF for this kinds of fires. The notion that Hempstead benefits from lots of young members actually makes me nervous. If they're confronted with a job like this one with little training or experience, they're being put in a very dangerous position. Likewise I think too many departments ignore this risk and don't drill on it enough.

Just more knee-jerk politics in action, Instead of meaningful intelligent discussions over time, they're going to use these two fires (one a tragedy, one just a fire in a commercial structure) to push ill-conceived legislation at us all. Watch the taxes in Putnam County go up yet again. There was a time people escaped the tax madness of Westchester for cheaper pastures in Putnam but now they're as expensive!

Was this just that one house with some exposure problems? Isn't Port Jervis covered by hydrants?

So wrong on so many levels. You can't compare FDNY to Westchester and some departments, to be blunt, don't work well together. Either because of egos and attitudes, different SOP's and training or some old feud that nobody remembers but "oh we don't call THEM for mutual aid!". FDNY operates with the same training, SOP's, equipment, and hierarchy. They all have the same training and SOP, they all have the same equipment, and the bosses are all well trained and experienced. An engine is an engine and a ladder is a ladder. You know exactly what you're getting with each. Westchester has 50 something different departments all with different training, procedures, leadership, expectations, and capabilities. Engines may be coming with one guy or they may be coming with a driver and two exterior "FF" or it may be a crew of four trained firefighters. You never know. There are a lot of variables but the departments shouldn't be one. You should know that when you call 911 and report a fire blowing out the windows of an OMD, you're getting the troops. Even the 2nd and 3rd alarms that they chief called in Hempstead mean entirely different things in every Westchester department. Hey bnechis, here's a question. The standard is 12+1 or 36+1 for a regular residential single family house. Is there a standard for a job like this? It's got to be at least double, no?

Who makes the determination? When an FD claims to be completely self-sufficient but isn't who throws the flag and calls the foul? Do the taxpayers get a rebate or credit for all they've contributed to the so-called FD when it really isn't? This situation would have been a big charly-foxtrot in most of Westchester. You'd have tons of departments screaming half way across the county and half the resources would just stand there because the majority of "IC's" aren't prepared for something of that scale - even though the probability if such a job is high.

Imagine that. I learned of a local VFD that told it's jurisdiction that it had over 300 members. That counted everyone - ladies auxiliary, fire police, life members (the 80 year old guys that haven't fought a fire in decades), probies, exterior guys - EVERYONE! They used the argument to justify a bigger budget but they got called on it. Turns out they have about 60-70 real FF's. Still a respectable number but far from 300.