TSull

You will need a better mustache and cheesier sideburns to appease the Firegods for a return to the '70s fire duty!!!!!!!!!

It is a sad and unfortunate verdict. My heart breaks again for my brothers. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families.

I know that Brewster has not started to use this system yet. I am very interested to see how it works.. I have heard positive things about it from members of Mahopac and the Falls. The question about calling in while driving: stop the car if you have to. The excuse that you hit someone or had an accident because you were distracted pushing phone buttons is not going to fly in court. Be smart, stop the car if you have to.

Brother Orlando died off duty. I believe he was fixing something on a roof, lost his balance, fell, and sustained a major head injury. He was transported to a trauma center where surgery was performed but unfortunately he did not make it. The wake is Monday night and the funeral is on Tuesday

Capt, is this the last quint that the SFRD is getting or is the eventual plan to replace all the engines with quints? Hope all is well with you.

As it has been explained to me, Sd-18 and L-12 were assigned to a previous box. As companies were released, the AFA was transmitted with Sd-18 first due engine and L-12 second due truck. The first due truck pulled over to allow Sd-18 to go ahead since they were first due engine. L-12 probably saw the ladder truck pull over and maybe thought they were letting L-12 go through the intersection. With that, Sd-18 enters the intersection and BAM!!!! The streets are extremely tight down there. It was an accident and we are lucky no one was killed. But people should back off calling for demotions and terminations if they have never been in that situation before. And this is coming from a guy who T-boned a Nissan Altima at 56th and 10th after the Nissan ran a red light after a night of partying on the Westside. Getting on the radio to tell the dispatcher that we had been involved in an accident and would be extricating 3 people was one of the lowest points of my career but it was an accident.

The bean counters do not care if the Ulster Vollies came into the city 1,000 or 1,000,000 times and the city responded out only 5 times a year. They will knock anything that has even the possibility of incurring overtime and other costs.

And how do you suggest "those that are responsible are held accountable for there (spell check) actions..." be held accountable?

PJ, how are you? I hope you guys don't mind me dropping my 2 cents. Where are you stationed these days?

I don't know if this means anything, but I have read this thread with interest for awhile now. I don't have a dog in the fight anymore but I have a more then a passing interest. I know it is not a perfect system, but has anyone ever looked at how Danbury FD is run? There is a city with 6 career engines (officer/2 FFs on each), a career truck ( officer/3 ffs), and a chief on duty. The city is divided into 12 districts, with each district having a volunteer company in it. At one point there were 17 engines in the city(5 career/12volunteer). When there is an alarm, 2-3 career engines, the career truck, the chief, and the volunteer company which district it is in is dispatched (sometimes 2 volunteer companies are dispatched). The volunteers respond as a company (engine, tanker, or lighting/air) and fall under the I.C. Some of the volunteers have specialized (water source or lighting/air) to make themselves more of an asset to operations. The volunteers receive some funding from the city budget but rely on different fundraisers to augment what they receive. The volunteers also have to meet the training requirements set forth by the Danbury FD and administered by the career training officer. I am not saying it is a perfect system but it seems to make a little sense. I am sure some will say that without the volunteers the career dept. in Danbury would be larger and some will say that the volunteers should be used more. All I am wondering is if the Danbury system has ever been examined and if it could be applied to what is going on in Stamford.

You also have to remember that many city departments that went the way of the "quint" did so to cut manpower, uhhh, I mean save taxpayer dollars. Certain mid west cities were able to cut 30-40% of their dept's assigned personnel thru retirements/attrition and never replaced them. Are those departments that are considering going back to the traditional "engine-truck" set-up going to staff the apparatus properly? I highly doubt it.

I don't know the full details of this latest twist on field training, but it seems to fall in line with the 14 week field training from back in 2001. There have been many variations through the years, 30 day rotations from engine to ladder and vice versa, 1 and 2 year rotations (A company, B company, C company). When my father got on the job in 1959, they went to the academy during the week and then on Saturday nights they were assigned to the engine company closest to where they lived.

Fireman Kenny has been busting his butt on this for awhile. It is making its debut at BFD's Open House on Oct 13th?

The original question was for information on engine assignments. The info he provided more then answered the question.

Before I got on the job in the city, I worked in several CT Fire Depts (I was lucky at taking tests). After my first couple of tours, some friends from CT asked me what the difference was between where I had been and where I was working. I said: "Speed. Things happen quicker then I had ever imagined. Doors are forced, lines are stretched and charged, searches and vent are done." It was amazing as a probie back then to see how quickly things got done.

Is this real? I hope it is not. There are reports that this report of his death may not be on target.

"Fire is Doubtful" is an answer to the dispatcher's question "What is the control of the fire?" that is part of progress reports that are given throughout an incident. "Doubtful" means the fire is not under control yet.

George worked for A-1 Ambulance in Bedford Hills as a medic. He was Westchester County Paramedic of the Year 1994? for the successful rescue/CPR save along w/ MtKiscoVAC of a 7 year old boy just before Christmas. He also worked for Rockland Paramedic Service. His full time job was with Cabrini Medical Center Paramedics (Lower East Side of Manhattan). Prior to that, he was in the Marine Corps. I worked with him for awhile at A-1 and in my opinion, he is one of the best medics I have ever seen operate. Oooohhhh Raaaahhhhh!!!!!

The city assigns probies to companies that need to be staffed or into areas where the overtime is too high. There are many factors that play into where someone will be assigned. Where you live, where you claim to live when getting city residency points, who you know, who knows you, how you did in probie school. There was a guy who screwed up in probie school, not bad enough to be fired, but bad enough that he was assigned to the a** end of Staten Island. He lived as far north in Orange County as was possible. How's that for a commute?

Making an effort to "get the trucks out the door". That is interesting. When was the last time a shiny red fire engine or truck put out a fire? You can have all the apparatus in the world lined up in the street but the fire does not go out without motivated, well trained people doing the job, paid or volunteer. As far as departments hiring "custodians" or"janitors": I know several guys who work as "custodians", it just so happens in order to be hired as a "custodian", the position requires that you have FF1,FF2, Haz-Mat Ops, ICS, CFR-D or EMT-D, EVOC, and a couple other state certifications. It's the departments way around civil service, the town's way around paying FF's, and the guys way of saying they are paid FFs. As was asked before: what is the town's and the department's primary mission?

If you are looking to ride along, the best thing is to know somebody in the company you want to ride along with. If you are just looking to ride along with "a busy company", and you don't know anyone in that house, then it will be pretty tough to get in. Ride alongs are usually "white clouds" anyway. When there is a ride along on board, then that company is almost assured of not doing a thing for as long as the ride along is there. Good luck.

The new starting salary of 25k would not go into affect until the contract is ratified which would probably the January class.

All I know is that when I took the Massachusetts Civil Service Exam for Firefighters and Boston was one of the cities I listed on my preference list, I recieved a List number of "#551 on the "Veteran, non-minority, non-resident list". I am pretty sure the lists for Boston are: -Veteran, minority, resident -Non-veteran, minority, resident -Veteran, non-minority, resident -Non-veteran, non-minority, resident -Veteran, minority, non-resident -Non-veteran, minority, non-resident -Veteran, non-minority, non-resident -Non-veteran, non-minority, non-resident My chances of being hired there were slim to none and slim was on a plane to L.A.!!!!!