BCFire05

Nice rigs grapevine has. I used to live in Grand Prairie. I would probably guess the new engine went without the fold out steps for cost reasons since they added a light tower over the cab. Just a guess though.

Internationals? Not too shabby. But FDNY has had most, if not all, their EMS rigs on Superduty's as far as I recall, with the exception being the crew cab dodges. Going to a commercial cab size ambulance is a first. (As far as I know). So my question is, why go International?

Ok, I have a question here for all my brothers / sisters in the emergency services. I've come across an issue with a particular fire fighter in a city that I run EMS calls in. This particular guy is black, and when running any medical / trauma call, he will not provide any aid to a white person. Once he sees it it's a white patient he will turn around and get back in the engine while the rest of the engine crew assist (even if it's a cardiac arrest). If the patient is black, he will jump over mountains to assist and then gets irritated when he believes we aren't helping fast enough or anything he believes is sub par care. I've asked why the fire dept would allow him to do this and still have a job and they say it's because of affirmative action. Yet I don't believe that kind of behavior falls under that protection. I may be wrong. Now I'm not trying to start a racial war by any means. I provide the best possible care to every patient I work on regardless of race, sex, or if it's even a nonsense call with a person abusing the system. I just find that kind of behavior ridiculous in an industry where it is your job to provide care to everyone. Does anyone know if affirmative action protects his actions? From what I've read I don't believe so. And what thoughts do you have? Again this isn't to start a race war thread or any trouble.

Hey everyone, sorry I have been absent, It has been a very busy week at work. UPDATE & Clarification In most medical run cases, yes this fire fighter will choose to sit in the engine or help based on the patients race and in most cases this does not affect overall patient care. All fire crews are either EMT's or EMT-P. He is an EMT. Multiple crews at my company have had issues with him, but only when it was a black patient. We could respond to someone with a stubbed toe and he would make a larger deal out of it and get an attitude with us if he believed that patient wasn't being given the "best possible care" regardless of how well we were doing. Have I attempted to talk to this fire fighter? Yes, a couple times in fact, he simply ignores me and moves on. Chain of Command, until recently, none of his immediate officers have done anything about it nor tried to move it up the chain. As far as I have now gathered, the Chiefs have not fully known of his actions until recently. ANYWAY moving on to the UPDATE. There has a been a couple new promotions at that fire dept and thankfully for the better. Both captain promotions. There are now 2 Captains who do not put up with his attitude. It became a larger issue on a multi-vehicle MVC with, you guessed it, all white patients. They're response is 1 engine, 1 heavy rescue. There were around 6-7 patients (no entrapment's) all needed spinal immobilization. He attempted his staying in the rig routine, and the newer captain did not put up with it. Much help was needed and he had to suck it up and help. Since this, he has been under a very watchful eye these past few shifts. I've talked to my friend who also works there and he's has informed me that he is now under investigation due to the multitude of complaints received by the 2 captains & many of our crews who run with that dept more often then I do. As far as to what will happen to him, I don't know. The wreck happened Thursday, so I think if anything more will happen, it'll happen next week. My friend at the dept is going to keep me informed.

I don't work for the city, I work for Acadian Ambulance, a private service that provides the ambulance service to the area. Getting anything done through my company and higher ups is another battle in and of itself. On top of it, most of the the city's engine companies / battalion chiefs dislike our company and for some reason like to take it out on us when it's not our fault things are run they way they are. That's a whole other story though. This guy has been with the fire dept for 10+ years I believe. So if nothing has been done by now, I doubt it will ever be dealt with.

That's my thoughts exactly. I've heard the issue has been brought up to the higher ups multiple times but no one will do anything about it. And no he's not an officer. I've argued the affirmative action being just with hiring practices but I've heard people believe that it carries over into work itself saying it protects his beliefs. Bigotry is not a belief. It's just another issue that shows no matter what you do, racism will never go away because of people like that.

Texas has some good fire dept's though. Houston has a really good retirement, my cousin recently retired from HFD and did very well for the time he served....they have a decent turn around too. They usually hire over 100 a year. Granted that's split between certified and non certified. But surprisingly only about 600-700 test as opposed to Austin that gets 4000+ testing each year. And Texas does like it's Paramedic Fire Fighters if you have your paramedic. I don't know about other states though. I've been testing myself, have another test coming up in Beaumont where I was #1 for the last 3 months of 2011 before the list expired lol.

Hey everyone! Hope all is well in the EMTBravo Community and the East Coast. Figured I'd give a lil update from my area here in good old Texas lol. Today a couple of our guys and myself went out to pump test our 2 newest trucks. Figured while we were out there I'd snap some photos E-1 is a 2013 Pierce Velocity 2000gpm / 750gal. Dual Foam A/B with CAFS. This is our first CAFS truck. We also got the TAK4 front susepension . All Whelen series lighting and a Wilburt Nightscan light tower on the cab roof and a remote operated deck gun. Alot of other goodies on this truck too. T-9 is a 2013 Peterbuilt / Pierce 1265gpm / 2100gal. All Whelen lighting side and rear cameras. Hope you all enjoy the pics.

I watched that video earlier. Pretty cool rig. Next time I'm in Galveston I'll see if I can snap some more photos of it.

It sucks seeing a Dept like Detroit going down the crapper. Same for the city. That city should be booming, but it's suffering because a few of this country's biggest and most successful corporations decided to outsource all the jobs. It's sad and disgusting.

Sucks to hear it. My cousin retired from HFD a few years back. I'm in Houston quite often and know a couple guys there. It's a sad day and a sign of many risks associated with the job. 3 experienced FF's and one rookie fresh out of the academy. Cause was from roof collapse. May they rest in peace. Heart goes out to the families and the fellow brothers.

I'm mostly attributing that to the fact that volunteers are just that, Volunteers. They are taking time out of their own lives to serve there community. I don't define minimum standards as "hey here's 2 days worth of training, congrats you're a fireman". I would expect most to gather their training over a longer period of time. I don't expect someone to wants to help their community to have full on fire training prior to joining a volunteer dept. As it is with my dept, people join with no training what so ever, but in order to make entry on a structure fire they are required to meet the minimun 71 hrs introductory level training as set by SFFMA which they gather over the course of their probationary period and a lil afterward. And their training continues afterward. And I never stated that any training be omitted....I'm simply saying that there should be a minimum standard that should be met which could be obtained at a vol. dept during a probationary period or a period of time. Does it stop there? Hell no, training always continues, it never ends. SFFMA's levels are Introductory, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. When you've reached advanced you are the equivalent of a Texas Commission on Fire Protection - Basic certified professional fire fighter. I am a vol. I can't stand "t-shirt" fire fighters. People who join and think they can skirt by with the shirt and go "fight a fire" don't get that privilege without the proper training. But you can't expect every volunteer to have all that training right off the bat. It can be gradual. Not every person or every vol dept can afford to send someone to the academy.

Being from Texas myself and a Volunteer for almost 10 years now, I hope this gets shelved. Our Fire dept has done A LOT of work over the past many years to get our training in compliance with SFFMA standards. Not because we had to, but because we wanted to. We constantly promote annual and weekend schools at TEEX or anything held locally. I agree with Seth in regards to it boiling down to who regulates it. Personally I like what SFFMA has set up. We have a great working relationship with SFFMA and they helped greatly back in 2006 when we needed to overhaul our training. I do for one know there are sadly many vollies out here who think they can join a dept and think they are a fire fighter without training. I do believe that volunteers need to meet a certain standard in training. Does it have to be on par with professional? Not really, but a standard regardless. I have my professional certain, I've been around paid and vol. depts for quite a while and I know some vol guys who've never been paid and could run circles around a professional with their experience, but they are the ones who took that time to learn and do it right. We live in a world where not every fire dept can be paid. Volunteers will always have my support. But I'd expect them to have a minimal standard of training.

Luckily I live in Southeast Texas lol no worries of frozen lines here : P

I'm in a 2010 Silverado Frazer. We haven't had any issue with the air ride. I work for private EMS....truck runs pretty much 24/7 and gets tons of miles due to LD transfers to Houston. Idk how the FDNY Dodges are set up or how wheeled coach does their air ride. On ours, the bags deflate when the rear doors are opened and only inflate when the doors are closed and the brake is pressed. The older Frazers would raise and lower as the doors were opened and closed constantly. I like the new way, saves on the bags more.

I think it looks great. Apparently a lot of people don't read through a thread. It's repeatedly stated that the tax payers money was NOT involved with this. As many have said, there are hundreds of dept's nationwide that decorate their rigs during the holidays. Are you 100% certain that this truck can't operate with the lights attached to it? No. Why can't something expressing the spirit of the holidays be shown without a bunch of negative nancies griping about it. Yes....a lot of us may see it differently but damnit, enjoy the holidays for crying out loud.

That's sad to hear. A lil close to home for me. I live about 1 1/2 hr away from Houston...but make Hospital to Hospital transfers there all the time. : /

So I live in Texas, about 5 miles from the Texas / LA border. I'm at work driving to post at a station in Orange County and I see a sharp lookin Frazer headed east on I-10. Looks familiar in design. So I look up Hackensack VAC because I remember seeing that Frazer had built a couple units for them. Now I'm not 100% sure it was a Hackensack ambulance, because I got a split second look at the front and a good look at the rear. Anyone know if they ordered a 3rd unit?

Nice! Well glad I got to see it first : P albeit for a split second. I'm surprised they are driving it the whole way. Figured it woulda been on a flat bed or somethin.

Yes there is another newer tandem axel commercial aerial. Check out New Berlin's Truck 4. Its a quad-cab Freight Liner '10 or '11 model) set up on the 105' Raptor by Rosenbauer. Just google up New Berlin Fire Department in images and you can see. It's a nice rig.

I'm not sure what the thought process was with the set up. I'm not 100% if Pierce does a side mount pump panel for industrial. I'm also surprised the pics turned out that well lol took them with my phone : P They are very nice rigs though. Pierce is the dominating manufacturer here, a few other dept have some brand new trucks also. Nederland I believe still holds the title of the shortest PUC Pierce has built. I'm gonna try to get more pics of local dept's though.

One of 2 of Port Arthurs new industrial pumpers. E-6, finally got to nab some pics just a while ago while clearing up from a med call. They purchased 2 identical (E-1, being the other) industrial pumpers that they utilize for both residential and industrial. $775,000 a piece. Funny lil fact, there are 3 roads in town that they can't turn down lol. They are just a tad shorter than their 100' platform.

I'm not certain of the mpg of the new Taurus interceptors, but they've been popping up here in Texas. And if Carbon Motors can ever get the funding in to start production on the E7 then that could help too. They're supposed to get better mileage and cost about the sam or lesz than a typical interceptor.

Appreciate it man. Haven't seen that set of pioneers before. Cool deal.

Looks good. Are they gonna add a light bar or are the lights incorporated into the top two take downs? Didn't see any mounting set up for a full bar.