chris

Wasn't it supposed to be the different battalions used their channels ? I'm in batt 10 we use fire 10, when we go to batt 12 we switch to fire 12.

Allow me to add that they should be union jobs!

I don't have an issue with career firefighters. I have an issue with you.
I, and so many more people, have grown tired of you only speaking up on these forums to beat your drum and stand atop your soapbox to deem all volunteer fire departments as incapable, lying, deceitful organizations. You think because you use big words and generally have ample grammar in your posts, that all of us are blind to your obvious dismay for the majority of us.
The issues ongoing in the Irvington FD are being beaten to death here with no true resolve. I agree with you that it's noble of the gentleman involved to stand for what he believes in. Just as I think anyone who stands up for what they believe in is honorable, because let's face it, too many people would rather not take a position on something and join the majority (drink the Kool-Aid, if you will).
Anyone that doesn't see you for who you really are and for the views you have of us evil volunteers is either naive or blind. We aren't perfect, not a single one of us is, but do you really, honestly think that coming on here and playing your game is solving anything? And am I alone on these forums to think that this story in Irvington is going to have little or no impact on anything?
There's so many more things in this world and in what we do that need our attention. And for me, those issues are ensuring we all are offering the best fire prevention training, fire safety education, strict code enforcement and adequate response to any emergency we're called upon - regardless of the community, department and whether or not those sworn to do these tasks is paid, period.
You're an intelligent man from what I can tell, with a wealth of knowledge and experience that could help better the fire service. Do you really think spending your time trying to dissect and disassemble the volunteer fire service is helping ANYONE?
Good day to you, sir.

Could you imagine how pissed they would be when they are told about how many guys go out on worker's compensation that aren't really hurt? Or how much is spent on overtime to cover them?
Holy cow!

I disagree Chris, respectfully. I think it is very important that we continue to take opportunities when available to educate the public concerning the fact that monies which are donated to volunteer fire departments rarely, if ever, are used for purchase of firefighting equipment, or for training, or such purposes, but rather the monies people donate to volunteer fire departments are used for parties, extravagant dinners, vacations and excursions, etc.
Also, it is important to continue to emphasize that although there are lots of dedicated volunteer firefighters, such as Nick, who want to do the right thing in regard to being trained, prepared, and ACCOUNTABLE, there are many other volunteer firefighters who take advantage of the system, collect pensions and other perks,use the firehouses as a social club, and who have extremely little legitimate training, are unable to provide the service they claim they provide, and are basically accountable to no one.

That is not the case everywhere in NYS there are plenty of companies that have requirements for meeting attendance (where nothing to do with firefighting is discussed) and fundraisers have attendance requirements in many cases more than training requirements. Even parade requirements so do not be fooled volunteers who are good firefighters are dropped or quit because they want to be firefighters not beer money beggars. What is also insane is members gain LOSAP credit for meeting attendance and fundraising. When we have the opportunity to examine how volunteer department's are run outside of New York it is interesting how effective they can be. I think this member did not quit in vain he is drawing attention to the archaic system that still exists here.

kids!!!

No it isn't.

All states should be like texas, that guy deserved to die touching a child. That is what a father is supposed to do. He should sleep fine knowing he protected his daughter.

I am not a father, but I have plenty of nieces and nephews and I know the rage that I would feel if this was happening to one of them. So, if I was a father, those feelings would be multiplied by a a thousand. I would have done the same thing that this father did. Rapists are one of the lowest forms of life to begin with, but a child molester/rapist is even worse in my book. This guy did society a BIG FAVOR by ending this guys life.

I. Love. Texas.
If this happened in New England (New Hampshire probably notwithstanding) the father would have been charged with Capital Felony Murder, Ben and Jerry's would have come out with a new flavor of ice cream to benefit the family of the scumbag rapist and Al Sharpton would be claiming it was a racist atrocity perpetrated against an innocent, defenseless minority.
In Texas, the dirtbag gets dead, the father gets to continue taking care of his family and trying to piece together the lost innocence of his child with the support of a caring community that takes care of its own.

Good stop on that job, YFD!
I remember when that neighborhood burned by the BLOCK!

Just wanted to openly thank our Mutual Aid help for being there at this job. I also want to give a "tip of the hat" to our own guys and gals for putting forth an aggressive attack on a stubborn fire. A job well done by everyone on scene.
Unit rundown
Croton FD units: 2081, 2082, E118, E119, E120, TL44, T10, R18
Ossining FD units: 2331, 2334, E98, TL42, U51
Montrose FD units: 2273, E121
Yorktown FD units: E272
Buchanan FD units: 2551, U12
Cortlandt VAC: 88B3
Ossining VAC: 36M1, 74B1
WCDES: Bat 10, C&O Zone 5
And thanks to Millwood FD for covering us and answering what I think was almost a dozen additional calls while we handled this fire.
I know there's some that were asking questions about this fire, so here's some info.
We were operating at a primary line and pole/transformer on fire at South Riverside and Oneida. We were repositioning E120 when the transformer exploded. I asked the crew of E120 to tell the patrons at Umami Cafe (next to Anton's) to stop standing outside to watch this transformer fire. As the guys were cutting across the lot of Anton's they heard some kind of a "bang" and saw black smoke dumping out of the building. At this time, they radioed me and I made my way over and saw it, giving the "10-75." At the time, all of our apparatus with the exception of TL44 were out on incidents. Luckily, the other incidents were in the middle of being given over to Con Ed, so they could respond to this fire. Car 2081 pulled up a minute or so later and assumed Command, and I took the "Operations" role.
The crews of E120 & T10 stretched a 300' preconnect to the B-side door. We took a quick look inside with the TIC, and could see the basement was the origin of this fire, and made a push downstairs. A 2nd line came in and protected the first line into the basement. As the additional companies arrived, crews made a primary of the restaurant and apartments upstairs (both negative), began horizontal ventillation and stretched an additional two lines in from side A.
We coordinated the basement fire attack with guys on the main level who opened up the floor to help the guys in the basement. While this was going on, part of the main level collapsed into the basement, pushing us back and eventually out of it. The fire was being fed by what we think was the gas line to the kitchen appliances, making it a royal PITA to extinguish, but we were successful in keeping it from taking a hold of the entire basement. The fire was in a 125 x 75 two story restaurant on first/apartments on 2nd building, with masonry block walls. The fire followed pipe chases up to the 2nd floor apartment. Crew made a push into here, only to find the floor burnt thru (glad they were sounding the floor as they advanced). They were able to get at it from a neighboring room and from the roof over the front of the restaurant.
Since the guys were taking a beating between the fire and the weather, I suggested to the IC early on to bring in an extra company for relief. This was when Montrose E121 came to work. Later on, when we realized we had been operating about 90 minutes, I then suggested to the IC to make it a full 2nd Alarm for relief, which brought E272 & TL42 in on the box. We were able to use the member from these three units to rotate personnel for relief as needed.
All in all, thanks to the weather and building construction, smoke was very heavy and wasn't lifting much, so the use of the TICs and old school sounding tactics allowed all of us to go home.

N.Y. Unions need to follow suit!!!!!!

Congrats Ohio!

Amen.
Survival still isn't an actual part of the FF I curriculum, luckily most (if not all now) FF I courses offered in Westchester also have a Survival course attached to them.
The Firefighter I program should include Survival and FAST. Anyone that thinks they shouldn't take FAST training of some type deserves to be punched in the nuts. They obviously don't care about their brothers.

It all comes down to the NYS training requirements which are an absolute joke. Include FF 2, survival and FAST as the basic FF course. If the training is too much, go join the Elks lodge.
My department encourages everyone who is an interior firefighter to train with the FASTeam and eventually join. However, you cannot put non-FAST trained members on a FAST assignment though, which is why it comes down to a special team in volunteer departments in NYS. Unless you require every interior member to be certified with survival and FAST, then it is going to have to be a special team.

Guess the southern county does participate in tanker operations....

I've been giving some thought on some of the comments on not only Yorktown's recent fire, but other incidents and want to share my thoughts.
Ten years ago, many of us were getting along fine, making do with what we had at our disposal in terms of manpower. Most fire departments would handle a single family dwelling fire with little to no Mutual Aid. Was it because we all had an abundance of manpower? I don't think so.
Many people like to get on the "manpower soapbox" all too often to explain their dwindling firehouse numbers, yet it can generally correlate to other contributing factors that many don't admit to, or even recognize.
1. Poor leadership. Many people in the volunteer fire service are giving their time to the FD while balancing their family duties, jobs and other commitments. Most guys and gals join either to be an integral part of their community and/or to become part of a social club. When your leadership is doing it's job (leading when leading is needed, being fair and balanced, treating everyone with respect, making everyone feel safe and accpeted) then the troops feel better about themselves and the department they've joined. I've been in my department since I was an Explorer (1992) and have seen AWESOME LEADERS (Chiefs and Company Officers) and sadly, we've had a few too many crappy ones. If you can lead your troops when they need leading and you can motivate them by making them feel a sense of ownership in their company/department, then they'll give that extra effort.
2. Lack of Training Availability. So many of us strive to be the best departments we can be, and this means a lot of training. We've grown from doing roughly one drill per month to offering 4-5 different training venues every month. Since everyone has crazy schedules, you need to be flexible. Having just one drill night isn't going to cut it. Also, training that we are all required to have isn't always made easily accessible. I don't fault WCDES for the lack of some courses - I lay blame on OFPC (or whatever acronym they use now). Why can't volunteer fire departments have an MTO? In our own department we have a half dozen NYS and/or National Fire Service Instructors and we're being under utilized. We had a good thing going for a couple of years where one of our guys was granted a "supplemental CFI" status and was providing in-house OFPC classes, such as HMFRO, HMFRO Annual Refresher, Confined Space Awareness & Safety, Scene Support Operations and others that you just don't see often enough. Losing this has hurt our training program, and now it costs us more money to outsource and bring instructors in. In a nutshell, the current system sucks.
3. Personal Agendas. I've seen a couple of Chiefs (not just in our FD but around the county) that get elected with an agenda of their own. In order to get what they want, they start cutting funding for certain things, they lie to everyone and worst of all - they let the department's members suffer. For example, if your Chief is up in your commissioners officer / town hall lying to them about what your members need simply to make themselves look good - that will come back to the guys/gals and ruin their ambition to be a part of your department.
I know I may sound like a broken record, but it really does come down to how your department is run, from the top down. If your Chief can't run a scene, the guys lose faith in them. If your Captain can't be bothered with drill night because of his softball games, how are the guys in the trenches expected to show any initiative? And if all the guys walking around with collar brass don't take the time to guide, mentor and lead their men/women - kiss it all goodbye.
These things have major negative impacts on your department's performance call after call. You might get 40 guys in line at a parade, but how many of them can honestly remember the last time they got out of bed at 2am for a CO call?
Leadership makes/breaks fire departments - we can blame it on anything else we want, but this simple truth is what hurts so many of us.
Stay safe & train often.
/thoughts.

I think its funny, that Northern Westchester seems to be the the new adopted word for vollie. very good. I also know my name is to the left and my town, but my views are all mine, not like others on here hiding behind a cute screen name or where they are from for what ever reason. I also like how this is fun for all. Someone is getting something out of every conversation no matter what the comment - As it should be, there are very smart people on this site. The Southern Westchester fires do have more BTU's, because a city block of fire burns hotter than a single house . I know Yorktown and all mutual aid company's did a good job at this fire because I was there. And yes, I do agree with all - that to many chiefs in the same place is a bad idea . And yes J. Flynn we would be open to some ideas, as all should be, if they want to be good at what they do, this is how we learn . Even though you are from Southern Westchester.

Well, I guess the laws of physics cease to exist on top of your "city." Were these magic "btu's?" Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans? (enough "my Cousin Vinny," it's bed time)

When you really think about it, there should of been at least one additional engine on this job, ... for a second fill site for the Tankers... one of the general rules of thumb I have learned, ( 3 tankers can work off of 1 fill site, 4 - 6 tankers should have 2 fill sites. ) so with this in mind, there should of been another engine on the list...
* newsbuff - tell you what, you start on 1 side of BCR and I'll come in from the other end with T 10 and you tell me its really a 2 lane road...
* johnnyov - your incident debriefing, it might be helpful to invite some of the key members of the different areas of this call... ( the fill site, tanker off load site, and fire ground ) so that you can see points from different views... plus, I am sure its not going to be the last time we work together, so it could help get us all on the same page or provide us with a different method of operating...
* jflynn - on several other topics you have mentioned, that you do not know much about tanker operations, which is understandable, and if you ever wish to attend on of the Croton / Yorktown / Millwood yearly tanker drills, we would love to have you there and open up to any ideas you may have... let me know and I will gladly email you when we do our next...
* bnechis - you did attend our last CYM tanker drill and you did bring up some good points, one thing I took from your comments, lead Croton to get a 5 inch gated Wye, and because the tanker site was on a hill side, with no level areas near by, we tossed the ponds on the side of the road and went with the gated Wye and had 2 tankers nurse to the relay pumper, which worked out great.. thanks Barry.
* 99subi - most of the tankers in this area carry around 3000 gallons...
- as far as the worries about there being 100 FF on this job, WOW thats great... I know every single resident I spoke with, who were trying to get home or out for some reason we gald so many people were there to help out... I think it says allot of the system up here in Northen Westchester... it may not be the best, but it does work.
....... AND YORKTOWN, THIS DID NOT COUNT AS YOUR YEARLY TANKER DRILL, ITS YOUR TURN FOR THIS YEAR...

This is why the dual dispatch with a FASTeam was implemented. Get them started, and if you don't need them, turn em around. All of our M/A teams were more then willing to try this out.
Yorktown's own FAST team response protocol is if we cannot field a crew (minimum 4 FASTeam qualified members [which is pages long in our SOGs]) in 3 minutes and out the door in 5, we will notify 60-control and the IC we cannot field a FASTeam. If we know we cannot field it sooner then that, we'll notify them immediately. If we have the manpower(minimum 4 interior firefighters), but not a FASTeam, we will notify the IC that we can send either an engine or truck, if the IC so chooses to accept. We have a no retone policy, and honestly feel others lives are more important then our ego's
As "buffy" as this sounds, our guys are very good at "getting on the horn" the moment a neighboring department gets called to a fire, and sending out mass texts and group chats (for those who have smart phones) to see who's around to respond. We sometimes know before the first due company arrives on scene, if we'll be able to field a crew or not should we be called. Members normally start making their way to HQ to lesson the time even more as the texts are going out.
No
4 out of the first 5 arriving firemen are FASTeam members.
3 in and about 20 outside was being utilized.

Sorry Chief, I was reading up on my phone and not neglecting to respond to you. No offense taken, or feelings hurt either.
To begin, the Yorktown Heights Fire District covers approximately 40 square miles, 1/2 of which contain no hydrants. The southern end of Yorktown is the non-hydrant district, with roads that were designed for travel well before cars were ever designed to be driven on them. Old Logging Rd, which is the access road for Maiden lane is even worse. It is a single lane goat path, with barely even enough room for a single engine, let alone some massive tankers to drive up, or even turn around. OUR engines and tanker are designed to fit up these roads/ driveways, and designed with our district in mind. Some of our neighboring department's tankers will not fit down our old roads, and if they do make it down, there is no where for them to turn around to get back to a fill site. Most of the houses located on these properties are large, older buildings constructed with balloon frame, wood, plaster, lathe, and are home to many hoarders (seems to be an epidemic in Yorktown recently). The newer homes are just as big and McMansions in some cases. Many unique homes and oddly designed layouts also adorn our district on the southend.
Yorktown has 2 primary first due engines, Engine 273 out of the Commerce St station in the center of town with 1000 gallons, and Engine 272 out of Station 2 in the Northern, hydrant supplied section of town, with 750 gallons of water. The Tanker sits at the commerce st house as well. Engine 270 is a rescue pumper with only 500 gallons, and engine 271 is our spare engine (basically an older twin of 273). Engine 270 would normally be a 3rd due engine, if it responds at all, to keep our hurst tools available for a run. In our non-hydranted sections of town, it is not uncommon to have driveways that are hundreds, or even thousands of feet long (our longest being almost 1/2 a mile off of hog hill rd). Old logging road is basically no different then a common access driveway that is thousands of feet long.
Now on to your question of why 7 departments were called.
Our first due engine takes the drive way and normally lays in from the bottom for long lays. The next due engine then hooks up to that to relay pump to the first due. The tanker supplies the 2nd due, and drops its tank for a dump site there. At this particular house, the driveway was only 100' long, if that. 273 arrived first, and 272 was seconds behind them. Upon arrival, the neighbors were screaming that the owner was still inside, so our priorities immediately turned to life safety. Engine 272 immediately supplied 273 with their tank water, and sent their crew to assist in the offensive attack. Tanker 14 arrived shortly thereafter, and supplied 272.
Millwood and Croton's engines were called as draft site fills, and I believe a relay and supply line to the tanker at the scene. Even with the water that was there with the initial 3 apparatus, the water filling the supply lines, and the time it takes to back one tanker out and have another one pull in and dump its tank, the supply was running out every 2-5 minutes and we could not keep up with the fire flow formula. More tankers were requested to compensate for the lack of water supply.
Yorktown is very adamant about not stripping other towns and villages of apparatus for our fires. If we've called you for 1 piece, the only way we're going to call for something else is if there has been a discussion with the chief of that particular department a)having the capability to supply 2 pieces and the manpower and willingness to deplete their town of their own resources. If they say no, we can't/don't want to/ or unsure, they're not going to get called for 2.
Our 10-75 assignment for any non hydrant area (which we'll stick to for the remainder of the discussion [our other boxes and assignments can be found here: Yorktown box alarms]) includes tankers from 3 other departments, and an engine as a source pumper; 1 and 1 are requested on the relocate to cover our town since our manpower is focused on the working fire. FASTeams are dual dispatched on the initial report of any type of structure fire before a working fire is transmitted. 2nd alarm, moves the engine that is standing by up to a new draft site, and brings in 2 additional tankers, a cascade to the scene, another FAST and another engine on a relocate to our HQ. 3rd alarm brings in 2 additional Tankers and the Field Comm unit. The relocated ladder will not be taken off standby, as they will clog the system up.
So the 7 departments were:
Yorktown as first due
Croton - Engine and Tanker
Millwood - Engine and Tanker
Somers - Tanker, Rehab unit
Continental Village - Tanker
Katonah - Tanker
Buchannon - Cascade
Now, I'm for regonalization and standardization of some aspects of the fire department, but some areas of the county, regardless of fire district lines, are completely different then others. Apparatus design that work well in one area, may not work well in an area directly adjacent to that. Consolidation is always a hot topic, and I know prior i've been adamant about county consolidation. Honestly, I have no idea what the correct answer is. Sometimes, independant districts are fantastic, and other times they're completely horrendous. I really don't know if there is a single correct answer for the current situation around our area.
And in the utmost respectful way to ask this possible, and I really mean that, would you or anyone else for that matter, consider consolidating the ENTIRE county, large cities included, into ONE regional department? If so, why, or if you exclude large cities from your plan, why are they so special and different from a town or village department?

Pleasantville VAC has a Rehab Unit (7605). This unit is equipped with basically everything needed to rehab firefighter, police, ems, etc at fire, mva's, or any other extended incident. You can request us 24/7 by contacting 60-Control and asking for Pleasantville VAC Rehab Unit. They will then contact Pleasanville PD who will tone us out.
On our rehab unit (7605) we have:

tents cooling chairs non-cooling chairs misting fans cold water/gatorade cold wet towels vital monitoring equipment Carbon Monoxide detector (detects levels in the body) food (typically granola bars) ice oxygen propane heater generator with lights propane heater heated tent (attaches to propane heater) *If you have any questions, feel free to ask!*