antiquefirelt

So that engine company has a sustained water supply much faster? The downside is? Sounds like maybe you're lamenting over other issues besides the numbers on any given piece.

I understand we often are frustrated with the hand we're dealt, but when firefighters are making statements like this, the problem will never get better. Show me a three man engine that can perform as well as a 4 man engine, I'll show you a poorly lead 4 man engine. Not saying a three man engine can't be outstanding and save the day, they do far too often, but add a fourth member to those three? I think you'd see even better stops faster?

Don't be afraid to ask how to do something. It's far better to be a good learner than a know it all. Mistakes are to be learned from, not covered up.

As has been noted before, an automatic ALS response would indicate that the Taser induces a need for ALS, which is counter to the statistics. Our personnel did the EMS Taser training, up to being Tased and utilizing one, and our units are only dispatched when a probe is stuck or when other circumstances indicate the need for EMS ie: excited delirium, profuse bleeding other other injury requiring attention. I would think a city would open themselves up to liability by automatically dispatching ALS to every Taser incident if they allow Taser use. This would indicate they themselves aren't certain that it's less than lethal force.

If that was the case I'd understand your sentiment as long as the departments were operating at nearly the same level (training, quality and tactics). I expect that that covers a few of the FD's noted in the OP. There's often such a wide margin, we require a chief officer from our own department, but we don't have any other career FD's in the area. That would also be cause to skip over 'closer' FD's favoring ones that can easily operate at a similar level without dependent factors (time of day, day of week, popular elected officers, etc).

Isn't the purpose of a covering assignment to take calls that are anticipated? If you're expecting nothing to happen why not question the overall purpose of the assignment (stand by in quarters) ? I know that when we put our personnel into another departments incident we assign a chief officer, this includes covers thereby ensuring a chief is immediately available should a significant incident come in. While most line officers are very used to (and capable) being the first in IC, when you take them outside their own coverage area you introduce many other potential issues (unfamiliar street, hydrant spacing,non-common LE and EMS freqs and policies, etc.), a chief officer as a liaison if nothing else can smooth these and ensure the line companies can just do their job.

Interesting, I've not seen that. Any particular manufacturers or units? I'd think that most, with the exception of the radial style (Aerialscope) would not be able to make this work due to the jack position when stowed. To have the outermost point flush with the body makes the centerpoint of the down jack 8-12" in making for a small footprint.

You're going to see many more places move toward this. Those studying these events are able to show that many victims die while awaiting care and in most case the shooter is dead upon PD's arrival. The clearing and calling the all clear takes far too long for those wounded and bleeding. If you use "risk/benefit analysis" you'd be hard pressed to find a larger "benefit" than children's lives (school shootings) and statistically the risk is likely much lower than entering a vacant building under fire conditions.

All the trees are encased in ice today, it's a Festivus Miracle.

This generally should be the company officer directly above the probie or his/her senior man. For us an official title would mean a pay grade, testing and required duties, instead the senior man is a position of respect and knowledge without being a direct part of the official chain of command. Much BS from shift to shift is handled by the senior man on one shift speaking to the other on one of the other shifts. They head of issues before they make it to the office, where an official action likely will be started. This clears up tons of little things before they get out of hand. The Sr. man also shows the probie's the ropes and is the go too person for questions about how routine duties are to be completed. I think there's good reason for non-official "ranks", though I'm not sure how this would work out on the Volunteer or POC side? From what I've seen (locally) most VFD's and POC departments don't need more titles, they need more firefighters. Seems that anyone with FF1 and off probation is wearing a bugle or two and chattering away on the radio...

Sadly this is the way it's done in most business. The rationale is that by giving notice, especially before Christmas, the employees will treat the company and company equipment like they perceive themselves being treated. The other option of waiting until after Christmas without giving notice will allow the employee to overspend for the holiday with no post holiday income. There are no good answers, but most management training/programs/classes all say you must cut the ties quick without notice. All great reasons to ensure your community is protected by employees and departments who are under taxpayer control. Essential services are best served by municipal departments eliminating anything happening fast (you can only close up at the speed of government).

Maybe it's just our medicare "banding" but I can tell you that providing decent emergency only ALS care and transport is not profitable. Our municipal FD takes in less revenue from EMS than it costs. It's a little murky as we're a FD that uses it's personnel to staff the buses, but I know one could not maintain 3 buses, a place to house them, and the staff to ensure they could cover 95% of the calls with the actual EMS revenue we take in.

We wouldn't need 38 page threads on regionalization of the fire service, either.

When this first came to light for us we looked into how this affected our POC division and it was pretty clear that the employer doesn't have to offer insurance if the minimum number of average hours is not worked, which for most likely would make this a non-issue.

It's getting to be like the NFL, I always snicker at the receiver being paid millions of dollars who catches the ball for a TD and does an end zone dance like he's a kindergarten kid. Act like you've been there, the lady who just cashed me out at the grocery store didn't slam the register shut and do a little number because she did her job successfully. Here is certainly a time for praise, but the "everyone's a winner, there are no wrong answers" people are killing us.

Around here the FD's have a great habit of holding critiques of most fires that require mutual aid, the down side is that these mostly turn out to be a chance for everyone to pat each other on the back and come up with collective excuses for the outcome. Not everyone grasps that they can point out mistakes without it becoming a family feud, then again nepotism is rampant in some FD's. Don't think the career guys are impervious to critique, just like a family, when we don't have an outsider to pick apart we tend to look at the other shifts. Every shift tends to have a slant on how they would've done it. Only one ever knows how the way they would done it actually works out (the one that catches the job). Of course being a small FD, we all get to attend the first alarms and greater, thus they all become our collective successes, failures and most importantly learning moments.

Here's a good example of a good job or was it just a good outcome? http://bangordailynews.com/2013/12/01/news/bangor/firefighters-police-rescue-veazie-man-from-burning-home/?ref=inline

Everyone going home at the end of the incident is not a barometer of a good or bad job. Does everyone who goes to work and makes it home slap themselves on the back and declare the end of a successful day just for surviving? Every day there are many poorly executed incidents where everyone goes home, often they don't even suspect they could've done better. Similarly, some days we have LODD's but the firefight may have been handled well, maybe no one declares it a good job, but not every fire allows us to find that perfect balance of risk vs. reward. Tell the East Franklin, NJ FD and the family of Kevin Appuzio that their effort wasn't a "good job". Sometimes when you do everything right, things still go wrong. One mark of a bad job is when you leave without finding a single thing you could have done better or differently, maybe the outcome was positive, but if think you're already perfect you're just an accident or bad decision waiting to happen. A mark of a good job or FD might be one that never says a job was "good enough". As we learn more about how fires behave through NIST and UL testing and numerous FD's helping show repeatable and measurable fire tactics and behavior statistics, we cannot forget that while it is a science problem we never have all the variables at our disposal to make a rapid decision, thus we use experience and training to make decisions based on anticipated answers to some of the unknowns. No one will get these anticipated variables correct 100% of the time, not even close. What is a good job to one department may be way off from another. We all can point fingers at what we see as good jobs or poor ones, but when looking at our own FD's if you're not asking what you could have done better at every single incident, you're likely not doing a good job, regardless of the incident outcome.

Not sure how you'd gauge how another type of bus would have done, but here's a Type III that rolled over and looks pretty good. http://bangordailynews.com/2013/12/02/news/penobscot/ambulance-drives-off-i-95-near-howland/?ref=relatedBox

This is another in an ever growing list of failures on emergency services (all disiplines) to figure out how best to protect responders while facilitating the rescue of viable victims. We must face the facts: 1. Most places will not have a heavy LE/SWAT response in the first 10-15 minutes (likely far longer). 2. While current practices have far fewer numbers of regular duty LEO's making entry far sooner, they cannot remotely "clear" a large scene quickly 3. Waiting for an "all clear" to provide rescue, removal or life saving stabilization techiniques will result in further injuries and greater fatalities 4. We must get over the jurisdictional boundaries that say "that's your problem, not ours" or "we can't use you until the all clear due to liability" We would be far better off working on how to better respond and work together than trying to figure out the prevention piece which is likely many years away of ever truly possible.

Were you looking for the "too lean, too rich and the sweet spot" ? That was what immediately came to mind, but I figured you were looking for something more fireamatic. The one thing about any gases once they leave their "container" if they're too rich to burn, there will be a place where they are ripe for ignition, on the other end, they can be too lean if the container or production is closed the concentration is dissipating.

Like most providers I see this as a large step in the right direction or at least toward evidence based medicine, but old habits and lessons are hard to erase, thus some trepidation rises for the things we used to fear so much like not minimizing spinal injury. Interesting that they specifically do not allow KED's and shortboards, clearly some stats and evidence must have shown greater issues from their use? The amount of spinal movement that can occur moving someone from seated (behind the wheel) to laying on a board is where I have pause, seeing shoulders turned one way while the hips don't move? What happens when the pt. has a sudden pain upon moving? These are the types of questions I'd wish to have answers to, before the situation occurs, so we can explain away the "I once was an EMT" bystander or the avid Chicago Fire fan convinced you've just further injured the victim. Again, these questions are not to find fault with such changes, merely to have answers before the questions.

Good point, I suppose we have a fair number of these as well, but they're typically known from the time of dispatch as they report the intermittent chirp vs. a fully alarmed device, thus they are single engine non-emergency runs for us. One of the things we try and in part on the dispatcher is to question what the alarm sounds like if they can't hear it in the background. Usually the caller who sees no smoke (or CO as they rarely know any better) doesn't suspect a real problem is occurring but they can't figure it out, so send the FD.

How does one get the pt. to the stretcher without using KED's or shortboards when the long board won't fit? Seems like some way of minimizing lateral spinal movement would still be necessary between the position found and the stretcher? Very interesting stuff!

In the end the real issue now comes to determining the reliability of the patient. Of the BS injuries that get boarded, 99% of them involved intoxication, thus every drunk that goes boom gets the full treatment, meaning they're drunk and pissed.