antiquefirelt

Just a point of clarification, this wasn't Chicago, IL, but New Chicago, IN, the difference is pretty clear! While things are often far more difficult with short staffed FD's, this is not representative of how many (most I hope) of them would have handled this fire.

I know of one time that a TIC saved me from myself. My crew responded to an odor of smoke 4-5 houses from the firehouse early in the morning (3-4 am). Being one of the first chilly nights of the fall the outside air was full of wood smoke and after a lengthy investigation for the cause of the odor in the duplex we were called to, I was ready to write it off as chimney smoke that had got inside. This after using the TIC, our hands and noses throughout the two apartments. Being that I hate to leave without a definitive answer, we had spent over a half an hour maybe 45 minutes in two small units detecting a faint odor of wood smoke, which was actually stronger outside. Just before clearing I asked the Lt. to perform one more sweep of the units with the TIC and he found a white spot at the ceiling! Upon opening up, we found a smoldering area of wood in the blown in insulation, quickly addressed with a can and shutting power of the light circuit that had a bad section of metal cased wire. We concluded that the smoldering had been taking place for quite some time, but had originally not heated the wall covering enough to be visible to the TIC, luckily enough it did present itself before we left. Had we not had the TIC, I'm sure we'd have returned to quarters only to have been called back for the attic on fire. We have had great success using the TIC to minimize damage and perform a more surgical overhaul in cases. This takes having high confidence in the camera through constant use, call after call, so you learn how to interpret what you're seeing. Coupled with utilizing sense of smell, touch and ensuring a strong building construction knowledge base serves us well.

Any tool in the wrong hands can be detrimental. TIC can be true lifesavers and minimize damages while enhancing firefighter safety immensely, as long as we like any other technology do not rely on it solely.

I gotta wonder what this does to Chris Christie, the once Golden Child of the Republican Party. Such an action, Flag Code or not, is a slap in the face to many for whom the flags have been lowered, something that can't sit well with the GOP. Anyone who can stomach FOX News seen anything from their perspective? Just being in agreement with Sharpton on anything might be a discredit to a GOP candidate.

While I completely agree that lowering the flag for a celebrity is out of order, it appears that the above section of the flag code basically excludes flying the flag at half-mast for most of those whom we do this for now: no firefighters, police officers or even soldiers killed in action?

This is exactly the issue, people must understand what how the 1st Amendment Protection works. Not all speech is "protected speech", it's unlawful to say many things. If you area a user of social media or even here in these or any public forums, you should understand what can get you in trouble, lest you find yourself standing in the unemployment line with a stupid look on your face.

I don't favor banning anyone if they aren't abusive to other members. If a chief officer wants to shoot him/herself in the foot publicly on a forum, let them. Banning them tends to only protect them from themselves until they do something even more detrimental to themselves or their department.

On the constructive side , maybe I'm not seeing the newest trends but are their SCBA's Euro styled with attach hoods or are they just wearing hoods over the masks and leaving them on the masks?

As a general 1st Amendment thing, this month's Firehouse rag has a short article by Curt Varone (Providence FD/attorney) on 3 cases, one of which addresses Protected Speech. As for Seth's original question/commentary: Clearly officers, especially chief officers should set the example and live by a higher bar. As you rise up in rank you should observe a higher level of decorum. While sometimes it's hard for any of us (remember Chiefs quite often were once type A personality firefighters) to keep our mouths shut, one must evaluate the total perception of the situation from the multiple points from which it can be observed. Maybe a tightly regulate social media site can narrow who sees what posts, but in forums such as here, anyone could find your rants and make them very public.

Uh...nevermind, my mother told me if I had nothing good to say, I should keep it to myself.

Not sure how the wire runs in SF, but I can say that our above ground on the pole fire alarm wire was a nightmare to maintain. I'd think many places where the costs and troubles are low the wire is predominantly below ground. Salt air plays hell with the outer sheath, Aerial Terminal Boxes and any "exposed" connection. In our case (all above ground) it was good riddance.

On the surface the bailout programs fly in the face of a significant portion of the taxpaying community. But one must look at the economic impact of allowing Detroit to fail. Maybe Ford would have survived, in all likelihood, any one of the big three would probably flourish if the two others failed, given the buy American sentiment. How much would it cost if just one of the big 3 failed? How many sub-companies would go under? How many employees nationwide would end up added to our already staggering unemployment lines? To think some even advocated boycotting Chevy and Chrysler for taking bailout funds! If they then failed after taking the bailouts, we'd have lost that money forever. reportedly, Chevy and Chrysler have repaid all the money the took. We the taxpayers bailout the airlines every year. We spend billions on airports and airlines to ensure the airline industry is solvent. If the airline had to fully fund their true costs, tickets would be too far out of range for 99% of Americans to fly, causing that industry to collapse. In a perfect world each industry would collect enough money to not require tax dollars, but we've become too reliant on many to allow them to fail. As for the cost of the Super Bowl commercial, it's still a drop in the bucket of any automakers total advertising budget. And it has farther reaching implications than just Detroit or Chrysler. Increased Chrysler sales nationwide helps jobs nationwide. BTW given my experience with Ford, I'd say they didn't need the bailout as they still had enough cash flow from parts and service!

At some point no FD or EMS service has the resources to cover every eventuality. Some are far better poised to handle multiple incidents, others not so well. What would the public say if they knew that the EMS crew was struggling to take a cardiac patient out of the 4th floor and couldn't treat and transport at the same time, while the nearest firehouse had a staffed aerial sitting there waiting for something that might happen (with far less frequency than medical runs)? If you have two separate system that can provide quality service to their mission without relying on the other, that's great. But for a significant portion of this country anyway that's not even remotely close to the case.

Our agency only charges mutual aid towns for non-transporting calls. By agreement we provide M/A ambulances and ALS to other communities for a price. We bill the community for this not the patient. If the patient is transported by us, then they're billed for it as any patient in our bus is billed, but the town is also billed for a transport call. This keeps communities from over-using us to provide EMS cheaper than they can. We found that when it didn't "sting" they continued to push their staffing/financial issues down the road. Now, they're paying the same per call cost that we'd base a full service agreement on. The money earned from this helped us increase staff to more than offset these calls.

But then running the same engine to let Mrs. Smith's dog out to potty or to take her groceries in to ensure they didn't spoil in the sun made sense? Bruno has/had a lot of ideas, some good others, well... I must say I agree with ALS's comments as my Fire/EMS department shares may of his views. As a smaller agency we cannot support a proper staff for just the Fire call volume, the runs vs. money just wouldn't work with the public, even in good times. Many years ago, as was noted the FD took over EMS from the local funeral home. It was a logical extension at the time, as they had paid personnel waiting in the station to respond to emergencies and in the beginning CPR and first aid was about it. Over the years the Fire and EMS calls grew, then the fire calls stopped growing and receded while EMS continues to rise. There was a time when our job was a Fire/EMS dept. now it's and EMS/Fire department by volume anyway. The issue with low volume FD's is that we still need the same expensive equipment for just one first alarm, yet can't justify staffing to man this equipment. Personnel-wise we need more EMS licenses to keep up with the volume and supervisors to maintain a hierarchy, paperwork, QA, training etc. The direct correlation between people assisted and the taxes required is far easier to show. Much as it pains many of us, our FD really is more in the EMS business, while maintaining quality trained and equipped firefighters. Could our city do away with the career FD, have a FT EMS department and a VFD? Not without losing services such as inspections, fire Prevention, haz-mat, tech rescue and a degradation in firefighting quality. Oh and where would the medics come from? In our area 75%+ medics are firefighters who don't want to do EMS only, EMS only medics are few and far between. As for the original topic, our Fire/EMS dept. cannot justify taking personnel off the fire apparatus to provide back-up, via a non-fire vehicle, to the EMS crews. This would take first due units off the road, understaffed as they are to start. For many of us smaller departments it's a juggling act to put the best personnel where the citizens need them most. That means today my FF/medic might ride the bus, the engine or drive the tower depending on who's on what call. One thing we do preach is that we respond to each emergency as best we can, not withholding anything "just in case" another call might occur (and they do). This doesn't mean we don't keep fire trucks on the road or ensure an ambulance is readily available, but we have to be a little more creative and utilize recalls and OT more.

If your service bills Medicare, then you must follow their rules or risk an audit which freezes any MC payments until you prove you're in compliance. Medicare rules include fee schedules that differ region to region and even within regions as they see fit. What we bill in Maine differs from what you can bill MC in NY due to the regional fee structures. As far as I know, unless the rules have changed recently, billing for no transports is a violation of MC rules, so if you're billing MC and they get a bill for a no transport, you make get audited. Part of the audit is that they supposedly can and will force you to refund any payments made by MC for such time that you've been operating outside their guidelines. I suspect if you bill the patient directly and do not send bills to insurers than the MC rules probably don't apply. TI can tell you their rules are complex and numerous and some billing companies understanding of their rules vary greatly. BTW, when you bill Medicare, they make you follow their rules, for all billing, not just to them, you must have one set of billing practices for all patients.

While I understand the whole recognized, trained VFD vs. what it appears Aviation has become, I'd still think the FDNY Commissioner would have grave concerns with any FD responding first due to an area FDNY covers. Unless they're constantly drilling together and a are truly interoperable, I'd think they're really just in the way. Not that a VFD can't operate in a professional manner, but when you're procedures are as exacting as FDNY, having to worry about what's been done before your pretty timely arrival would seem to complicate matters? If I'm a taxpayer paying for the FDNY, I would want FDNY service without someone coming in first and potentially changing the rules of the game...Or are these other VFD's just that good?

Sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere but I didn't have time to red all the posts, but have a thought. Is it not the Commissioner of the FDNY that is responsible for the extinguishment of fire and rescue of persons within all five boroughs? If it is, then he clearly needs to control how that happens. Having any agency self-dispatch to calls, and begin operating can only serve to hamper the FDNY's efforts on arrival, unless said companies works exactly as the FDNY would have (likeliness about 0%). Do the taxpayers of this area deserve the same response as the rest of the city? Can we agree that the response is different for better or worse. Even if they operate safely, they likely are on the closest hydrants and taking spotting positions thus hampering the FDNY response. As I see it it has far more to do with command and control than just volunteer standards vs. the FDNY.

A lot of FD's around us still do this, but we stopped this practice many moons ago. The concerns that led us to abandon not requiring RP's were: too often when there was a problem they still wouldn't come: "just lock it up and we'll take care of it tomorrow" and the second being, we don't want to be the last ones responsible for securing the property. It's far too easy for the owner to say something is missing or had an issue and the FD were the last ones in the building.

Not NY but... Our ordinances require a Knox Box in all occupancies that have Fire Alarms Systems that report. They have one allowable exception that if you provide a list of 3 or more RP's that will arrive within 10 minutes of being called you may opt out, but at the peril of your property (FE on Doors) if we have any heightened suspicion of fire inside unoccupied structures and basically any alarm condition in occupied structures. That is to say we may wait for the RP if the building is "considered" unoccupied and there are no further signs of a problem inside and we won't wait to gain access to occupied structures. With the former, waiting, the officer has the ability to require entry at any time he/she feels this is in the best interest, considering the size of the buildings and the potential for no outward signs.

Good luck with that, after watching both games yesterday, I'm confidently Patriotic!

One certainly could say the ventilation is one of, if not the most important aspect of fire control. Given that nearly every action we take causes some sort of ventilation or effects ventilation, we must understand how our actions affect the fire.

NFPA 72 will likely just require "Fire Department Notification" via one of 4 means, but each of those would likely only go so far as to connect to your FD;s 911 system. If the system is such that the calls go to your PD, NFPA 72 won't help you change your end of the system. It generally provides the requirements for FD notification and basically accessing the FD's 911 system. I'd think 1221 would certainly be more likely to spell out a model system that includes the fewest amount of call handlers along the way. Why any PD would want the added liability in handling these calls mid-notification stream is beyond me, sounds like they want to ensure they have a call volume by ensuring they're assigned to each call?

I'm always leery of "Class 1" certified devices as most often that rating is not carried for the life of the device. What manufacturer backs that after you've dropped the light a few time or exposed it to high temps?

Gary is in terrible shape. That whole area seems to be in dire straits, with cities bankrupt and crime and fire rampant. I do find it interesting that these firefighters faced with deplorable conditions in their firehouses, fire apparatus and staffing cuts take even greater risks for so little gain. You'd think that after being abused by the politicians and faced with huge cuts affecting their safety that the Union in Gary doesn't take a stand against unsafe tactics and operations where vacant buildings and defensive operations are concerned. The best leadership shows during adverse conditions, not while a city is flush with money. As an outsider it appears that many of these hacked FD's seem to take extraordinary risks given the cuts to staff and lack of reliable equipment, while others such as Camden FD seem to have strengthened their SOPs and training to ensure the safety of their members. One cannot expect to fight fires the same way with 30% less staff and not feel the negative impact.