antiquefirelt

I agree 100%, I just don't agree with not doing your duty as the answer. Obviously there must be more to the story, it sounds more like a VFD scenario where the town wouldn't give gas money than a municipal PD. Unless they're down to just one cop and one car, there would seem to be alternatives? I'd don't like suggesting reducing staff, but faced with that vs. not responding to calls? I think a boss that tries to strong arm a solution by holding the community hostage is to entrenched in his fiefdom to stay and lead. Of course, I know nothing about this place or the actual back story, but it seems to me the PD is forcing the citizens to pay for a problem between themselves and town admin?

I've never understood when police fire or EMS departments attempt to hold the municipality hostage by not doing their sworn duty. There has to be a better way to persuade them or save money. Better to lay off one officer than not respond to call. In fact, it appears to me the Chief would be a good place to start. Being a boss when severe budget cuts come down has to be one of the most challenging times in anyone's professional life. Having to make huge staffing cuts, brown out companies or reducing minimum staffing hurts everyone involved, the citizens, the firefighters and the officers all the way to the top. Another thing I don't understand is the Chief's that flat out quit. I can see taking a hard stand, but getting yourself fired or quitting only leaves an opening for the same difficult position. Then what happens, they push someone from the inside up and force his/her into the same corner or hire an outsider to come make the cuts with no true knowledge of the particular department.

Our times are calculated from the time 911 is answered until the time of the first dispatched unit arrives onscene. For EMS calls they also include a time at pt. to further show when assessment of the emergency has begun. While there are other ending times that make sense(water flowing, full 1st alarm arrival, etc) they are far more difficult to track with regularity and therefore we use the time when our first arriving unit arrives and begins assessing the situation be it fire/EMS/Rescue/haz-mat. Once in a while an call member or off duty member might arrive first due to proximity but they're time is not used in the calculated response time unless it's an Officer or ALS licensed EMT-I or greater for EMS runs. In the end we feel this is a reflection of the only time period that matters, the one the patient or victim sees and comprehends. They want to know how long from the time they called until the time you arrived, as they assume everything will get better once you arrive. It does, doesn't it?

Good catch. As noted the point stands, but the CPVC would likely be similarly fallible to copper. In our local ordinance, we allow the systems to be shut-off in 1 and 2 family dwellings, if they are to be unoccupied for any length of time. We have plenty of "snowbirds" who enjoy 5 months and head south for the rest. To our way of thinking, these are about life safety and nothing else, thus no lives, no issue. If they were to be used to effect setbacks as has been promoted in some tightly congested communities, I'd think twice about that. Life safety designed or not, they're still pretty effective at limiting damage. So far that's not been utilized here, but has been discussed for infilling small downtown lots. I'd suggest requiring reporting private alarms if the setbacks were to be amended to ensure proper notification sooner.

Let's talk now then. A residential sprinkler head average maybe 13 gpm upon activation, 95% of residential fires where sprinklers were present were held or extinguished by 2 or less heads. So under 26 gpm water flowing will cause how much damage compared to a fire that doubles in size every minute and that's "old math" compared to the new highly combustible furnishings we use today. Let's say there's are dwelling fire that a career staffed FD responds to within 6 minutes of detection. The fire was already out of hand when discovered requiring the call to 911, now it's 64 times greater than at discovery. Upon arrival the FD leads out in just 1 minute and starts water on the fire (pretty good), what are they flowing? I'll be conservative and say 150 gpm. That's the same amount of water basically as two heads would have flowed until the FD arrived, with no increase in fire size. Starting to get the picture? And that's if they only needed to flow for 1 minute, which is extremely unlikley. As for inadvertent water damage, the data suggests this is extremely rare. You already have water piped throughout the home, and today plumbers are mostly using PEX tubing or CPVC with expands upon freezing rather than break like iron pipe or copper. Our city has mandated sprinklers in new one and two family dwellings since 2010, thus far none of the systems have exceeded $10k, and the high was due to the home having an in home business which the state decided to require more sprinkler head coverage and required a second larger water entrance, which is not the case in any of the other homes. With uninformed naysayers in our midst, we're sure to have to fight an uphill battle all the way. And lastly, fire damage is permanent, water damage is largely reversible, it's a no brainer, is it not

One might note that 3100 Americans killed is more than are killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined year after year, yet the costs there make sprinlklers look like a grit of sand in the bottom of the bucket. It's clear that the poster has very little info on residential dwelling sprinklers, but that's really up to the fire service to get the word out, sometimes our own people are unarmed when it comes to these facts.

Another great point, very few FD"s pay enough attention to how their portable operate and fail to see some safety issues. Our county comms director wanted to mandate the freq. lineup in every radio for the first 5-8 channels citing "interoperability". This would have put the primary dispatch channel in the #1 slot and everyone's fireground in the #2. We refused, saying we will always have our fireground in #1 and in 95% of the cases in the last slot as well. Unlike yours, we wanted our failsafe to be on a simplex analog frequency. We have some near deadspots on the repeated dispatch freq and in most of the box stores and large concrete buildings, the portables can't hit the closest repeater tower (we do not have in vehicle repeaters). Having the fireground or your "failsafe freq" in in the first and last, as ALS noted, ensures that on any radio that has a selector "stop" you can spin it either way until it's stops and know you're on the right freq. Many of the newer radios do not have these "stops" and now we've started de-programming the knobs which get turned too easily and use a front button for channel selection. Some firefighters noted the radio "beeps" when you select the primary/channel 1 freq, so you know when you're there, but we felt that that wasn't reliable enough in a MAYDAY when PASS devices may be sounding and who know's what other noise might not allow it to e heard. The front keys allow channel selection than key lock up requiring at least two keys be "bumped" to knock the portable off the selected channel. All our officers carry two radios, one is on the fireground and one is on the repeated dispatch freq at all times. All firefighters radios are left on "fireground" and if they don't have a radio with selector "stops", they must use the "no knob" function and front keypad to change freqs.

Thanks Steve, I think I was aware that it wasn't a requirement to go digital by 2013, but has been "sold" as an upcoming mandate at some point. The dates and advice vs mandates has been blurred by the sales people to push us toward a more expensive system, though the real cost of maintenance for analog vs. digital was one of the selling points toward our becoming truly digital ready. I must say I have no specific knowledge of the radio business, just a seat on a board that always seems to be presented with just a little less information than required. Thankfully we may have turned the corner on misinformation and relying on the word of a single vendor who stands to gain through our decisions based on their advice.

There are, but as our radio engineer explained, with a voting repeater system, which we have, adding repeaters that change location and therefore cannot be aligned perfectly, can interfere with the systems ability to work properly. The voting repeater system hears every transmission, and determines which site is getting it strongest, and that site is voted to rebroadcast the transmission to the receiver via the RX freq. They may be able to do this on the simplex fireground channels all FD's are supposed to have in our area, but the cost would have to be borne by the local FD's not he county communications budget. The second issue for us would be the lack of enough comm center staff to monitor the 18 fireground freqs, main fire/EMS dispatch for 22 agencies and 4 PD's. They're already over taxed and short personnel, so adding to their burden without more staff is not an option.

During our recent upgrade it was and remains a constant battle to convince some chief's that fireground traffic should be on a simplex (direct radio to radio contact) frequency. It's dangerous to need to hit a transmitter 10 miles away when you're calling command just 40 feet away on the front lawn. Opponents of this state it is dispatches responsibility to listen for MAYDAY's, of which we tell them, no it's the IC's responsibility to ensure a safety officer or someone is doing that on site. I think older fire chiefs are using the Hackensack Ford fire to further this rather than see that as a "lucky" break, or a break down of the fireground communications system.

My understanding is that radio ID's are possible with analog systems that use a very specific set-up. Our county just upgraded to all digital capable equipment on the dispatch side (though staying analog for now). In this project they planned on requiring all radios to send an identifier, but found that due to the various manufacturers and the age of the equipment in the field, only a small percentage could utilize the system decode required for the ID's. Now, most of those whose radios who send the ID, have that digital "chirp" upon keying up each transmission. If I recall, this audible chirp is a feature option, so not all radios need to be set up to send the ID with an audible (it's annoying!) As was noted, most of the work out county did was to fix some coverage gaps and strengthen the system by adding a voting repaeter network. A large factor was moving everyone to narrowband and then being ready for the digital requirements coming up. So far, my FD specifically has seen no upside and had a temporary downside of losing some coverage, that was corrected with proper antennas and alignment. One thing that lingers is that the use of narrow band and some features that "clean-up the signal" reduces the audio of most radios/paging devices. It appears we may have lost 25-50% of the volume of most receiving units.

While they are not specific tax mandates, it is through taxes and our Federal budget that the money is taken, so in a sense, they are tax mandates. The point is if any program (AFG and SAFER being low cost ones actually) requires federal funding, the budget increases to accommodate those costs and taxes are raised (even if very slightly in the grand scheme). There for when all the taxpayers of pay a little more their money goes to DC to be reallocated to my example Camden, NJ, Bangor,ME, and even here in Rockland. So, sometimes your local money leaves and returns (likely a larger sum, but possibly less). With no AFG or SAFER, that small amount of tax money wouldn't be needed, local taxpayers would pay that fraction less and the local FD with needs would ask for their own budget to cover them. The real issue isn't AFG or SAFER, but all the programs across all types of employment that use similar funding. We firefighters don't own a lock on being passionate about our fair share of federal funding for what we see as essential equipment and personnel, the law enforcement community has far greater sums of federal dollars that I'm certain they feel strongly need to remain funded, as do school teachers, mid-West farmers, colleges, alternative energy people, etc. We're no different than any of them, do we think they'll agree to take cuts to let us have what we say we need? If we can't convince them to fund us locally, how will we nationally, unless we use these types of programs, as they do the same. As for the rest of your post, I'm squarely on-board.

Watch for that to be one of the first concessions. The Republicans won't let that provision stand, and the rich Dems, will be all too happy to "suffer the loss" and place the blame, but still sigh with some relief of their own. Either way these things are taxpayer funded, though I'd agree those may be the taxpayers who should pay a bit more of their fair share. Still, in the end, people in Juno AK shouldn't have to put firefighters on the street in Camden NJ, while those in Camden pay for firefighters in Bangor ME. Ect, etc, etc, ad nauseum, it's a flawed system that shuffles money around the country through tax mandates. By the time one dollar leaves Juno and arrives in Camden, I'll bet it's far less than it's original value, programs cost money. Dollar for dollar spending is at it's best when the dollars don't travel far.

While I want to see as many PD's, FD's and schools ensure proper staffing, as I said, federal funding really isn't the way to go. As a short term solution it will accomplish strengthening those positions, but at the taxpayers expense. The same taxpayers who can't afford to have proper staffing at their local FD, will be paying for it from their other pocket, and those who will see no specific hires in their locality will pay more to strengthen other places, yet furthering their local financial burden. We don't have a national fire service or fund our local police through federal monies, so we shouldn't look to the rest of the country to solve our local issues. I can tell you none of this comes from FOX or CNN just common sense really. Every time a they spend a dollar in DC, it cost the taxpayers $1.25 to implement (not real figures) as it takes bureaucratic offices to process taxes, grant applications, follow-up, etc. The shorter the line between the taxpayers wallet and the project being funded, the less implementation costs, the less earmarks, the less lobbyists. As for government infrastructure projects (roads/bridges)? Hell yes they need to be done, but to call that a Jobs Bill? Who do you think pays for those projects? So we're creating jobs, at the expense of taxpayers, of course it is a smarter solution than welfare as we get something in return and those projects need to be done. But let's not call it a Jobs Bill, how about calling it the federal government spending on federally mandated projects? I also am not convinced tax breaks for corporations or the wealthy will work, as they already get them ad look where we are. But we need to find a way to stimulate private businesses into hiring employees that we don't fund out of our taxes.

Seems like it's a part that they can't lose over, after all who'd argue against rehire, teachers, police and firefighters. Just more pawns in this political game. The whole jobs bills irks me some as all the proposed jobs are taxpayer funded. In the end, more people will be working, and those of us working will pay more taxes to fund those jobs, another win-no win situation. We need something to get private employers to rehire workers or fund new jobs, not ones we'll pay for directly. Police, fire, EMS and teachers are local employees that should be funded at the lowest level. It makes little sense for me to pay toward firemen's salaries in CA, while CA residents pay for salaries in NY, and you pay for salaries up my way. In the meantime, we have to pay taxes to fund these federal dollars, and when we do, they skim some off the top in the name of program implementation then redirect the rest to the jobs.

Spot on. We have found that since the implementation of a Labor/Management committee, things like this just don't happen. We've not had any grievances in few years. We meet quarterly, unless an issue is detected, so it's more like bi-monthly in reality. Nearly all policies get run out in these meetings, as do upcoming Union initiatives so we're all on the same page. Everyone must know the expectations of them at all times or else things derail quickly.

That's a pretty lame excuse to through out every time management enforces the rules. Does the hardline seem a little much? Sure, we we have no backstory either. Things like this tend to follow Union/Admin trends. Could there be some contention right now? The bigger the dept/union the more things all become bargaining tools. Maybe the union took a hard stance one something else, and now is feeling those effects. I personally think the idea of a finite period or specific days makes sense, as this is a publicity nightmare for the admin, but if you look at the definition of uniform, you find why there are pretty exacting standards. Next week it'll be brown t-shirts, or Save the Ta Ta's. This is a labor-management issue that shouldn't ever see the light of day.

This is exactly why we're amending our policies. To ignore this totally will catch some FD's off guard when they thought people should know better and find out they don't. Certainly this does not warrant the all out bans or overly restrictive policy, but clearly there are significant gaps between what some people think is acceptable and what isn't. Those who think they can post whatever they want from their private computer while off duty may find themselves unemployed with the court not hearing the case. Again, know what you know, not what you think you know.

Our FD is looking at a more spelled out IT policy that basically will provide grounds for discipline should an employee make disparaging comments about the citizenry or the department that are not actual issues for the good of all. We don't feel there is a specific issue but the number of "issues" and arguments over Facebook and other social media posts dictate that we're are prepared vs. arbitrary when or if something controversial is posted by one of our members. We've always tried to "punish the act/actor" not the media, but our last official IT policy was in 1998, basically the stone-age of the internet. A good small group discussion for the firehouse is the Freedom of Speech, which most people do not fully understand, especially as it pertains to public employees. Our goal is not to stifle the excellent medium the internet provides to discuss tools, tactics, or other beneficial topics, but to ensure our people understand the public nature of their posts and how negative commentary can be bad for them and the FD.

Ensure he gets ample time in General Population first so that he may feel plenty of pain and fear.

This is an extremely bad idea. Let's hope this doesn't get any traction. I see trust as being the main issue here. Supervising line firefighters at a job is much different than supervising criminals while they're in someone's home. How about the personnel assigned with the criminals? Can you trust them? In the station, on a job? This is far different than using wildland teams made up of criminals. How about being able to pass a fire academy? Or are they dumbing this down to just the strong like bull, smart like tractor?

Excellent depiction of what we've discussed here before about using alternating reflective chevrons vs. all the chevron lines being retro reflective. May not meet NFPA but I'll bet it's more visible than many others where the stripes blend at night.

Interesting numbers. While the cost of living up here is a bit cheaper (apparently much cheaper), I offer the following:The FD I work for has 20 career positions and another 25 (or so) POC personnel. We run both Fire and EMS as well as a haz-mat tech team, con-space, etc. Our total incidents (not apparatus runs) are generally in the area of 2500, with 70% being EMS. Our tax liability to the community is $1.4 million after EMS revenue is taken out (about $2.2 mil. before that). The taxpayers will pay a total of $14.4 million for city services, so we're about 10% of the total budget. For this cost, they get full paramedic transport EMS and skilled fire service within 4.5 minutes average for any emergency incident. Our resident population is only about 7500, so the call volume is slightly disproportionate, though anticipated due to being regional service center community. BTW: our PD has 22 personnel, and the total fulltime employee count is around 110.

We run both ITX 4 gas and MSA 4 gas/PIDs. Our personnel perform bump tests before any meter is used in the field. Cal gas is available with the meters to perform calibration as required. Every meter is powered and fresh air zeroed each morning and immediately calibrated as needed. Our Haz-Mat Officer maintains a calibration log and each meter is calibrated per the manufacturers schedule as well. As was very well noted above, not ensuring your meters are properly calibrated should be unthinkable. The issue is what people "think" is proper vs. what they know. Don't think you know the proper way, know you know it.

We've been asking the same thing here, after years of the dispatch supervisor putting a mobile comm unit in his capital improvements budget (never funded). Once in a while they send a dispatcher out with a MDT and a radio, but we still haven't figured out how to integrate them in to something functional and what the purpose is?