antiquefirelt

How many EMS runs does the typical ambulance run that has nothing to do with any other fire or police presence? Our ambulances run alone on 70% of calls yet have no driveway to back into. The crew is in and out of the rear while on the street, thus any conspicuity has to help. I guess the other question is: "what's the harm in utilizing the chevrons"?

I'm not sure what type of material you're seeing, but I can tell you with certainty that our apparatus with chevrons are far more visible to drivers with headlights on at night, and at a far greater distance to boot. The actual amount of reflection back out is unnecessary and unwanted as it could impair vision. The unit should become more visible, not more of a distraction. We (the fire service) have been stressing the reduction of lights and strobes that impair drivers for the more passive high visibility standard. While 3M may be benefiting, in this case I don't see it as a profit driven mandate.You're correct in saying drivers who are distracted will still hit apparatus, though I'm betting on a reduction in the percentage of incidents to apparatus struck. By reducing the "strobe light" distraction we are in fact making the area around the apparatus and emergency safer for our personnel operating on the roadway. The other part to the standard is the chevron pattern that has been studied over the years by DOT here and similar counterparts worldwide. The angle and direction of the chevron when properly applied reportedly effects the subconscious brain and "tells" drivers to steer away. This is why all bridge and tunnels have the split chevrons on both sides directing you into the middle vs. to the outboard sides. DOT trucks carry often carry signage with the half-chevrons to place in the appropriate lane to direct motorists properly. Without a doubt, just like lights and sirens, many FD's go way overboard and make their apparatus into moving retro-reflective billboards which actually impairs the intent of the basic package. While many of us are stuck in our traditional ways, a fire truck is red, ambulances are white with orange, etc. we cannot ignore scientifically proven methods that will make the emergency scene safer for our personnel. Personally I'm over the traditional look issues and am much more apt to look at function over form. This may be unpopular at times, but when you look at doing things for the right reasons and the benefits are tangible, it's really for the best.

As an example of the above, and since I pick apart a lot of what I see here: My crew ran on this reported apartment building fire last week. On arrival, fire out one window on the second floor-side #4 and just starting to take the rear porch door on side #3 just around the 3-4 corner. Entry through side #1 (front) to the common hall door the fire apartment (second floor rear). The conditions in the second floor hall were zero smoke, zero heat, 6 doors. The rear apt. entry door was bubbling and popping with a faint wisp of smoke at the top. The crew could have taken the door immediately attempted to make a search and hold the fire with the can, remembering the fire was out a single window and nearly adjacent door. Instead it was decided that the line would be placed to the door before entry. While the line was stretched the adjacent apartment was searched and found untouched even though it sheared two common walls with the fire apartment. Once the line as in placed the door was forced (also found to be seasonally closed off and not used) the condition in the common hall when to zero visibility and moderate heat at the 2-3 foot level. The line advanced quickly and knocked down the fire with seemingly relative ease. What the crew did not see was that while the stretch was taking place, the fire took the side #3 door and another window on side #3, in two separate rooms and as the door was forced completely lit off the rear porch. The point being, what looked like a fire that the can may have be able to subdue temporarily, likely was not a good candidate. The added volume of air allowed the fire to greatly intensify rapidly and without the 180 gpm line immediately flowing things could have been far different. The end result was things went very well and aside from minor water damage to the unit directly below the fire, only the fire apartment was uninhabitable by the next evening. I can honestly say if it weren't for solid core doors and solid(no holes) lathe and plaster and adequate sheetrock, the outcome would have a bit worse. BTW for anyone from Elmont LI, the fire was reported by a new Coast Guard kid who used to be a member of EFD L2? Did a nice job alerting residents and giving the Chief a nice report on arrival. I think the USCG Base Commander here is putting up for a commendation with our support. This was just after arrival.(Side 3) While crews are making entry (not our ground ladder!) Just after entry to fire apartment photos by Rockland FD Photographer Alan Athearn

Some FD's do not allow members to enter ahead of the line on working fires, others only allow senior members or officers to do so given the relative increase in danger. In my dept. if your assignment was on the engine, you'd better not take the can when it's a known job. We stress placement of the first line and being generally short-staffed all hand assigned to the engine must help facilitate the stretch. While "holding" the fire with the can might be a benefit, will the relative holding power be equal to or greater than the added efficiency of you help stretching the all important first line? If you ride the truck it very well be your job to carry the can, and then you must know your limitations and when the can can be of benefit. Sometimes re-closing the door or not opening the door may be a better choice. So, the only answer I can give you is that you need much more information to make a qualified decision: Your department factors, the structure/occupancy factors and the actual fire factors. Far too much of this job is dynamic for there to be a single right answer. The can is a tool in your arsenal to know, train with and carry for situations where it can be a benefit, short of being adequately familiar it could become a liability and a danger, like so many other tools and tactics.

"Just what does $456,000 buy you these days? Well, if you happen to run the fire department of China's Luoyang City, the answer is a jet-propelled water cannon capable of spraying four tons of water per minute."from the linked article. Huh, 4 tons? You mean they're super impressed with a 1000 gpm (just under) master stream? While it looks impressive, it appears one could do the same by just over pumping the pressure to a 2" tip? You'll notice the single medium diameter line they have supplying the "cannon". Maybe we can market "insane" fire apparatus to the Chinese and work off some of our national debt.

This is one reason why there is only one IC! Who is in charge of the incident? If the Fire Chief is IC, the EMS officer should be requesting additional resources through him/her to ensure these issues do not manifest. As Seth noted, if it's anything of interest most firefighters will lean toward doing fire duties, while others may understand they'll go where they can do the most good. While many of us, myself included, would much rather do firefighting activities, if life is priority one, then providing/ensuring proper medical care at a fire scene is just behind rescue, and likely ahead of property conservation. When you can't do both, do what can be done to address the highest priority.

I'd be concerned with some of what is being purported as "law". Particularly: "Officials said the firefighter shortage has not led to a drastic increase in overtime costs because of rules for firefighters under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which says overtime is not allowed until a firefighter works more than 212 hours in a 28-day period." I'm 99.9% certain the FLSA says firefighters do not have to be paid overtime until a firefighter works more than 212 hours in 28 days, but the catch is the 212 is "regularly scheduled" hours called "work periods" by the FLSA, not overtime coverage hours. You cannot have a normal 42 hour work week and then not pay OT until the 53rd hour. I'd say the firefighters Union should be looking into an FLSA violation if they've not received OT for those first 11 hours of extra time worked.

Well why not do your community a favor and tell them how the FD is wasting their tax dollars with silly training and equipment. A few heroic fellows such as yourself and MRI ought to be able to keep the community safe? Basically you're condemning firefighters for following policy regarding training and equipment to ensure their own safety. I suppose any policy other than "do whatever it takes to attempt to save a life" would be totally unnecessary?

Total BS! You should stop posting on the topic as your now becoming downright offensive. Are you trying to say FDNY had a policy against entering the towers? That the IC had ordered them not to? Considering the number of seasoned veterans and officers murdered on 9/11 I'm fairly confident they cared very much about policy. You don't think people die due to policies everyday all across this country? Go press your cape.

That is the one significant case where we can say a court has used NFPA in a criminal proceeding. In fact it's the only one I know of and I truly believe it is a tragic joke. It completely ignores command responsibility as their were other higher ranking and senior experienced officers present whom skated from their true responsibilities. Clearly, that one case did not send too clear a message to everyone, considering other flagrant NFPA violations that have resulted in fatalities, with no criminal charges being lodged. That being said, I'm not condoning ignoring NFPA, but as with all things that are rules, not law, we must do what we can. If you (not ALS in particular) think you're meeting all NFPA guidelines you're flat out wrong! You may be meeting those that are convenient, maybe a few that aren't, but all of them? No way. I'm pretty confident that 90% of US FD's cannot/do not comply with NFPA 1710/1720, yet fewer other standards would come nearly as close to ensuring a reduction in LODD's and injuries to firefighters. So as we've done for many years, we'll continue to follow what we can/choose.

Now the heat is off the politicians and on the IC!

I doubt their "shall not enter the water" policy after the program was cut allowed for a case by case analysis. The crew was following a directive as ordered by the chief and made clear to the municipal leadership when the funding was cut. Water rescue services were cut. Would they have made an attempt and suffered the consequences? I'd think you'd want to truly be the hero of the day, because you might be in a lot of hot water. What if I'm pretty certain I can skip putting on my gear and SCBA and getting a faster search done? If I'm right I'm a hero, right? Forget the added risk I've assumed? What should they have cut? I'm sure you and I on the opposite coast are much better at figuring out what they should have done, right? Maybe stopped responding to fires and keep the water rescue program? How many actual water rescue calls do they average compared to the other services they offer? My FD serves a large harbor with a significant tourist and commercial fishing presence. We're a designated Coast Guard City with a USCG Base and a State Marine Patrol post. I can tell you how many active water rescues I know of in the past 16 years: 2 out of maybe 35-40,000 emergency runs. It ain't Alameda, but I'm betting the call ratio isn't vastly different. So when the cuts keep coming what do you give up?

I cannot disagree. Certainly Kentland has pushed the perception that they are Second to None. In doing so they've certainly pushed the buttons of a few, with their cavalier attitude and incessant chest beating. On the upside, they've made themselves into a FD that has no shortage of volunteers, and who can quickly toss aside those who don't live up to a high standard of quality fireground skill. So while they do tend to piss a hole bunch of people off, it appears the area they serve is better off for it. Just like anything though, once in a while the boundaries are pushed, so I can say while I probably would've loved to been a firefighter there in my younger years, I'd certainly not want to be a chief there.

Excellent blog. One of the things I ask anyone who tells me about the newest great article in any rag is "who wrote it?" Without validity an author can easily spin fiction into a non-fictional safety policy. Living up here in the sticks, we tend to get a ton of state certified fire instructors with very little fire experience. All it takes is a Fire Instructor 1 class and a train-the-trainer in a particular area and suddenly this person can teach? Given the certifications I have, I could teach a high-rise firefighting class, having never responded to a single high-rise incident. I wouldn't, as I cannot in good faith see instructing on topics where I have no relevant experience, and I expect the same from anyone who teaches our personnel. This doesn't make expanding our knowledge base as easy, but it does ensure that the topic covered is at least covered with useful information and questions can be properly answered, not passed over or worse made up by assumption. Kentland always seems to come up with plenty of reasons to hate them, but one can't help but see why they are so effective on the fireground when their leadership makes this much sense.

Either that or because the manufacturer heavy committee sees an angle to make more money. Most FD's don't even come close to meeting all of NFPA's rules. Like so many other things, mostly we pick and choose what to follow, some truly are of great benefit to us, others not so much. Most are written with good intention, though you know where that paved road leads... There are not nearly as many legal cases as have been purported where NFPA was used to to prove guilt on the part of the FD, fire officer or firefighter. So while they should not be ignored, they must be weighed against many other factors.

More of these types of incidents are going to come. You cannot keep cutting budgets and subsequently saying you are eliminating services, then go on to provide the service at a lesser cost (albeit improperly equipped to boot). The taxpayers through their elected officials and budget process must understand that with cuts come costs, and in the Fire/LE/EMS realm that means lives and property. This is why most FD's don't do bomb disposal, right? We're not equipped or trained. So why would we expect the FD to provide any other service they state they do not do and are not equipped for. It's the reality factor finally setting in. The solution would be for the Chief to say, we're not responding to these incidents because it's far to likely that personnel would act impulsively, break rules and make an attempt without proper training, exposing the city to more liability and increasing the life hazard involved. Saying that personnel should be ashamed or are disgusting for following department policy is out of line. I suppose we should all just suffer any cuts and accept further risk life and limb as staffing, training and equipment dwindles? Hollow threats of reduced services while intending on doing the same with less is foolhardy at best. Unfortunately there is no easy answer. Having to stand idly by is not easy for most persons in emergency services. The public must be made to understand the risks involved and accept their own decisions.

OK sure we can complain all day about the morons that post this stuff, but... Come on really? This is how you clear out the documents? Hell even in no-where Maine we shred any and all documents containing anything with peoples names on it. You have to expect that some idiot is dumpster diving, since we know they do it.

So in the end, the choices would be made at random from the number that passed all the pass/fail tests? This is the everyone must play fair theory on steroids! Life isn't fair, it is all about trying harder and doing better to succeed. Rewarding mediocrity no matter how hard the pass/fail test is seems like just what it is, giving jobs to lesser applicants regardless of color or sex or whatever. But I doubt that the a pass/fail system that took weeded out the same number of people by raising he passing score to 95% instead of picking a number of candidates from the ranking scores would have any different outcome. Does the ethnic make up of the candidates moving on past the written exam meet with the "aggrieved parties" approval? If that was the only change, I could kind of buy it, though it doesn't promote he proper attitude that you should try harder to succeed. I'd bet that this pass/fail test system would drive away many quality applicants who are not willing to put it all on the line for a final random choice. Why study any more or try to ensure you excel when regardless of how well you do, it may be all for not, just to ensure the ethnicity, of those who ask no questions before putting their lives on the line, meet a particular make up?

I'm not sure a knowledge based test is more expensive than running all the passing candidate through the next set of testing? How expensive and time consuming would it be to conduct a physical abilities test for 10 times as many people? The notion that you must pre-training candidates for the job they're applying for is outlandish and shows just how far activist judges are wiling to go to continue to promote a racist agenda. The very point of it is demeaning to those they say "cannot be expected to score as well". This is a court ruled statement that certain persons are less likely to know basic studies based on their skin color or ethnicity! It's unbelievable that anyone would want to be cast in such light. So we have the same people fighting to erase racism trying to prove that they need extra help to pass similar exams? Then, one the other side we have the typical white applicant that does score better by chance or study, who is passed over for a court appointed quota and we expect that he/she will not feel some sort of anger toward those promoting such a system? These practices truly do further racism in America. The words, comments and stigmatisms of my fathers day, have long passes and would not even be thought of today until you read of such nonsense as these types of cases. I find it hard to believe that any reasonable persons cannot agree that in most cases, a person who does better on a written examination will have a better chance at passing further exams such as rookie school knowledge tests, EMT training, promotions. I'm not sure what recent FDNY entry testing scores had to be to make the list, but I recall numbering the high 90's being tossed around due to the high number of applicants. I suspect that seeing a wide margin of variation in future promotions out of that group cannot be compared to a pass/fail test or one where anyone getting over 70% passes on to the next step. Forcing any department to take lesser candidates via a modified testing process would make me consider making rookie school testing much harder and bouncing more students who can't keep up. Of course this would just keep open position unfilled longer and increase the costs to the city, but it's someone's job to make sure the citizens and ourselves are protected by only putting the best candidates for the job on the job.

Without a doubt, if the IAFF or anyone ever thought they "owned" a candidate, they were surely too impressed with themselves. Generally speaking Democrats are far more liberal with money for service type programs that help the less fortunate, ie: Fire and EMS, while being a little more leery of our LE brethren (maybe many still see LEO's as "the Man"?). This being said, Obama did basically turn his back on the fire service when faced with bigger issues. In the grand scheme he could sell us short to further a larger agenda. I don't think he did an about face, but more likely just dismissed firefighting as a local issue, as so many people see it. On the other hand, the Republicans tend to be more Pro-LE as they align it with a strong defense, strong on crime, and forcing personal responsibility on the individual. In the past they were more likely to not be anti-FD, though in recent years politics and strong Union stances may have forced them to become harsh, as they tend to be pro-administration, be it private or government. The polarization of the big two parties has basically forced candidates to take sides, which is not a good thing for any of us, as firefighters and taxpayers. If our candidate wins, great, but the polarized party fights every issue, and vice versa. The more we disagree amongst ourselves, the smaller our voice becomes. The smaller the voice, the less perceived votes. The less votes, the easier to dismiss or use as a bargaining chip. /rant

Our gear is fitted with an accessory clip/Survivor strap sewn on the chest near the midline for the Right Angle style lights. When you are crawling you need only release the velcro and the light swings down and faces forward. Still many prefer the box light on a strap as well.

There are a few things you might not wanted controlled through the V-Mux screens. As BNECHIS noted, the siren is one I'd steer away from. Anything you need to access RIGHT NOW, might want it's own switch. Our new Spartan ('09) does not have the V-Mux display on the officers side, and we wish it did. The operators find that there are still too many options to safely navigate the controls while driving. Our siren, On-spots, and wipers are a few of the things we opted to pull out of the V-Mux. With an dedicated display at the always staffed officer's seat, I'd be less concerned. But we find that the heat (Climate control) is a royal pain in the arse as it almost always comes on full bore when you first leave the station due to the system being set at 70 F but the ambient air in the station being 62-65F. Next time we'd probably get another display/V-mux and likely opt for manual heater controls. Sort through screens while enroute is not a safe option for the driver. Given the trouble we've had with sensors/alarms I'm pretty sure we'll opt for a simplex system if we can in the future. Nothing major, but enough false alarm issues that it fuels poor habits like ignoring door open alarms.

I think a decent lawyer could easily prove that the "over ventilation" was not the IC's fault or whoever order it, but a failure of the general training of most firefighters, nationally. This line intensionally written to dramatize the effect of the first! I say this because we spend so much time on vertical ventilation training in Firefighter 1&2 programs that it has become a checklist item for lesser experienced IC's and FD's. As was just pointed out to our State Chief's in an excellent presentation by Peter Van Dorpe, Training Chief of Chicago FD, we spend two hours on fire behavior and then tons of contact hours on many other topics, while the actual true understanding of fire dynamics would better help all of us understand most of the basic tasks far better. Any person coming up in the 80's and 90's was subjected to the fears of backdraft at every drill. The same guy is now an IC and his brain muscle memory says "VENT HIGH!" when he/she has nothing else to fall back on. Clearly ventilation and fire attack are far more important topics than fire behavior or dynamics, right? Not quite. Again if you haven't had the chance to look at the FDNY, Chicago, NIST, UL, and others work on fire dynamics, legacy vs. modern construction, PPV, and others you should. We now are able to use quantifiable science to help us make better decisions about the fireground. http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/offerings/industries/buildingmaterials/fire/fireservice/

How about citing some relevant corruption? Any benefit a union member takes as part of their contract was in fact agreed to by management. It sounds to me like you're misdirecting your anger on the Union, when in fact you should hold your elected officials accountable for agreeing to contractual obligations you do not support. But since it's easier to sit on the couch than it is to get involved in local politics, I'm betting you're just as happy complaining by computer, and not really interested in helping.

I cannot disagree with the assertion that we need to work from every angle for better staffing, but are we losing people to sprinkler systems? Where have the sprinkler systems been argued to allow a reduction in firefighting forces?