antiquefirelt

I hope someone also educated the chief of the dangers of venting the building before a hoseline is ready to make an attack? The last few years have proven that the fire service can learn new tricks and utilize actual science to assess how specific tactics effect the fireground. Anyone who hasn't had a chance to look at any of the work that Chicago FD, FDNY, UL and NIST (and others) has done should take a look on the UL website for some excellent training on how fire behaves under different conditions. The legend vs. modern home furnishing fires are particularly interesting as they show why many of yesteryears tactics need to be reevaluated or at least properly understood. http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/offerings/industries/buildingmaterials/fire/fireservice/ It sounds like this chief needs to recognize that today's smoldering fires are very often (always?) ventilation regulated and contain large amounts of superheated unburned particles and gases from modern household contents (plastics). While true backdraft is a rare occurrence, rapid fire development due to providing oxygen to these gases and particles should be anticipated.

Actually I think we all have the right don't we? We are all especially entitled to our opinion when discussing how our tax dollars are used. That's your choice, you're welcome to bash away, though you might not find the thread wildly followed.Generalizations may be inaccurate, but often there's more truth to those critical points that make us hot under the collar, than the ones we just click away from.

I guess I must wonder why if you can send manpower and apparatus out of town on a given day, why can't you do without the same 24/7/365? Some of you say you have better coverage? Sounds like the town council should take advantage of this type of automatic coverage system fulltime? A system that allows for parades and other outings without sacrificing services tot eh taxpayers is a system that probably has overspent the taxpayers money.

From a user standpoint, that seems like an excessive amount of body behind the rear wheels that creates some major "tailslap". This is a common affliction of MM towers, though not generally present with 75 footers. For all they get right, E-One's 95' MM tower has a huge tailslap. Not a knock on the Scope, merely an observation.

Is Seagrave using the same mechanical pendulum or a newer sensor to control the bucket leveling system?

My comment wasn't based on their attempt to do harm to themselves, but in reference to their impaired ability to make sound decisions? Are they properly A&O x? This I agree with 100%. We're still the one group that generally has not been accused of treating any person(s) any differently based on any discriminatory factors. And since we agree letting them die is not a real option, we need to find options that correct the issue before it becomes an issue. I'll need a few more bucks in my paycheck to figure that piece out.

Just to add another perspective to the picture, it appears that the code enforcement process may be lacking there. While it's not 100%, I'd bet that many rooms behind the walls we can see have only one door in/out, while the windows are nowhere close to being egress compliant. I find that many non-fire based code officials fail to understand the egress window requirements and therefore are often lenient on the owners. Of course the house could be sprinklered, but that's still far too rare.

How are you going to RMA someone who's immediate history includes opiate drug use? Would that not call into question their ability to make sound rational decisions about ones own health? I understand the reality of the situation and the hospital is going to push them out on arrival, but I'd think this would significantly stretch your neck out? I'd say there's a 99% chance that anyone revived by Narcan is going to refuse to want to spend anymore time with you than required, we know this to be true through years of experience. While I tend to agree that we are part of the problem by enabling users by bringing them back over and over, I'm not in favor of treating them and then letting them wander back off unattended just to boot up again.

That would certainly expose the politicians to the rest of us. We always hear that there needs to be tax breaks for start up businesses but that's just a smoke screen for a large loophole that currently afflicts our system. We no doubt need new businesses and new jobs, but there are far too many start-ups that are doomed to failure, but are done as a tax reduction for the wealthy. We need to take back the political and tax system and the best way is to control the money. Transparency in all but sensitive national security issues.

It's time for a Flat Tax System, without loopholes. This would force everyone to pay their fair share, eliminate refunds and a significant segment of the IRS could work on following the income of those higher paid self-employed persons or those who try to hide their income in the form of special benefits.

Question from someone who lives where fire districts are not allowed: Are commissioners paid? Or do they get some sort of benefit to be a commissioner?

That's funny, as this is a huge pet peeve of mine with our dispatch center. One might note that unless you say otherwise "At this time" is implied. Oddly the dispatch director complains about using too much air time and needing transmissions to be short and to the point, yet a third of the dispatchers use this phrase routinely.

Don't hold your breath for the truth! If I were a taxpayer there I'd ask the Chief why he'd over inflated his staffing over the years? You cannot cut numbers and still deliver the same services, in the same manner, unless you have a lot of excess, which I highly doubt.

You speak the absolute truth. Sadly the public is often mislead or just doesn't care enough to know the difference between mediocrity and good service. In some areas, such as my own, there would be no help coming from a large well staffed and trained career dept with significant resources. Not being prepared isn't an acceptable option. The public expects that when an accident happens all the victims that are viable will extricated and transported in a rapid fashion, but have little frame of reference to judge by. We can all likely agree FDNY sets the standard in many areas, but as you note a large factor at work there is the sheer numbers in manpower, equipment and dollars. The rest of us might need 50 different FD's to staff the number of units FDNY does daily. Imagine trying to coordinate that with different training and policies: not even close to realistic. This is yet another reason where regionalization has an advantage.

I don't mean this as a knock at the FDNY, but look at the reality of the situation. There are many great FD's out there that do strong work, but few have the resources of the FDNY. When it comes to being capable, many FD's have the capability to handle what we'd consider routine calls. We cannot staff and amass resources beyond our typical averages as it would be cost prohibitive. As was noted a few times here, having the resources under one command, using the same SOPs by personnel who have trained the same way, makes the incident far more manageable. Once a FD or EMS service begins to pull in outside resources many variable start to crop up: how do I talk to the units? Who's in charge of the units? What's the training level of the unit? Are my SOP's wildly different than the M/A units so they'll operate in a manner inconsistent than we're used too? FDNY can make short work of an incident like this because they have the resources. While I have no doubt the actual hands on work was exemplary, it's not beyond what many FD's are capable of, just at what scale they are capable of doing in. If you're FD cannot handle this same incident similarly, you should be planning and training on how you could. Look at disaster in Japan. If that happened here could we be as efficient as a country like England where the fire service is nationalized? Everyone trained very similarly, using very similar apparatus, using the same guidelines? You think it might make for a better outcome at the "big one"? But, then some are anti-regionalization because everyone wants to be the best, but wants their name on the logo...

It would appear the real question, instead of hammering one FD here, would be could your own FD handle this incident? Likely, few could have done it alone without seriously compromising efficiency, limbs or lives. It's great that FDNY can and does handle incidents of greater magnitude than the rest of on their own, so well. So, ask yourself: how would my FD handle tis? Who would we call? Can we all speak on common frequencies? What's the command structure going to look like? Will everyone play nice? We can take all the NIMS mandated course they'll throw at us and go to hundreds of one and two car wrecks, but in the end once it's outside your own resources control and coordination becomes much more difficult, those that do it regularly and train will be far ahead of the rest. And BTW, the public expects the same response FDNY gave anywhere that tour bus goes. Can your FD even come close?

The problem is that applying the private sector pension model to the public sector has at least one large distinct difference. When your private company had a pension plan, they paid for that (or whatever portion) and paid into Social Security. Changing to a 401K with a match may have saved them money on the pension plan side, allowing the ability to provide a nice match for your 401K, the Social Security payments did not change. Now when you look at state pension plans, you find that the employer who offers the plan is exempted from paying Social Security and as a result, employees who collect state pensions are not entitled to Social Security without significant penalties which make it about a zero benefits. Of course these employees may have made significant SS contributions in previous or "off-duty" jobs. So if the employer was to move to a 401A (A for governmental type employees)they would be required to pay Social Security at 6.2% of wages first before any 401 match. In the case of many state plans this is more than they pay for the current pension systems before offering anything more than SS. And if they determine not to give any match or provide any pension at all, the employee is stuck with just Social Security, which often will lead to them needing other governmental programs after retirement just to live, adding to the tax burden. So the state pension systems generally save taxpayers money now and later by providing a decent retirement that keeps the retirees from adding to the tax burden by using heating assistance, rent assistance, and other programs designed to help people make ends meet.

How many more hungry Americans could we feed for $50/year? Would this not help our situation nationwide. I'm not one to let people worldwide be deprived of basic necessities, but we're still not addressing them well enough here, which in my eyes needs to be the first place we fix. There are plenty of NGO's that can address worldwide issues far more efficiently than the US Government. This has been one of the hallmarks of the republican party that I've agreed with: keeping the money local and spending local will lead to far more efficiency, which equals smaller government. Of course now that's not even on their radar as much as repaying their debt to corporate sponsors.

I think you'll find this to be a common theme among moderate conservatives. For years I've disagreed with some of the GOP agenda, but found myself still more closely aligned with them, and in many cases the issues I was in opposition to, were really not going to be acted on. Now the Tea Party has played all the cards at once and basically proven what many liberals had said for years, that the GOP cared about corporate business first. I too will take myself off the republican party list. Now the only question is whether we can propel a moderate independent far enough. My fear is that the Democrats will see this as the undoing of the GOP and push their more liberal ideals out front given they've nearly been handed the elections in many states and certainly the presidency in 2012. Unless we all learn that the moderate middle ground is the only place things can get done, we'll play this lopsided tug of war every election cycle.

Your taking an overly simplistic view of things that fits the current political wind. Taxpayers are consumers and consumers most certainly are affected by the efficiency of bring goods and services to market. While it's not an easy sell to defend DPW guys sleeping on the job, have you looked into how much forced OT they're working? This winter has shown the previous years mistakes in short staffing DPW in my area. The DPW guys work snow removal all night then need to work on the standard projects by day, with far less downtime than ever before. If a dump truck driver is awaiting his body being filled I'd think the educated taxpayer would excuse a cat nap...

Great joke seen here on the web that's so appropriate for this discussion and others surrounding collective bargaining: "A CEO, a tea party member, and a union worker are all sitting at a table when a plate with a dozen cookies arrives. Before anyone else can make a move, the CEO reaches out to rake in eleven of the cookies. When the other two look at him in surprise, the CEO locks eyes with the tea party member. "You better watch him," the executive says with a nod toward the union worker. "He wants a piece of your cookie." As has been noted, sadly there's more truth than humor in the above. :angry:

Without a doubt the only people laughing all the way to the bank are the very rich. We basically have middle class citizens pitted against each other while the very rich continue to get tax breaks and federally subsidies for corporations making record profits. It's easy to turn private citizens against public employees as we're paid by their dime. Of course it's also easy to forget we too pay taxes and suffer from inflation, rising fuel costs and insurance premiums. Nevermind that some pension systems like the State one I'm in save the taxpayers .7% of each employees gross wages over social security and in the end our retirees are going to be less likely to need or even qualify for any government programs/subsidies saving the taxpayer even more money in the long run. The public only sees what they want someone to share their burden and save them money. Sadly the current path will only cause more people to be in misery and worsen the tax burden going forward.

Matt, I'm very sorry to hear of your health issue. Please accept my sincerest hopes that your future finds no further issues. As far as the career vs. volunteer coverage, I'm not seeing a direct line or corollary to your issue. Does your diagnosis indicate the problem was as a result as your duties as a firefighter? I'm pretty certain none of my "career firefighter specific benefits" would include an illness or injury that was not job-related. My healthcare benefits as an employee would. The difference is that my healthcare benefit as a career firefighter is the same as our police officers, public works crews, and clerical staff. I would assume that your healthcare plan provided by your primary employer would be key. Of course I know many do not have health insurance which is a huge issue we all struggle to answer. My point being my healthcare benefits as a career firefighter are really just healthcare benefits as an employee on a job where healthcare is offered and constantly renegotiated and adjusted. I must give you that I'm not a career firefighter in NY, but I know of no specific benefits that are only extended to career firefighters in my state. I wish you all the luck in the world.

In our case (ALF/LTI MM) the extended bumper is necessary to contain the front down riggers/cab stabilizers. Other than that, there would be no need to make a long truck any longer than absolutely required.

This was originally our plan as well, but given the tools (irons) on the front bumper of one of the engines are exposed to weather far more often than they're used, keeping them cleaned and rust free is more of a chore than the little space they freed up for us.Most of our hooks are either in tubes in the side or rear on the truck and two are on the back of the cab. The PW idea was shot down due to the freezing issue. In the end we have a large flat bumper that's a nice seat on a sunny day and used to stand on when washing the windows and lightbar.