antiquefirelt

This accounts for the municipal water system, but we also add many potential problems. If your engine goes down, both lines will lose water. This can occur from the water system through the pump to the discharges. In this respect a second separate supply may add more parts to fail, but the redundancy guarantee that something will still be working. Again, in our case the better scenario is a rarity due to staffing and spacing.

I think it would be hard to argue against the two supplies two lines op with regard to safety. That being said, far less of us have the ability to pull this off with any efficiency. I know in our case, hydrants are not evenly spaced so one water supply often takes two Co. to be adequate coupled with staffing issues, this is a gamble we routinely take.

Ah, yes we haven't bought a Detroit for a few years now, as we've gone to Cummins. So Detriot has an issue with exhaust extraction systems? Is this due to potentially causing increased back pressure in the exhaust system or the opposite being the system pulls the exhaust and can cause the turbo fan to turn with no oil up inside? I know ARI Hetra and Magnagrip both offer a "high temp hose" for connection, but what that's rated for I couldn't say. Our hose issue came at the bend where it rides in the saddle that carries it along the track. As you said, if they work out all the other bugs, we should see a day when particulate from diesel exhaust is negligible. In the mean time our enignes get far more electronically complicated and more prone to systemic problems.

What system do you have Capt? Ward No Smoke? We run the Magnagrip hose systems and have not heard word one from Detroit or Cummins. We have melted one hose after prolonged connection while running a pump. This should have been expected as each shift was "trained" on the system and had been instructed to not run engines above an idle for over 5 minutes, but alas if they keep forcing us to hire humans we'll keep breaking stuff The one issue I have read about is the regeneration causing extremely high exhaust temps, but as long as you don't run a regen on the hose system, I'd think the normal gases should run cool enough?

You're absolutely right, this is a problem with much of our fire service today. We (the FS) have tons of officers, but those with quiet confidence that exude a true command presence are becoming a rarity. I suspect is has a lot to do with the lack of fires and a bit to do with our PC society which has created a sense that everyone's opinion must be heard and they're never wrong. Sorry to sound like a bitter old timer, I'm really not I just long for more true leaders not educated managers. Whitefield is only about 1/2 West of us in the next county.

First Officer in takes command, transfer if necessary later. Good jobs start with decent command. Some FD's don't need a lot of radio orders to initiate ops, but in your scenario, some one with some command presence better take charge right now! Never mind all the NIMS group hugs and passing out vests, but take charge, develop a plan and make orders based on the plan. These big NIMS ops do not start with the planning P or unified command meetings, they start with operations doing task level functions to control the incident. The command structure will need to be built, modified and expanded into a NIMS looking op, but it still starts with one person taking charge and others taking actions.

Our career crews conduct shift training on every Mon, Tues and Sat morning that they work. (24/48) Most sessions are 2-3 hours and the Sat drill is designed to allow call force personnel to attend and partake as members of the shift. This is not generally taken advantage of as much as hoped. The drill topic changes weekly so all three shifts follow the same topics and each drill includes a "Knot of the week" as in the past rope drills seemed to require going over knots too much. Call force personnel have regularly scheduled drills every other Wed. evening and the duty crew must participate. All aspects of our jobs are covered. Shift training is fire only with EMS and Haz-Mat training held monthly on different Monday afternoons. Some drills are classroom, some apparatus floor others in the street. This is the hardest part not having a dedicated training officer. We find that as a small combo FD, maintaining a two tiered training system is tough when you have numerous other duties including going to actual fires! We try for 6 months of scheduling. All mandatory drills (4-6) are scheduled for the year and posted in January to ensure proper attendance. All drills are recorded with a signature sheet. The topic, instructor, objectives and references are documented. The new software system will allow for "automated" tracking numerous ways for each drill. All shift training drills include a form that the officer of the day must complete which includes listing ten questions, comments, or ideas on how the topic relates to our operations, which ensures thoughtful completion of the drill. They also must provide two other resources on the topic (Norms's book, NIOSH, FE articles, etc). The hard part is actually following through while doing our jobs and being interrupted 2-3 times most days. This is done frequently on shift drills. We do many "roll-ups" on scenarios for all members many times a year. Sadly it changes every few years as most models fail. This one was designed to limit time requiring career personnel to come in off duty while engaging call force personnel.

No suprise this looks like a well planned and executed engine. Can some one from NRFD or Seth explain the front bumper hose loads?

As usual Bnechis is right on the money. We have a large portion of our city that's undeveloped, but is really the only place left to build. Therefore a lot of new subdivisions are popping up. The planning board requires a letter from the Fire Chief stating the water supply is adequate for fire protection for the approval of the Sub-Div. I authored many of these for the previous Chief's signature and they were standard form letters stating that the water supply while adequate still relied on timely notification (alarm system) a timely response (career staff) and the response time (furthermost area from the station). It went on say that no matter how good the water supply and/or the FD is, we cannot be there instantaneously, like a a sprinkler system. This was the strongest wording we could get, and it had zero impact on the buildings as no one installed a residential system. Now, 5-6 years later a new Chief with previous time serving on the Comp Plan board was able to show the value of sprinklers to the planning commission and City Council, and all new subdivisions with water municipal water get a similar letter, but any without municipal water are required to sprinkler all buildings. For most the fire prevention part of the job is the least attractive, but being part of community master planning is good for everyone. We like to be able to ensure our apparatus moves through subdivisions, are able to turn around in cu-de-sacs or dead ends and ensure the grade is acceptable for winter operation, especially if we're thinking of tanking water (all M/A tankers for us). Sure your DPW has rules about road widths, turn arounds etc, but almost everything is up for debate or variance, being involved allows you to know what you have in you community not just "think you know".

The original version of the Vertex programming we got was also DOS, and we had to buy the newer XP or Vista version. My Lt. (sorry he's on vacation) handles all our programming. If you have specific question I'm sure I can get the answers. As I recall once it's open the program is fairly simple. So easy even a Chief officer can do it!

This is a problem in my area. The dispatchers give too much info! I guess the opposite would be far worse but...Not that it's not nice to have extra info, but most of it is truly unnecessary. For example, when sent for chest pain, what more do you need? Almost no other information will change the response unless it turns into an arrest or the patient has left. The last two years medical history doesn't help, as the crew will ask it all over again anyway. Our dispatchers have little to no medical training so they aren't sure what's important and what isn't and given the amount of other information they must learn, it's understandable. In general most companies in my area talk way to much on the radio. Most have received portable radios through a local comms grant, and now the members suddenly feel they need to talk. It's stupid hearing 6 portable go enroute to a grass fire in their POV's. They think they sound important, we think they sound like idiots.

I doubt Boston FD is any more screwed up than most of the rest of the workplaces in the country. They've had some bad apples surface in the last few years and their issues were made public unlike most other FD's. Out of 1600 Firefighters 20, 30, or 50 might be boneheads. I'm confident that same percentage (3%) is true in most of our FD's? That means just under one of my guys is probably doing something that might cause a PR problem. I'm sure I know of more issues than that that I'd rather not see in the paper. The point being, most of us don't have City Hall leaking every issue to the press to try and destroy the our image. Menino's cronies have leaked every ugly issue they could to the press. Boston is a big city with many FD employees (1600 or so) who are all human. I'm sure 3% of most of your FD's employees are doing something you don't want publicized.

You don't think they're really going to be allowed to respond or get assigned do you? Fire Alarm has the Companies as OOS and they will not be assigned. If they take the apparatus and respond they'll likely face criminal charges as Menino will do anything to crush them. Sad state for the Brother Jakes.

Isn't this actually what they were doing when instituting the "flex-staffing" program? Maybe that fell flat on it's face and the library did have to close a few extra hours?

I knew I recalled some controversy at AFD with the new chief. It seems it's heating up once again over a pride parade, promotions that skip ranks to promote diversity (Maybe Chief Kerr has seen the NH20 case and subsequent decision?) and the original controversy : staffing reductions (flexible staffing) would not affect public safety! http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_sto...asp?ArID=240564 http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_ne...amp;ArID=233356

We use this system but do not have an SOP. What are you trying to accomplish with the SOP? Mandatory use? Generally IAR is used in volunteer or combination FD's (like mine) so getting responders to "buy in" is key. It shouldn't be hard for most FFer's to see the value in knowing who or how many are responding. The only thing we had to be careful of was to warn personnel not to use the system while driving as per city policy employees are not to text or use cellphones while operating vehicles "on duty". Most of us still do it, but any training or policy cannot require you violate safe practices.

Seth are they doing this by hiring more FFer's to staff the medical squads or pulling guys off of apparatus? Obviously the former would be a fairly proactive step, but would increase the budget, while the former would reduce (even if temporarily) staffing on apparatus. Of course if they're sending the engines on medicals now, that company is OOS until freed, in which case the difference is much less given the company could respond as a two-part company when the medicals crew cleared up. While I see JFlynn's point, I'm sure in the future this will type of reduction may be the lesser of many evils the fire service will feel as budgets shrink.

Sorry if this goes too far off topic, but someone noted the Fairview Fire District had 47% tax exempt properties? Are the tax exempt properties the same types exempted from standard municipal taxation? Such as churches, educational and non-profits? This is the primary reason our area (Maine, not NY) was looking to go to fire districts as these exempt properties are 33% of our tax base. So is the sole benefit of being a FPD or fire district the oversight not being municipally controlled?

OK? What's the difference between Bravo, Charlie,Delta and Echo responses? I know in the Medical Priority system has a similar ALS/BLS triage system and how they respond (not at all, emergency or cold) was determined by the card.

That was my main goal in attending. We'd steal any idea! Lots of good mounting options, different ways to do everything, so I just created a huge file for apparatus innovations and ideas for future reference.

I've gone pretty near every year fro the last 5-6 years and always have had a good time and found the array of vendors pretty decent. There's a lot of apparatus, which has been my draw, mainly researching for our recent FD purchases and some buffing as well. Usually the big builders have 6 or 8 pieces each for at least 60-75 apparatus on display. There's plenty of lights, t-shirts and decals for the "out-standing firefighters" but also lots of firematic vendors of all types for more department related purchases. Springfield is a fun town, the Worthington St. area at night has plenty to offer and some decent restaurants as well. I'm sad to say I'm not going this year, but with no new purchases coming for a bit the expense really cannot be justified.

I know the one big killer for most builders on the TL spec is that the waterway may not be on the underside of the aerial. This limits the basic design to Sutphen and Seagrave/Scope. I think someone just came out with a version to comply? Maybe Ferrara? I'll have to poke around. This might be some push back aimed at Seagrave to remember that they can be replaced unless they straighten up. It seems like there are far more complaints in the last few years than ever before? Maybe it's the internet allowing us to spread the word so far and wide?

Never say never. Putting the jacks on the grass may not be the first choice, but it certainly is better than not doing it if the aerial is needed. As is shown above one thing you can do if you must put the jacks on soft ground is use the larger plates. Short of the big city I'm not sure why any tower would have oversized plates for these situations. Clearly the Kentland guys, for all they're BS bravado, do know a thing or two. I'm not a fan of the great 33 but PG Co. is pretty good at aggressive truck placement. If you've not worked off or operated an Aerialscope you'll be surprised the first time you see the outboard jack come off the ground while on hard pavement, something few other MM towers do on a regular basis.

Another one for Holmatro Core. We just replaced our Hurst tools last fall with Holmatro after looking at many others and evaluating Amkus and Hurst. We run the small gas power units (DPU 31's) which are under 40 lbs, have Honda motors which start on the first pull and fully power two tools each. Specifically we liked the twist throttle type controls as the thumb actuators tend to cause soreness fairly quickly. The Amkus was a close second but the moving handle was odd feeling, never in the right spot and moved too easily. Also the Core hose is great. No dump valve!! Plug and play.

It sounds like the study BNECHIS details is the proactive approach most FD's should be taking when considering future services. Consolidation, right or wrong will be studied. You can either be driving the bus or along for the ride. Guess who's best poised to get where they want to go? Another thing BNECHIS mentioned is the study was not based on cutting costs. This is where most consolidation efforts fall apart. It's seems that rarely does consolidation save money. Maybe over a long period, but in the short term? Not so much. Consolidation with an eye toward improving services, aligning policies, procedures and coverage areas, do tend to meet their goals. Realistic goals toward consolidation are needed, cutting costs is short sighted and often tends to show the study proved what many already knew. Think betterment not cheap!