antiquefirelt

Thankfully no private commercial EMS units do emergencies in our City, we are a true Fire/EMS dept. with full ALS and three transport units. The private services in our area are basically transfer trucks, with the exception of one who contracts to 3 towns and another that provides Paramedic coverage as needed to contract towns. Conversely to the way it sounds happens in your areas, our FD ambulance goes to most calls with only twp personnel and call for an engine assist as needed. We do run an engine to all MVA's, cardiac or resp arrests, any unconscious calls and any construction of industrial accidents. Similarly to some of the responses here, we do not cancel per PD or anyone but our personnel, but we do downgrade to non-emergency. We feel this is the best scenario, in that we arrive to help if needed, but do reduce our liability but not running lights and sirens after being advised we're not needed. I think it would be interesting to see the statistics for places where EMS cancels the FD, I'm betting thats not happening nearly as often as the FD arrive first. If we did have private EMS I'd gladly cancel other than the MVA's as BNECHIS indicates. In fact if you guys could catch us before we left the house that would be just perfect! Sadly most politicians will never understand that how many runs the engine goes on has very little bearing on the number of firefighters it takes to properly staff the same engine.

We have a fair amount of these in my area. In fact we have two of the old "trailer parks" in town (75-100 in each) and another right on the line with our northern neighbors. I've found they burn fast once any appreciable amount of fire breaks out. Often the walls melt as was shown in a few of the pics. Generally fires seem to be either from heat tape as was note before or the old Miller Gun Furnace in the closet just off the living room in the hall closet. We actually have specific tactics specific for single wide modulars (as their now known). This is one of the few exceptions to our "first line in the front door on PD's". Most trailers have two or three doors: one into the living room/kitchen from the driveway side, one part way down the hall on the opposite side from the driveway, and optionally one off the end bedroom. The hallway door is usually best posed to put a line between any occupants that couldn't leave if the fire was in the kitchen, living room, or hot air furnace. A bedroom fire would get the line in the "front door". This is all if you can tell where the fire started and the walls/roof are still intact. Check under the trailer first! break away some skirting and make sure the fire is not from below, as the floors are not much and will likely fail if there's fire below them. A walk around is always a good idea and should be fairly quick here. Look for gas (LPG or natural), check the skirting as the plastic melts easily if there's much fire below, look for the other doors and determine where the fire is. The side door is often chosen for the attack as it's not far off center toward the rear bedroom. A FD not to far from us, arrived at a trailer fire and decided that since there was no car in the driveway they'd not go into the trailer and instead put the line in the kitchen/living room end windows and pushed the fire on the victim who was on the floor just off the living room in the hallway. They'll never know if he was viable or not.

I thought the same thing when I read that! What about female dogs? Someones' gonna complain. Our FD SOG's say we will flush every hydrant before attaching the supply line. This was overlooked and fell by the wayside for a few years until we laid 1200 ft. of LDH and the hydrant was OOS. It still doesn't solve forward lay issues, unless you make the hydrant man flow water before laying the line, but at least you'll know there's no water before you commit to a tank water attack. We open the main steamer, flow some water to make sure A) there is water, no broken stem or frozen valve and it clears the cans and craps from the the barrel. We then connect a 2.5" gate valve to one side port, and then supply line off the main steamer. We found that in the heat of the moment once the steamers' hooked the hydrant gets opened and the gate valve lays on the sidewalk. With the gate valve we can adapt up to LDH if we need to (and if the hydrant is capable), and if we do break the hydrant stem (we do this at least once a year it seems) we can apply a hose clamp while flowing water to relieve some pressure, then close the gate valve and disconnect the engine before the water company arrives.

So your guys have to be able to do two of the above listed circuits (tasks 1-9) on a single bottle of air? I know a lot of firefighters who couldn't do that without being on air!

Be in or get in shape!! Don't mask up before you need to. If you find you're starting to breathe fast and deep, take a second or two to calm down and slow it down, those seconds will pay off in minutes very shortly. Use the correct tool for the job, work smarted not harder. I've seen young athletic guys burn up their air trying to pull a ceiling with a halligan and a old smoker stay twice as long using a hook or a rake. And if I failed to mention it or you need to hear it again, get in shape!

Verizon put up a cell tower at our station, replaced our 50's vintage gad generator with an LPG one and pays us $15K a year!

We've used or attempted to use PPV for many years. Basically we now use it as an after knockdown smoke removal tool. In this regard it has been very successful in clearing large areas and multiple floors of smoke conditions. In our experience, the use of PPV for attack (or PPA) was hindered by many factors: staffing, construction, climate and fear for the victims. 1. Staffing: we never seemed to put enough people on the fireground early enough to task two people to retrieving the fan and getting it going. All "rules" point to ensuring coordination and timing between the nozzle team, the OVM and the "fan turn in FF", all of which we couldn't seem to make work without slowing the first line or search. One could argue that both attack and search could be faster if the time was taken to get the PPV/PPA done right, but then there are other factors as well. 2. Construction: In the far reaches of the Northeast and certainly in my area, most of our older residential construction is balloon frame which is quickly a contraindication if the fire is in the basement or the interior wall covering could be compromised. Most of our jobs seem to be in crappy apartment buildings or dwellings where holes in the plaster or sheetrock are normal. Our EMS crews (firefighters) verify this everyday as they see the conditions in the homes. Most of our downtown is made up of connected 3-4 story frame and ordinary structures that have been breached over the past 150 years. Code stuff is slowly bringing this around, but not being able to define the 6 sides of the fire building is a big contraindication to me! 3. Climate: It seems the places that really have put PPV/PPA to good use have newer construction and the buildings are likely sealed up better. Up this way, we get cold winters and mild summers with just a few real hot days. Consequently, most people do not have central air and utilize their windows for day to day ventilation. Not being able to control the PPV outlet is a contraindication for use. In the winter many residents close off rooms in older houses/buildings to cut down on heating (big this year). So popping a window opposite the attack may not allow the pressurized air an outlet. 4. Fear for the Victims: We still believe in aggressive search and that only the FD can verify "no one is inside". This obviously is tempered by the judgement of the first in IC. This means that if we think there could be people inside and we cannot verify their location, putting a PPV fan in could be pushing the fire toward them. In the end we studied it, tried it and abandoned PPV for attack, but still use it as "designed", though just for removing smoke after the knock.

Here's how we view the best case use of this system in my area: Currently all departments in the county (21 fire,11 EMS) are dispatched on the same frequency. The volunteer outfit's personnel sign on enroute to the station or scene and all apparatus, FT or Vol., reports to dispatch on the same channel. To alleviate the overuse of the system, IAMRESPONDING can be utilized, so that only chief officers need to sign on the radio and the rest of the personnel can use their phones, home,work or cell. The dispatcher can then wait an alloted time (2 minutes) and give the chief a report of numbers of personnel signed in, subsequent updates can be added or requested. This eliminates tons of BS radio traffic, especially when a mutual aid fire is ongoing and units from multiple depts are responding, literally clogging the radio with BS traffic. 'Cause everyone knows if youse has a radio youse impotent and must report your status! This is an easier way to correct the real issue than making VFD's enforce radio discipline in my area!

Bingo! While some can use them successfully, it cannot be overlooked that dedicated company personnel are better at their particular functions when that is what they do, period! I find it hard to believe anyone can dispute this fact, though many try.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I always wonder if we can ever be safe from the unseen ignition source. Our FD makes every attempt to monitor the atmosphere where we believe there's a chance of reaching the LEL. From what I've been told there's a lot to maintaining intrinsically safe status of class 1 div. 1 certified product. Most light manufacturers likely will not stand behind a light thats been used for fire service use as there's almost no way they could guarantee the unit has been properly maintained. Also, with the advances in electronics today, eliminating ignition sources in a house? Right! All the capacitors, switches, auto controls, etc would make this nearly impossible, even with cutting the power at the street. How many people have computers with clean power battery back-ups? Then once you've done everything, might you cause a static spark with non-rubber soled boot/shoes or rubbing against something? My point is making entry into a potential explosive atmosphere takes thinking well beyond flashlights. How about your radios? Cell phones? Of course you could run in an attempt to get inside where it's too rich to ignite, but that's not recommended either I guess.

Our system has the number 9 assigned as "Canceling Response". This indicates you will not be showing up as previously indicated. We caution our people to not sign in if they cannot come to the station or call, but there are those times when something happens (stuck in snowbank, family emergency, etc). Most often this is used when the call is canceled by the officer on scene very quickly and those coming in from far away or with something pressing do not want to get tied up. As a side note, I just tried this with my new ITouch (can't get IPhones this far North) and it works great! As long as wireless is up, I can view who's coming from wherever I am.

Is this a "new" system? The Thread title says I AM RESPONDING radio system and the OP is talking about eliminating phone system traffic? In our case we have the exact opposite. We use the phone based system to eliminate radio traffic. It has been invaluable to us, and our regional dispatch is very impressed and wants all FD's and EMS to use it. As was also noted, I have yet to deal with an computer based tech support even close to as good as these folks.

I'm not surprised at all. Talk to some of the old timers in career EMS jobs (not FD based EMS). If you can find anyone their usually burned out and miserable. At least that's what I've seen. If you're in the under 30 group and can't imagine this being true, just wait a few years.

The last line says it all. We found that 95% of our personnel keep their gear in the station, while we have no rules preventing them from taking it home and responding to the scene (we do have rules on how to do this though). So, if you have a FD issued portable it must stay with your gear. That way it's always where its needed and not used to call in suspected drunk drivers or other cell phone uses. As we buy more radios we're contemplating only programming the firefighters portables with our ops channel and maybe the tactical repeater channel to ensure they stay on our system. Basically a firefighter shouldn't need to speak to dispatch directly, but could if need be on the tact repeater. Our personnel are required to stay on our Ops channel at all times, even mutual aid, where they operate as a company and report to our command officer who carries two multi-channel radios. This officer keeps one radio on our freq and the other on the M/A commend channel. Variations of this are as needed for RIT assignments or other ops coordination, but remain at the officer's discretion.

Does your FD require intrinsically safe radios or other tools (flashlights, meters)? IIRC an "intrinsically safe" device is only certified as such for 2 years? And this certification is voided if you drop the device or potentially damage it. How does one re-certify any intrinsically safe devices? We ended up not worrying nearly as much about this and concentrate much more on staying out of potentially explosive atmospheres. For haz-mat ops all communications devices are worn in the suit. Any potentially flammable atmospheres are constantly metered (of course we have to suspect it). Our FD issues all career personnel a portable radio, each chief officer carries two (one for OPS, one for dispatch). Each ambo has one more portable for the crew. All call division officers are also issued a portable. Our com plan includes buying more radios, until we have enough to maintain spares and issue one per firefighter. The problem with too many radios is usually discipline. Our county EMA received and issued to FD's about 250 portables a few years ago, but there was no education, SOP's or disciplinary protocol, so we now have at least 50 morons who believe their being issued a radio raised their level of importance. Now these idiots are on the air for every little thing. Operationally the only issue we find with everyone having a radio is that when there are two with close proximity they feed back upon transmission. In a low visibility environment its hard to predict when the officer is going to "key up" so the radios must be turned down low which impairs hearing them well? Anyone else have this issue or have figured it out? I suspect this is due to our use of a simplex channel for ops?

The obvious answer to the sprinkler question is the "new" NFPA 13R systems that can be installed by "certified" installers vs. a true sprinkler contractor. The system designs are pre-approved and the final layouts are certified by the company that sells the system and certifies its installers. Many of these systems can be installed using cpvc piping or pex tubing and can either be "stand alone" or part of your domestic water. For those areas without a public water supply, a tank in the basement with an electric pump is approved the sprinkler flow calcs are mush less than a full NFPA 13 system and usually can be as little as a single 300 gal. tank. The proliferation of these systems is integral to the adoption of the new ICC sprinkler mandates in 1 and family dwellings adopted for the drop dead date of 1/1/11. Again, these are specifically design for life safety in 1 and 2 family residential dwellings. The Home Fire Sprinkler Council website is an excellent resource for all thing Residential Sprinkler. Have a Merry Christmas and be safe!

Actually now that you mention it, didn't Scope redesign the hydraulics just before moving to Seagrave? They went from the real long rams to shorter ones that are reversed in direction? Maybe Seagrave will re-design them back! I couldn't find a single post 2003-4 Scope with the long rams but I found a handful of the shorter reversed ram aerials on trucks between 2001-2003.

Mike this would explain FDMV's issue if it were just them. But alas, FDNY has had issues, as have many FD's who have taken delivery of the Seagrave Scopes. One doesn't need to dig very far to find a decent list of problems, many seem related to hydraulics. Again, very unfortunate given the Scope reputation.

It seems that the Aerialscope product has started losing its reputation since Seagrave took over. Problems are popping up all over the land with the Seagrave Scopes. There will be a day when kids coming on the job will seem the Scope as "just another tower" unless Seagrave fixes the issues soon. Thankfully we couldn't afford one when we bought our MM ALF/LTI! Imagine being happy you have an ALF over a Scope! For us the service was way to far away to deal with frequent issues, so this makes sense. Our ALF service is within 2 hrs vs 4 hrs and two states away. We even had the City Council convinced that if the Scope bid was within $50K of the others it would be a better longterm truck! HA! I glad we're not trying to live that one down, I got to many years to go. Too bad for the FDMV brothers they seem to be taking a beating all over and just when you think the City did something decen by buying a decent truck...

One must ask what it is these foreign automakers do to keep their employees from forming a Union? Pay them as well and give them excellent benefits? There's no reason they could unionize if they felt to was to their benefit. The long term though is that they too will end up carrying significant financial burdens as their employees retire and require long term benefits. It's just that their workforce is much "younger".

I'm not sure I'd advertise a suggestion to "slow response" in any way, that's a great way to lose any public support you might garner. Given the fiscal crisis's we're all going to be dealing with it seems shorter term contracts will be the order of the day. I know our local is considering a short term contract with lower increases in hopes that the future might bring better days.

I know up here they can functionally cut pay be eliminating the higher paid positions thereby forcing you down to a lower rank through the layoff list. Per our Union contract start date seniority rules the day vs. time in grade when it comes to lay offs. They cut the upper rank positions, then layoff the number of firefighters that accounts for those positions making room for people to bump back. For ex: they want to take 5 Capts out, so they layoff 5 of the newest firefighters and eliminate the captains positions forcing them to take Lt's places, forcing 5 Lt.s to take firefighter positions. It could be different in Yonkers. Sad days ahead for all of us, good luck to th Brothers in Yonkers.

The Codes generally cover the occupants, not the building or contents. Most are designed to ensure fire barriers, detection and sprinklers to help buy time for the occupants to be notified and escape. I would wonder about the construction code there in Round Rock. Where I am, the Code Office uses the BOCA/IBC (FD uses NFPA) and they have specific height and area limitations that must be met or sprinklers must be installed. And I believe BOCA only recognizes full NFPA 13 systems which would include sprinklering mid to large sized void spaces. I doubt BOCA/IBC would allow that large a wood frame without a full NFPA 13 sprinkler. Seth do you know the intended use(s) of the building. It looks like a parking garage at Side 3? And the windows look too utilitarian for residential only. Last comment, often commercial buildings will be completed except tenant fit out, which might include moving/building of non-bearing partitions and areas, so the sprinkler system gets shut off at levels/areas by use of zone valves. Might this have been the case?

Due to staffing, our initial operators are required to wear full PPE short of an SCBA. Most of the time we have numerous older call firefighters who respond and choose to take the pump vs. pack up. The career guys love this as they get to go to work. These, secondary operators are allowed more latitude. During hot weather, all operators are allowed to shed the coat and helmet. But all driver/operators fully dress out before leaving the station for any call that the crew gears up for. We like guys to wear bunkers most all the time as no matter what happens, the rest of the stuff goes on quick, but tossing shoes and putting on pants after the fact is too slow for quickly changing roles.

A lot of good points have come up in the latter parts of this thread. One thing most recognize is that patient refusals require more/better documentation than general transports. Actually, if we all just did damn good documentation as some here say they do, we'd be great. Most here should also recognize those who take the EMS profession seriously. I doubt many of those who might fail the system would be here sharing ideas and trying to discuss the good, bad and ugly of emergency work. The above being said, I doubt anyone here needs to have the literal interpretation told to them that negligence didn't cause the patients death, his MI did. But if a subject is having chest pain and you are called to transport the person to the hospital you'd better have a damn good reason not to transport him/her. Obviously we cannot kidnap people. If you did not do your best to evaluate the patients condition, treat him and transport him, and he dies later? You're negligent. Negligence that leads to death is often criminal. The duty to act and follow prescribed protocols is not something that can be taken lightly. If this went down as described, they didn't kill him, but they very well may be responsible for his death. I also don't see where anyone ALS or non-ALS trained made comments that have any bearing on medical training. One does not need to be a medic to understand the responsibility to act in a professional manner on every call. I highly doubt this patient was evaluated properly so that the EMS personnel were convinced he was having "acid reflux". I know I wouldn't nor do I believe any of our personnel would ever sign off a patient who was having chest pain and then said it was acid reflux. And maybe by some strange twist a BLS crew with little field experience might make this mistake, but not in a system where ALS is required for all chest pain calls. I'm sorry if I offend anyone by believe the whole bad and ugly of it is possible. I hope in this case the original story is wrong. I also don't see anyone condemning this crew yet. Instead this has been a pretty decent frank discussion of care issues, documentation and a general reminder that we have a duty to do good and be good at what we do.