CFD320

Um, you not quite on base here, there are plenty of volunteers that have the equal or more training than their career counterparts. As for the call volume, the average volunteer can respond to alarms say 120 hours per week. Full time work schedules for most Career FF' is 48hours.

Just go find a peace officer class, you are a career guy....

The day you speak of was a day the majority of the probie class was at Ft. Totten for a state CFR-D exam. The probies that did not take the test for whatever reason had to report to The Rock and subsequently were assigned various projects including some landscaping.

Obama rebutted with the exact same line of BS each time McCain attacked his track record and liberal viewpoints. "It's hard to see across the isle from that far to the left" - Instant Classic After the debate McCain flew back to Washington to work on the bailout package, Obama flew to North Carolina to continue whoring himself out to rednecks. Who has the best interest of their country in mind?

If there was some reason compelling us to VES I would attack the masonry. The brick is for sure the weakest link there, that window can be forced quickly with a maul I would bet. Controlling the plates as they come down would be the most challenging part of that force. Also, is the window to the right of the door the same building? If it is, that is an even weaker link...

This is the same 13 point size-up FDNY teaches in proby school, they use this same acronym too. Every member (not just officers) should be sizing up the second they step out their door to head into work or to the alarm, weather conditions time etc. Size-up does not end until your company has returned from the alarm.

I have a Carry permit and have carried a sidearm on only a handful of occasions while not hunting. There are weapons strategically placed in my home and my wife has been instructed on their operation and use. I am of the opinion that if more individuals carried weapons on a regular basis that criminals would think twice because they may end up out manned and out gunned. There a two sayings that ring very true with my feelings on the subject: "guns don't kill people people kill people" "From my cold dead hands" Also, our gun laws that highly regulate handgun ownership and sales and almost ignore long-guns completely is a joke. Even a decent marksman with good optics can be deadly at 300-500yards (record confirmed sniper kill is almost 1.5 miles with a TAC-50), most people who rarely if ever fire a handgun cant hit a human silhouette at 30 feet!!!!

Just because a guy is wearing a white coat does not mean he can't work. I pulled lots of lath and plaster along side guys in white doing painstaking truckie work yesterday just like the rest of us. The "c" exposure channel that my team was operating on was not overloaded with unnecessary traffic and went very quiet upon transmission of the MAYDAY. My opinion is that the IC did a good job letting the interior crews do their work under the supervision of designated operations chiefs. Ops commanders were put in charge of the various sectors that the three buildings involved were divided into. In all honesty I have rarely seen the ICS system work as well at a large scale operation involving so many different volunteer agencies. Your point is well taken but this job was not an example of too many cooks spoiling the broth in my humble opinion.

It has been projected that the new EMS agency would be a positive cash-flow entity. One can only assume that these new funds would be used to better the EMS coverage that said there are no paid staff positions planned at this time. I am quite sure that is subject to change without notice.

Answers: Volunteer Current EMS rigs will be used Timetable is not 100% set in stone As of now the rigs will be housed where they are now Lack of manpower I suspect many current CFD members who respond with EMS will join the new VAC. The sitting Chief hales from the rescue/EMS company, he feels strongly that establishing a separate non-FD EMS entity will solve current problems. From what I understand the entity is being modeled after what Sleepy Hollow did.

Sure the first due FAST can be put to work as soon as a replacement team is setup and ready to respond to a mayday transmission. IMO

I assume you are referring specifically to apparatus...? If not go walk through the Grand Street Firehouse in Croton, you can see low bid construction at it's worst.

I apologize if I offended anyone. It was not my intention to insinuate anyone was uneducated. I was simply trying to point out that in general civil service tests are not akin to calculus tests. Good luck to all!!

The bottom line is any of the tests you mentioned could have been aced (95 or better) by anyone with a 8th grade education. I just don't understand all the hub-bub..... Very few civil service exams weed out less than intelligent people. The test in question (which I do think sucked, don't get me wrong) was more difficult to score well on than previous test versions.

Does everyone realize that the "old test" was a part of the new test? The subjective questions and the "timed section" (the timed section IMO was a good addition) were in addition to the old style. The test was much longer and more rigorous than exams in the past. I think the subjective section was total BS just like everyone else, but I don't feel this exam will produce lesser qualified candidates... Now the fact that the educational requirements and the physical being pass/fail will effect the quality of probies no question.

That will not be the case if this test stands......I wish people more people got this fired up about protecting their second amendment rights. Some of us did as well as could be expected on the questions we all had to answer.

Diesel fuel (same as #2 oil) Generally, diesel engines make much more low end torque than their gasoline counterparts especially at low RPM because of the high compression ratios necessary to ignite the fuel 17:1 (all firemen should know that gas is much more volatile). It is true that a diesel engine is more efficient overall than gas BUT it takes 25% more crude oil to produce a finished gallon of diesel than it does to make a gallon of gas. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that diesel will generally always be more expensive than gas. Diesel engines have trouble starting in very cold weather without a block heater as the fuel has a tendency to gel. Also because of the ignition system that includes glow plugs proper starting and warm-up of the engine is highly recommended. When seconds count waiting for glow plugs and engine temp to rise is not a good thing Gas engines generally make more horsepower than equivalent size diesels, they rev faster and have higher RPM peaks than do diesels. That combination makes for better 0-60mph times and and more driving "speed". Gas engines also have an advantage in short term maintinence required (long term diesel has a huge advantage), they necessitate less crank case oil, don't require much care until 80k or so. My answer to this question is Gas.....

I am not a current member of a FAST unit although I have been in the past. It is my firm belief that the unit I did belong to is all business and ready to immediately react to a mayday transmission. IMO it is very easy to identify a FAST you can have faith in. Are they proactive (laddering, clearing egress points etc.)? Do they constantly communicate to each other updates on size up, staffing numbers operating in IDLH environments, actual interior conditions? Does the team respond with an adequate staffing level (6 is without question bear minimum)? Now, experience actually answering a mayday? Who really has that? 2%, 1% of firefighters? I don't know of any FAST or RIT in this area that has been activated. You will be hard pressed to find any of the local teams have "live experience" we should all pray they never get any......

What about those of us that rolled with the punches and scored well anyway?

I have 2 notebooks a 17" Macbook Pro and a HP DV9000 both are almost identical as far as specs go... Both Core 2 Duo, 17" glossy displays 2gig of ram etc. I am running vista on the HP and OSX Tiger and Ubuntu (linux flavor) on the Mac. This is my first Apple ever and it kicks the living poop out of the PC. The Mac outperforms the PC in every way I can think of mostly because the mac OS is just a user friendly graphical user interface written on top of linux that does not have millions of lines of crappy proprietary code that bog down windows based PC's. That said the Mac was twice the $ so if work didn't buy the Mac the PC would do me just fine.

Here is my opinion on this; I took the test and scored reasonably well... I don't think the personality section of the test can be studied for. You get what you get on it, I went over that section of the test at least 3 times slowly and still got 7 questions wrong, 2 1/3 points off...Those test are designed to be impossible to fool, they are actually testing for a pattern of answers rather than certain answers, as evidenced by the key. Complaining about that section of the test is a waste of time IMO. I did miss the last 3 questions on the timed section. Now I realize that is only 3/8 of a point but If I knew that section was timed I would have worn a digital watch and would not have run out of time... What I have a problem with is that the FDNY training sessions that I attended NEVER told us there was a timed portion and never mentioned the personality section. I firmly believe that the instructors were not given the correct materials, they didn't just overlook it. We were all told we were walking into a 100 question test and you had better nail the memorization or you were screwed. I was dumbfounded when I walked in fully prepared for the exam and felt as if I had no clue what was going on. In retrospect I think if I took that test again right now I would score 3/8 of a point higher than I did. Hopefully, that 3/8 doesn't cost me the chance to get on. So will I be protesting any specific questions: no we all took the same ones. But that does not mean I was thrilled about being thrown a curve when I was told to expect a fastball.

I'm going to try to lend a hand here to people having trouble scoring their test. This is my interpretation of how to score the results...I may be wrong but this seems to be the only reasonable way to figure out a percentage type score. Questions 1-5 on answer sheet 1 are worth 1 point each =5 POINTS Questions 6-45 on answer sheet 1 are worth 1/8 of a point (.125) = 5 POINTS Questions 1-5 On answer sheet 2 are worth 1 point = 5 POINTS Questions 6-110 on answer sheet 2 are worth 1/3 (.33333333) of a point = 35 POINTS Questions 111-150 on answer sheet 2 are worth 1 point =40 POINTS Total Points= 90 so 90/90 is a perfect score....... Let us assume for a moment a candidate missed the last 3 questions on the first answer sheet. 3*.125 = .375 Let us assume the same candidate missed 7 questions on sheet 2 all of them between questions #6 - 110 7 * .3333 = 2.3331 Let us assume the same candidate got one of the questions worth one full point wrong. 1*1 = 1 Total deductions for this candidate are 3.7081 Test Score = 86.2919 out of a possible 90 To find the percentage score we divide the candidates score by the total possible score: 86.2919/90= 95.8798% Here is what I cant figure out: Are the 5 residency points raw score points or percentage points? In either case the above candidate would score 90/90 or 100% if he/she was a resident of NYC.

From the scores I have heard from several people it sounds like your going to need a 97 or better to have a shot. I know 5 people that are all over 100 with residency credit.

The written is not Pass/Fail (the physical exam is pass/fail) I did get my score sheet in Saturday's mail as did other people I know that live in the city. If you live outside the city I suspect you will get your score sheet on Tuesday since Monday is a holiday. There is no score on what I got in the mail, it's a sheet that has my answer for each question and the correct answer for each. You have to extrapolate your score all by yourself, most will have trouble doing so I suspect. Also, for the Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, type questions 2 answers are acceptable for each.

I'm sure it is a well thought out, very useful, fantastic piece of apparatus. That said I think it is far from being a nice looking rig. (in my unprofessional opinion of course)