lemonice

Can anyone explain to me what this fascination is with red lights? Why would someone join any agency, exclusively for red lights?

There's a big difference between searching for and "rescuing" a lost hiker and performing a technical rescue on a construction worker buried up to his neck in a collapsed excavation.  Response time for one.  Unless there's a blizzard coming, lost people can wait for a voluntary team to be assembled and mobilized.  Not so with many technical rescues. 

Breakneck Mountain has been in the news a lot lately.  How will this team benefit western Putnam, specifically to respond to Breakneck, when it's going to be based out of Carmel and staffed with people in Brewster and Carmel?  How will they get there? By POV with a blue light?  Absurd!

Our system is flawed.  It's been failing for decades but we just keep putting bandaids on it. 
 
 

I think it's a horrible idea

Here's the million dollar question....
 
Who's going to staff it?  It is going to be a volunteer system, much like the Westchester Haz-mat team, which due to slow response times, has been skipped over many a time for a properly staffed rig?
 
Tech team responses require an immense amount of training, and if you get the cert once and never handle the equipment for months, you're gonna lose that skill...

I think Mr. Suarino's letter is excellent, and sheds light on the types of crap that has been going on for years in volunteer departments. Every department I've ever been a part of has had a select group of obstructionist old guys who haven't rode the rigs in 15 years that just love to make life difficult for officers and firefighters that are trying to get things done and move the agency forward.

If you are driving like an idiot with a blue light, you are an a-hole fireman, if you are driving like an idiot without a blue light then you are just like all the other a-holes out there. 

 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/five-firefighters-face-union-charges-for-volunteering-in-home-communities/article35002323/

Under the circumstances this is really BUSH LEAGUE

Shouldn't that say "Professionally Staffed by a guy who lives in FL during the winter cause its cold up here. He is old and only makes 4 calls a year but hey we need the numbers". Maybe that is a bit to long. Bring back the Actual Professional firefighters and release your rolls. Are they still scared people will see what a fraud you have been perpetrating with these claims of 300 active members?

 
I guess you can assume from this that the volunteers have accepted that there will be no paid personnel in, at least, the near future. And, I agree this is in poor taste given the circumstances by which their paid 'brothers' lost their jobs and livelihood.
 

I think the writing is on the wall. Towns are learning that the volunteer dept. are not there anymore. Gone are the days of 300 active members and waiting lists. Little to no turn out at calls. False claims of "active" members when the 2% money comes. I'm all for Volunteerism and for helping out but westchester is not built for it anymore. As is said, blue collar folks can't make it here anymore. At some point everyone is gonna have to go career or suck it up, put on their big boy pants and consolidate the county. Lord know most guys want that anyway.

Hello everyone it has been years since I used this log in name and that's because I resigned from the city of Rye Fire department 5 years ago.  
I chose to write a response to the above letter.  The letter below was submitted to myrye.com  as well this morning.  And will be to any other media outlets in which Captain Millman sent his letter. 
The following is my statement and does not represent any former or current members of RFD. I am also not affiliated with any fire department at this time. 
 
 
From: Richard P Suarino 
           Ex Captain Poningoe Hook & Ladder Company
To: Letters to the editor,
I am writing in response to a recent letter that was submitted by Fire Police Patrol Captain Lester Millman in regards to the recent changes that have taken place at the Rye Fire Department.  I would like to start by stating that I was a combined 14 yearACTIVE member of the City of Rye Fire Department. I spent two years as part of explorer post 700 as a junior firefighter.  Then 12 years as a member of the Poningoe Hook & Ladder Company, where I served as first & second Lieutenant and then as Captain before resigning from the department in 2012.  I have a combined 17 years in the Emergency Services.  
The picture that Captain Millman has painted for the Rye citizens and would have one believe is that this change is a big surprise to the members of the department.  It's not.   Volunteer membership has been on the decline since probably the 1980’s,and since then the bleeding hasn't stopped, it’s only gottenworse. In the late 90’s, early 2000’s, the department voted in several new members and it helped a little to put a patch on the crack in the dam.  In the 2000’s as an active volunteer firefighter, a lieutenant and then captain, there were several ideas that myself and other active volunteers proposed to make some much needed changes to the department structure to help with rapidly declining membership.  Recommendations were brought to the attention of the Board Of Wardens, who at that time, controlled all decision making within the fire department.  The problem was that the Board was consistently controlled by veteran members of the department who were not as active and ignored any and all input by young active members, to the point where some members were turned off and stopped showing up. Others resigned and some went to other departments. Rye’s changing demographics has had the biggest effect on membership. Gone are the blue collar families of Rye.  Many of the old long time Rye names that were connected to the fire department making it generational are no longer in Rye, forced to move because Rye is unaffordable to those that would volunteer.  For every one member gained three are lost.  A member joining as a college kid at 19 has to resign by 23-24 because they are forced to move out of Rye. And it's not just Rye membership that is down, nation wide volunteer firefighters are declining.  Being in emergency situations, dealing with and seeing the things a firefighter may see is not for everyone. It's a calling, and the hours of training involved will take most free nights away, not to mention the required alarm response.  
Turnout at alarms; even 10 years ago at the most recent height of active membership-. We had 25 interior qualified firefighters and still sometimes we only had 4 volunteers at an alarm.  All working fires required mutual aid from our friends in Harrison and Mamaroneck.  
 
Leadership was and is non-existent under the Volunteer Chiefs of the department and when a chief did try to implement positive change he was quickly pushed out by older voting block.  At Fire scenes, basic accountability of members was lax.  Meaning,God forbid an explosion or collapse happened at a scene, the chiefs had no idea who had actually showed up at the scene.  Some chiefs had nothing more than basic firefighting training. Most were being relied on because of their 30+ years in the department, yet they had taken no classes to sharpen their skills or update their knowledge.  Any good leader in emergency service will tell you, you will never know everything and you are always learning something new until the day you retire.  This business is always changing and evolving.  
The Rye Professional firefighters often find that they are the only ones on scene. Sometimes I was the only volunteer on scene with them.  During the winter of 2002 I was the only volunteer on scene for an afternoon house fire. Three career firefighters and I, with one of those professionals manning twopump panels and one ladder.  
Commissioner Corcoran didn't just come in and decide to shake things up.  He's a very educated man with years of experience and after speaking with numerous people connected to the fire department he saw there was a need for change.  He has a job to lead the men and women of the Police and Fire Departments and the fire department problems are 20+ years in the making,ignored by past Board Of Wardens members and past chiefs of the department who kicked the can down the road.  The public might be surprised that over 100 years of volunteer service are coming to an end but many of the current and past members are not.  
Regards
Richard P Suarino
Past member and Captain Poningoe Hook & Ladder Company
 

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/new-jersey-roosevelt-volunteer-fire-department-bond-vote-badge-417487813.html
Link to the story.
Why should a town of 900 people, and not even 2 square miles have its own FD ? Great merge it with nearby departments and let the members join other departments in the area.

Looking at this i have to wonder, do they staff the firehouse now? Like are there 4-6 guys per rig in the station 24/7? That to me would be what that sign is saying. I know in some towns (not Westchester), the house is manned at all times. There are bunks and rooms where guys sleep the over night. I have a feeling that while their hearts are in the right place, they are not giving the people of Port Chester what they deserve. I don;t think we have to wait for someone to die or be seriously hurt to start doing what is right. Letting guys go solely to help a line in the budget was not a good move. As a career guy i am also offended that they say they are "Professionally Staffed". This is not their job. This is what they volunteer to do. The guys who's profession this was were let go in the most egregious manner possible. 

I still maintain that no fire department in NYS works a 3 platoon system.  All work a 4.  The hours of their shifts get them to 40 or somewhere near.  So no I don't know any departments doing 24 on/48 off in NYS.    

What happens to peoples snow shovels over the summer that they have to go out and buy new ones at the first hint of snow.  ??????

The Port Authority PD is a joke...yes a complete joke!  Its an ATM for these guys who are glorified security guards who break balls at the airports.  400 K  !!  You have to be kidding.  How many of them go disabled after one of these monster years?  Bet more than 50%!!  What happened to a CAP on these guys and girls?  Pushing idling cars out of pick up lanes is worth 400K?  Come on I'll do it 12 hours a day for 6 days a week for 125K and no benefits.....
 
 

For the most part, I agree with your message, but have a few thoughts and questions....
 
1) Was the Eastchester Captain in charge of the whole shift at the time of the incident or just the station nearest the incident?
 
2) Are Eastchester and Scarsdale on the same dispatch channel?
 
3) I'm not familiar with the area, but if the map at the beginning of the thread is accurate, it looks like the location of the fire is very close to the Eastchester/Scarsdale border and possibly within sight of the Eastchester station.  As such, I could easily see a situation where Eastchester units started to the incident thinking it could possibly be in their area, particularly if they aren't on the same dispatch channel.
 
4) The media is notorious for misreporting, misrepresenting or misquoting things.  As such, their statement of what happened may not fully represent what actually happened.
 
5) I have some difficulty with the use of the term "freelancing" in this particular context.  My understanding of the definition for freelancing is essentially doing a task or taking an action without communication or coordination of such.  There's a fair bit of detail about this not readily available to draw informed conclusions, but in general, I wouldn't consider investigating signs of a possible fire nearby to be freelancing, even if doing so happened to take you a couple blocks into the next town.  Once on scene, as the initial arriving unit(s), as long as they communicated that they were on scene, going to work and subsequently worked within whatever command structure that was established, I wouldn't necessarily call that freelancing and wouldn't necessarily call it operating without accountability.

While I get that self dispatching should be frowned upon with the information provided with the assigned Scarsdale engine unavailable Eastchester did the right thing self dispatching to save a life.  Had the fire been in another section of Scarsdale then no.  I am sure the Capt. in Eastchester knew that and should be commended for his action.

not being arrogant, but what makes you think that there will be a few good places hiring? Retirements are unpredictable. Wait for the call Dont overthink it.
 
Rather than posting on here.....clean up your resume, take an EMT class, search for other tests to take, stay in great shape...etc  thats the difference between those who get hired and those who dont.

New list means a new process. When I took the Westchester cpat I was told it was good for one year (in that same list). If there's another academy there will be a CPAT, if you are being looked at for the next academy you will be called to take the CPAT. If you are not being looked at you won't get a call. 
 
Stop worry about when the next CPAT, academy, or batch of canvassing letters are. If it applies to you, you will be contacted .

 
 
Firstdue...while I understand where you're coming from, you must think rationally. 
Why call Fairview (or any other career dept)? Because you know exactly what you're getting. No matter what you request (Eng, truck, rescue), you'll get it with a full compliment of QUALIFIED FF's.
Call a volunteer Dept (especially on a weekday), you may get "uncle Joe" the 70 year old chauffeur with an 18 year old "officer" and god knows who else on the back step. 
There may be 1 or 2 vol FDs "closer," but a career dept may get there much faster even if they are "farther" away.
Look, I'm a volly and know where your thought process is. But you have to think logically and choose M/A wisely.
We have Newburgh on our run cards because we know exactly what we're getting when we call them. That is a very reassuring feeling. 
 
Stay safe 
 

 
With all due respect, fire, police and ems are civil servants. Criticism comes with the territory and yes, these departments do need to answer to the general public who they are sworn to serve.

1) the county mutual aid system is broken. No depts should have the right to choose their run cards. 60 control should have full discretion based on available resources and their capabilities. All fires in this county are basically a reunion of the boys club 
 
2) . The county HAZMAT team, in its current state is a complete waste of space, time and money, I do agree with you on that. It would make more sense for the Grasslands Brigade members to be trained to the tech level and essentially staff that rig (only during work hours, but its a start) when it is called for a response.
 
3) In regards to the HFD captain / YHFD assistant chief, I do not know this person personally, but its not very hard to figure out, as the names and ranks are readily available on the internet. Again, this response cannot be justified, unless there is a HAZMAT/special ops task force made and this task force is made available for all county departments to utilize.
 
4) every fire department, career, volunteer and combination should be able to handle a hazmat incident. We all know that very few can, due to lack of trained firefighters and resources, but if a department cannot handle a room and contents fire or a small scale hazmat incident on their own, without calling mutual aid to the scene to mitigate these incidents, they should not exist as a department. Why even bother existing as a department if you must rely on others to do the basic functions of your job?  
 
5) The events occurring in Valhalla today are just as bad and the same amount of criticism should be given for skipping White Plains and Fairview.

I do not live in the Hartsdale Fire District, but if I did, I would be up in arms about this. You pull an engine from service with a crew of firefighters, leaving the district less protected, by 1 engine company and 2-4 firefighters.
 
There is absolutely no reason for this to happen. 
 
A HFD captain happens to be the voli assistant chief in Yorktown who requested this department specifically to the scene.
 
If my taxes were paying for a HFD rig to travel to Yorktown with firefighters, I would not be happy.
 
-Fuel costs
-OT costs to backfill
-Reduced fire protection to the district, until backfill personnel arrives.......
 
Wrong on several different levels.