firemoose827

Rest In Peace to the fallen soldiers and their families, and may god watch over all of our soldiers as they stand on the front lines. It makes me sick that people like those mentioned would get more attention and praise then our soldiers, or even us as firefighters, when a soldier or firefighter or police officer or EMT/Paramedic fall in the line of duty its always the same thing...Nothing. Yet a famous star who caused so much trouble passes on and they get weeks of coverage, benefit concerts and shows, outpouring from the world and sympathy from world leaders yet a soldier who gets killed defending freedom doesnt even get a tear?? Whats wrong with our society?

If the training levels are the same yes, but that is a whole other discussion! I agree with the term "Call Firefighter", being they are "On Call" and get paid when they respond. It should be based on training levels though.

Im glad someone else noticed that, that was pretty dumb if you ask me, so much for the "teamwork" part of firefighting... This was a manageable fire when they pulled up, then the chief...(guy with the white hat anyways)...showed up and all hell broke loose. The guy on hydrant was priceless, wonder if he was even a member of the department??? Or just a well meaning bystander??? Having exterior lines in operation with interior crews??? And OPPOSING handlines at that! Only two 1 3/4" lines for this fire??? Should have had an 1 3/4" attack with a 2 1/2" backup on first floor, another 1 3/4" on second floor for extension, another line on the exposure to protect it...Guess they ran out of hose... What about the hose line going through the window, without removing the entire window? Guess they were not worried about the window closing and clamping the line. There was a guy grabbing an axe but we could see if he actually removed the sash the camera went away, hopefully someone did SOMETHING right.. I get so sick of seeing people any where NEAR the fire without air packs let alone officers... I also get sick of seeing people wear their gear improperly, like not wearing the chin strap on the lids, or wearing the pack but not masking up, or seeing coats flapping open on guys coming OUT of the fire??? What a mess...

Ahh, another young inexperienced guy who only thinks inside Westchester County, as if thats the only county there is...Think outside the box before you make blanket statements like that. I have been involved in pre-plans in every volunteer department I belonged to, even my current one who only has residential and rural areas, we pre-planned our only two sites in our area including a repair garage and an under ground natural gas pipeline pumping facility. As a Captain, I take our crews out on drill nights in the rescue and we drive to a house, and I have them tell me everything about it including construction type, exposure issues, water supplies in the area and other details. This is always a big hit on drill nights and it works. Not every department is the same, each one is different and has their own strengths and weaknesses.

Im not that smart when it comes to ID'ing trucks like that, but the thing to the right is a John Deere Model 330N Front End Loader...

Thats what we call it here, "Automatic Mutual-Aid", and this is set up ahead of time as a signed agreement between the two fire chiefs. It is used a lot during the weekdays from 6a to 6p, and I have seen it used when a department knows their truck will be out of service for an extended amount of time, they will do a 24/7 agreement with the closest available unit to respond to all calls in their district. We have one set up for daytime responses for the closest mutual aid department to be dispatched with us, and first unit to respond will give a report and make the call once they are on scene. We are in the process now of making an agreement for "Training" purposes as well now, as funny as that sounds its true. Our new county fire training tower has a requirement that a minimum of 15 firefighters be present to use the facility. Our department has only 9 interiors, our neighbors are in the same predicament so we are going to consolidate our drill nights and combine our members for training at the tower.

This is unbelievable... I asked the same thing...where do they get insurance to operate? I think my statement was respectful, and not a blanket statement either. I directed my opinion directly at the departments who think a drill is standing around a pile of burning debris in someones yard. I directed my opinion at the departments who use drill nights as "Social Hour" than sign the drill sheet. That is training that is not accountable. State fire training is accountable, because you need to take and pass a test now to get your certificates, and the trained, certified instructor(s) have to provide hands-on training which in some cases is assisted by other trained certified state instructors. To me, to have all of those certified, Employed, instructors lie on their paperwork is impossible to do with all of the checks and balances that are out there to monitor fire training. The fire department drill sheet simply needs to have the date, subject of the drill, other pertinent info, and the signatures of those attended...How does this confirm that the training was administered to the members at they understood this training? I understand there are dedicated departments out there with commendable training programs and I see yours is one of them, but brother, my statement was not aimed at you. I too am now the captain in charge of the departments training and have just started a training program that far exceeds the one they had before I joined a year ago. I will now have them do quizzes on the subject learned at the last drill before I start the next drill and will place these in their files. I will start to implement a hands-on training performance evaluation sheet that will be filled out by myself or the chief and also placed in their files containing an evaluation of their ability to perform basic firefighting skills such as laddering a building, cutting a vent hole, stretching an attack line, performing a search and other skills. What I will respectfully disagree with is the fact that whenever someone like me shares their opinions with others, there are people who take it personally and will take my comments and make it seam like I was making baseless insults against any one department. My statement was meant to look at volunteer training habbits "World Wide" and not just in your department, or mine, or the guy next door. I have been in 4 volunteer departments in my 23 years service due to moving frequently to find both jobs and affordable apartments. Of these four, 2 were large departments with over 100 members and a call volume of over 500 calls annually, the other 2 were smaller departments with smaller rosters and even smaller call volumes, so it is safe to say that I have a decent balanced experience level with volunteer habits, training, and egos. I offer my opinion based on these facts, and respect your opinion. I could easily take your comment and label it as a blanket statement in favor of quality training in volunteer departments as well, but, we both have only witnessed a small number of the departments in this world so for now, we should just agree to disagree and respect each others opinions. Again, I respect your opinions and I respect you and your department for taking your training to a higher level, I wish more would. But I stand by my opinion as well, when compared to career firefighter training in NYS, volunteer fire training is no where near being the same. And please remember, I am a volunteer and have never worked for a fire department, I wanted to and tried 3 times to get hired at 2 departments but failed to meet the residency requirement, but my opinions are still in favor of career training standards and I feel that it should be the same state wide. Every person in this state that wants to enter IDLH atmospheres and put themselves in dangerous environments should have the same level of training, regardless if you get paid or not. Question for you though, How does your department handle training records? Do you guys have some sort of testing or hands-on evaluation system in place to determine if your firefighters are competent or do you just have the officers evaluate them at drills? The only reason I ask is because as I stated, I am in the process of starting a system at my department and want to do the homework first, so i make sure it works for us. Thanks and stay safe.

Here is a link to the article featuring this new car that is electric, and totally collapsable like a stroller for easy parking. New Extrication Ideas? For staff: I cant get this link to work?This is located in Yahoo news, sorry, not too computer savvy. And here is a blurb from the article... This might make things easier for the urban problem of commuting, but what kind of problems do you all see for the fire service and EMS? Would we even have a chance to rescue a viable person from this vehicle if it were hit by a larger vehicle? What kind of structural support does it have? Stabilization ideas? Thought this would spark an interesting discussion. Stay Safe.

Does this mean your speechless??

I am proud to say that our county finally got a training tower built with grant money, and has been spending the past year or two training the instructors and officers (the ones that showed for the training anyway) in live burn training safety. We will start to have all Firefighter I classes in the tower, and individual departments are starting to have drills on saturdays now so we can use live fire for training. Its been a long time in coming, but its finally happening and officers like me, who had to get their training out-of-county in order to get decent training, are happy to see it. This will allow the younger firefighters to get the "hands on" experience they need in a controlled environment with trained experienced officers and instructors. Hopefully this will breed better firefighters for our county. Not everyone has stickers on their helmets and cars... Stay Safe.

For some reason, some people put a lot of weight on "In house Training" like drills. As a volunteer fire captain, I dont see how we can. It simply isnt the same as state training lead by a certified state fire instructor. To me, training is two parts; State Fire Training, than supplement with station drills taught by competent officers and assisted by trained experienced firefighters. Some departments have no clue how a drill should be, Ive seen departments say that a control burn is a drill yet they only stood around and watched it to make sure it didnt spread. Thats not a drill, maybe for the pump operator who had to secure a water source and charge a line but not for interior firefighters. Than there is the departments who sit around the station all night BS'ing and doing nothing but getting away from the home front for a while, than they sign a drill sheet that SAYS they did a drill of some sort for 3 hours...how can a departments drill habbits be properly accounted for?? In the career sector there is no doubt, no questioning because its mandated and properly accounted for annually. Thats why a lot of people are having a hard time seeing the training of volunteers as beeing sufficient...its not. Im a volunteer and I say its not. And to add to this this department isnt even a ligitimately operating fire department, they are not on anyones radar including OFPC as being listed in NY State as a fire department, so how do they get the insurance for their members?? If one of them gets hurt, are they covered?? They are not even dispatched at all by a 911 dispatch center?? There is too much that screams wrong here to me, they need to be investigated and someone needs to intervene here and put an end to this madness.

I wanted to add to your #5 question in regard to calling mutual aid to stand in your station for coverage. I have personally witnessed something of this topic and it was a bit of a nightmare. I think communications were non-existant, and dispatch was improperly trained at the time of this incident, but I would like to get your opinion on this. It was a while ago, around 1999-2000 I believe. I was a younger firefighter for one of my past departments, we were a small to mid-sized volunteer department, and our neighbors then were a fairly big sized department covering a very large area with the village and town, and numerous outlying hamlets, but I cant remember the square mileage exactly. One night around 11:30PM they had a structure fire in a large, older farm house on the opposite end of their district from us. They ended up calling us in to cover their station with a fully staffed engine. We rolled our engine with a crew of five; a driver, our lieutenant, myself and 2 other firefighters. We were in their station and listening to the radio traffic in their radio room when we hear the dispatcher call for the IC on the air. They proceed to tell him that there was another reported structure fire in his district, what is his pleasure. Now, its my belief that by the dispatcher asking the IC for his pleasure for the second fire, the IC ASSUMED that the engine from our department was already enroute to the call...we werent. No one made contact with the station or called us on the air. We all looked at our lieutenant and one member of the other department who was a past chief who happened to be working the radio, he looked at our Lt and told us to roll, that he would take the blame if anything happened. As dispatch was toning out another department to roll to the second fire we were rolling out the door with a full crew. When you have a station fill-in like that, its for a purpose, and that is to handle any additional calls in the district. The dispatcher that night thought that we were standing-by for the initial call in case we were needed and never sent us. Later on that night the IC from the neighboring department responded to the second fire scene and we told him what happened, he was furious. He called dispatch and explained it to them better. We laughed afterwords, the second house was saved, only moderate damage to the second floor bedrooms. The first house was gutted. It was a cold night, and things were freezing up, almost the whole county was involved with the two fires, and some out-of-county resources as well. Today, we call for either of two things as far as coverage of the districts are concerned; either a stand-by, which is in your station with a staffed engine and tanker, or a stand-in, which is moving whatever requested equipment to the mutual aid station for coverage. In either instance, when you are called for coverage you are covering your area and the mutual aid district in case of a second call. Its very rare in my area for the dreaded second call, but as I experienced, it can happen, and I guess thats why we continue the practice today. Except the dispatchers are better trained in the way it works, and communications are more updated as well.

I agree with Jack. Use the line to protect exposures is there is fire, and do not put it out. The gas is burning off safely and will not cause more problems if it were leaking without fire. Propane is heavier than air and settles in low lying areas, natural gas is lighter so it rises and dissipates in the air. Vent the house accordingly if its in a structure, secure all ignition sources, evacuate the area and let the utility company handle the rest, unless they request your assistance for Haz-Mat and such.

In the early 1990's we had a devastating gas explosion in Schoharie County that killed the volunteer fire chief while he tried to evacuate the residents, and injured dozens of others, leveled a whole town (Blenheim NY, google it). Still today our department does not have a meter. I agree, everyone should pay attention to these types of emergencies and stay prepared. We have a major natural gas line (Tennessee Gas Line) running through our district with a pump station as well. We make it an annual thing to get a tour of the pump station facility and talk to the engineers there. They keep us posted on the main line and any work being done as well as any updates to their facility.

Its a personal decision to be made by the crew at that time. I think neither is the wrong decision, but that is what training dictates to us; our safety first. If its me, Im not wasting time or air thinking about it, Im turning my PASS on, and dragging the victim until I run out of air and pass out or I reach the door. The closer I get to the door the better the chances someone hears my PASS and the easier it is to get us all out safely. Splitting up is an option, but last minute last ditch effort type thing. If you are far away and have little to no air I would send my partner out for help and start dragging the victim as far as I could go. Its a personal decision that will be different for everyone.

Our policy is to drive cold to all stand-ins. If during the ride we get upgraded to the scene than its the officers discretion as to use of ligts/siren depending on travel distance and traffic. With our district being as rural as it is, we barely have to use lights and sirens at all. I remember a call when I was in my past department, it was a stand-in, our neighbor was out to a structure fire on the opposite end of their district from us so we were providing station coverage. I was in the jump seat and the driver used the lights and sirens, he blew past atleast three to four cars, and when we got to the station he turned them off, as he was backing in I saw one of the cars he blew by and the driver was just staring at us looking confused. I told my officer and he just said "Screw them, we needed to cover our neighbors area." I was young then, and I wish I could confront that officer now. There is no need for lights/sirens when going to stand-in a neighbors station. When we are called to stand-by in our station I never even use my blue light, I just drive like it was a drill night and I was going to station for drill, if they call us for help we are already enroute to the station and will get there as fast as we would using lights. Drive Defensively and safely, get there alive and save the taxpayers money from repairing or replacing the trucks from careless accidents. Stay Safe.

Amen to that! I was happy to see them both RUNNING again, instead of just crashing into their own offensive line and falling. Much better to see them perform to their full potential. 2007, THAT was a great game!! Maybe a re-match is coming???

I believe, and dont take it as gospel because I am no where near my desk right now, but ISO rates are based on a few things in your community; like water supply, whether its municipal water system with hydrants or if you rely on tanker shuttle ops. Number of trained personnel available to respond to calls, the travel distance from your stations to the farthest point in its territory, the number of trucks you have and their ability and so on. I think that if one station closes, the only thing that could affect your ISO is if the response time from the remaining stations to all areas of your district increases significantly. I hope others will help you out and make sure what I said is accurate at all though!

Our engines only have two seats, so we roll them with whoever is at the station, officer or just firefighter. Our chiefs respond to the scene unless one is already there, then the others go to station for equipment. Generally we have an IC on scene in the first few minutes, and they designate jobs as crews arrive. For our rescue (old orange county rig, I believe its Woodbury, I will post pictures) there is seating for 5 in the back and two in the cab, but the cab is separated from the back and the old PA system doesnt work. Once we are on scene the officer will appoint jobs. Basically, for us out here its a matter of getting equipment to the scene and establishing IC, Staging and water supply. The IC issues orders to initial attack crews, than goes to staging for additional orders like venting and salvage. When we go mutual aid to other departments we are usually the only ones staging, the rest of the scene is sometimes chaos, but lots of firefighters walking around with their own chiefs or officers doing what they feel is needed (freelancing) and the mutual aid chief is always happy to have us because they know we stage and wait for orders. But when we go mutual aid its usually just our engine-tanker and our rescue with manpower (interior qualified only) so the tanker crew operates as tanker shuttle, and the rescue crews pack up and gear up and find staging, if we have an officer there they will find the IC and report how many we have on scene and our status. We pride ourselves with this and are slowly becoming respected in our county for it. And yes, Schoharie county is finaly drying up, but we still have need to support flood victims who lost everything and are living in either FEMA trailers or their own camping trailers and have no clothing or food, so we are still running a shelter support operation out of our firehouse, which now looks more like a general store than a firehouse!! But thank you for asking. Everyone have a safe and happy christmas!!! (No one better pull a christmas job this year, but if they do, be safe and get back home to your families!!)

I agree. No life hazard, except our own that is. Move anyone in the collapse area back, keep it clear until the unit falls or burns itself out, ensure the power is off, perform overhaul and clean up any brush fires that were set off and clear the scene. They will just come in and put a new tower up anyway, so be safe, let it burn and come down to your level.

First of all, that was 3 questions, not 2. My area can not effectively use the seating assignments due to the extreme mix of equipment specs. Some departments have engines with 5 person cabs, some (like us) have engines with only 2 people, a driver and a firefighter. Mainly, we rely on the method that is taught to us all in Firefighter I and all additional trainings as well; Use the staging area. When you arrive on scene you report to the staging area, if I see a chief officer I tell them we are fresh and ask if they have any assignments. The one thing I hate to see is freelancing. Most firefighters around me take it upon themselves to just go and do what they feel is necessary, and their argument is always the same "Well any good firefighter shouldnt need to be told what has to be done next, use your training and do what has to be done, dont bother the IC with all the questions..." Yes, but there is also accountability issues. So I instruct my crews as Captain, to always find the staging area, make sure you are fully equipped with packs and tools (different assortment, make sure one firefighter has Irons, another has poles, etc etc) and wait for orders. Too much confusion just creats chaos, and freelancers should be shot on site. In our rescue the officer will appoint assignments when it arrives on scene, whether it is a fire or a rescue or MVA.

When it is time to nominate and vote for officers in your volunteer department, how do you base your selections? Does your department have any qualifications for their officers and how does it vary from one position to another? I would like to hear from some other small departments like mine as well as larger ones. I guess you could say I am getting frustrated with hearing the "Campaign Promises" from some of the "younger" members with barely any experience who want to be officers. Does anyone think that a 21 year old firefighter with only a year experience as a firefighter I who WANTS to be an officer and THINKS they can do the job can actually be an effective line officer such as Lieutenant or Captain? Does anyone feel that experience in the National Guard or other armed services should be all they need to be an effective line officer in the fire service? How many of you are tired of the "Popularity Contests" and want to have some form of control over the nomination and election of volunteer fire officers? How many of you actually want experienced, trained, knowledgeable fire officers instead of the most popular person in the station?? Sorry, just frustrated, but I thought it would make an interesting conversation about officer qualifications, and the election process in volunteer agencies. All input welcome, positive of negative, I dont even own QTIPS so dont worry about me taking it personally. Thanks. Moose PS- Anyone know how to add a Poll Question to this topic??? Im a past moderator and even I forgot!

May Christopher and his family have a very merry christmas filled with memories. If they need anything for the holliday let us know. All my prayers will be with him in January for his surgeries...Please keep us posted?

Great job to HFD on this touching story. Its things like this that make it all worth it to me, great pictures too. Thanks for sharing. All my best to Christopher and his family on his upcoming surgeries and recovery. I hope this is just the start of a great relationship between Christopher and his new family at HFD, good job guys. Moose