firemoose827

The same thing happens at dumpster fires as well. I went to one and was the ONLY one wearing all turnouts and a bottle. When I was extinguishing the fire the captain stood next to me in street clothes looking me up and down and said, "Your always prepared for everything arent you?" I looked at him and said "Do you know for sure whats burning in there? What chemicals, hazardous materials, or waste including biological waste could be in there?" He just looked at me. NEVER take any undue risks, gear up and mask up at every fire. In the defense of the attack crew on this car fire, there WERE a lot of bystanders to put on a good show for...

Here, its a little bit of everything...Most home owners understand the importance of having them accessible to the FD for fires, than again others just dont care, until it happens to them ofcourse. For those hydrants that are still covered we have a water dept in our DPW and they will drive around and look for the Hydrant Flags sticking up and dig them out with a back hoe and shovels. I have also seen Explorers mount a community wide "Dig-Out" where they go around and dig them out than have hot chocolate at the station for all those who participated, even in the community. That is a nice thing to see and helos the explorers get themselves known. I just dug out one of the hydrants here in the apartment complex I do the maintenance for, it was buried in over 13' of snow and ice from the plow guy. Atlease he helped me with his tractor.

Some observations from the eight minutes I have witnessed; 1) No solid IC System set up. Some chiefs and lots of indians giving orders, INCLUDING law enforcement and ems...why did they pick that injured FF up and drag him?? What danger was he in once he was out? You need Incident Command and a clear chain of command set up with a staging are for extras that will inevitably end up "Wandering" around like nomads looking to do something. This creates chaos. 2) As mentioned, there is no acountability. I hear something once or twice that makes me cringe, "How many guys are in there?" "Whos missing?" Shouldnt that be a given FACT for all scenes with a clear accountability system? 3) There was still a full crew on the rear roof when the ladder was re-positioned, what happened if they needed to bail as well? Good thing they were only one story high on a rear porch roof and could still self extricate if needed but if they were in a second story window as well.....?? FAST should have been activated immediately and they should have set up ladders on all sides and cleared any debris like that rickety fence that they were all tripping over around the rear corner. 4) Proper mayday procedures. They called mayday AFTER the guy was out...why didnt the interior FF have a radio and why didnt he call for it? Hope they are all ok after that, sorry to hear aout the victim.

Yes, I agree...too many people hide behind screen names when speaking up or criticizing others in these forums. I believe its time to stand behind your comments to others, both positive and negative. Isnt that a big part of learning? Being able to take critisism and learn from it in a good way. Im all for it.

Excellent Article, had some good points and offered great advice.

Anyone hear about the save in Schenectady? Great save to the firefighters on scene who pulled a family to safety via a ground ladder at a fire in Schenectady. I read about it in the papers today and wanted to say great job.

Last time I knew from my captain days, only fire chiefs, and Advanced Life Support personnel with permission from their squad captains could run reds in their vehicle. But only one light, either a flasher or rotator located in the front of the vehicle. Strobes were not allowed (ofcourse you wouldnt of even known they were illegal nowadays with everyone turning every light on their vehicle into strobes)

If you ever want to know the results of the local "Popularity Contests" let me know, I will see what I can find out from the local cliques...IMEAN, departments. On another note, good luck to all the experienced firefighters running for offices and congrats to all the officers that have or will be voted in, YOU all deserved it.

May they all Rest In Peace and forever be remembered as the heros they are. My prayers to their families and friends.

Rest In Peace Firefighter Hessling, all my thoughts and prayers to the crews at Dix Hills from my former county...

Congrats Chris, looking forward to working with you...again...

Welcome back to you Alex, congrats on the re-promotion!

Also, doesnt station one have 2 volly engines Ang? Its rediculous that you cant use one for now until a replacement can be purchased. And I would LOVE to see the old mack back in service...that would be awesome to see!

Nice looking truck J, good luck with it.

Chief, with all due respect, I was agreeing with everything you said until that last line...That is the attitude that I feel needs to change or we will get no where. We (the dedicated volunteers that apply themselves to get training and uphold a higher standard than others) NEED professionals like you to step in and help us get the training standards raised to where they should be. Without firefighters like you that do this everyday, see fire everyday, train everyday...without you talking to the powers that be and telling them to change things for the better than we will never get the standards to where they should be. In my recent dept, the officers CHANGED the by-laws so that a Captain who was lacking ONE officers course could become an assistant chief...Changed the laws to suit their needs. One other Captain told me, and I quote, "State training is a joke, the instructors at the Fire Academy (Montour Falls) dont know what they are talking about, I have all the training I will need from the explorer post and dept drills." I agree with you 100%, training standards in the volunteer service are abismal to say the least, and there are way too many "Officers" out there that have very LITTLE experience and training, but are who they are because of the popularity vote every year, where hundreds of members that dont show up all year come and vote for their buddies because they called them and asked them too, when they know nothing about what is going on in the dept. People are becoming officers when they shouldnt even be qualified as interior firefighters...its disgusting and Im fighting for change. Im not in a dept right now, I finaly decided to go to college again and get my family into a house, but when I do, I will join again and fight for the elevation of training standards to that of the career service...after all, fire is an equal opportunity killer and doesnt care if you are being paid or not, so why shouldnt we train the same then? I hope I didnt disrespect you chief, just wanted to clarify that last line of your post. Stay Safe everyone.

I like the new changes so far, It will take some time to get to know everything but I like it.

Great picture, real clear and crisp. Love the old hip boots and coat, those were the days! lol Thanks for sharing.

CFD, when you say "fireproof" I just wanted to verify that you are talking about the Non-flammable and Fire Resistive type constructions correct? Just wanted to make sure I was thinking correctly. So the nozzle doesnt actually go up to the fire floor, its played into the fire room from the floor below like in the picture at the parking garage, correct? Interesting, another fine job by the inventors, this could be applied to other situations as well I would imagine, like sticking it down the cellar stairs to knock down some fire prior to entry, illiminating the chimney effect.

I saw an interesting article included with my Fire Engineering issue this month and wanted to see just how many of you out there think of this and know what to do if this should happen. Lets discuss this openly and professionally. What do you do if a member of your department has been subjected to direct flame impingement while operating interior? Their gear has become super heated and they need to be cooled off, what do you do? Lots of people would instantly turn the line on them, but does this help them or hurt them more? If you see this happen, turning water on them would be the worst thing to do. The water would saturate the gear and instantly start to turn to steam, causing the firefighter to receive steam burns, which could be a very serious thing depending on percentage of body surface involved, any other EMT's out there that know what I mean? A good thing to do first would be to tell the firefighter to stand up with arms extended to their sides to allow some of the heat to dissapate faster, than you would move in and assist them to "Rapidly Doff" their gear. You would release the tension on the pack straps and tell them to slip it off, than you can work on the coats. With the coats that have the zipper front this is easily achieved by grabbing the collar and "ripping" the zipper and velcro open. With the coats removed you can than apply some fog or light amounts of water to the firefighter to assist in cooling them down. Too much water applied too fast could cause them serious medical issues, so only apply a light fog stream or dump some bottled water over their head and neck. Is there anything else you could do in this situation? Anyone have anything to add?

Hope you make a full recovery and return to work soon. We are all thinking about you guys and youre in our prayers. All my best to you all.

Hope you make a full recovery and return to work Lt. We are all thinking of you guys, my best to everyone.

May he rest in peace, and may his family find comfort in his brothers in their time of grief. My heart goes out to the City of Yonkers on their tragic loss. May the other brothers recover soon and return to work full duty. My prayers are with them.

Thanks for this info chief, I have always been trying to modify the way I crawl in to a fire in order to maximize my stability and my vision of whats going on above my head. I found the modified crawl to be good for seeing whats going on...but bad on stability and speed. Overall, I found that the old way of crawling in on your hands and knees is the way to go. Just stop and look up every few seconds or minutes to see that nothing is getting past you, or worse, coming down on top of you. Great post, this is why I am a member here. This is another great topic. I think this is the best way to go up and down stairs too. I have never done this in my past but will start using it now. Its always clumsy and unsure going up and down stairs any other way loaded with gear and tools, but this way seems to be the best way. This is a GREAT topic, lets keep it going and keep it respectful too like chris mentioned.

Welcome to the group brother. Feel free to ask any of us if you have problems navigating around and using the forums. Have fun and see you around. Moose Moderator

Dont forget the increase in the EMT's weight as well...eating fast food in a bus parked on the corner in between runs than sucking down soda's and smoking a pack a shift...we should worry about our health as well. I see too many of us that are the same size as some of our bariatric patients...whats the load limit on most residential floor systems?? We used to have quite a few "Frequent Flyers" that were morbidly obese and bed ridden. They called for us once a week if not more, and we had systems devised for just about all of them to move them easier, including having well intentioned neighbors who always showed up to help when they saw the bus pull up, because they knew their neighbors and cared. We used the FD on several occasions for lifting, and on some calls to completely remove a wall, or take out a window and set up a 4:1 hauling system to lower the patient to the cot below. We have tried everything, but its getting worse.