firemoose827

If you would like to discuss the fixed hood ansul systems I used to install and service them for about six years. I worked with the Range Gaurd models and serviced all types of them; Pyro-Chem, Ansul, Kidde, Pro-tex, Amerex....just about all of them. If you go to their web-sites you can get service manuals and advice about them. Hopefully that will help some with your paper. If you need more send me a message and I will help any way I can. Good Luck Brother.

Never forget training. Most people stop training when they are officers, dont be like most people. Encourage it, support it. Officers are nothing without their firefighters...respect them and they will respect you. Ask the experienced firefighters for help, like so many have already said a good officer will ask for help when they are unsure. Just because you are an officer doesnt mean you know everything. I have something that motivates me every day that I heard when I was a Junior Firefighter in Northport, Long Island. "I'd rather go into a burning building with someone who is constantly learning rather than someone who thinks he knows it all." I first heard that over 16 years ago and I live by it today. I never let a training opportunity pass by. Above all, have fun, be yourself, and try to learn from everyone as well as teach. Hope my ranting helps.

YES. Snow means OVERTIME at work!

Too Late!!! Mom already has us singing everything!!! And now I watch kids movies just to preview them. lol Thanks everyone!!!

Hey everyone. Sorry it has been a while since I have been on-line. I have recently had a beautiful baby girl!! SHe was born on August 27 and she and mom are doing well. Her name is Isabella. Hope all are doing well and I am looking forward to rejoining some of the discussions! Jonesy368

I am glad to see SOMEONE thinks like me. This legal bullsh** has gotten everyone paranoid. Hazing, if done with common sense is a form of welcoming someone. Filling their boots with shaving cream at a drill, dumping water over someones head, dumping them into a portable pond...it has all been part of the fire service ever since the horse drawn engine days. I agree...if you cant take the heat stay out of the kitchen. TRADITION.

Hope this helps Otsego Countyn Fire- 46.44 Otsego County Sheriff- 150.775 Hartwick College EMS- 154.540 City of Oneonta- 155.490 Im in Schoharie County, Cobleskill Fire Dept. If you are in the area on Wed night at 7pm stop by the FD on Main St Cobleskill. Our frequency is 46.180. Peace. Jonesy. Brian Jones

My prayers go to his families...both at home and the firehouse. I used to volunteer with Northport FD. Rest In Peace Brother.

The flight 93 movie...MAYBE...if like mentioned it was done honorably and accurately. The WTC Movie? Im tired of seeing rich people make themselves richer off the misery of others. This should not be made, it should be left alone. They are starting to beat this silly now, and they should respect all who gave their lives that day and their families and just leave it alone. Hollywood can sometimes be dis-tastefull and dis-respectfull. Jonesy

To help you out with this one...just about all of the 911 dispatch centers have recording capability on both radios and phone lines. If the family requests no lights or sirens, its on tape. If they try to sue us, we play the tape and the dispatcher is a witness. Also, using lights and sirens has not been proven to save us MUCH time at all. I have seen studies with two ambulances going to the same location, one hot the other cold. The bus with the code 3 response arrived 30 seconds before the cold bus. Lights and sirens send too many drivers into tunnel vision mode and cause many accidents. I believe that responding to the "Area" code 3 than going cold is acceptable, it gets you there in the scope of your "SOP's" and offers that special consideration to the patients request. Like mentioned earlier, how do we know WHY they requested it that way? Are they epileptic? Would they have a massive MI when they hear the sirens and see the lights? Service to the people we serve, good patient care, proffessionalism......OH, and common sense! Jonesy

EXCELLENT show. I have been there before and wish to go back again. We also chartered a bus and went down with about 100 guys from surrounding depts. It was a good show with LOTS of vendors and dealers, and it was a great time. WELL worth the 3-4 hour ride. If you go please let us know how it was this year. Jonesy

hey all. A few quick responses to this post. First to Jason762. In our dept., as mentioned before, we have a run sheet that we fill out after each call with all pertinent info, like times, location, nature of run, units responding, mutual aid called or rendered, actions taken and even the VIN and product info. Than when I have time I go down and enter the info into the NIFR's for the chiefs. Our chiefs hate doing them so they let me do it. I dont mind, im not an officer yet and like to help out. For mfc2257. The NIFRs have numerous pages for you to enter all sorts of info about the call. I think that the narrative section allows for anything that wasnt covered in the report that you feel would be pertinent to the incident. Like when I sometimes enter a call as "Unknown Type Fire" as Call Type, I write what we found on arrival like "Controlled Burn attended by owner. Did not call dispatch to inform. Advised to call in the future and explained." I took some training for the Firehouse Software 6 package that we use to enter NIFR's and they explained that the state really has no time to read all of the narratives and they only take the info from the report, reffering to the narrative only when they have a question about the call that wasnt covered in the report. It is for the stats, so that the state can focus on problems with faulty equipment causing numerous fires, FD response times, ect ect. For legal issues we use the info in both our run sheets and the NIFR's that we keep on file. Hope that helps. Jonesy

I appologise, I am three hours away and just started a new job. I would like to help any way I can though. Let me know if you need ANYTHING. I could run a fundraiser up here for you guys, ANYTHING. Let me know, PM me or post it. Best of luck to your son. Brian Jones Cobleskill Fire Department

VERY dangerous That was my point. I can take a fishing pole to the docks and catch a nice dinner. These guys KILL themselves to put crab on someones plate. Thats all I was saying.

Excellent post, good question. I have learned something new. Another question...how hard is it to attack the hinge side of these doors with either hydraulics or irons? Could you cut the door around the mag lock and enter this way? Ironic, our doors at the firehouse are magnetic and I never gave thought to this!! Thanks for the info guys. Jonesy

This is just a thought of mine, so PLEASE dont kill me!!! Firefighters are killed in an effort to save a human life or their property. Fishermen are killed to fill the stomaches of mostly rich, snobby people. Is it really worth risking your life for? Do we really need to eat crab THAT bad? I agree, the money is GREAT, but, crab? Just my thought. On a lighter note, Im from Long Island originally and I dont eat sea food. My family think Im nuts for that alone! Stay Safe Jonesy

Yah, I know. If you have read any of my previous posts you would know the training problems we have in this county. Not all of us take training seriously. I do, and a hand full of the others do, but a lot of them dont. I like the saying, "Keep It Simple Stupid". Get a gun thats simple to use, and it makes things easier. I find that beating my head on the wall and continuously getting frustrated with these pigheaded people is exactly what they want to see, so I have done exactly what a lot of old-timers have told me to do; sit back and let them embarrass themselves, question what they are doing a lot, make them use the dormant organ 3 feet above their a#@ and try and search for the answer they cant give because they dont train. So far it is working. We'll see. I do see what you are saying though and would normally agree, but training in our dept to most members is a four letter word. Thanks for the input. Jonesy

Hey. I have worked long and hard to get all the training I could as a fire investigator. I went to the Academy and got my Level I Investigator as well as 3 other support classes. I am also a Nationally Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator through NAFI. I am volunteer. I have spent many hours helping my chief and our County Team doing C&O, and I have helped the guys from State Fire as well as Insurance Agencies. In my opinion we do the same job, but I think as a volunteer I put more heart into it. I was on C&O's where the pros wanted to quit and label it "Under Investigation" or "Undetermined" ( I hate that label. ) and those of us who were volies wanted to keep going, but we did not have a say. It is all up to the attitude, patience, and skill level of the investigator. There is a lot of patience involved with investigations, and I think that most investigators dont have patience. I am on a waiting list for our county team and there are many qualifications to be on it. Unfortunately it is atleast a 3 year list. Oh well....Im young still. I agree with asstchief, 204-C also states it is up to the chief to determine the cause of ALL fires their dept responds to, or cause to be determined by outside resources, but ultimately the chief puts the final say on the BIFR's. Jonesy

I agree with you; but youre forgetting one important requirement....Experience. You can join the dept at 17 and take 12 classes your first year, but it still doesnt mean jack sh#@ untill you fight some fires with your new knowledge and the senior guys guiding you. Same for EMS...take the EMT class, does that mean your ready for office? You need to treat patients and see the workings of the EMS system for a few years before you can be truly "qualified". Our new Lt. for example, he "supposedly" has a stack of cerificates at home and in his words before the meeting the other night, "I forget more about firefighting than you even know" while he was joking around with another member. I stared at him and laughed. He got all bent out of shape and questioned why. I simply reminded him that in the 14 years I have been fighting fires in this county I have never seen him in TURNOUTS let alone an air pack, and Ive never seen him interior at all. He backed right off and said, "Well, I have to drive the trucks, no one else will." Does that make him an officer? Im scared...very scared.

"Gee, should we stage right here by the worst turn on the track so were close to any action?" Famous last words candidate?

I guess the same question could be applied to helicopter intercepts. We seem to have an overabundance of EMT's who love to call for Life-Net at every MVA we get, than they wait on scene for it to arrive sometimes for up to 15 minutes!! We are in between two regional trauma facilities; Albany Med 45 minutes to the east and Cooperstown Hospital 35 minutes to the west. We have a small community hospital here in Cobleskill but it is just that; SMALL, and worthless. We had a 2 car MVA last week with two critical PT's and they called for two birds. But the thing is the one was laying in the driveway, they were assesed and packaged in 5 minutes and the bird had an eta of 12 minutes. I would have gone the short trip to Cooperstown and would have been there by the time the bird landed, they assessed the patient and transferred him to their stretcher and than finaly took off. But the EMT chose to wait and was in the back of the ambulance for 15 minutes waiting for the bird to land. Than it was another 15-20 minutes before they were airborne again. Sometimes people fail to make the proper judgements. That PT should have been in the trauma unit long before he was actually even in the bird. I try and tell them, if you have an extended extrication time and the PT is bad THAN you call the bird. If you can easily package and drive to the hospital than do it...remember the golden hour? As far as ALS intercepts, I used to be an EMT-CC and i'm just a basic now sow I've experienced both sides. I wont wait for ALS, we assess, package, and respond to the nearest appropriate facility. If we can we will pick up a medic from the nearest town and go. Most of the time our county medics respond fast and are there with us or shortly after. On a few rare occaisions we had dispatch tone out 2 or 3 depts on our way to Albany Med and ask for any Medics to meet us enroute, and 98% of the time we get one pretty quick and transport is never delayed. Our county medics love this because they know that the best place for the PT is the ER. In a code situation we go to the local ER 5 minutes from just about anywhere in our district, stabilize, and the local paid EMS crew transports to Albany, Schenectady, or Cooperstown. Jonesy

Oh, ABSOLUTELY!!! Some juniors or explorers are great, and know their spot in the ladder. Some probies are still respectfull also because they were fortunate enough to be raised by an old school firefighter who knew the importance of tradition and respect. Its just that in my dept, we have a few new members whos daddies are chief, or who have been around the dept since diapers....you know the cliches. And they think their sh#@ dont stink, or they dont need classes because they know it already, "Daddy told me". Well, I've been around the fd since diapers also, and my father has 35 years in the dpt, but I lay no claim to any of that. I bust my but to get any and ALL training I can get, and still look for more and am open to any criticism from anyone. There have been numerous times an older, more experienced ff has been telling me something I already knew, but I LISTENED, and kept an open mind, and ended up learning a new way of doing something anyway. I guess thats what I was saying, some members; new or old, just dont respect their fellow firefighters. It has turned into a mad dash to the top, stepping on friends along the way, just to get the glory. Somewhere along the way we forgot about the people we serve, and the property we protect; just like mfc said earlier, it should be about whats best for the community.....not our resumes. Thanks for the input. Jonesy

Well, we had our annual meeting and dept elections last night....or, should I say, our "Popularity Contest". We now have a new 3rd asst chief, who was our capt last year and a Lt the year before. But thats it, only two years in as line off and he is now our asst chief. One of our 2 vacancies at Lt has been filled with a guy who hates training classes and thinks our dept drills is all we need. But he is qualified on ALL equipment, and therefore eligible for the spot. In a past thread the topic of tradition was discussed, and its a sensitive issue with me. Has tradition gone out the window? Where are the days when members wanted to train, and attended classes or went to the academy regularly? Where are the days when "Probies" knew and understood their part in the fire service and RESPECTED the experienced members? Where are the days when you had to get EXPERIENCE in order to be an officer and you had to work your way up the ladder, and it was a respectible position to be in? Now-a-days you get a 17 year old who joins the dept, and immediately struts around the fire house as if they own it. Why? Because their daddy was a ff for 20+ years? Because they might have just taken FFI and think they are an overnight miracle FF? If I had done that I would have immediately been put in my place and embarrassed in front of the dept to make a point. Im so tired of going to calls and offering a new member advice and getting told "Well, I TOOK this class and I know what Im doing!" Todays fire service is in trouble, the loss of the tradition and respect will cause a lot of problems. Im sorry, I rambled there for a minute. Anyways, another popularity contest was won. I am the dept Safety Officer now though. How about everyone else? Do you have the same problems with elections? Does any dept out there still honor tradition, and if so, are you looking for a new member? Stay safe and keep tradition and respect alive...its what keeps us alive. In the words of my explorer advisor when I was 15...."I'd rather go into a burning building with someone who's constantly learning, rather than someone who thinks he knows it all." Jonesy

Our Deputy Coordinator in charge of the team is a rescue tech. He teaches us rope and knot work at our drills. We work with biners, rope, pulleys, and rescue equipment at all of our drills. We are encouraged to take any rescue class also, but our county hasnt had one in quite some time now.

Our requirements: Firefighter I or higher for at least 2 years Firefighter Safety & Survival Class "A" Interior Firefighter, no restrictions. Letter from Chief of your dept. stating you are in good standing. FAST Operations or equivilant. Annual Physical and Fit test. Ours is a county team, only 3 years old, so we are working out the bugs.