Stench60

You don't take into consideration the fact that numerous departments are independently licensed to operate on 46.26 etc. and have the ability to tell the county to go pound salt. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the problem isn't the radio, it is the operator.

The Ossining Ladder is still in use in PC, The ladder from the PC seagrave is in Wisconsin being rebuilt.

New Rochelle did their own dispatching prior to going to the county.

The Collyer's were two brothers who were a little off in the head and collected newspapers and other various junk. They proceeded to fill their manhattan mansion with this garbage to the point that they were literally moving through tunnels of garbage to move around their home. To make a long story short, when one brother died after being trapped under the mounds of junk, the other brother who may have been an invalid also died. it took the FDNY several days if not a week to find them due to the condition. The reason I know this is because as a kid my mother would tell me to clean my room by saying that " it's starting to look like Collyer's Mansion."

"I think it is important to remember the CFR trucks at Westchester County Airport as a viable resource for incidents such as this. I think that they have three rigs if I am not mistaken, one rig I think is a spare/back-up unit. That truck could be sent mutual aid to local Westchester County Departments facing large scale incidents. " The spare unit is exactly that, a spare unit should one of the front line units go down. If the airport loses on site firefighting capabilities, by FAA regulations they must shut down flight operations.

It's still going strong brother, next convention is in Glen Falls in Upstate NY, June 2005.

Thank the PD's. When the system was setup they're the group that had, and still have, the political muscle to force so many PSAP's. The system was flawed from the moment the police agencies required that they each receive their own 911 calls and not have them go to a central answering point.

Peekskill has a couple of hand drawn pieces ( A parade hose cart and a hand engine) that are amazingly beautiful. It always amazes me to see them coming down the street with the ropes fully manned and the rigs all decked out in their finest. I have a few pictures of Washingtons hose cart, I'll have to figure out how to post them.

Unfortunately it was sold to a collector in NJ. The deptartment wanted to keep it but, as always, where do you keep it.

The WCVFA announces that a FASNY seminar will be held here in Westchester. The seminar will be on Marina fires and will be given by the retired Chief of Marine Operations, FDNY. The course will be held on Tuesday September 14, 2004 from 7pm to 10pm at The Doral Arrowood Hotel and Conference Center, 975 Anderson Hill Rd. in Rye Brook. Registration will begin at 6pm. Admission is $5 for FASNY members and $10 for non-members. The $10 paid by non-members will be used as the application fee for the state firemens association and the individuals will become members of FASNY. If you have any questions please contact me through this web-site

Just a reminder, the seminar is tonight and it would be great to see everyone there.

Keep checking Ebay, but be prepared to pay for it

Just a reminder for everyone to put this on their calendars.

Unfortunately Purchase no longer has the old Seagrave Quad, it had to be sold due to space consierations.

. Amen, this is like the people who buy homes at the end of a runway and then complain about the airport. Or next to or across the street from a firehouse and complain about noise, or next to a beautiful babbling brook that floods them out when we're hit with torrential rains. These are the same people who build beach homes right on the water, have them swept away by the next hurricane and then expect the government( we the taxpayers) to pay them for it. What kind of numbskull buys a home without looking at these kinds of things?

I'll need a lesson on how to do that.

bump

I'd have to go on record as saying that they are a useful tool in the fire service. While I've seen my own department whittle itself down to a single whistle from 2 bells (not house bells, actual fire bells), a horn and a whistle up until the mid '90's and even that whistle has been out of service for quite a while due to the batteries for the gamewell system no longer being available, I've also seen a corresponding drop off in the manpower at working calls. In a smaller Department pagers are generally available to everyone, in a larger Department they have to be rationed to only the most active members. The whistle/horn was a great way to turn out the guys who didn't have pagers but would respond to major incidents. As to the pager and nextel issue, belive me with a lawn mower, leaf blower, being in church etc. you don't hear the pager. The really important part of this is, if I'm not mistaken NYS law requires an audible signal if the fire service is predominantly volunteer. The city of Rye went through this several years ago and that was the reason they were kept over the extremely vocal objections of the NIMBY/ FOT crowd. Heck, I can remember as a little guy the horns going off in Mt. Vernon for a fire.

According to NYFD.com Ladder Co. 72 was never organised, perhaps you remember a reserve ladder that had been stored in the house.

You boys are all going to end up with hernias. Gloves A 20' piece of utility line A Spanner Wrench And some where inside a personal dosimeter (God Forbid)

Port Chester HQ and the old South Main St. firehouse use to have them but they were removed in the late 1940's for two reasons, the accidents & shennanigans and they were taking up to much room for the larger rigs that were coming in after the war.

It does have to dried, especially the older canvas jacketed hose so it doesn't rot (yes we still have a few lengths). The newer stuff is great and wouldn't be bothered by water, the problem is all the new fun chemicals and fluids that soak in and have to be washed out before it can be dried then repacked. Some of this stuff does a job on the newer nylon and rubber jacketed hose. As to it's only going to get wet again; well, you take care of it and it will last a lot longer and when you don't have alot of money to throw around that becomes a big consideration.

Here's another question although I don't know if it qualifies as trivia since I don't know the answer myself. Mr. Moderator, it's your decision. What is the oldest firehouse in westchester still in current use as an actual firehouse? It would have to be older than 1906 which is the year Port Chester HQ. was built.

Great job ferreting this one out, Lord knows The New Republic website is not a regular stop for me, I've always been partial to National Review myself. Since the magazine is one of the house organs of the left/ Democratic Party it makes very interesting reading between the lines. It manages to bring up that great feel good failure of the Clinton Administration; the COPS program. The program that neither gave you a 100,000 additional police nor a reduction in crime. The crime control techniques pioneered by Bill Bratton, Jack Mapple and spearheaded by Rudy Giuliani, the so-called "broken window" theory along with a decade of get tough prosecutions and sentencing accomplished a hell of a lot more than the unlamented COPS program. The fact is while some cities did not participate at all in the program (I believe New Rochele was one) because at the end of federal funding (3 years or thereabouts) they would be stuck with the additional officers and all the expenses that went with them, most PD"s did participate in some form or another. The catch was that 95% of the time the money was used to temporarily fund additional officers until the money ran out , these officers then filled the posistions of officers who had resigned, been fired or retired. This resulted in a net increase of zero in the size of the department and its' budget. The same would take place with the fire service, if not even more so. Of course the article quotes the NFPAs' " call " for 85,000 new firefighters, and also the IAFFs' same cry. What isn't stated is the fact that the IAFF packed the NFPA meeting to force through their agenda. And of course every " municipal attorney" is running scared. "even if a career firefighter is much more valuable because he's better trained and faster to the scene than a volunteer. " I won't even dignify that quote with a response. I honestly believe that the general mebership of the IAFF has been sold down the river by their leadership. Nothing comes out of this magazine unless it receives the imprimatur of the Democratic National Committee. What's being said is, hey we've made all these promises in public but we know your rank and file aren't voting for the Democratic ticket anyway so all that money isn't going to be wasted on firefighters or fire programs but on things that really matter to the hardcore base of the Democratic Party ie. AFDC, Section 8, affirmative action programs, enviromentalist nonsense etc. etc. etc. Oh, and we’ll make sure Harold Schaitberg gets a nice cushy job for his undying loyalty. These are my opinions, whether you agree or disagree, if I got you to sit down and think for a minute, I did my job.

Anyone interested in the volunteer companies of the part of Westchester absorbed by NYC, go to NYFD.com and find the our history link. It will give you not only the " Bronx" depts. but also Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. It's an eye opener for people who don't know the early history of the fire service in Westchester. So many depts. just forgotten by us today. Places that are only sections or neighborhoods of the city that were once thriving towns and villages each with their own fire departments and now forgotten histories. Anyone interested in the current volunteer companies in NY, The firemens association of the City of New York has or had a web site until recently.