Remember585

Congrats & good luck Bubba!

I'm just glad to not be reading another paid vs. volunteer thread...

Twelve years ago today, June 22nd, Lt. Michael Neuner died in the Line of Duty fighting a house fire with the Brewster Fire Department in Putnam County. Mike was a Police Officer in the City of Peekskill, a former member of the Putnam County Sheriffs Department, Armonk and Patterson Fire Departments. My Uncle Mike was one of the funniest, coolest and nicest guys to ever walk this earth. We remember you today and every day, Satch. You may be gone but you'll never be forgotten!

I am not bashing the Police Officers involved. I think what they did just proves how most put service above self. But in the 2-3 minutes from the time PD arrived to the time the FD arrived, I truly don't think it would have a major affect on the victims. With that said, this incident highlights why we should be considering CO detectors for EMS and PD personnel. Way too often, both of these agencies respond to medical calls or welfare checks, only to find the problem to be a Carbon Monoxide incident. They're fairly inexpensive, small enough to put almost anywhere and are almost idiot-proof. We have to look out for ourselves, who else is going to?

I don't see any reason why anyone, in this case it appears the PD, should enter a home full of CO. They just create more problems for other responding personnel.

Rest In Peace, and may God bless their families on this day.

Maybe some of the agencies in the county running 2, 3 or 4 rigs that they can't staff is looking to offload something for a decent price...

We used to have plastic engraved tags, color coded by company. We then went to laminated ID tags, where Yellow was Exterior and Red was Interior. The person printing them did it backwards, so Interior was yellow and exterior was red. We then went to the luggage type tags with a photo ID in the tag. We recently ordered engraved tags again, with green for Interior, red for Exterior. The order, as it appears, has vanished in cyberspace. One thing that has somewhat helped us was the implementation of two SOGs last year. 1. Members are to report to their stations - not to the scene. It cut down drastically how many people were showing up on a scene and jumping into action. 2. Apparatus respond and give their manpower count. Granted, it only includes Interior members, but the Exterior folks usually aren't hard to find at a scene. Now the officer on the rig has a better idea of who they responded with and can report it to the IC / Safety Officer. (For those that have wondered, when you hear our units responding Code 3, Code 5, etc. that indicates the # of qualified personnel on that apparatus.)

One of the sites I frequent often...good stuff!

I can say honestly that the WCPD Marine Unit(s) assigned to the Hudson River seem to be there almost anytime there's an incident on that river. Is it staffed full time - probably not. But it is out there when it's needed (or so it seems). Nice looking vessel, good luck with it.

Anyone know of any instructor / groups that do vehicle extrication training? Feel free to shoot me an email at jmunson@crotonfd.org. Thanks.

I currently have 6 members registered to take AVET - but we're looking to bring someone in to town. I have a couple of leads so far - thanks guys.

We recently had a similar call. My Assistant Chief sent the Tower over, made a drill out of it and made a very happy little girl. If there's no risk, it's always good to get a little positive PR. And members learn something from it, which is always good. Similarly, a caller spoke to someone about a seperate cat in a tree situation, the person on the receiving end of the call said "Have you ever seen a cat's skeleton in a tree?" That caller then filed a complaint to our Village Manager...

Good, heads up move guys. Nicely done.

The Croton-on-Hudson Fire Department is hosting a "Rural Water Supply Operations: Moving Big Water with no Fire Hydrants" seminar THIS WEEKEND. The class is being held at our Station #3 (Harmon Firehouse) at 30 Wayne Street in Croton. It is being held on Saturday 4/27 & Sunday 4/28 starting at 8:00 AM both days. To register, email jmunson@crotonfd.org. (It was posted here and vanished, sorry.) Croton_NY_RWSOS_Flyer.pdf

Added info and photos to our department website HERE. Also more on the Bedford Hills FD site, HERE.

For the Dispatchers... up here in "gray shirt land" I don't get any and it sucks.

Photos and info HERE.

Not every field responder gets stabbed or shot (thank God!) but I see your point. I, for one, don't think communications folks should be equally paid with those in the field, but I do believe we deserve more than we get - as do the field units. No first responder should be paid what someone delivering mail or picking up garbage should be - that's a disgrace. But remember, if you ask many politicians, public safety folks are the devil!

Seth, A lot has changed. And, like you pointed out, a lot has not. Only eight departments still get dispatched on and use 46.26 for their communications - down from a couple dozen. And for the most part, those that are still using 46.26 are using fireground channels for the stuff that doesn't need to be put out on 46.26. As far as 60 dispatching a call and then that department retones it - that only applies to about 11 departments that either get paged by 60 Control first then by their local dispatch, or some departments retone from their base due to coverage issues. Still an improvement than it was. The Trunk System - each department is given a "primary/home" talkgroup to use, whether they use it every run or during larger incidents is their discretion. For example, we use Fire 10 for all of our command/control, rig/control communications. Along the same lines, every department has an assigned primary/home fire ground channel - and again, it's their discretion whether they use it. Again, using our FD as an example, our designated fire ground is FG 3, but our neighbors use it too so we use FG 5. (Poor planning but we adapted). When there's Mutual Aid incidents, responding units are directed to the channels being used. For example, units responding to a Mutual Aid fire in Yorktown would be directed to Fire 17 and fireground 7, or other channels being used (Tankers on Ops 1, etc.). Size-Up... well, that's a sore subject. Yes, the first arriving unit should always give one and along those lines, Progress Reports should be given periodically. Does it happen all the time, no. Why? I can't answer that. There's people afraid to do it, there's people that don't believe in it and let's be honest - there's guys that don't know what to do/say! Salaries? Facilities? I don't think commenting on this is in my best interest... I need my job.

Some info and pics of the incident at our website HERE.

Crimson go out of business?

1. With the TSP northbound closed during this incident due to a serious MVA, that doesn't help things. 2. People should know alternate routes and/or how to use a map/GPS. 3. There's a plethora of those nifty message boards out there. In instances like this, coordination of agencies (PD, OEM, etc.) should get them out there to help assist people. It's 2013, there's no reason why we can't get these now and not keep everyone in the blind. 4. The main alternative route was through Crotonville, down Quaker Bridge Road out to Route 129. This road isn't the best for the trucks that were detoured and I am amazed none of them got into any accidents. 5. Can you all imagine what things will be like should we ever need to evacuate... that s*** ain't happening!

Just wondering how your dispatch center celebrated this year - if at all. Thanks.

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