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The details for the services for Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer Brian Bill who was KIA in Afghanistan last week. Wake: Thursday, August 18 1600-2000hrs Leo P Gallagher & Sons Funeral Home 2900 Summer St Stamford , CT 06901 Funeral: Friday , August 19 1100hrs Saint Cecilia Church 1184 Newfield Ave Stamford , CT 06905 Please make an effort to attend and show condolences and respect to CPO Bill and his family. CPO Bill made the supreme sacrifice for his country and our freedoms.

The system works and volunteers exist, right???? How come a fire on 4/15/11, at 1200pm,on Hoyclo Dr, a road in the TOR district but much closer to LRFD Sta 2, the third due engine, Eng 8, placed the initial hand line in operation?? Long Ridge Eng 74 first due with one guy did nothing. Second due TOR Eng 64 with 3 guys did nothing. Three minutes later third due Eng 8 arrived with 3 guys, and most importantly a company officer, stretched the first line off of Eng 74. How come Unit 4, the SFRD Deputy Chief, was the IC?? Were are the volunteer firefighters? Were are the volunteer chiefs? I know, it is Malloys fault. Or perhaps there are not enough qualified volunteers around or they are unable to respond in a timely fashion. It is not 1985 anymore and it is time for a change. P.S. I know that this statement has grammatical errors but it was not sent to a governing body so I took some liberties.

Hey Jr Fireman, do you have a glass of STFU? Or maybe a case of respect??? And we wonder were the fire service will be in a few years......

Joe Torre is available. Oh wait, he actually won something(Japan does not count) so is overqualified.

I have refrained from posting on this topic because it is the same s**t getting thrown against the wall but in different words. However, Cogs has made several statements that I would like to question/refute. The location of living quarters of SFRD personnel in the volunteer houses was made by the volunteer companies- not SFRD management. If you recall, Eng 7 personnel were quartered on the second floor initially (the second floor now considered off limits to SFRD)but repeated issues occured(theft, noise, questionable activity by minors) that required the construction of the present situation. At Eng 6, the room is only large enough for 3 bunks and the 2nd floor bunkroom at the time was occupied to capacity. Do you not agree that personnel should have someplace to call "home" and not bus terminal of activity? As for your statement about certifications, in one comment you state that experience/ time served is adequate and certs are just a piece of paper but you also state that certs will be required for officers. Which is it? For the record, L786 negotiated to have contractual language requiring certifications for positions(i.e FO1 for LT, FO2 for Capt) but was denied by the city. When you talk of cooperation, did the city not ask for the training and OSHA physical records of the volunteer members several times which was never provided( I believe this to be at the request of the SFRD administration)? Did the city not request that when volunteer apparatus sign on they state the numbers of certified members on board? And did the volunteers refuse? Explain to me the coopertion in this. As a company officer responding M/A I think it would be nice to know if the first due volunteer engine has only a driver or is a staffed company. As for your position on staffing, do you not think that a NFPA 1710/1720 compliant minimum number of personnel guaranteed 24/7 is better than 2 guys and we hope that volunteers show up? We have the technology that if 4 volunteers are in house, and if they have an OSHA physical, and if they are minimum FF1, hazmat ops/awareness, and MRT(same requirements for SFRD)and if they have a company officer(someone accountable) and a driver/chauffer(not to worried about certs here- if the officer/department feels comfortable riding on a rig with the guy so be it)then the company can place itself in service on the MDT and respond as closest company. This instead of hoping someone is around? You know and I know that on a daily basis volunteer companies fail to respond to calls in their districts(BFD excluded) I can't see how this will change with the Mayors plan. You keep saying that more members will appear but unless Stamford is exempt from national trends I cannot see this happening. The only point you have brought up that I cannot/will not agree with you on is personnel bouncing between apparatus. In the combination departments you sight as examples and the ones I am familiar with, the paid personnel are basically drivers(like the old Stamford system)and that the stations that have 4+ personnel ride only their assigned rig. For example(and if Stamford had one department) if an incident required a truck, then the closest truck would respond- regardless if paid or volunteer so long as it was an in service "company". Never a question of how many guys or what they are capable of when they get there. As for Chief Browns plan and the number of companies downtown, I agree that we could put more miles on the vehicles by moving them north but this really should be the least of our worries( Greenwich Eng 1 logs tens of thousands of miles a year). Norwalk covers the entire city with two trucks and one rescue(IMO terribly inadequate)and the companies due what they can and go where their are told. Lastly, you assertion that SFRD are amateurs at rural water supply is true on the level of a time line but false in our abilities. Since the creation of Engs 8 & 9 I think a good effort has been made to be proficient in rural water supply and it can be argued that more has been done in the last few years than in the previous 20. The last several houses that burned down were not do the inablility of SFRD to get water( maybe a lack of personnel on scene??). Cogs- I am more than willing to discuss my feelings to you and meet but other than a free meal(your buying) I cannot see what can come out of it. Also due to inadequate fire protection the meeting will have to be downtown(joke, calm down).

Monty- It would appear your view of Stamford politics is much clearer from northern Westchester than it is from northern Stamford.

Stamford has had several front line tele-squrts in service at one time or another. As stated earlier, it was a poor mans swiss army knife and IMO not practical. The master stream was not capable of high GPM(ours had adjustable nozzles) and the ladder was not rated as an aerial nor could be used like one. The squrts ladders were also short ranging in length from 50-65'. The rear mount also took away from the hose bed size and was extremely high relative to a normal engine. If you a need a truck, call for one; if you need an engine call for one because a tele-squirt is neither. Shippan (station 4) was given a tele-squrt when the truck was removed, Woodside( Station 5) was given a telesquirt when opened because it was a single company house, and Station 1 had one when it was "aquired" from Long Ridge VFD in the late 90's.Just my two cents.

This is a reminder that registration is available for the 2010 Stamford Firefighters Educational seminar. This years speakers are Deputy Chief Avillo from North Hudson, NJ and Battalion Chief Montagna from FDNY. Chief Avillo will present "Safety Always Matters" covering operations from the perspective of the firefighter to the Incident Commander. Chief Montagna will cover responding to routine emergencies including gas leaks/fires, electrical emergencies/fires, and carbon monoxide incidents. The seminar is $25 and includes coffee and lunch. The date is Feb 20 from 0930-1530( a deal on refreshments at a local establishment for after the seminar is available) and takes place at UCONN Stamford. For further info go to www.Local786.org or to register go to www.regonline.com/StamfordES2010. Space is limited to 250 so be sure to register soon.

I was not there but in the photos the excavator in the hole is a 311, not a 320. I note this because of the substantial difference in weights. The 311 is around 14 ton and a 320 is around 25 ton. I think Stiloskis could handle either weight but a 320 might put up more of a fight.

My post was not to "stir the pot", but a reflection of what I have experienced while operating in Belltown's district. I do not know all of the members of BFD and don't want to lump everyone together, but on at least three occasions I have been ignored as a first arriving company officer while on scene by a later arriving BFD officer. As for Alan's comment about gear and equipment- please come visit the "firehouse" some of us work in and the condition of our equipment. Unfortunately, with no fault of the firefighters, the city has no money and all services are suffering. Tug Grp 1, Sta 9

PCFD- Yes, they are pouring footings and a slab for a Butler building at each site. (Under the tarp in the lot is the building themselves, delivered some time ago) **************- In regard to your last post, and with all do respect to your opinions, I feel some of them are not totally correct. I understand your budget was cut 90% (and I am sure the volunteers in Stamford could successfully argue "strong armed" by the city administration) but you would have to agree that a majority of the funds was for payroll of the municipal employees. The concept the city presented, or at least the one I viewed, put most of the items you described coming from the SFRD budget. Examples of which include fuel for the rigs, consumable medical supplies, maintenance on the city owned rigs( however, an HME not a privately purchased one) , and PPE for your members( I would assume it would not be black though since we purchase from the state bid). Originally the idea was for a city truck or engine company to be housed in your station which would mean city funding for the building utilities like what occurs in Springdale and Glenbrook. I will say that Belltown has down an excellent job of getting rigs out the door and I hope that you can continue to be successful. However, I am still confused at the negative attitude towards SFRD and L786 members while operating at incidents. We did not create or ask for the situation and a majority of us just want the situation to be fixed.

The end to automatic mutual aid response from BFD is from an order from Jan 1, 2008 written by the Captain who was the Communications Supervisor at the time @ 911. The authority was from the SFRD Chief and the Director of Public Safety. As for mutual aid specific to Glenbrook, the only directive @ 911 from the GFD Chief states that the only people who can take command at a Glenbrook incident are SFRD officers or Glenbrook officers. This stems from several incidents when a neighboring dept. chief caused some issues in Glenbrook- which I would rather not state in this forum.

I agree with your statements 152. Belltown has done a good job maintaining a response and I like to think that is with a compliment of personnel not just a chauffer- which IMO is the larger concern than not responding at all. When someone in Stamford calls 911 with an emergency they should not be concerned if is a city rig or volunteer rig is responding just that properly trained people will arrive in large enough a number to mitigate the situation. Unfortunately this is not always the case with some volunteer depts in Stamford. There are over 250 posts on this topic already so I doubt my opinion will be an elixir, but.... Perhaps a start to help the situation would be for everybody to operate in a common ICS structure, to have all personnel who wish to operate on scene have some identification and/or entry tag, to have all apparatus to respond with an NFPA recognized standard number of personnel(which I realize is hypocritical right now with two engines operating unsafely with three) , and for the volunteers to attend some mandated training throughout the year. I understand it is easy for me to stipulate that a volunteer attend training when I am compensated for the same training but in the present system there is no accountability for who responds and operates at fires. By this i mean a volunteer officer that just passed FF1 or someone that has not worn a mask in 10 years. The only combination department I can comment on having a little knowledge would be Greenwich- who requires the volunteers to attend town provided drills. At the end of the day, I want to operate effectively at incidents and have the company I am responcible for go home to their families. For this to occur we have to change the system to reflect the times.

Date: 7/19/08 Time:2248hrs Location:246 Selleck St Frequency: 800 Units Operating: Eng 2,3,4,5,9,10; Trk 2,3; R1; Unit 4(DC), Unit 7(Safety), Unit 8(PIO), Unit 9(Command Vehicle), FM 102,108,109; SEMS Medics 1,2,3,4, 901, 902 Description Of Incident: W/F in single story warehouse Writer: 348 2248 Companies dispatched to the area 241 Selleck St for a smoke condition. Eng 3 O/S reporting smoke from 246 Selleck St. 3 L/S/O. App. 2315 companies removed from building-remainder of fire defensive. Last Company returned 7/20/08 @ 2230hrs

Well said Tommy. Let cooler heads prevail. Keep your head up Sincerly Your former Tower driver