Monty

Ooops - doesn't look good for the hostage ......

Is there something I'm missing? I posted in the 'Regional And National Incidents And Issues' forum about the Utica Brewery fire. I was going to add a reply or edit the post to add a link (http://www.cnyfiretrucks.com/) to some online pictures. However, I can't reply or even edit the post despite being the original poster. Am I missing something, or maybe there's a configuration issue? Thanks - Monty.

Thanks Izzy, Doesn't really answer the question, but that's OK I think maybe there was a 'temporary glitch' maybe on my end. In the same forum 'Los Angeles, CA-Major Emergency Structure Fire Universal Studios', has a bunch of replies - and now I can bring up the reply function. Although I still don't see the 'edit' option. Not sure what it means, but it does have a icon which is different from the others and may or may not mean anything. Monty.

Utica's News Channel 2 has some good coverage of a massive fire at F. X. Matt Brewery in Utica - over 13 hours on scene. First came in at 4:45pm Thursday. Multiple career & volunteer mutual aid companies all working well together on scene for multiple hours.

I was looking at the FASNY site doing some searching, and noticed the image at the top ..... I don't think that's a NY firefighter - in fact I don't even think it's a US firefighter! I'd noticed before in an ad in one of the fire magazines a picture with non-US firefighters (forget what it was for). Maybe stock images of US firefighters are too expensive? Or too hard to come by? Or too many lawyers

The striping on the truck and what looks to be a Hydrant connection. Certainly in England, and I think in Europe in general, the hydrant connections are under ground and the FD inserts a key and a riser with a couple of valves on it. Then I noticed the nozzle as well - in particular it has the quick connect handles - as opposed to screw threads.

I didn't realize in the first pic of the ladder what the orange thing was. Reading the text explained it as a PFD - good thinking, didn't occur to me to use those looking at the pics form the comfort of home. Although, thought it was interesting the second guy on the ladder didn't have one on in that shot.

Getting a little bit away from the original topic - but that's what happens in a good conversation Maybe the original statement was a bit flippant - but it did cause a couple of responses The public does care - to an extent. I agree that you do expect to get a response when you call 911. However, a couple of questions, what are the expectations? How quickly, how many? Volunteer vs. Paid? And of course, how many people get to test this out and call 911 (and for a real fire)? How many average people care about ems / fire protection when moving to a community? Sure they care about the school system. Maybe they inquire about crime rates, definitely about taxes. Number of firefighters in the village / town / city - extremely unlikely. ISO rating almost never (I don't know what my municipalities ISO rating is). Given that the Emergency services portion of taxes is probably less than 10% it's not too high on most peoples radar. Of course, all bets are off when something goes wrong for any given individual - but when you look at the collective community, I stand by my points. And, maybe that one time that it does go wrong someone will call the Department's bluff and you get lawyers involved ....... There was a study, mentioned on a firehouse.com podcast about surveying the public for time to respond to a medical call. The average person expected a response time of about 8-10 minutes. Does that hold for fire? Do they expect to get 1 truck or 6? 3 firefighters or 30? Sure they'll be screaming and hollering if there is a need for a rescue and only exterior firefighters - they'll probably feel much better though with one fire truck and 2 or 3 firefighters that do a primary search. Will we? That's a different story. If there's a CO alarm and you have those same exterior firefighters and 5 trucks are they going to be upset? If we want to change this, then I believe it takes a significant education effort. Not just an annual flyer in the mail - how much attention do you think that gets? Sure you get some percentage to donate, but I bet it's a pretty small percentage. http://www.fire2020.org/

This makes me think about some of the FF heroism awards. You read about FF so and so rushing in to a building without PPE / SCBA and bravely rescuing someone / something. Undoubtedly it's a tough call, would so and so have passed away if the rescue had been delayed? Regardless, should we be rewarding someone who ignores all the messages we put out about safety? What about the FF in a similar situation does a search of an empty building and gets in to trouble because they didn't have their PPE? Maybe I'm too selfish - but I'm taking care of myself first (now maybe in the heat of battle it would be a bit different, I've not been put in this kind of situation before fortunately - I'm usually with the truck)

I think this a matter of Mutual Aid policy. Certainly at a Town / County level everyone can agree to the standards for FAST, Mutual Aid, Technical Rescue etc. Maybe for FAST is that everyone has NYS FAST training, at least 6 members on a call, certain equipment etc. Now, a completely different point is then applying / enforcing those standards. Again, I would say that's for County Chiefs or whoever. Bit tough to verify the qualifications of everyone, but if a team shows up with 4 members and they're supposed to have 6, then that should be addressed and if done consistently I would think that team should then be suspended / removed as an available resource.

I don't think the public care too much - they certainly don't question. How many departments have (life) members on their rolls - that live in Florida or California! Sure they've paid their dues, recognize that - but to call them active firefighters - bit of a stretch. I certainly believe there are volunteers that do do the same job for free, many of the people involved here - however there are certainly others that this statement does not apply to.

I am not aware of any requirements that my department has for interior. Actually, at least for National FF1 exam, there are substitutions for FF1 recognizing Essentials and the Basic training that was offered over the years. I wonder if CT would accept the National Exams - and not make you take their FF1 course?

Queen's Scout (UK equivalent) circa 1989. Now, I have been trying to help out a friend back in the UK. He is a Scout Troop leader and is looking to exchange with a US troop. Looking for mail / email / patches. If anyone knows of a troop or has contact details of someone that would be interested - please PM me. Thanks.

Skimming through the Charleston Sofa Fire Report, I found Appendix F quite interesting. It talks about Hydraulic calculations. Below are the lines operating off the two engines. It surprised me how little the 1" was supplying! I'm not surprised, but they also show that it was not possible to supply that amount of desired flow through the 2 1/2" supply lines due to friction loss. It seems that at most they were only getting about 350gpm to E10 and 250gpm to E11.

Mmmm, will it fly

One thing my old department went to when they did away with Booster reels was to add 200' or 300' of 1" forestry hose on a manual electrical cord /air hose type reel. Took up about a quarter (if that much) of the space of the booster reel. Like wise trash lines work well for most booster line applications. Trash lines may take longer than a booster to pick up but not much. Pressurized Water Can works great for those small brush fires too. I'd much rather have that space for a Generator, or Combi-tool or another more useful tool.

Here's another won ...... New Posts - Upcoming Training Oppurtunties Firefox came up with some real weird suggestions - haven't got a clue what they meant! (Other than Mounties)

You have to do it. There is no way to eliminate all risks. You have to balance and manage risks. Why not make everyone have sprinklers, automatic alarms, Fire Engine & Truck on every street corner. Even if it could be done, you're not going to eliminate every fire, every death. At some point, your return on investment goes down and in the end the general public will vote with their feet and go elsewhere - if they don't put someone in who changes the situation before it goes too far. Educating the public will let them decide and accept the appropriate coverage - but it has to be balanced with the likelihood of an emergency as well as what will happen if they do have one. Think of lightweight construction do they know how quickly they'll burn - probably not. But they may well know how much cheaper it is to build one. Maybe if they knew how quickly they burn they might want a sprinkler system. Or a firehouse on the same block (I would imagine in the long run a sprinkler system is much cheaper though). Without being able to acknowledge & understand the other side of the argument, you're not going to get very far.

You can what if any of the stuff on here. How often does it happen? And what's the downside if it does happen? What if I have two multi-alarm fires in my district at the same time? Well it might happen - probably not very likely for most districts, so I need more trucks. You have to balance and compromise all the time. From what I noticed on the IA's, there were no other incidents of any significance that these trucks would have been at if they weren't here. Probably the same for 100 (if not more) of these kinds of MA calls. I'm sure someone with the statistics could put all sorts of odds against different scenarios.

Interesting link I was sent - on a dental site of all places. http://www.dentalplans.com/articles/Study%...%20of%20Police/ Essentially I read in to it that interviews with the media at an emergency incident are a great place to get a safety message across - use of seatbelts, smoke detectors, sprinklers etc .....

Here's a new spin on an old story. Guess there's some merit to it, but I wonder how much more they're spending in gas this year compared to last? Yeah, they're probably spending a lot but the incremental difference isn't that big - although maybe it's enough to push it over the top. http://www.wwnytv.net/index.php/2008/04/29...-by-gas-prices/ And I thought filling a tank at $50 was a lot - what do they drive up there that it costs $130 to fill up - a tank and at $3.729 .....

Actually the part that caught my attention was That intersection is tough when the lights are working properly. Obviously I don't know if they were blinking for long - but that's an accident waiting to happen. You really need a cop there if the lights aren't working. I don't know if there is any notification when lights go in to their blinking mode - I suspect not and it's just a passing patrol that notices or someone calls it in.

Err, probably this should be in the Rockland & Orange forum - not Westchester. As much as some might think the world revolves around Westchester

News 12 had footage of aerial drops and boats, along with an interview with Johnny Jackson. Might be worth reaching out to them.

Here's an interesting story from the Times Herald Record Online, actually they have some good links to the fire. Sounds like some good after-incident reviews to be done this time .....