Monty

I believe the job description gives a bunch of info. Might be worth taking a look at this topic too.

I thought Mount Pleasant or Greenburgh PD had a dive team? As to the question, thinking about risk vs. reward how long does it take to switch from rescue to recovery? Maybe a smart thing to do is to have an SOP so that dive team(s) are dispatched on the initial dispatch, or at least by the FD on acknowledgment of the dispatch. Even if the department had a dive team, what's the likelihood of them making a save? Going to the extreme, thinking of FDNY AFAIK all rescue companies are trained divers. How many saves have they made? How long is it going to take them to get to the scene of a car in the water? Now I suppose if you were talking about Fire Boats ... might be a bit more likely to make a save or two.

I received an interesting letter template from FASNY recently to oppose S6806/A9806 Part U. I've tried finding this online but can find no mention of it other than this document. It seems that this proposal would make it easier for Town boards to ammend fire districts. Currently consolidation issues require alarge number of taxpayers to file a petition. This change would require a petition of at least 10% of taxpayers. (Who defines the present 'large' number is it 5 thousand? Or 99%? or what?) The other part is about shifting control of local volunteer companies to Town boards - what this really means I don't know - and can't find any specifics online. the template then goes on to say that volunteers in NY save taxpayers roughly $7 billion per year. To me the first option seems progressive - especially as we keep discussing consolidation and regionalization. As for the second issue I feel that I don't have enough information to make up my mind. As mentioned before, FASNY is against both of these proposals Curious whether anyone else has any more details or information on this? Monty.

I just saw a link from the NYS Association of Fire Chiefs. In it, is this interesting quote attributed to the Senate's budget resolution The document from NYSAFC also states the assembly have dropped it from their budget bills. It goes on to say that if you contacted your legislator to oppose this - then contact them to keep up the pressure as it could come back in the negotiations. It will be interesting to see what the Commission presents in their final report and if it is just another case of lots of money being spent on a report that just gets put on the shelf .... Monty.

Spending too much time on you tube, but came across this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt6hNqzOviw - thought it was pretty cool (if I'm not too old now to say that ). Community education ??? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk2Vr25rbgk...feature=related Interesting challenge .... responding through London traffic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpP4ccMKk-M...feature=related

Curious whether anyone has the specifics to cite for nfpa or iso - this is one of the newly implemented EMT Bravo policies (reduce the urban myths). Personally I think they are another tradition that has outlived its usefulness. How many people are hearing them to respond? How many people in their insulated cars or houses can hear them? When I'm outside I can't tell who's siren it is anyway .... (Maube I'm just hearing impaired - that's what the wife says )

Wow thanks Hadn't realized how popular today was. Commiserations to anyone who's birthday is tomorrow - Beware the Ides of March

I feel that I need to say something but I don't know what. Makes me think of the topic on posting Several postings talk about changes compared to 30 years ago - generally very valid. I suspect the regionalization group is looking at this as well - especially related to incident calls / volumes. I think this is a key point. From my understanding, fires are way down. Crime is probably about the same or higher, medical calls are up. School costs / expectations are up. In that light, the Fire Service has to adapt. Yes, the public has tremendous respect (rightfully so) for fire fighters. Now bear with me .... are they so thrilled when they are paying these firefighters to sit around so much waiting for the big one? Given the taxes - I think no. So, the 'management' needs to find a way to manage this. Add EMS, Code Enforcement, Parking Enforcement (?), etc to the duties. Yes, fires do effect the tax base and desirability of neigborhoods, but not anywhere near as much as crime or education. Absolutely we need safe manning levels - and I know some places (career and volunteer) do not have this and it should be fixed. But again, as others have said, we try to do too much, often with too little. Maybe we should be less aggressive at times - just these past months, how many FF's have been seriously injured / killed dealing with our THIRD priority of property conservation? Too many. Two other things that have changed that we need to consider are fuel loads and construction. How long is it before a room and contents fire (eg bedroom) compromises the structure (truss roof / floor)? Not very long. Personally, I believe we need to take all these things in to consideration - it will also make the argument a much stronger one if you can justify all sides. We need to look at all sides and have a complete strategy, and communicate that. Set expectations with the public. I'm sure a lot of the public have lower expectations than we do (except of course when its their problem). I certainly wish the best for the study in lower WC - and would hope to see it spread northwards. I guess as a final parting question, I wonder how many career firefighters live in the suburbs for the better school systems and how they would feel if the funding was diverted from the schools to replace the 'volunteer' department, or taxes were increased to fund the additional costs? Monty.

Good luck - excellent appointment

Details of this amendment were recently sent to me. http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A09473 It seems that this change to the law has passed both the assembly and senate and is ready to be sent to the Governor for signing. Unfortunately, it doesn't really change much. It does move the compliance date to November 1st 2008, assuming the Commissioner of Labor sets forth rules by May 1st. As for funding - you are now able to use the Municipal Revolving Loan fund to buy these systems - but as this is a loan, of course you have to pay back the funds you borrow to comply with this law .... So, looks like it's worth waiting to see what DOL has to say - presumably before May 1st.

Maybe it will be Gov Paterson's first bill signed in to law .....

Thoughts and Condolences to FF Barrett's family and West Milford's members

Thoughts and condolences to you and your family.

Very good - maybe viewing this should become a requirement of becoming a verified member?

Thoughts and condolences to Lt Ervin's family and friends. 50 is way too young to go - especially like this. Might want to think about this next time you're wondering whether to use PPE and SCBA.

I feel for those firefighters. It seems they did everything they could have - and a young girl died through no good reason.

Sad, sad, sad story. So unfortunate being in the wrong place at the wrong time. My thoughts and prayers go to his family. TheSouthern.com wptv.com

As far as I can tell no. It wasn't as bad as free lancing, but I'm not aware that there was a command post. Listening to the fire radios at one point, there seemed to be several separate groups acting in an uncoordinated way. There were at least three separate fire ground channels in operation with 46.26 and trunk radios thrown in as well no sign of any consolidated personnel accountability, presumably though each department knew who they had on scene. Not that this event seems any different from any other typical large M/A event in Westchester .....

Do departments around here use any kind of accountability? How about PARs? It seems to be a big free for all from what I've seen. A few in my department have some County issued tags but those took for ever and don't seem to be anything more happening with those. I know elsewhere in NY there are some pretty rigid accountability systems in place.

I was going to mention this but, you beat me to it. My understanding in addition is that for every person in an IDLH environment, there has to be a rescuer. Also, you can't enter an IDLH environment alone. So, to the extreme if there are 30 people operating inside at a fire - you need 30 out. As for the original question, the answer I have is that we get called as FAST and should expect to get put to work because the caliber of FF's you get on a FAS Team is higher than a mutual aid crew. I must admit, that's why I joined my Department's FAST. Fine and dandy, if that's what you want (because the county has no standards for MA) - but as others have said, get another FAST in place first. I've also mentioned it before, do something like the Phoenix system where they rotate their RIT's in to operations then rehab, then RIT - this keeps them involved, gives them situation awareness and you're not just standing around for X hours waiting for the stuff to hit the fan.

Interesting piece. Especially the part about putting fans (ppv type) at the foot of the stairway. Inicdentally - PPV was quite popular upstate about 10 years ago. Yet, I don't see them in use in (Northern) Westchester much.

Taken from http://emtbravoupstate.com/index.php?topic=82.0;topicseen I haven't followed up on it, but on the upstate board someone said they believed residency was required in Ulster, Greene, Delaware or Orange county for this test. Knowing there are some folk from Orange here, thought it was worth sharing.

I'd seen mention of the fire earlier this week on a UK fire forum. I don't think it's too far stretched that this could happen in many other communities.

Even after that, the city contested the fines and currently they stand at $3,160 See the Post and Courier web site for more details. I did hear that if this went through at the state level, that some organization would challenge it at the Federal level. From a purely monetary aspect OSHA has very little bite - now on the other hand in civil litigation I bet it's a whole different world.

I posted this story as well here. Surprised (Sad??) that no one else has anything to say about this.