Monty

I guess that maybe the issue that some municipalities don't like. The test you mention above certainly sounds like the White Plains pratice phyical I took. Personally, at my stage a pass/fail physical works better for me than a scored event Guess old age is really kicking in

Yeah, you do get mailed your score, and list position. As Seth says it takes a lot of time - several months. With the Yonkers test I never received a letter with my score. That may be because it was held up so long in the courts that they have an old address on file for me. Though because of residency requirements, I'm not going to loose too much sleep over how well I did or not.

I forget how long it takes to get the results. Last time around I received several canvasing letters, which you'd respond to then the process would go from there. For a variety of reasons, I never followed up on the letters I received. I don't remember mentioning of a physical. I guess that is up to each of the individual communities. I did take the White Plains test and went and took the practice physical they offered. Then I was sent a nice letter saying that I didn't stand a chance because I didn't have residency - or something similar to that Oh well, I don't smoke, maybe I should go to Florida

Actually, you can be too brief - especially if it's not too clear on the address. Nice to have cross streets it helps you picture where the address is, especially if you're not too clear where the actual incident address for whatever reason. Also, if you utilize box response - it's nice to know upfront what box is being dispatched. You know straight away whether to jump out of bed or wait for them to go through the whole spiel before deciding to squelch the pager

Maybe you can drop them at the airport ..... And then drive on down to Florida Somewhat seriously though, both SWF and HPN are great if the flights work for you. I've found it even better whe the weather is cr*p. LGA is so tight, that the domino effect from when there is any delay to weather is massive. Because of the limited movements from HPN it gets everything back on schedule very quicky.

The cities around Albany have municipal departments. Albany, Troy, Cohoes, Watervliet, Rensselaer, Green Island (actually a village and town in one) and the Watervliet Arsenal. These departments all have mutual aid agreements in place. Cohoes, Watervliet and Green Island often work together on anything other than a simple room and contents fire. Once these departments have been called, the cities will then usually turn to the surrounding volunteers. I remember a couple of stories, one was of City firefighters throwing bricks at volunteers on a fire scene - naturally a little bit of truth and a lot of noise. Another was when Albany's was short of ladders and rotated ladders in from adjoining volunteer departments. I also remember some big mill type fires in Cohoes where they called upon volunteer departments. The City of Rensselaer appears to be a combination department. I found this site with information - I don't know how accurate it is though: firedepartments.nethttp://www.firedepartments.net/NewYork/Rensselaer/RensselaerFireDepartment.html

I took the National FF1 test out at Montour Falls a couple years back. One of the reasons was to attend a DHS training class in Nevada. I'd like to take FF2 but don't particularly want to go out to Montour to do it. Thinking that it may be useful in the future if I move out of NY or in the unlikely event that it may help in getting on the job somewhere.

mmmmm, very interesting. I'm sure someone will pick it up, although maybe less likely in this area because it's not traditional I think Crimson's customer base is mainly out in the South. They do seem to be more innovative and open to new ideas than some of the other equipment manufacturers. I wonder how much cost it adds to the truck? A 28' master stream certainly doesn't replace a 60 or 75 foot master stream. However the addition of a light tower is nice. Makes sense to add the discharges and air/hydraulic connections, but again I'm not sure how much more useful the 28' makes. I could see the anchor point being useful in certain circumstances, although I wonder what leverage a 1000 lbs at 28' (horizontally) does to the truck? I don't see any stabilizers on there.

Assuming I could move (which isn't going to happen for me), which city would one be most likely to hired on to? Yonkers, Mount Vernon, White Plains, NYC ( for the extra credits)? Maybe not all cities are as tough as Yonkers with residency but it's kind of difficult (and expensive) to keep residences in all the different cities . Especially from before the test through to placement.

As much as I'd love to get on the job in Yonkers, I'm not holding out much hope - not being a resident. If I remember, you have to be a resident for 30 days prior to the test. I assume MV is somewhat similar.

It's interesting reading the responses here and thinking of some of the other threads. We talk about the high costs of taxes and reducing duplication, but there's also a lot of nimby-ness as well. I can imagine it would be a very similar reaction if the Mayor was to 'transfer' headcount from the Fire Dept to the PD. Or if he was to cut overtime, or reduce the number of firefighters. Now, this does sound a bit fishy, (it seems to imply volunteering above their 24 hour shifts - now volunteering could mean that they are getting paid. Volunteering and not getting paid are not always the same thing) but I don't believe any of us really know the local situation. It sounds like the Mayor is trying to better utilize his local resources - now, maybe this might not be the best way .... But who here is going to giveup any reduction in headcount? I doubt there are many. How many want to pay additional taxes for more Police Officers or civilian employees?

I was directed to a story in the Albany Times Union. In my opinion, a well written piece. I don't know how accurate it is but I do not agree with the statement below attributed to FASNY: I would think that they should be setting a better example with respect to fire fighter safety. Full article:

Interesting idea - especially given someof the recent posts. Reminds me of European pumpers, like the Rosenbauer. The pump panel is in the first drivers compartment. The pump is further up the chassis and can be accessed with the cab up. For what it's worth, it also has pump and roll! (Great if you're at a bowling alley fire - oops did I say that out loud ) I believe they still have their 30 minute unveiling on line. From the Pierce News site: It will be interesting to see how successful they are. It's not clear to me where the crosslays are and I missed the bit about the ladders - maybe I'll try watching the video again.

I did just receive an email, the next meeting / training is Wednesday April 25th at 7:00 PM at the Westchester County Training Center. It also mentions that there is going to be a Press Conference and open house in early June. The members are a mixture of volunteer and career Fire-Fighters, Ems and Law Enforcement people. They are particularly interested in anybody that has experience with operating heavy machiney (I assume excavators, cranes etc).

I've stayed out of this because I wasn't involved, however I was impressed with some of the coverage I saw both before and after the storm. On several of the reports it talked about the Unified Command set up in Mamaroneck. Obviously things could have been done much better, hopefully there will be some lessons leant and thought put in to to preparedness, training, exercises as Chris states so that the plan has adequate PPE including PFD's, staging areas, resource management. It seems like steps were made in the right direction, we just need to hope that next time this happens (and I've no doubt it wont be that long before we see it again) that it's handled better.

Here's a bunch of images from a UK Photo site. Actually, there is very little concept of tradition in the UK fire service, you rarely hear of generations of firefighters - for many it is just a job (a very good job). No parades, clam bakes, bingo nights, no bars (I know in the 70's the bigger stations had social clubs but I doubt there are any left now with the attitude to alcohol). There are virtually no volunteer companies if any. Fire cover is provided by the local authority, usually at the County level. All firefighters are paid, some full time, others as retained (paid on call) who are paid for training and turning out. The central authority (national government) will set certain rules / standards (response times, training standards etc) and leave it up to the local authority to implement. I always remember the engines being red (who knows why?) but I guess maybe in the 80's adding the hi-vis although it is not uniform across all brigades. You get the picture

Actually, a couple years ago I heard Chief Brunacini in Vegas talking about the subject. One of the benefits he cited was that as the incident progresses, the 'On Deck' crews have actually been inside and have knowledge of the structure, layout hazards etc. Certainly in the current system a true RIT/FAST should have great situational awareness, prior to RIT/FAST I think it was a lot more haphazard. In my dept at the time, we kept crews in staging, there was no one assigned with equipment, ready to go, tasked to be ready to rescue firefighters. I think this is one big difference with On Deck. I also definitely think that we are much better having RIT/FAST than not, and that there should always be that coverage at a working incident.

This stems from the Brett Tarver's LODD 3/14/2001. An article by PFD DC Hinton was in Fire Rescue Aug 05 goes in to detail about what they have done. Essentially after running some tests and training they found that it took 8 minutes to find a firefighter with RIT once a mayday had been made. They now use a system where everyone is trained to perform as a RIT member, they have enough resources on hand, and they rotate crews through the incident. I believe pretty much it is first crew goes interior, then a crew goes On Deck, then when the first crew comes out, the On Deck crew goes inside and the original goes to rehab, another crew takes over On Deck. Then the crew from rehab rotates as needed in to the On Deck role. I don't think that they necessarily have a one to one match between On Deck and crews inside, but they do tend to have multiple On Deck crews placed strategically around the incident. Their SOP's are online (Click the red number to see the actual SOP), including the On Deck section. Another couple of articles are at Fire Times and Firehouse forums. I guess two things required to make it work anywhere is having sufficiently trained fire fighters, and secondly having enough resources on scene to have the multiple On Deck crews in place that may be required.

Personally, I like the sound of the 'On Deck' approach from Phoenix, but we'll have to wait a few more years for that to become traditional elsewhere before we see it round here . It occurred to me this morning of a couple of oxymoron's in the fire service, 'FAST going to work' being one, as stated previously, they should be going to work when they get there, doing extended size up, laddering if necessary, removing hazards from the scene, paying attention to what's happening on the scene). Another one, is the 'Respond with Caution' (as opposed to the normal respond with recklessness ) Back to the original question I suppose, no they shouldn't, at least not without someone on scene to fulfill the FAST / RIT role. Perhaps some of the Chiefs on the board here could bring this up with the County and get people at the top level talking about it?

I read n the paper that the two other occupants were apparently wearing seatbelts and both are out of the hospital. Hopefully this will make some people think twice about not buckling up, both in and out of the emergency service. I wonder whether Spitzer, Pataki, Schumer, Clinton wear seat belts, or if they feel they are above the state law? In the newspaper it mentioned that Cumo started wearing them after he signed the law for NY. I certainly hope the Governor recovers fully, and becomes an advocate of seat belts.

Interesting, I hope it comes off. I signed up to take it in Westchester but the exam was cancelled because of lack of interest and had to go to Montour Falls instead. Anyone know if they wil lbe doing the FF2 exam as well?

From the USFA Database, there were 16 NY deaths in 2005, now admittedly, there are 4 in 2004 and 5 in 2003 and 6 in 2002. there appear to have been 15 last year and so far this year there are 4 death notices. Now, I don't what happened in 2005 and after compared to 2002, 2003 and 2004 but that's a big jump. I'm sure there are states that haven't had any LODD for a year or more, if it hasn't already been done maybe someone should study the different states and come up with the numbers of LODD per measurement (population, size, income ...) and see if anything can be found from those, and why different states may have different results. To the original comment, it would seem more reasonable to say there are more NY LODD's than any other industrialized country. Trying to find international LODD figures is tough, I tried IAFF but it's not really international, seems to be US with a little of Canda thrown in for good measure (bit like the World in 'World Series' ) I did find some stuff on the IAFC site that among other things shows 1 LODD in Sweeden in 7 years. It also mentions World Fire Statistics Center which has a lot of stats (no surprise), but not LODD. Also found a paper that may be interesting, but part of it says there were 13 fatalities between 1990 and 2000 (in the UK). Maybe it's harder to find LODD stats outside of the US because it is not so much of an issue in other places? I'd also be interested in seeing stats on FF injuries, I know they're reported on nfirs but I haven't seen much reported about those, in my mind those may be even worse than losing 2 FF's a week. Now, my personal opinion is that maybe where deaths are so rare in some of these countries is that the Fire Fighting organisation is morecentrally organised. Rules are implemented more commonly (we all know about home rule ....), mandatory retirement ages, universal wearing of seatbelts, etc, etc. Maybe as someone said, give it another 200 years - probably a lot of other countries have had fire protection for 400+ years now ....

Updated story in the Albany Times Union, indicates that Scott was ejected from the Fire Police vehicle while responding. Capital News 9 Additional information at News 10.

I would assume that it is the Fire District where the incident is in. Albany County airport has a full time department(site). When I was around they had 3 crash trucks (pics), hazmat, and a foam tender. Also they now cover additional county properties (nursing home and jail) as well as the airport. However, when there were incidents, it was a unified command between the local volunteer department and the airport. Most of the airport is in Shaker Road's district but part was in Verdoy (both Town Of Colonie). It would always be a dual response and if it was an in flight incident, then SRL would establish command - usually alongside the airport chief. One interesting anecdote was when the President flew in to the airport. Albany FD supplemented the Airport department with a ladder truck (and maybe more). Story was that the Secret Service felt they could vet the career FF's rather than the volunteers ....

Interesting piece. However, I do see some potential similarities to WC. When you look at fire boundaries in the County you can be left scratching your head. The distances probably aren't so bad, but look at the area on Rt 134 around the IBM plant / Taconic. Town Of Yorktown, however just down the road (proably less than 1/4 mile from the town boundary) you have Millwood Station 2. (I have seen the sign there for future home of Yorktown Station 3 but I've no idea when that is planned to be there.) I haven't heard of any structure fires in that area but there was an extrication on 134 close to the Taconic I buffed. Yorktown sent their rescue and an engine. A Millwood chief was on the scene but there was no call for Millwood (or anyone else) for mutual aid. Would it be any different for a structure fire?