Monty

I posted this information originally on the NY Blue lights thread. There are some other more recent studies - that are similar in their conclusions. Just because something has been done historically, does not mean that we shouldn't look to make things better going forward. I suspect that PD makes the most runs, followed by EMS then Fire. There's probably a good reason you see PD cars in NYC, Yonkers etc, turn their lights on to get across an intersection, but turn them off when they have a clear block. How many times do they respond 'hot' to an alarm? They've done the analysis that Capt Nechis did and realized that statistically there is a higher risk with L&S than to be gained from getting to the alarm site that little bit quicker. I've heard of 'studies' on L&S vs. 'On the quiet' responses. Doing a quick google search I found some articles - interestingly mostly about EMS: * This research paper (from a USFA course candidate?) seems to be pretty thorough discussing prioritized EMS hot/cold responses. This found hot was 66 seconds faster over an average time of 365 seconds - so about 18% faster for the City of Londonderry, NH. * A study on EMS scene to ER reponses. Essentially, they said that on average, L&S was 43.5 seconds faster. It seems the average response time without L&S was measured at 406 seconds. So, L&S was about 10% faster. * Another similar study, in an urban environment measured a difference of 106 seconds faster. However the online synopsis doesn't give the average travel time. Both of these articles suggest that a minute or two faster ER arrival does not result in better patient outcome - in most situations. For a 5 minute L&S response, is that 65 seconds saved important? Always? Usually? Sometimes? Rarely? Maybe something to think about. I also found a couple of Police based articles such as http://policedriving.../article145.htm - which backs up the theory of using amber lights, reduced lights at a scene, and lights only facing the oncoming traffic. Again, something that may be worth thinking about.

The Westchester County Association of Fire Chiefs are having a meeting in Ossining Wednesday September 15th to discuss the elimination of DES. Details posted here. The WCAFC web site on their news page has several details about the merger. It has the pdf of the proposal, and a letter the organization sent to Mr. Astorino.

Don't know how many Departments have seen this:

Wow - 108 degrees! A reminder that we should look out for ourselves - and for our colleagues. I wish P.O. Dube all the best - I'm sure he's in very competent hands.

RIP - Never forgotten.

My condolences to the family and all those directly affected by this tragedy.

I've had the pleasure of training and working under Jon and CEMS. It (along with the town FD's) were always very progressive. In the ten years I've been gone, it seems a lot had changed though - especially in the political arena (hey, sound familiar!). Hopefully CEMS will remain a great organisation and Jon will find something useful to put his energy into - possibly somewhere else in EMS.

Generally, it seems the difference is that a Chief is a lifetime employee, come up through the ranks, has the experience. A commissioner is a political appointee - and politics change over time. One big thing here is talk of cost savings, however I don't see factored in overtime, backfill costs etc - whether YFD, WPFD or whoever does more mutual aid or the WCPD picks up the slack for additional calls and training. Also, if DPS has 32 techs, how many are on duty at a time? Presumably, on average, about 8. That's a pretty small number, so again there is a delay in getting more people to the scene and additional costs or will they not backfill or call people in for overtime? Also, where are these officers coming from - presumably almost anywhere in the County. I know in theory the responsbile party can be billed for Hazmat incidents - but what if it's only a suspected incident? There's also question of Chain of Command - are we all going to play nice? Has anyone from DPS reached out to Fire/EMS? Is any hazmat call now a crime scene and PD are in charge? A chlorine spill at the local water plant? Or are PD going to be happy working under the local (volunteer?) Chief? Just a couple of other things. Sharing of real estate does seem like a good idea - but why couldn't the DPS tactical village be incorporated in to the DES strip mall? It's interesting there are no estimates of current day costs to relocate one or other dispatch centers compared to the mentioned savings in reduced supervisory staff. My last thoughts are that it's interesting that in the press highlighting the fact that there will no reduction in headcount to the Police - however, in the document it only shows DES folk, uniformed and otherwise losing their positions. I hope that the Deputy Commssioner for Fire Services is a very persuasive person - he's going to be surrounded by LEO's above, and around looking to get the most of the budget dollars.

Date: 7/29/10 Time: 18:35 Location: 64 Fox Run, Oakridge Condos - Google Maps Frequency: 46.26, Fire 13 Units Operating: 2561, 2562, Tanker 2, Tanker 3, Batt 13, 2561, 45Medic3, Wilton engin for cover company Weather Conditions: Hot Description Of Incident: Structure Fire Reporters: monty Writer: monty 18:35 Dispatched for possible structure fire. 18:38 confirmed fire, mutual aid tanker and ladder. 18:43 main body knocked down. 18:45 returning mutual aid except tanker 2 18:47 Fire out, requesting C&O. Cancelling mutal aid.

A very sad couple of days for the Fire Service. RIP Brothers, thoughts and prayers for the family and friends of these two firefighters.

Obviously as a press release, this has the spin applied to it. It also generates a lot of questions. I did come from a sizable town upstate where communications handled fire, police and ems - and worked well, not sure how likely it would be to integrate those divisions. Will be interesting to see how the hazmat teams are merged, DES is basically volunteer. Replacing / supplementing the volunteers would add manpower costs, although in theory you can bill for hazmat responses (if is a hazmat incident and not just a suspected incident). I guess there's some time to get this all sorted out before Jan 1.

RIP Brothers. Condolences to family and friends.

Yeah, I just saw this too. Some interesting points from the article. Politics gets everywhere Looks like some have the fear of loosing local control. From the article, it looks like there will be no additional cost to the Dept - without it there will be an additional cost of 200-400K to get some sort of full time staff, or work something out with the PD to cover the FD dispatch. Seems like a no-brainer but I know from experience how difficult these changes can be

Date: 7/9 Time: 22:37 Location: 91 Hickory Lane, Bedford Google Maps Frequency: FG 3, Trunk 16, Ops 2, EMS 16, Ops 1 (Tanker Ops) Units Operating: 2041, 2042, 2043, B16, 2281, 2284, 2211, 2022, TL 57 E108, E109, E110, E113, T7, Mt Kisco FAST, 62B1, T9, 2033, 2063, E146, 62B1, 67B2, 78B1, MA7, 2581, R31, 45 Medic 4. E146 (cover company) Weather Conditions: Hot Description Of Incident: Confirmed Structure Fire Reporters: Writer: monty 22:41 Armonk, Katonah, Banksville Tankers 22:42 E198 and Bedford Hills respond per B16 22:43 T36 responding 22:44 R44 responding 22:45 2041 / B16 request Chappaqua engine to Bedford to cover. 22:46 T5 Responding 22:48 T7 responding 22:48 Mount Kisco 1 engine to standby at Bedford Hills ** Difficulty with water supply due to long stretch involved ** ** Tankers staging at intersection of Grove and Hickory. ** ** Water source at Seminary and Village Green ** 22:54 T6 On Scene. Fill Site being set up. T5 on scene. 22:58 Additional Engine required to complete lay up Hickory - E110 to complete next strech of 5" 23:05 B16 updates, 1 story residential, 25 x 50, no exposures, fully involved, exterior operations in progress 23:09 60 control reports 20-30 minute ETA for NYSEG 23:10 2041 requests 1 ambulance to stage behind TL57 for rehab 23:14 Mini Attack 7 responding to fill site 23:19 C&O Zone 5 paged 23:22 52B1 responding. 2 FF being treated by EMS & Medic on scene. 23:24 R31 to respond to shut down Rd at water fill site. Chappaqu engine to cover until rescue on scene. 23:27 Fire starting to darken down. 23:27 *** Have to leave the computer - unlikely to get any more updates ***

Ossining Fire Police is considered a separate company and members can join there directly. I know of at least one other departments where typically the Fire Police are ex interior FF's but they do have some that joined the department just to become Fire Police. I don't see any issue with you opening up the department to allow members to join directly as Fire Police.

I recently found out that there is a petition started by some Village Of Ossining residents to have a referendum on dissolving the Village. If they get at least 10% of Village voters to sign, then there has to be a referendum. http://www.dos.state.ny.us/lgss/pdfs/CitizenGuidetoPetitions.pdf explains the process. Anyway, I was wondering what happens to the village Fire Department if a village dissolves? AFAIK, towns can't have fire departments. So, I guess there either needs to be a Fire District or Fire Protection District? The District having an elected board of commissioners that set the budget etc, or a corporation that is contracted to provide protection to the district. Are there other options? Is it decided by the voters what happens, or the town board, or someone else? It will be interesting to see how this pans out here and elsewhere in the state.

Yes that is correct. Village of Ossining Police do the dispatch for all calls that are not received by 60 Control. 911 Calls received by the Town PD are transferred to the Village Police. The part time dispatchers take over after the initial dispatch (call Coned, DPw, Code Enforcement etc). So, it would seem at this point that this change wouldn't directly effect the FD / EMS.

I may have missed this, but didn't see anything on this here on EMT Bravo. Interesting story that apparently is pretty much a done deal. It will be interesting to see if it works out as everyone seems to think it will. Not sure how good the lohud link is, snippets of the story are pasted below

The administration currently says that there will be no layoffs. How many SFRD firefighters are assigned to the volunteer departments currently? I've seen the SRFD Chief say that they are currently understaffed (by about 16 FF's I believe). Maybe the plan is to not fill these spots with new FF's and move the FF's in the volunteer houses back to the city houses. Maybe that's part of the reason the hiring freeze was extended to the Fire (& Police) Departments.

I used to run with a Department upstate that had a truck with 8 seats - and those seats were full for many of the calls. We would usually be split into two teams, often with two line officers on the truck. Like with other situations, if there was no Officer on the truck, the position would be filled by the 'senior firefighter'.

Not that I doubt you - but do you know where this is written? Also, the law that says you need annual safety training (16 hours)? I was trying to find information to back up some of the Departments policies. Of course, the Chief shouldn't need to justify such things - but this is the real world . I know there is some stuff on OSHA's site - Here's a letter that says you need to be ops to respond to a potential Hazmat call, but I haven't seen anything saying that anything beyond Awareness is mandatory for all. Now I'm not a lawyer (but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express ) - but it seems that you have to look at several different standards and take the most restrictive. I guess you can start with the Fire Brigade, Respiratory Protection and Hazmat standards. On top of that, of course there are the New York laws, such as 'escape systems'. Incidentally, I do see a definition of interior firefighter, or at least what interior structural fire fighting is defined as.

I mentioned in another topic about FF1 requirements and equivalents. I just saw this in an email from the Academy Library. Don't know if it will be offered around here anytime soon, or what the demand would be if it was ....

Wonder if they have someone in mind I'm sure that there aren't too many folk out there in the general WC firefighter population that meet those first two special requirements .... Unless of course you begin to accept equivalents - and what is the equivalent to FF1 & FF2? Actually on another note, in a discussion at the FH, perhaps there should be a class to bridge Essentials or Basic FF to FF1. The state does kind of list equivalents to FF I / FF II at FF1 Certification and FF II certification - however, I'm sure some of those classes aren't offered any longer, so if you didn't take them before then you are SOL ....

I know it was suggested when mutual aid departments covered Yonkers for their LODD funeral. However, in the end they just used Yonkers raido's in the end.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here that probably falls under the logistics section, at least initially are technical rescue teams. I could easily imagine that two MNR trains colliding would have at least 4 and probably more cars requiring stabilization. So, off the get go you could utilize the Southern Westchester task force (YFD, NRFD, MVFD etc), White Plains, Greenburgh, Westchester County, OFPC and potentially / probably Rockland, FDNY, Albany's NY-TF2. Big question is whether all these teams could work together - under NIMS - along with the AHJ. Doing a quick search of google it says it took responders 30 minutes to respond and that 10 hours later they were still searching for survivors. That should give an idea of the resources that you could expect to need. As mentioned, imagine dealing with this on the bridges / pontoons around the Annsville Circle area, or the bridge across the Croton River ....