Monty

Sorry for the rant - but it might make me feel better I know we've talked about the letter of the law here and volunteer fire/ems providers. But what's got my goat a few times lately has been tow trucks! The other day I was behind one that was very patriotic. Had flashing red, blue and white lights on the back, and at the time it was just carrying a car on the flat bed down 9A. Today there was one coming the other way on 9A that had flashing white lights on the light bar - again with a car on the flat bed. Do they ever get tickets? At what point I wonder would they get tickets? And we wonder why people don't pull over for flashing lights .... this certainly doesn't help the cause. I'm not sure why they really need warning lights when they're traveling with a load on the flat bed - if they've secured it properly. Thank you!

Saw this on the ctfire-ems board. Obviously too early to say that this was the cause of the incident - but regardless good information. Especially for anyone involved directly with purging of gas lines:

I hope I don't get rebuked because I don't have absolute, contract facts, but my local community has a significant percentage of minortity groups. The Fire Department is beginning to reflect this when you look at the recent intake of volunteers. That said, the newest groups of immigrants have a much lower representation - maybe because it is too far out of their comfort zone. The quotes below are well written and help me at least understand what they are getting at. When I first took civil service tests (never FDNY, too old by the time I decided I wanted to) I wondered what these had to do with the job. I've been fortunate to get a good education and have always done well - although maybe still not good enough. But taking these tests, I've wondered how they apply to the real world? I've taken some tests in Connectituct where you get credit for Certifications - those should help show aptitude for the job (Please lets stay away from what certification means How does an amazing vocabulary, expert knowledge of grammar, wonderful spelling help you be a better firefighter? Problem is how do you qualify what a good firefighter is, or what makes a good firefighter and how do you test for that? Given the magnitude of FDNY tests you obviously can't put everyone through the academy. You probably can't even offer free participation at the academy because then you would need financial support. I belive there is veterans credit (after all Emergency Services are quasi-military organisation) - but how do you test for physcial, psychological, sociological, mechanical, stress resistance, mental aptitude (besides good military service)? It can be done, less emphasis on the written test, more on these other tests, but that would be way more expensive - and again how do you decide the top few percentage that you are going to bring on? I guess over the years they haven't found a better way (other than arguably residency credit) - but looks like they may have to at least think about it.

Date: 1/7/10 Time: 08:00 Location: 3 Butler Place Frequency: 46.26 / Fire 12 Units Operating: Ossining, Croton FAST E119, Batt 10, Buchanan U-12, Briarcliff (S/B), Pleasantivlle Rehab 76B1 Weather Conditions: Cold, dry and clear Description Of Incident: Structure Fire Reporters: monty Writer: monty 08:00 OFD dispatched 6-6 General Alarm for possible structure fire 08:00 DC47 advises 2331 confirmed fire 08:01 2331 request Croton FAST .... (I arrived at work) 08:11 E119 on scene 08:19 60 control dispatch Briarcliff to standby at 21 State Street 08:27 County car 2 responding to Ossining 08:27 Buchanan cascade requested to Ossining 08:31 E94 Relocating 21 State St 08:35 Batt 10: 25 x 40 ordinary construction, heavy smoke pushing, multiple lines in operation 08:39 Buchanan U-12 responding 09:10 Batt 10 advises waiting on Con Ed. 09:24 Con Ed Electric on scene 09:26 Con Ed Gas on scene 09:36 Pleasantivlle Rehab requested 09:45 PVAC advises approximately 5 minutes before responding to Ossining 10:01 Croton FAST released 10:02 76B1 Rehab on scene

I'm not a FDNY buff at all - so may not be unusual at all, but saw a MERV Major Emergency Response Vehicle responding. Basically a full size tour bus type vehicle with very few windows. Couldn't dig my phone out in time to snap a picture.

I suspect it's got something to do with the weather - but seems like there are a lot of CO calls today. We've had 3 CO runs today so far, and as I type this Bedford have been dispatched to a CO call.

As well as hydrant lcations being contained in map books on the apparatus, they are also marked on the street. I believe the markings are main size and distance from the sign (in metric figutres).

With FIOS, they a supply a battery back up - but you still lose phone service if you don't have an 'old fashioned' corded phone. I have phone serviec through a different VOIP company. Initially there was no 911 service, but a couple of years ago the FCC or someone forced them all to supply it. We did get a flyer and had to register our address. I tested it a while back and it went to NY State Police. Inicdentally, a lot of people are just going with cell service now anyway.

Don't recall seeing this here before. Was just sent this from someone retired from the job ..... Enjoy!

Condolences to the family of FF Joyce and members of YFD. Thoughts and prayers are with you.

Surprised I haven't seen this posted here. Maybe beacuase its not an East Coast thing, or it's too progressive or something. Anyway the gist of it is that the Fire Chief has instituted a new policy that requires drivers to maintain the speed limit AND stop at intersections. It doesn't happen too often, but we have seen numerous examples (Chicago, Phoenix, Houston, Detroit, St Louis, NYC, Westchester) where there have been some pretty bad intersection accidents. Why not change the culture and try to prevent these incidents? Who can honestly say that shaving seconds off a call by stopping (as opposed to slowing down) has saved someone's life? From the secret list:

Government pays for (reasonable) travel costs, including car rental if needed. I guess if you have a pilots licence, you could fly out there and get reimbursed up to the cost of the air ticket

I haven't taken the course in Anniston, but the Sorocco New Mexico courses on energetic materials (explosives) was excellent and the new Elko NV course on Flammable liquids was a lot of fun and hands on activity. With both of these DHS foots the bill for just about everything. Great material, great cross section of people attending from all over the country and especially with NM, a mix of professions (LEO's, FF's, OEM). Well worth applying to these if you have the time for the courses - your tax dollars at work

Firstly, great idea to start the topic, great topic and many things to think about. Where are your feet going? What's above you? What's around you? Now, on the sub-topic, I think DFD189 makes some great points. Just because something (seems) to work, should we keep doing it? I'm often a proponent of it aint broke don't fix it (maybe because when I take things apart and put them back together again there's always parts leftover!). But, Society is always developing. I think we all need to open our eyes to trying new things. Certainly many of the folk here already here do this. No one here says that the job didn't get done in the past - but maybe at what cost? And could that cost be lessoned today. I'm sure many people read the trade mags. Do you read the articles in there about trying new ideas? I keep hearing the arguement that Europe has different construction materials - but where is the fire load these days? Generally its the contents not the structure, so maybe this arguement should be revisited. How about looking at Fire Behavior and ventilation? Especially with newer buildings? I know it's good to take all the windows, but should we? Are we making the fire worse? There was mention of the NorthWest. Seattle developed a new procedure on SCBA usage after they had an incident go bad. They consider it bad practice to have your low alarm go off when you are still in the structure. They treat it as a reserve (as I understand divers do) and not just a suggestion that you should start thinking about leaving the building. Maybe we shouldn't worry as we never used to have SCBA's and those guys came out OK. Didn't they? I think my main point here is that just because we've got our 200 years of tradition (Now some of Europe has over 400), we shouldn't stop being open to new ideas, educating ourselves and trying new ideas - comparing them against the current benchmarks. Some ideas will fail - but some will also prove to be better than the current situation. Just to finish up, it was interesting to see this statement, given the recent news release (from the Secret List) posted below:

Great shots. Not too suprising some were fatal. That last one looks like it is pretty well wrapped all the way around the tree.

Happy Birthday indeed! Now you're making me feel old though

Thoughts and prayers to all those involved - especially all the brothers and sisters touched by this. I hope they get any and all help they need to deal with this.

Part of an email that was forwarded to me ..... Might be worth blocking out those dates if you're interested. Last time the exams were offered in Westchester (a couple years ago) they cancelled the exam because they didn't have enough people sign up. We'll see if there's better luck this time.

With it being less noticeable - you're less likely to get questions asked about why Car XYZ from anytown, is driving all over the State Also, without that added extra headroom - it might fit inside a residential garage - assuming of course it's not full of other stuff ..... I didn't realize, but I guess each Company in Mt Kisco has their own Chief - I guess it just rotates in turn as to who the Department Chief is. Interesting. All that said - looks like an excellent job. I'll be looking on you tube to see it in action.

I guess we'll find out in the next week or so. Deadline for applications is July 15th

I tried to get a class through AAA / FASNY, but we couldn't get the interest to get enough people to take the class. Convenient to take it online - but expensive, about twice the cost for the group rate from AAA.

Well, now we can see what happens .... GOVERNOR PATERSON SIGNS LEGISLATION TO STREAMLINE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND REDUCE PROPERTY TAXES Will be interesting to see how it plays out on L.I. as well as Greenburgh and maybe other towns around here.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Governor sign it. For all of his current rating (however low it is), or maybe because of it he just vetoed a bill for PD & FF pensions (http://www.lohud.com/article/20090604/NEWS05/906040370/1021) .........

Excellent recap of the drill. Certainly not something most of us practice too often - but every once in a while it's needed. Good to see more multi-department drilling. Certainly some ideas to float around and discuss for SOP's (Seems from the few tanker operations I've been to, that using more LDH and moving the water supply could indeed help). My company is used to hydranted area's - if you ask 90% of the guys how to connect different hoses with adaptors there'd be a lot of head scratching!

Supposedly because there is already a way to do it - and supposedly because of the 'new' system there have been many school districts that have already been combined. Looking to see if I was imaging stuff, I found this through google: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/bureaus/legisla...tion/about.html