Bnechis

While this is true, this is the 1st time that the state is in real financal problem and are planning on massive cuts. I fear that this time will be the hardest fight to keep the funding. And if cut, will the NYSP increase units to make up the difference.......I'd be shocked if they could (again who's going to pay?)

Barry.......Congratulations and good luck with your retirement. Does this mean you will only be responding in 1/64 scale from now on?

WHICH IS HOW IT WAS DESIGNED

The current NFPA 1911 Standard for the Inspection, Maintenance, Testing, and Retirement of In-Service Automotive Fire Apparatus, 2007 Edition Requires that all rigs built in 1979 or prior be retired. All rigs built between 1980 and 1991 require a full rebuild. Both are due to new safety technology that does not exist in these vehicles. Stearing & Brake systems was a big part of this. I will check, but I was told at FDSOA last year that they were also coming out with max lives in the new 1901 (which starts this week). They claimed 15 years then a rebuild, 20 years...oos. I will check on those. Are they designed and planned or are they budgeted for at least 20 years....big difference. I rarely see dept. (career and vol) that actually plan there apparatus purchasing.

Since there are almost no standards for this, very little liability. However, since there are very specific training standards (federal & state) for hazmat incident command, a smart lawyer could distroy an FD if the FD is untrained and makes a bad call. Consider how massive the damage can be in a hazmat incident, including long term contamination.

And why is that?

Maybe thats the goal of the chief and administration....distroy morale and make this great career just another job

Unmanned is the norm in almost every regionalized/county combination dept. The major issue would be can each of the depts/stations actually put together a crew in a reasonable time frame. If they can, then there are no issues. In some combo depts that can not you may find career day staff or even some rigs career & others volunteer. Fairfax VA had (dont know if they still do) one station with a career eng., career rescue and vol. engine. on structure calls if the volunteer engine signs on within X minutes, they do not need to send a rig from another station. The vol. unit was able to justify a rescue/pumper so now they are 2nd due for both structure and rescue calls. They were busy enough that 2nd due is still busier than most 1st due VFD's here and they get there fair share of work. The response capabilities need to be based on the needs of the person dialing 911. career and volunteer combinations can and have worked if all parties are willing to allow it to.

I think the issue for the volunteers that are fighting against this is that a career ff might be able to give them a lawful order. i.e a career Lt. could order a vol. ff to do something (particularly if a vol chief was not onscene) or a career Capt. could give an order to a vol Lt. This is not the 1st Combo FD in Westchester that has had this fight. The question comes up is why should the volunteers be fighting this? Could it be that they are afraid of the personnel that they hired could make a bad order? Or is it just they do not want to be given instructions. The policies of this community are putting every citizen, vol firefighter and career FF in jeopardy. They are also placing additional legal liability on the City, since code enforcment is required by state law. They also run the risk of dropping the ISO rating, by not inspecting the hydrants.

Sounds like you have some great ideas. Good luck with them. 33m1 is responding to those members who just saw your comments....

If it works so well, why does the area still recieve a rating of 9 (on a scale of 1-10). The benefit to the taxpayers is to reduce its insurance premiums by 35% 1) The experience by the vast majority of depts that have consolidated report that the situation is drimatically improved. 2) My experience is those members that quit, generally were not doing anything to "help" the dept in the 1st place. We refer to this as addition by subtraction. Which is better 50 members, that have 15 who participate or 20 members that have 15 participate. A lot less headaces with the smaller group of non participating members. I've compared the costs of 5 different VFD's in Northern Westchester that there taxpayers all pay more for fire protection than NR residence. its not about the commercial base (NR's pays less than 10% of the total) its about how large the taxbase is. More homes in the same district = lower costs. And that does not take into acount the insurance savings. When studies are done you need to look very carefully at who is doing them and what was the ground rules. Are they based on facts or opinions? Can the results be reproduce? A number of years ago NR hired "experts" to do a study on closing fire stations (note the ground rule) The "experts" conclusion was we could reduce the number, increase the number or keep it the same. The opinion was reduce (thats what they were paid for), the reproducable was expand and the facts were we could manage with what we had 9even if the facts showed we needed more). The consolidation studies I have done are always based on standards (NFPA, ICMA, ISO) and can be reproduced over and over with the same results, regardless of who performs them. They are based on sound mathamatical calculations and not based on the results that those that hired me are looking for. If you plan on following NFPA, you may need to revaluate the time frame. Also if you are bonding the rigs, you generally pay for them in 5-10 years.

In westchester 30 of the 58 departments have an ISO rating of 9 or a split rating that includes a 9. That means on an open book test they got between 10% and 20%....In school below 65% was considered a Failure. (and you get 10% for writing your name) The will claim its because they have no municipal water supply (hydrants). Colleton County (SC) was made up of a number of seperate VFD's that had ISO ratings of between 7 and 9. The merged into a single agency in 1994 and by proper planning and standardizing of equipment, SOPs, training, etc. they were upgraded to ISO 4 within 5 miles of all fire stations and they have no hydrants. So in addition to the savings mentioned by others, they are saving every property owner 35% on their property insurance. In Westchester that would be worth over $100 million per year.

Care to justify that statement. I have seen members get hung up with lose "tails" but this is the 1st time I've heard anyone claim the reverse. It also more likely to lose your pack this way, particularly if you take a header (down stairs) or fall thru a floor. Wearing ones pack properly is a "comfort" thing. Keeping my gloves in my pocket is a comfort thing also...but I wear them because they are designed to work when worn properly And looking at it that its on there back, is great....but whats really importtant is wearing it on your face is the real issue (not an issue in these pics)

Very true. Its amazing how many of the same problems exist in all departments and how large portions outside the northeast (both in the US and overseas) use different approaches that we are unwilling to even consider because we've always done it this way Lets see a show of hands...All EMTBravo members who've seen me post about my department? I suspect I've posted close to 100. My profile says I'm from New Rochelle and thats my dept. for the vast majority of EMTBravo members who do not know. NRFD works just fine. Could it have better manning?....YES.... are we working on it?....... Yes.....have we increased manpower in the last three years?...yes Actually it is. In 1899 the village of New Rochelle Fire Department was merged with the Town of New Rochelle Fire Dept. They increased manning, while maintaining the "horse power". NRFD along with 9 other departments have undertaken a long term study into the concept of merging. The study is almost completed (some additional financials were requested by the communities involved) and was paid for by the state of NY and performed by the Michalean Institute of Pace Univ. The mapping portion showed that by reducing the total number of apparatus, manning on every fire call improved (in some communities dramatically) and all National standards could be met and ISO rating would improve in most if not all communities. While my dept has not consolidated within my lifetime. I have spent extensive time studying consolidation with depts that have. During undergrad, I studied at Morton-on-Marsh (the fire college of Great Britton) and how the fire service in England, Scotland, Wales & N.Ireland consolidated from over 500 depts to approx 60. I also spent time studying the consolidated systems in Germany & France. During graduate work I studied a number of consolidations in Fla., OR., NJ and SC. My capstone (masters thesis) is on consolidation in Westchester. As Chris192 mentioned, there are no current consolidated depts in Westchester....Yet. This is just one of the many contributing factors to Westchesters ranking as the #1 taxed county in America.

North Hudson Regional Fire & Rescue merged Guttenberg, North Bergen, Weehawken, West New York and Union City in 1999 While further away Cherry Hill NJ also consolidated a number of smaller departments into a regional dept. And back in time Brooklyn & Manhattan also consolidated.

Instead of sending multiple rigs per department and multiple departments to get 20-30 members if each community concentrates on getting proper manning per unit, less rigs (depts) are needed to get the same manpower on the scene and thus it is more effective. 6 rigs (3E, 2L, 1R + 2 chiefs) with 4 each would be sufficent. since the 6 depts have 17 eng, 7 lad, 2 rescues, 18 Chiefs, (approx) why would you need either so many depts or so many rigs? Note: this does not include 6 additional engines, 3 ladders & a rescue in the unincorporated portion of town. This is for a town with a population of 90,467 in 30.5 sq miles For comparison, Yonkers has 11 fewer engines, 4 fewer ladders and 1 fewer rescues but has more than twice the population (196,086) in 18 square miles.

If things are running so smooth why do we hear multiple tone outs for personnel? Why does it take, 3, 4, 5, or more departments to handle a room and content fire? Why do we have depts that run with 1 firefighter per rig, but you can't go a mile in any direction without tripping over a tower ladder or a heavy rescue? And if greenburgh's incorporated village FD's are doing so well, why after 9/11 when they were collectivly offered to get an MDU (mass decon unit) at no cost, was it the only community in the county to turn it down because "we can't handle it". Do you think they ever told the residence that? If things are running so smooth why does no one post this: "its running so smooth here, come take a look, this is the way to solve your problems"

What Scarsdale folks are being served by NRFD? There is a small section of New Rochelle that gets its mail from the "Scarsdale" Post office so it says "Scarsdale" on there mailing address. These homes are within the city of New Rochelle, pay taxes to the city of New Rochelle, send there kids to the New Rochelle school system, and recieve all of there services from the city of New Rochelle. The only thing "Scarsdale" has to do with them is there name is on the mail and they paid 20% more to buy there house because the realator showed them the evelope. Now for the background on the postal address: Those New Rochelle homes with "Scarsdale" addresses use to get there mail from the "Scarsdale" Post office located on Weaver St. (Rt 22) near 5 corners. This building is in Scarsdale. The USPS moved out after a fire gutted the building and it is now a dry cleaners (has been for 30+ years). The "new" post office is located in the golden horseshoe shoping center, which is located in New Rochelle. By all rights everyone in scasdale should have had to change there address to NR.........

Does the town really pay the villages or is it that the villages develop a budget that is voted on by the village board. The town assessor then collects the money from the property owners in that village. The town may or may not provide services (like the assessors office, and others) to the villages but generally does not provide the village with additional funds. The village can allocate the money as dictated in there budget, if they want to change the allocations they must vote to do so. This is how it is done in most towns, is it different in Greenburgh?

I find that hard to believe. I think they will dig there heals in and scream "we've been seperate for over 100 years and everyone in town will die if you combine us". In many cases the manning even after combining may just meet standards (or still be substandard) so dropping by attrition may not be an option. I.e. PFD & PMFD have 6-7 onduty manning 3-4 engines & 2 ladders with 1 (average) ff per rig. If they were to merge they would need to run 2 engines & 1 ladder (at a minimum) with 2 ff's per rig. Would this improve service? Would it save $$? I believe the answer is Yes to both.

The 2009 NFPA 1901 has increased the cost of a new rig by $15,000 - $30,000. The bigest cost is the data recorder & seat belt monitoring Some of the changes will pay for themselves thru reduced injury costs. Some of the items just cost more and in some cases will delay the purchase of safer rigs to depts that can not afford all of these unfunded mandates. Also how many apparatus builders are on the committee that voted for these additions?

I believe yes, but I'm not completely sure. someone more up on the codes than I currently am should be able to answer that. Thats the generic # that ISO calls for, for a single home or a many home development. Many insurance co. will allow smaller. But for a FD water source to cound for the community ISO requires 30,000

ISO requires engines within 1.5 miles and either a service company or ladder co. within 2.5 miles of every structure. A service co has everything a ladder co has except the aerial and fewer ground ladders. because of the distance from L13, E-25's district requires additional service or ladder co. By adding some truck equipment to the eng. we get more points for ISO. E-25 is 10 years old. E-17 is 20 years old and ready for the scrap yard. So the current E-25 will become a spare. We have determined that 10-12 years is the maximum life for frontline service based on our work volume (calls, training, inspections, etc.), others may get 20-30 years, but generally they are much slower FD's. We are doing long term studies into the economics of apparatus purchasing & maintenance. Based on what we have seen elsewhere we believe it maybe more cost effective for us to reduce the frontline service to 8 years with 2 years as spare and then sell the unit at 10 years instead of scraping it at 20 years.

If they are buying their own, does your dept. require them to be intrinsically safe? And do you check them for that?

Thanks. We are incontract with Super Vac Industries for a New Rescue 4. It will be ready in fall 2009. Also working on another Engine (21 or 23). Bids will go out in January