Bnechis

So your answer is No. Since they can not be comprehended 100% of the time.

They landed at Westchester. Nope, the SS wont care and the DOH, wont interfere (but potentially could fine the agency after the fact)

The Feds can do what they want, but the agencies can not violate Article 30 and use the feds as a reason.

1) No myth. I have heard it on more than 1 occasion. When asked where the baby would be, was told could be anywhere. I then asked if baby was a pet. twice it was a cat or cats. once a dog. 2) And we fight against additional manpower that is not hired or recruited into our dept.

I do not know what the rules in CT are. But in NYS it is illegal for a service to operate outside its CON. Unless on mutual aid. We had a case where the US Open was stopped because they had a NYC Based Ambulance covering them, but the DOH said Shut the event down till they could get a service with a CON for Westchester.

The physical agility is usually 6 - 12 months before the list is certified and any hiring can begin. The academy normally runs spring & fall and has no relationship with the test. remember their are multiple lists (Westchester T&V, MV, NR, WP plus LB & GC and Dutchess) that send to the academy.

Does MLSS have a CON to operate in Westchester?

It may already be too late to save that trust. When the public finds out that many local depts. no longer respond to calls because they have no personnel. When they drive by the fire station and their are 3 or 4 new trucks "protecting them" and it turns out that their are only 2 paid ff's and the volunteers are gone, the moment a call goes bad, we have no recourse, because they trusted us to not lie about our abilities.

Yes it is the mindset of the politicians and the voters, but it also is the mindset of the fire service. We complain of insufficient personnel, but when consolidation is suggested as a solution, we immediately say NO WAY. We have depts. that can never meet 2in/2out without mutual aid and they have convinced themselves and the public that they are providing a top notch service.

As a general statement I will agree. But the Key word here is "KNOW" So if the family says everyone is out, is that enough? do we "know"? One must be very careful in how this is answered. If the definition is wrong, then either a civilian may not survive, that should have been saved or a ff may die searching for no one. If the politicians have been told that with current staffing levels we can not complete everything that needs to be done, like searching, what options do you have (beyond mutual aid)? You always do your best, but if they only give you X, you can't do X plus 1, 2 & 3.

I do not know how many residents will be on the list, but I do know that for our tests their are 100's and we have never gotten to them. That is the norm.

Many moons ago, as a relatively new FF, I responded on a fire in a split level ranch. The call came in as heavy fire @ about 6am on a Sunday. There was a delay in dispatch as the caller was a dog walker and called the wrong street & called the wrong dept. So an additional 10 minutes was wasted. The fire was coming out multiple windows from multiple rooms and from vents in the attic. The truck opened the garage and their where 2 cars in the garage.. We had just finished establishing a supply line (we were 2nd due) when our Lt. ordered us to take a 2 1/2" line to the front door. We made it to the top step and could not make it down the hall to the bedrooms. We knew that based on the time of day, day of week and the cars, that their had to be victims in there. I realized something kept hitting me and it hurt. Took a long time to figure it was slate as the fire had burned thru the ceiling and now the roof. We were pulled out. Latter we found that the family was in FL. on vacation.

Good question Bill and great response antique. Ok I'm caught up.

BINGO....THATS THE ISSUE. NOT ENOUGH FIREFIGHTERS! Well Said!! Since their are exceptions to 2in / 2out, I think the examples you are talking about are mute. If they don't want to get the job done, they will find a reason not to do it. Ever notice the air packs always fail for the same 1 or 2 members.

150 years ago my dept had 30-50 member PER APPARATUS 50 Years Ago we had 40 members on duty today we have 27 we did not need to have a rule back then, enough members were outside, because they did not fit into the fire build at the same time. We keep doing "more with less" and know its so low, that we need a back-up. Wrong. see below 1) Thank you for clarifying 2) Correct 3) Yes and other industrial applications like confined space 4) That works well for many places 5) the Phoenix issue is for large open floor plan buildings. The drill was in a former 2 story building that was over 500,000 sq ft. The member was up an escalator and the searches to find him took hours.

It was not. So the idea of having a back up when their are lots of rigs on the scene is a good thing. Most depts. call for an additional unit to be FAST. Before that, you got nothing. Even FDNY with great staffing compared to most added a truck to cover this. Before that they had less resources on every scene. In years past it was less of an issue, my dept. at one point had 5-6 members on an engine, now its 1/2 that. I know VFD's that were so "full" they had waiting lists. Those days are long gone. Another good reason to have enough staffing, less likely to make those errors, when we have enough people to get the job done before the mistakes add up. Agreed, but again 2in/2out does not appear to be stopping anyone from attacking the fire. I see way too many depts. that think a total response of 6 or less is sufficient. This gives a small amount of leverage to maintain at least that. Depends on what gasses you are talking about. Generally: O2 levels below 19.5% CO above 1,200 ppm HCN above 50 ppm Note: your little CO meter starts to beep at 35ppm...you have a ways to go.

Wow, I go away for a few days and have to catch up. 1) you are correct, but in addition to being retroactively addressed, this really leaves the dept and possibly its leadership open for litigation if a FF is injured or killed and the dept. knowingly is violating this law. 2) As Fire Medic put it:"the 2 in / 2 out rule is that it really wasn't written with the fire service response to building fires in mind." It was written for industry, some hazmat issues, some fire brigade issues and Confined space issues. The idea was if you need SCBA or Supplied Air to stay alive in a work place, then you need a back-up. OSHA never said: "You Only Need 2", they said "you need a minimum of 2" 3) Its not really a trap, because the law says you can suspend the 2 out, when their is a known life hazard in the IDLH environment and you are attempting to make a rescue. 4) OSHA's interpretation is that anyone who is performing a critical roll outside the IDLH environment can not be considered part of the 2 out. So the pump operator who is not pumping can be part, but if leaving the operating pump might put others at risk than no. The IC has a critical roll (in getting more help) and it has been argued that he should never be part of the 2 out. 5) You are correct. NFPA 1710 does address this, by calling the 2 out an IRIC (immediate rescue intervention crew) and once a working fire is declared the standard is it needs to go to 4 members (RIC or FAST). The real issue here is not enough manpower. and depts. that fight this are the ones how have the least manpower. 1) agreed 2) since the pump operator may not be part of the 2 out (once committed to pumping) and the IC clearly is not, the issue is do you (and by you I mean any FD) respond with enough interior firefighters to safely operate? 3) agreed 4) agreed, but does the ruling help your department prevent dropping down to an even lower response just by the fact the standard exists? 5) Universally true. Remember it was not the intent to rescue from an IDLH that was also on fire, zero visibility, high heat, deteriorating conditions. just a stable work place with an IDLH atmosphere. 6) No where does it prevent ff's from attacking an incipient fire or potentially a fire in the free burning stage. Everyone appears to have missed that one. Personally, I find too many depts. that are unwilling or unable to send enough firefighters to any incident, much less an active fire. THis should be a major tool to help depts. fight for minimum staffing.

I have asked a number of depts. and a number of financial managers who run LOSAP if they can show any proof that it works. No one has ever proven it. In many depts. it rewards the guys who would come anyway (which is not a bad thing) but that's not what its being sold as. Also I know of a lot of depts. that find it increases the #'s that show up at the station 20 minutes to late to get signed in, then go home. Very few 20-30 year olds pay much attention to retirement, even when offered it. If you really are worried about it, I would spend my time working a 2nd job and/or education to move up in your current carrier would put you in better shape for retirement than a LOSAP, particularly based on the hours needed.

You also need to try to get a true quantitative answer to the effectiveness of the different incentives. This is the big elephant in the room, as very few departments measure if the money being spent is effective. To date the only one I have heard of that appears to work is paid on call / paid per call.

Yes but do they have the trained personnel available to operate all of that equipment that was purchased with our grant (read tax) money? If it sits there with no one to operate it, its useless If it responds, but with only a small % of the personnel needed to perform the mission, its useless and if it responds to incidents without being called, and ignores policies, procedures and ICS in general, because "nobody can stop us", its more than useless it is a danger to themselves, other responders and the community.

When they were 1st available to us out of Westchester they got overused. What finally mad everyone think about its use was an extended extrication we had on a local road (car wrapped around a telephone pole). The closest landing zone was 1/2 mile away. 2 patients both critical. 1 ambulance was sent to LZ, got the crew an transported to the scene. Other went to the scene. The more critical patient was removed and transported to the copter. 10 minutes later the 2nd was extricated and was transported by ground to Westchester Medical Center. The medevac crew had advised that the 2nd patient should go by ground. The 2nd patient was in the treatment room at WMC before the 1st patient, because the flight crew was "stabilizing the patient for flight" for close to 30 minutes. We stopped using them after that,

It has nothing to do with the City changing. You have volunteer stations in areas that have not dramatically changed. The issue is they, like many others nationwide no longer have enough volunteers available to cover the calls.

1) More about force than weight. Was it designed to have force in that direction? A number of ladder failures in the past were when one side was against the building and the other was not, as you crawl out does the weigh shift multiply because of the "level" you have created? That's one reason why replaceable tips came into existence. Also many depts. do not test or do not care. We had a catastrophic ladder failure in the 1990's and the litigation was in our favor because it was being used as designed and we had 100% compliance with the manufacturers maintenance policies and a recertification test 4 weeks before the failure. 2) we still train with them (but have not carried them in over 30 years). And you climbed or went home.

X635, Please look this way You never saw it, it does not exist. " The flash of light you saw in the sky was not a UFO. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."

"Depends, is your family member the one on the other side?" The Benefit maybe to the firefighters widow, since I think you would not fair well in court. You may want to look at what a UL inspector would do if he was asked to do the annual ladder test on that Arial, after seeing this picture. The ones I have spoken with have said if you use it beyond its designed limit, they will de-certify it.