Bnechis

It was set up to be that once a quota (%) was met, the city had the right to come back and ask the court to end it. With the way FDNY's battle in the courts, I am not sure that going to the courts to ask for it to be dropped would happen and worst, we may get more requirements. Sometimes leaving it alone is the lesser of 2 evils.

Interesting issues. 1) The case proved that the Village of Tarrytown clearly has no defense again its willful violation of the law. I suspect the next and final step in this story will be the litigation against it by the families of those who died. I suspect the payout will be very large. 2) The Village has "NO CONTROL" over the actions & operation of the fire department is no defense. If you have an FD, you are responsible for its actions. 3) If your Fire dept. does not have a written policy that clearly instructs all members that they must understand what a confined space is (confined space awareness) and they are never permitted to enter or if they are permitted, they must have the original & annual training, equipment, and the written procedures or you are violating the law. For 18 years before this incident, OSHA has used this exact scenario to describe how workers and rescuers die in confined spaces. Hopefully the many depts. that do not comply with the law have taken notice and corrected the situation. This incident should never have happened, but I am sure it will again in some community that fails to learn from this.

You missed the point, we had a swim test and the federal courts said no more. We do require a HS diploma and a clean criminal record (because without one you wont get your EMT, which is a job requirement)

Some of the lifeguard positions are for a city run waterpark, that the depth of water does not exceed 6 inches. I suspect that's why they don't require it. No, because if we failed anyone because of it we would be in violation of the court order.

The latest apparatus being purchased by the following departments have raised roofs: Boston FDNY Philadelphia Baltimore Chicago LA Cleveland St Louis Phoenix Detroit Dallas Houston Orlando Charlotte NC Denver Milwaukee Toronto Montreal Yes I found a few busy depts. that have not started purchasing raised roofs, but it looks to me that in the last century no one had them, but we also had boosters, fireball gloves and no scba.

Having been to all of the major manufacturers factories multiple times over the last dozen years I can tell you that much of the industry will build and sell almost anything the dept wants so as not to "upset" the dept by saying no. Its amazing how many stupid designs I have seen, where the manufacture just says, that's what the customer insisted on. When the majority of buyers are more concerned with how it looks, then how it performs, this is what happens.

The federal court determined that the swimming requirement was discriminatory against minorities (the judges words not mine).

No info or spy shots....its a secret. But the final inspection is in 2 days.

"The agreement had an unintended consequence of making paid firefighting jobs tougher for women to land, Mount Vernon Fire Chief Edward Stevenson said." "Fire departments were forced to put a heavier emphasis on the physical examination rather than the written test, making it more job related and equitable to minorities, Stevenson said. But that emphasis on the physical exam made it more difficult for women." Ok so lets look at the facts. Before the 1980 Vulcan decree no women ever passed the test and after it a few did. In fact Mt. Vernon Hired one. So it did not make it harder, it in fact made it easier. The court agreement in each city is different as they did not make the written pass fail in New Rochelle, its still a graded test, but in Mt Vernon the Vulcans requested the federal court drop the grads because it put "minorities, including women" at a disadvantage. Also they did not make the physical harder, they made it job related. Previously it was a physical fitness based exam, whoever could do the most push ups, sit ups, in the time allotted and running etc. Now they have you pulling hose, and running up stairs with a standpipe pack, etc. They also eliminated things like a specific height requirement and replaced it with removing a ladder from the side of an engine (if you are short this is harder to do without dropping one end).

Where is this building?

It has nothing to do with being seated or not. 1) Even with seatbelts, some "standard" height roofs can have taller members hit their heads during an accident or hitting a bad pothole. 2) When exiting the cab, particularly while wearing SCBA & helmet, in a standard roof engine you have to stoop as you go through the door, which increases the chance of being off balance and falling. Being able to stand up straight to exit reduces this. Remember back when we did ride standing up because we had true cathedrals.....No roof. And its not the industry that is "encouraging" it, its the Fire service that's requesting it.

They previously replaced an engine with the 75ft Ladder

The reason more places do not have it, is cost. A few years ago I was replacing the roof on my home and looked into adding solar panels. The cost estimates, the Con Ed buy back, and the tax credits ment the estimates were it would pay for itself in 16 years with an 18-20 year life expectancy. Truly not worth the investment. Now I could not understand this as I thought it would have been a better deal. My mom has it on her house (in CA). She said their payback time was 7 years. This was because they are in a sunnier location and CA has more tax credits and requires the electric company to buy the energy back at the same rate they charge for it (Con Ed pays a % of that amount). & Fire stations do not get a tax advantage. There are newer technologies that are less expensive and I have read some new designs are much cheaper, so in the future this may be a great idea.

Are you taking about Spartan ERV or Spartan Chassis, 2 different things. New Rochelle has Smeal engines on Spartan Chassis on order

There reliability is not tested in a comparable setting. 300 calls per year vs running 24/7. & the delivery trucks in NYC that use them have a life of 3-5 years (according to the biggest dealer in the Bronx as they have 100's of 2009's for sale).

Fleetwood is what all of Mt Vernon was! Prior to the mid 1960's it was a thriving community with tremendous shopping and high end stores. I know from my grandmother that the Vanderbilt's & the Roosevelt's both shopped in her salon. MV was a prime location, till the wealth moved out.

Everyone likes to throw "low bid" around but its clearly the lowest bid that meets the minimum specification otherwise if it really was "low bid" FDNY rigs would be this:

Many of their "grants" they did not write, they were given because of their population & location, including Nann/Luger, UASI, SUSAP, & MMR. Nothing wrong with it, that's the same way NYC gets much of its homeland security funds.

Maybe because they saw that at least 3 Seagrave dealers have gone bankrupt trying to take care of the FDNY warranty work. With such big orders and that much warranty work, it maybe cheaper to have a manufacturers service center.

The irony, if true, is because of the size of PCFD is with 4 career members down (for any reason) for a month equals approximately 640 hours of overtime that would be paid to other members to cover this "time off".

This was a major deal in NY with police depts. and it was referred to as "badge drain". NYPD & many small 'inner city" depts. who's pay was low would train recruits (6 months + of academy) and after a year or 2 they get offered a job with a small village (very high end bedroom community). They double their pay, and have a nicer work environment, the village saves a ton & gets an experienced officer (which includes dealing with street crime at a level they wont see in 20 years in the small dept.) The only loser is the city dept, who is out the training costs. When some of those cities started to pay better wages, the drain slowed.

Don't know, but I was thinking the same thing. Some of those county depts. have 10,000 vol/1,000 career, so they are "mostly" volunteer. If you count them by # of ff's.

I do not, but knowing which unit was this connection too? Was the rig retrofitted to the connection or was it original factory? might help determine if this is something other depts. should look into.

NY states code is referred to as the "Uniformed Fire & Building Code" because it is to be the same everywhere in the state. This goes back to the Stouffers fire in Harrison 35 years ago. When it was built each city/town in the state could have its own code. White Plains had a more restrictive code that included sprinklers. Stouffers in a move to save money moved their hotel a couple hundred feet east, into the Town of Harrison which had no sprinkler requirement. After the deadly fire their the state implemented the state code, so the requirements are the same everywhere.

Locals can only require more restrictive items if approved by the states code council. They generally are reluctant to give them, because if we have not required it for everyone, what makes you so special?