Bnechis

Excellent point. Also how many depts. work with the local building dept. to find the records of these buildings? Most do not know that the 2nd largest points in ISO Fire Department review (after personnel) is annual inspections? Chief, you are dating yourself with that line. No its not in our data base, but one of the video's interviewed the owner of the dry cleanning and he said they were there since 1932.

The occupancy (dry cleaner) was established in the building in 1932, so its unlikely that its a truss, since they did not commonly use trusses (other than bow string, which this is clearly not) at that time.

I generally would have agreed. I have now seen 5 different videos and one of them shows very heavy black smoke pushing from exposure 1, before, during and after....while the roof conditions did not reflect it. Based on this I suspect this was either a rain roof that collapsed or the main roof failed, but the ceiling or more likely multiple ceilings did not and the fire stayed in that space below the main roof or ceilings.

Why would gender be an issue? The real issue is qualifications. There are so many chiefs out there that became chief because of popularity, or because they are related to the mayor, or because it was their "turn" or because no body else wanted it or because they just turned 21...or...................

Yes, the frame extensions are directly under the diamond plate between the reels & the tools. The tow eyes are bolted directly to them. The apparatus can be lifted by the eyes, because of the frame rail extensions. The winch mount is also anchored to the extension.

Now it is called a bumper because we expect it to come in contact with something. So in pic #1 we see that protecting the bumper is a $1,900 Federal Q2 siren. Now I love the Q2 and I want to protect it, so we add 4 large rubber "bumpers" and 2 heavy duty stainless steel straps (cost: about $600) Notice that we did not add hose on this bumper. The crew felt pulling it from a low rear bed was better and shortening the bumper extension improved the turning radius and the angle of approch.

The strength has very little to do with the ends. Take a look at the four bolts (between the sirens & air horns), thats what attaches the bumper to the frame rail or frame rail extensions. Thats what gives it its strength. The frame rails are 6" (car) to 16" (tower) in height. The bumper in question (1st pic) does not appear to have a frame rail connection to the bumper. What is most important in a good rig is what is underneath. Too many firefighters pay way more attention to how it looks, what lights are on it, or whose logo is on the grill.

While not a "cross lay". The below bumper is rated for at least 30,000 Lbs. and the rig can be lifted by it. It is attached to the frame rails. It has a 200' x 1.75" preconnected foam line and a 100' x 1.75" trash line (but room to make it a 200' line) Also 1) 5 gal foam pail, 1 eductor and 2 foam nozzles. Both lines are set up as double donut rolls to deploy as clean as cross lays.

When (not if) the rig is involved in a crash, I want a solid bumper infront. Their is no way that this bumper is atttached to the frame structure so that its crash worthy. Also willing to bet, that a very minor tap or even a minor contact with the ground (as when pulling into a steep driveway) will fold this bumper right up into the front of the rig. And if you need to tow it or pull it out you better not secure to it.

1) what are they trying to hide? 2) trespassing in city hall. some smart a** lawyer, will take a pic. get fined and sue them. are in violation 3) so when the clerk takes your pasport photo, will they be fined or when DPW needs to photo the building to put a repair proposal together are they in violation? 4) wha tabout the press? Are they excluded from filming 5) can you imagin that the mayor will no longer allow himself to have his picture taken in his office while shaking the hand of some big developer (i.e. contributor)? Another well thought local law.

While that always sounds great, I have yet to see one that does it all or even does it well. And those that get close are too big for many communities.

So if you get hired at 22, work 30 years and when your 52 your knee gives out (non job related) and you can no longer do field work, if you retire you lose 65% of your pension. So would this mean you should not take the job until your 40? When the pension folks gave a siminar 2 years ago they told us that in teir II all lump sum payments were prohibited. If you can not use your sick leave, what the likely hood that you will start using it so it does not build up..."Use it or lose it" and run up the OT for others is what could happen. That will not help "reduce the tax costs". All your info was posted in Cuomo's press release. Their was previous talk that their would be no disability or death benefits. Their is no mention of it now...So is it the case or not?

No the equipment would be different in the hydrant areas and the non-hydrant areas.........otherwise carry on with your sarcasm

Agreed. My info was the PFB had protocol and a Hx of only a few minutes onscene with trauma and SAMU roll was medical not trauma and they wanted everyone "stable" 1st and we know thats not whats needed.

Yes. At the time the City of Paris had 2 different ambulance services: The Paris Fire Brigade which was trained to about the EMT-I level and was normally dispatched to general medical and trauma calls. And SAMU which is hospital based and runs with a physician. They are primary response to Medical calls: Cardiac, Resp. etc. They do more workup than ALS here. Both responded to Diana, and SAMU got there 1st. She was in the bus, when PFB arrived and was on scene being stabilized for over 40 minutes (if memory serves). She needed an OR not a medical ICU.

I was not refering to the "spares" I was refering to the 100+ duplicate rigs ROFLMAO Thats not a layer of managment. Seth you really do not remember how Westchester "functions" do you? If that were true we could have proven lots of things that the rest of the world alread knows. SO if a dept does not want training standards? preplaned mutual aid? radio's? etc...... Also the point of this is useless, since they are a county function and tax funded. You are not going to get them as an independent agency.

The CAD is able to do both. Their is no communication system to move the Data between the CAD and apparatus. Maybe one reason is it would cost close to $10,000,000 just to equip the extra rigs that we do not need and never respond to calls. Thats on top of the millions it would cost to set it up in the 1st place. Maybe if we did not have so much duplication of services, we could afford it. SO if it was on its own, would it ignor the chiefs? They are the ones who said we do not need this.

Agreed, but since the county has told us for the last 8 years that it was not going to provide it, what is our next option. We found a reasonable solution, got it funded and then found funding for 8 of our mutual aid partners to get it as well. I know of at least 1 additional dept in the county that is now looking at it.

Because it does not meet many of the needs of depts. We met with the county and the system developers well before it went online and they determined it could never be used for what we need on a daily basis, so we set up our own system.

We currently have a mapping system (Which includes CIDS info) on all apparatus. 2302 has internet access and access to our file servers including FireRMS (Records Managment System). It is not tied into the CAD system. We are completing the testing on an upgrade that every apparatus will have internet (we previously had it but it was not reliable enough) and the new mapping system has a very beefed up CIDS (including a hazmat data base for each known location and preplan, photos, floor plans etc. for any location). It also includes hydrants with flow and other data and multiple layers so we can overlay flood zones, sewers/drains or other features. The map/cids data is shared with 8 other depts that recieved this system. The final 2 components that we are testing is "Dispatch Monitor" & AVL. The AVL will allow 2302 & HQ to see where units are. The "Dispatch Monitor" recieves info from CAD (including the CAD narrative), displays it, then shows the location on the map along with the location of your apparatus. This all happens before 60 Control can complete the voice dispatch. It is not as good as a CAD based system as it does not communicate two way. But currently 60 does not offer any data. Unfortinatly, when the county planned the trunking system the Fire Advisory board said we had no need for data, so we do not have the infastructure to suport it.

It would not help, they can't figure out the walk/dont walk lights and the cross walk.

You have always made it clear that you think 1 county dept would be best and their are problems that would have to be overcome with that as well: 1) State law would have to be changed to allow for it and their is no interest at the state or county levels to do it. 2) The county has never run anything close to this and does not have the experience to manage this. 3) Their is a major lack of trust of the county by some municipalities, which would need to be overcome. 4) The current county administration wants to merge DES & DPS even though the only thing every fire service group in the county has ever agree on is that no body wants this. And 1 dept might also be more painful to specific depts. For example Yonkers runs 3ff/1of per rig. while others run 2/1, 1/1 or even just 1ff. It is unlikely that any units would be brought up to YFD level, so would that mean units in Yonkers would drop staffing and currently Yonkers pays the lowest per capita taxes for fire protection. So it would cost them more to get less. Currently 10% of the firefighters in the county are career and have one level of training. How would you get the other 90% brought up? You also have a major difference in staffing. That makes it unsafe to mix and match without major planning. I just do not see that happening. I am in favor of consolidation when it improves service, lowers cost (without lowering service) or both. Dropping boarders looks great on paper, but there are a number of locations that the closest fire station is not fastest, because they can not get out the door.

Great point. It helps that they are 60 years ahead of us in consolidating to a regional level. They understand it, while we would rather spend a lot of energy fighting it.

Correct, It would also mean that the sections of Greenburgh currently controlled by the town and contracted to the Elmsford & Ardsley Village FD's would fall under this one district as well (those sections are not in either Elmsford or Ardsley). It would be one district and unless tax laws are changed one taxing district. How much of that burden is because more money is currently spent in one than the other? (I am not saying there is, just posing a question). In addition to the administrative savings, they would have to determine if consolidating the depts would be of financial benefit. Since they would be allowed to contract with 1, 2 or all 3 for service. BTW that fairview/edgemont cost shift might not be an issue, since a new district could bring "new" money from the areas that are now paying taxs to the 2 villages for protection.

Interesting take on this. I should have been clearer. The concept was that town law would be changed to only allow 1 fire district per town. That would not affect village departments. It would not mean the forced merging of depts, just the boards that over see them. As an example The Town of A has 3 fire districts, overseen by 3 boards (x, y & z) each district has its own FD. If the law changes The town would become 1 district and they would determine which dept or depts would continue to exist. They could keep all 3, merge 2 and leave the 3rd alone or merge all 3. Villages are seperate. Where this could get sticky is what happens when a district is in 2 towns (LMFD is an example). Each town would get a single district, they could contract with the other dist to keep a multiple town dept.