Bnechis

In watching the news conference, it was very clear that they only want to hear what they want to hear and anything else can not (in there minds) be the truth. One lesson here was indentified by Indian Jones "never bring a knife to a gun fight"

How many of those Auto vs. Peds. were because we have stopped teaching "cross at the green & not inbetween" Drive past the IONA Dorms on North Ave. (New Rochelle) at any time of the day or night and their are 18-22 y/o's wandering in the street.

While it might not save your small village a lot of money, when you consider we can drop over 100 rigs with a county wide dept, thats a lot of savings. Does your operating budget cover everything, including the bonds to purchase apparatus and do major house work? Yes ISO says you need 3 pumpers and a ladder. But when I plot the coverage area, ISO only requires 4 engines and 2 ladders to cover you (SHFD), Tarrytown, Archville and Pocantico Hills. Thats a lot of vehicles, stations, insurance, equipment, maintenance, fuel, etc. that you are paying for that ISo says you do not need. And generally in a consolidation your ISO gets better. Because I know most depts do not have enough responders or training. This is somewhat of an issue, but some changes in state law have made it easier. Fire Districts can merge after a single public vote in each district and the vote can be forced by a petition. Same holds true for village depts, the vote can be forced on the FD to merge or disband. So all FD's in towns and villages can be merged or disbanded (as long their is still fire coverage). Now the 6 city FD's are much more complicated. Under state law they must exist and can not be disbanded, they can not be "merged" unless the city merges everything. It can however be contracted with another community to cover it. So what could happen is the villages could dispand into the town. The fire districts in a town can merge and the board of fire commissoners could disolve the fire dept and contract with a city. Now if this was done, most likely they would maintain the station(s) and the city would have to staff the district stations. 2 things could change this: 1) the state could change "City" law and 2) the state could mandate a single townwide fire district (I have heard rumors of this). It is calculate based on the fire dept. and in this case it would then be the new and larger dept.

Yes and I have been warning this for the last 6 years that this was coming, get out infront of it or it could be mandated and no one will like it. It has alread. I know a number of volunteer FD's that now pay Empress, Westchester EMS or another company to staff the ambulances. I also know of a number of VFD's that no longer respond to AFA's because no one shows up. Given time this will force the issue. Like I said: Do it on your own or have it forced on you from a politician who is going to save the community and the tax payer. Get out in front of this. Well taken. Currently "privatization" is not a major threat in NYS, since at least for profit companies (like R/M) are prohibited by state law from providing municipal fire protection, but they are a major EMS provider. The bigger threat is in the career and combo side, the slow and steady reduction in staffing, when are we going to say running 1 & 2 man rigs is unacceptable? On the VFD side, the lack of any responders. These 2 facts plus the tax cap, will force change (thats whats driving CA. and we are following their tax cap). Its coming. I think it depends on how its implimented. If the fire service plans it out so that standards like NFPA & ISO are used to develop good coverage and the senior fire officials have a say in issues like apparatus, staffing, stations, SOP's, equipment, etc. It could be very good. I can also see a political mandate from the state, city or village stating: In 30 days we will transfer everything to the XYZ FD....With no say in how it will be deployed all one can say is good luck.

Since last year they purchased a number of engines without aerials (I saw 4 being built in May and 3 or 4 more in July) Its a fair bet to say they are moving away from it. The new engines have the hosebeds under the water tank. The hose bed is in he compartment labeled E 1 Sorry it is so dark. But, you can see Smeals roll out hose bed and its under the tank 3ff & 1 Of. They do not operate both eng and ladder together. they are one or the other. When they were running total quint they would send 4 engines on a box: 1st due: engine 2nd due: truck 3rd due: engine 4th due: truck Their ladder companies were generally downtown only

Agreed and its a real shame. We have departments that will fight against providing anything but the status quo. They remember the good old days when their were waiting lists to join or their was plenty of staff and they keep hoping that some how it will come back. Meanwhile, they are sending rigs with only 1 or 2 members and in many cases, they can not even get out the door with 1 rig.

In the 1980's (& I think early 1990's) Dutchess did not have a water supply and the tower was infested to the point that it was unusable. With the help of some local FF's we cleaned it out for a series of classes, then no one used it for a year and we recleaned it. (when I say clean, I mean it took a ladder pipe and it was still very nasty). Nice to hear its improved

The one I'm refering to was 1870, their were various on and off uses of the name from 1731-1965. When it became the Metropolitan FD.

Since the county had plans to expand it (auditorium, more classrooms, etc.) and they were cancelled due to lack of funding...I think everyone argrees they have out grown the space. But is it due to poor planning or poor funding? Since plans were inplace 3+ years back, I'd say funding is the issue and its not going to get better anytime soon.

I have been hearing from a number of fire inspectors in different towns, that many depts are no longer get even the 1st due rig out the door for AFAs. I know depts that can not get enough drivers (with no other crews) to pull the trucks out. Yes its still going to be a slog, but at the current rate, it will not be long before depts will face the fact that they are not able to meet the primary objectives of their dept.

I have no problem with sub divisions paying for it for new developments, but for the new super home, is he not going to be paying taxes? what does the municipality or FD owe him in return for his high taxes over then next few years? Yes he built there, because the town wants development so it brings in more tax $$$$. What about the homes that have been there for the last 50 years? You have been charging them for fire protection all this time. They have contributed to each of the new fire houses and all of the new apparatus and in turn they get an ISO 9. You can get an ISO 9 if all you own is a brush truck with a 250gpm skid pump. You have charged them for a whole lot more. The idea here is not to build a tank for every property, but to build a system for water supply that covers the entire community. Some locations may be lakes, rivers, pools, etc. But even those need to be evaluated and potentially improved so you can get to the water.

That is not true. They had more independent companies & chiefs than we do. The level of BS was so bad that Albany passed a special law to create the "Fire Department of the City of New York" hense FDNY.

Not for fire protection. They like to protect the investment with water.

"I'll paint any car any color for $99.95" - Earl Schieb

I know, "Ooh-ooh-ooooh!" Ok...I'll wait

My point was its better to do this so the community has coverage, than just 1 or 2 homes. If they were the ones to "truly benefit from it" then, why not also expand this to giving them their own engine? In this country we generally do fire protection for the whole community. When setting up the system for my mother, it private on her land, but we ran the dry hydrant out to the curb. We told the Fire Chief they could use it and he was so pleased he offered to fill it and maintain its water level. Thats saving them $1,000's since the water needs to be trucked in from another state. They did not expect it, but everyone benefited. Does it matter? If private land is used, it becomes a right of way, but the homeowner maybe able to right it off as a deduction, and once installed he still gets the use of the land and a lower insurance cost. Otherwise you use public land. And there is a huge amount of State, County & local land available. Legally most of the "private" land near the roads edge (particularly under powerlines) is right of way. So reguardless of who owns it, the public gets to use it for this type of project. I saw one such system installed under the road at a large fork/island. This gave enough room to manuver, but most of the tanks were under the road. Almost nothing. Whats to maintain. You have a 30+ year tank, you need to keep it full (I've seen rain water filters used to maintain it) so after a fire/drill you may need to provide water (and a few gallons of bleach if the refill is not drinking water). THats about it. Now those of us with municipal hydrant systems have to pay to maintain them, its part of the cost of fire protection. And what we pay is in the millions, but the homeowner is rewarded with lower premiums that make it worth maintaining the system. If you have rateable water sources, great, yes they are much better if they are accessable, have enough water year round and where you need them. I would never suggest adding tanks if you have a well developped nonmunicipal water availablity. Are you saying that you've known there are no hydrants in part of your district, its been that way since the FD started (well for 1,000's of years) and you have yet to pre-plan them? While I have only seen a handful of the sites in your district, I know they are not properly identified, cataloged or prepared for use. If you have to explain the set up, (prior to a drill) to the mutual aid pumpers that will be going to them where they are and how to use them, then what happens during a fire? Cutting down fences to get to water sources at the time of a fire should not be the norm. Every water source needs to be identified, volume of water during different seasons and during draught conditions calculated, marked with signs and cataloged (and shared with the mutual aid units that will be used there). These are all items needed to move you from an ISO 9 to a 4. In addition, using hard suction & strainers should not take 4 members to set up. 140 years ago they figured out how to do it with one member and in less than 45 seconds, only a handful of depts can still do that today. Their is 100 years of tradition that we spoiled we "progress". When everyones manpower levels are what they are today, we can not afford to send lots of members to fill sites, they are needed at the fire building. At a recent fire in another part of the county they had to stretch 1.5 miles of hose to get to the closes "drafting point". If they had preplanned and either installed more dry hydrants or purchased proper source pumpers, they would have had to go about 400 feet.

Yes, and its a great way to improve ones ISO rating. In one case I know it helped them move from a 9 to a 4. And while not a tank, I set up a 30,000 gallon system at my mothers home. Doesn't Pound Ridge have one under the firehouse? Yes, but 5 tankers is clearly not enough to deal with any volume of fire. That is why ISO will not accept less than 30,000 gallons as an emergency water supply. Consider that 500gpm x 30min = 15,000 gallons. Now lets assume they got 100% out of the tank, did not spill any, nothing was left in the tankers or drop tanks and whats left in each line. While this is a great start, you already aquired the land and have the labor, I suspect its not 2x the money to double the storage. And if you double the storage, you get an insurance discount that over time will pay for the investment. While I agree that new developments should (and can) be mandated to install them, I do not believe its cost effective or useful to have single residentials install them. It is unlikely that it could be located in a spot that would be usable for other properties and they might not even allow it to be used for others. I have seen this comment before about the FD not wanting to do this and in effect not be an advocate for better community fire protection. So its ok to go to the town and ask for $250,000 to $500,000 for a tanker (plus the cost for housing, maintenance, fuel, insurance) but its not ok to spend $50,000 (on 30,000 gal. tank) so they have a way to resupply the tanker. So for the cost of a 2nd tanker, they can install up to 10 systems. Depending on the road network, each one can cover about 3 square miles, giving a 1 mile maximum tanker shuttle (and/or relay) distance. That means for the cost of a 2nd tanker you could cover up to 30 square miles and save your property owners up to 40% of on their insurance (money which will cover the cost of the system). Now if you really want to do it right......I watched one dept. that installed 30,000 gallon tanks, each with a dry hydrant and each had a diesel fire pump installed (I was told they spent about $15,000 on it) and 2 discharges (a 5in Storz & and overhead 6in dump pipe). With this feature, a tanker could pull up, press 1 button (from the cab) and automaticly fill the tanker from above, thus no need for another pumper to draft and fill and 3 or 4 more members to go fight the fire. If a relay is being utilized, drop your 5" hose, hook up, strech and hit the button to charge it. Again 1 less engine needed. Nice thinking outside the box.

Some of the Prep locations were public schools. I am sure that at a minimum the tax payers had to pay for last nights light & heat.

Since, its unlikely to need Evacuating in the next 48 hours, the real question is how do 100,000 riders get to work and how does my child and all the other students in New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon, Yonkers, White Plains and the other communities that use them for the school transport get to and from school. Those are real issues. We all know the IP plan is a joke, so what difference does it make if they are on strike.

THats not exactly the reality. The system was developped to get a new fire/EMS radio system that was paid for with DOT funds that were designed for transportation agency communications.

Agreed. 2 years ago at the NYS OHS conference, the State Police Superintendent present an Al-Qaeda training tape that was captured in Afganastan. It showed a training camp with an elementary school, that they were practicing attacking. He said, the most likely schools for an attack were elementary schools, that were close enough to the NYC media market and in smaller (& wealthier) communities that generally only had small police depts and no ESU/Swat. They understand that the Bronx will have a high level rapid police response that is not available in Westchester, No. Jersey, etc. While this is a different type of incident, it shows the need for preparation. Well said. The county has offered a number of training programs and the response from EMS has been ZERO. Since no one from EMS was willing to train at the FTC, they offered to bring that training to each EMS agency, and the response was ZERO. If the agencies are not willing to step up to the plate, you cant blame the county for not building a new stadium. It was tried with dozens of WMD & mass decon classes held in 2002/2003 with 9/11 fresh in everyones head and almost no EMS personnel showed up, we ran over a dozen seperate classes. How does the county make something "mandatory"? We have many EMS agencies that can not get an ambulance on the road in under 30 minutes for a heart attack. While EMS should have this type of introduction, their are a lot of more critical "failures" that need to be addressed 1st. You are suggesting we be able to run, when we still can only crawl (after 3 tone outs). There have been, since 1992 and they have been updated a number of times. Its clear that agencies do not know, want to know or shows them to their members. I AGREE. Infact, in 1992 the 1st true County EMS mutual aid plan called for 10 Deputy Coordinators. It took 10 years to get 1 and a few more to go to 3. Having enough EMS coordinators is more important than the fire coordinators, since most MCI's are done in 90 minutes or less, while most of the fire responses with coordinators are much longer. The need to arrive quickly for the MCI ones are more critical. Agreed, how does one do that with home rule?

When 1st designed the George Washington Bridge was to get a rail line added, that goes back 89 years, and I do not think its coming anytime soon. If not included, they will always put it off as too costly.

Sounds like consolidation to me. I would agree, but that would mean that different agencies should work together and a few people have said I have an agenda, and this common sense approach would be part of that agenda.

Where in the article does it say that? And the hiring was to replace a retiring employee And that employee's job function (Fire Inspector) is legally mandated by state law.

While I agree with you, there are lots of people in Jail, the ER's or the ME's office, that clearly do not.