Bnechis

While this is technically true, in most districts the majority of the voters who show up to vote are FD members & family members of those FD members.

Yes the regional councils have some statutory authority and they can set response standards. However if an agency is anable or unwilling to meet the standard, the council has no authority or ability to force any change. Most of the agencies that meet the national standards already participate with the council. Those that do not tend to be locked in there own little world and do not acknowledge the coucil or the fact that it takes them 30+ minutes to get on the road. The REMAC on the other hand has much more statutory authority, however they believe its only in relation to ALS. We have tried to broaden this to include epi & albuterol. In the last few months this is slowly changing. I have found that the REMAC is slow to inact any policy change that did not come from a physician, so if they do not see a problem that we clearly point out to them, then nothing happens. In addition all policy changes by REMAC must be approved by the SMAC (state Mac). Which do to state budget only meets 3 times per year (this year only twice, do to Irene). You know it has been proposed many times and I would love to see it mandated, but without the authority to force it, how do you get agencies that are so backward that they can't even consider that 30+ minutes for a cardiac call is a problem. Suffolk county mandated a response time policy (for getting on the road). THe difference is they control the 911 system and the dispatch and basicly they said they would automaticlly cancel and send MA. The EMS coordinator recieved multiple death threats and Suffolk PD had to provide 24hr protection. They ended up dropping the policy as non of the depts would accept it.

Great thoughts Chief. You brought up a couple of different issues; 1) teaching the public about EMS. The Regional council is made up of 30 "volunteers" representing all facits of EMS. None are paid to participate on the council (unless paid by their agency). For example YFD has a rep on the council and I'm sure he is paid by YFD. The council has a great many legal mandates it must delivere and while teaching the public, they try to do some things, but as you know the public pays very little attention to FD, PD or EMS, until they are dialing 911. 2) the politicians. The council has made many attempts to involve the politicians and educate them. Most do not want to know, "its the VAC, the Fire Districts problem, the commercial contractor, etc." 3) identifying the problem: The regional council has, over and over identified the problem, the real issue is the way EMS is set up, they have no authority to change it. Each EMS agency is required to have a CON (certificate of need) which is issued by the NYS Health Dept. Without one it is illegal to operate. and they are issued for very specific communities, I.e. the village of "X" or the Fire District of "Y" or even a list of the following sections of a community. For Example, at one time (I do not know if they still have it) Eastchester VAC's CON included the Bronxville P.O. in Yonkers. The region has no say in revoking a con. So if EMS Dept. "A" takes 60 minutes to respond on every call and the region reports it to the DOH, the DOH's only actions are: ignor it or take the CON away. I have yet to see them take it away unless a law was broken. So even with the best leadership at the region, if they find a problem and the agency does not care to address it, not a lot that they can do.

Its common all over the midwest, MI, WI, OH, IN, IL, etc.

Well said. But I have also found many Rescue Pumpers do not carry enough cribbing to properly handle a 2 car MVA. And if MVA's & EMS are our bread & butter "rescue calls" then how will they carry enough equipment to handle anything beyond that? Most larger depts. have a run system for rescues that works just like the "alarms" for fire. Minor MVA; Engine & Truck (with extrication tools), then maybe add a Squad co, then a rescue and finally USAR. The "Rescue" backs up multiple truck companies. NRFD has 1 Rescue Pumper (E-22), but it is run as a Squad (no rescue equipment, but filled with Hazmat equipment, suits, detectors, special tools, cool vests on ice, 1 hour SCBA, etc.). Because it is station so remotly from all other rigs, E-25 has a rescue style body (no top bins) and carries a combi tool & cribbing, and some truck tools (for ISO), a 35' extension ladder, Little Giant Ladder (in addition to a 24' extension, 14' roof & folding ladder), generator, smoke ejector, sawzall, tarps, etc. We have found the body style makes the house bed tough to deal with. L-12 and L-13 both carry extrication tools (spreader, cutter, rams), saws, cribbing, full set of HP airbags, etc. R-4 has 2 sets of extrication tools, tons of cribbing, jacks, pnuematic shores, mechanical shores, heavy rigging, winches (electric & mannual), HP & LP airbags, pnuematic tools, etc., etc., etc. (the list is long and this 24' tandum axle box is full). R-54 is our collapse unit and carries: shoring, more cribbing, pnuematic shores, trench pannels, carpentry tools (hand, electric & pnuematic), more heavy rigging, Stanly hydraulic Tool System (jack hammers, concrete chain saw, pumps), etc., While R-4 is un-manned, it is cross staffed by the crew of TL-11 (2ff/1of). For an MVA we send 1st due Engine, R-4, & L12 or 13 & 2302. If on I-95 or HRP add a 2nd engine. Thats about 12 - 15 responders. One would hope that each department would know what is needed better than an outsider. I have found in many cases that depts know there own little world and do not know ways that other depts. have done things (some better, some worst).

It would not have changed the outcome. By the time foam was ready to go, there was almost no gasoline left.

Neither. We had an offer for a used unit. We passed on it. We have done a number of things to upgrade our foam abilities; new eductors, new nozzles and some foam deck guns, and a couple of other neat "toys" for elevated foam and transfering foam, which we have not been able to put in-service due to lack of funding for enough training foam to work the kinks out.

"Explosion", "Blew up" or just a very "large Fire"......The discriptions need to be looked at. The White Plains I-287 "tanker" was an MC330 high pressure tank containing liquified propane. The tank was ruptured by the force of the impact with a bridge. The liquified propane leaked out and without the vessel to contain the pressure converted back to its natural state; propane gas. The vabor cloud travel about 500 feet (200 feet past the tractor). At that point (about 2/3 of the cloud) was above the flammable level (too rich), the other 1/3 was below the flammable level (too lean) but the part at the cab was within the flammable range and ignited. It flashed out to the 500' and back to the tank, which forced it into the homes. This tank did not bleve, it ignited and burned rapidly. At the point the tank took of it technically would be considered an explosion. Most gasoline tankers (MC-306 MC-406) are aluminum and are considered non-presurized. The containers tend to rupture from an impact, leak product and ignite not explode. They rarely "explode" but the flammable liguid will burn with intensity. This does not make it any less dangerious to fight, but it is important to understand the difference. The tactics used also differ with flammable liquids and flammable gasses. Class B Foam is a good choice the liquids, but is useless on the flammable gasses. Flammable gas fires generally need to be "turned off" or "burn out".

Would not that depend on the chemical involved. No turnout gear and no CPC (chemical protective clothing) work for every product.

This is more common than most members would like to admit. This is also the reason that NFPA 1901 now requires all new apparatus to cover/secure all hose. When we started to do this, members complained, but also a number were able to recall a number of seperate incidents of deployed hose.

Interesting. I never considered the volunteer status. Now lets take it one more step the NYS Dept. of Labor classifies volunteers firefighters as "employees" even if the do not get retirement or other benefits. This is because they get workers comp. I have been told by the DOL that this has been challenged in court and upheld by the courts (but I do not know what case, to look up).

LOL, Chief where do you think your water comes from, The Bronx?

Maybe "all of a sudden" they realized its required under NYS Dept. of Labor Law CFR 1910.132 I would think that if the reason was just for this, it would have been better to add a compartment like the haz tech units.

Then give them each a tanker My point was you might not even be good for 2 fires. If 7 of the tankers are from the West & 7 from the East, all west ones are committed, the east ones may be too far or if they are sent to cover, there wont be enough left in the east or in the west. Yes you can what if this to death, but the departments that collectivly own 14 tankers also own 46 engine companies. It appears then that with 46 engine companies they would be able to cover more than 2 fires, but without enough water........we all know what will happen. The taxpayers have collectivly invested approximatly $21 million in these engine companies (assuming a fully equipped engine costs $450,000)and not including maintenance, insurance, fuel, housing, etc. and they would be stretch to handle more than 2 fires? Even if we doubled the numbers, we are talking a huge area to cover and with all of those units covering 2 1/2 counties and 100's of thousands of properties, the chance of 2 or 3 fires is pretty good.

This is the exact reason for standarization, about 1/2 the tankers in the county are straign tankers or tanker/pumpers, the others are large pumper tankers so in this case 1/2 might be non usable, and of course they are not spread out based on type. its every dept. for themselves. There are 4 or 5 major ways to deploy in non-hydranted areas, the best depends on the type of roads as mentioned above. the ones that work best in these areas are not bad in open areas, but the ones that work best in open areas, do not work at all in tight roads. Thats not completely true. Consider the Brush fire areas on Staten Island and the High Rises in Manhattan (and everything in between, The majority of units are almost identical (yes the require some special items). But there are many county depts. that pull this off. the key is looking at all of the special needs and determining what works best in most cases. I do not see it as a bad thing, but there are 3 major consideration: 1) We need to get past the career / vol issues. They work together in many parts of the country, but those areas alll have STANDARDIZED training levels. Until that is agreed to, consolidation will never occur. 2) There is a real lack of trust of County Government in Westchester. This does not mean they could not do it, but I think its a major stumbling block. Last years battle of DES/DPS is a great example of the Fire services mistrust. 3) I think it is more likely to occur after large segmints come together. Merging 58 depts together vs, making 5 or 6 depts of 8-10 depts or even 10 depts (of 5-6 districts) would be much easier then after they have come together you could bring those depts together. The later will take 20-40 years. But the smaller ones could occur within a year or 2.

That is not true. The only reason you can not be your own is if you can't put enough players on the field. If this were true, then why buy 3 or 4 engines when you can easily get one from a neighboring town? If they are doing fine, whats their rating? If they are still a 9 then they have yet to prove they are doing ok. The consolidation of multi depts in one So. Caroline county resulted in standardization of tankers and improved rating from a 9 to a 5. Tanker ops is one of many reasons. We have 14 tankers to cover the northern 1/2 of the county. You send 7 from the NW to an incident and you have enough left for 1 incidnet, but the distances are so great that you have to strip protection from one side to cover the other, or everyone runs light and then you are just running on hope for no 2nd incident. Also when a dept only owns one tanker and relocates it, then how do they cover home? Great reason for improving the way we do things. This is why standardization / consolidation is so desirable. How much safer and effective would it be if they were the same. Not only can it happen, but NYS has been spending millions to help it along. A number of proposed legislative actions will help. What is stopping it now? Many in the local FD's are so against it that they would prefer to see no response than consolidation, so the politicians follow them for votes. If we can show those here that consolidation is good for everyone, then there is a chance for great improvements.

Thanks. Maybe the problem is too many engines and not enough tankers. The duplication is not in tankers, its in engines, tower ladders & chiefs cars. The model generally is 1 engine (1,000 gal tank) and 1 tanker pumper (3,000 tanker with 1,000gpm pump) per station. Most stations have 3+ engines. Minimum response of 2 stations (8,000 gallons). Upon arrival the engine becomes the attack unit. The tanker can nurse and drop its porta tank. if the supply line has a clappered siamese. Once the 2nd due engine arrives it can take over as the source and the 1st tanker leaves to go fill. 2nd tanker can start dumping. This works well for room & content fire and if it becomes a surround and drown just send more tankers. We would have enough. Yes, poorly run ones suck. It is not likely that municipal systems will ever be done in most "rural" areas. Many places have done tanks or cisterns. The land issue is easy as the right of way nest to most intersections is large enough to install them. Also most land owners are willing to allow them as it protects them. I added one at my Moms and it saves them $1,000's in insurance. The cost to add them is often on the FD, but if it allows you a great water supply and a reduction in the needed engines, plus a drop in ISO, there are plenty of way to fund it. But its not under emergency conditions. How hard is it to schedule a tanker shuttle for an evening drill? Also many add a rainwater collection system to keep them "topped off". All the more reason for improving this.

ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS PUBLIC RELATIONS COMMITTEE. Sep 20, 2011 0911-38 In June of this year, the Hazardous Materials Reimbursement bill on FASNY's Legislative Scorecard passed both houses of the NYS Legislature. This bill has now been delivered to the Governor for his consideration. The bill (S.5444/A.7672), sponsored by Senator Zeldin and Assemblyman Sweeney, permits reimbursement for costs associated with the clean up of hazardous materials spills. Sounds good so far, but look at these excerpts from the legislation: "An act to amend the environmental conservation law, in relation to providing reimbursement to fire companies for costs associated with responding to releases of hazardous materials" "Reimbursement shall be limited to expendable materials in the response, and be limited to $10,000." My link This legislation has been proposed by FASNY each legislative session since at least 2004 Why is this BAD Legislation? 1) Currently Federal law has allowed full cost recovery for the last 31 years. TITLE 42--THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE CHAPTER 103--COMPREHENSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSE, COMPENSATION, AND LIABILITY (CERCLA)has allowed billing since December 1980. Was ammended by Superfund Amendments & Reauthorization Act (SARA) in 1986. 2) Why limit it to "expendable materials" and $10,000..............The Federal Law says ALL Costs associated. So if a FD responds and gets 10 sets of turnouts contaminated (and the product cant be deconned) You get $10,000 and your tax payers get to pay the other $25,000 - $40,000. What if you lose a rig? The spiller is required to have insurance, let them pay for their mistake. Note: We have had bills that were well over $100,000 and without billing many depts can not maintain their capabilities. Please advise the Governor's office if you think he should veto this bill by calling 518-474-8390 or email: NYS Governor Contact Page Thank You

Not only is it powerful and well tested, it can do a whole lot more than the old super pumper system. I watched this system operate in Europe 16 years ago and watching them drop it 200' off a bridge into the water and it moving water is impressive. They have used this system for 30+ years. They use it to replace 10 or more pumpers for rural water supply. And its the basis for the 1,600gpm system on our Rescue 4.

So which is it the IAFF or the Department that wants it? They are not one and the same and often they are on opposite side of many issues. NYS has 100 depts that are career or combo and only about 6 provide ALS. I dont think you have studied this enough. Who are you to determine what a community should think is valuable and is willing to pay for? All of Florida "forces" everyone to be FL. firefighters to get hired or promoted, does that make for a down grade in firefighters? So you've inteview all these ff's and determined this? I've been a paramedic and an instructor for over 25 years (firefighter & officer for similar), but my agency is BLS. I became a medic because I wanted to. My medic training makes me a better fire officer and my fire training makes me a better medic. I know many depts that its highly competative to even get into medic programs. I also know a number of non fire based medics, that are burned out, or want to be an RN, Cop, FF and the medic will be dropped when they get there. The medic is just to pay the bills for now (some are good and some are not....and many are forced by Mommy & Daddy because they need a job). Then how can you make claims about the entire fire service? Since the majority of EMS in the US is fire based and has been that way for 40 or more years when is this padding going to have any effect? Yes you are clearly a newbie and reading a bunch of articles maybe only has given you a small view of whats really out there. So its better to provide it for profit like the big commercial services? BTW, I'm not pissed off, Its common to see inexperienced people try to prove a point here.

Actually its becoming more relevant as they are being reviewed on their upgraded system by almost every states insurance commissions. I see many communities (including a few in Westchester) that have claimed they need a tower ladder for ISO improvement, when ISO does not say that need one. You could spend a lot of money for improvements if you do not understand the system. I am not advicating they spend for ISO, but they benifit from it. Yes it would, and I am not suggesting it, niether is ISO. Charlston was 1 of 43,000 depts and they even admitted that they did many things to look good in ISO's system. But the leadership did not believe in any of the things they were doing. 2 examples: they bought ladder trucks to meet the minimum distances, but the chief did not believe in them and would order them blocked out. Another is ISO credits a combination of different hose sizes & lengths. They never considered that a dept would use the wrong one. Is a booster line ok on a rig? sure, just not for a warehouse fire. ISO has an experation date, they resuvey every dept. and send out an annual survey, which asks what has changed. Again there is an expiration. In addition, depts are annually serveyed, if they fail to report a major drop in service, their notice says its called Insurance fraud and based on the millions involved, its a major deal. In addition, if the dept., say lays off FF's or closes fire stations, anyone (including those layed off) can and do notify ISO. Again you said you do not know that. So many of those items (and yes the list is kind of silly) are based on NFPA 1901, but the 1980 edition. They developed their equivalency list. This list allows you to supstitue CAFS, TIC and Extrication Tools for older "historic" equipment and get points. Last year ISO changed the standard to make all of the equipment and many of the other components based on the latest version of NFPA standards. Care to explain? I don't know that they do. I have a monitoring alarm and it saves exatly what it cost me for the service. You are correct that residential sprinklers will save more, but almost no one is adding them to anything but new construction. We have 15,000 homes that would need them.....not likely to happen. State Farm & Allstate wanted to abandon it and only Texas and 2 other states let them. Allstate came back after about 6 years and they determined that they lost more money not using it. In NYS its required by state law of all insurance companies. Yes they should, and in non-hydrant areas they are rated on performance, hence the poor ratings of most depts. The statistics are not highly variable, the insurance industry would not gamble trillions (since 1904) on it if it was not based on a highly accurate set of statistics. In fact one of the executive fire studies at the NFA looked at it and found that civilian death & injury statistics actually are affected by the PPC #.

Most engines do not have the space in the pump compartment to reoutfit them with CAFS so the only option then would be to replace most of the fleet. If thats the direction there are many other design items that need to be considered, but too many depts dont consider this as they do not have long term forward thinking plans. Conserving water only means it takes longer to put the fire out and in the end you will use more water. Earlier you said they are short of manpower, and you can not do all of those things without manpower. Also 99% of the apparatus in Westchester is not designed for effective operations of this type. Not if they do not have enough personnel to do their primary job. One of the items that give high points under ISO. Most depts do not do this and it costs them. Yes you have made that clear, but you have also said you do not understand ISO. How do you score well: Sufficient, well trained manpower. Tested/well maintained eguipment, positioned to provide a rapid response Command, a good communications system and preplanes Water supply (municipal or rural) Sounds like all the things your asking for.

not according to thier information. Even your link only hints to the fire side. which is where most of the brown outs have occured.

I understand that ISO is not the focus, my point was it can be used to pay for what clearly is an area that needs improvement. If these career firefighters are not going to me used for EMS, than the fire side is the bread and butter. Have failing grades in both the hydrant and nonhydrant areas means that fire protection needs to be addressed. Most of the things that ISO looks for is what you need to do to cover your fire protection needs. So you really can not ignor them and expect to solve your fire protection issues. Once you have solved your fire protection needs, then you can ask ISO to lower your rating and give something back to the community for their support of the FD. ISO is not a building block, its the end result of doing all of those things. Its not working on the iSO, its working on your ability to fight fire and then getting rewarded for it. The water sources you mentioned need to be properly planned out, (and there are formulas used toward ISO that work), most communities do not plan them out they put them where its convinient. Those sources only take more manpower if they are not designed correctly. The biggest mistake is to wait "long term", because you will never get there. Most depts. in these areas are still keeping apparatus for 20 years. If you buy a rig with the wrong configuration (pump, tank, dump, no squirel tail, no foot valves, not set up properly) then you have committed your dept. to the next 20 years of poor capability. There are great approaches to making giant improvements, but it takes total master planning. Fitch will do a great job for them on the EMS side, but the fire side will take longer and you can not wait for them to get into the fire consulting side to do. Yes a pumper tanker can factor in, but only as part of a total response plan. Generally the 1st alarm assignment needs a minimum of 6,000 gallons on wheels responding every time. More if the fill sites are farther than 1-1.5 miles away. Most people have no idea what the FD can or can not do and they do not believe they will ever need the FD (ask Bill). Somers fought over ALS for at least 12 years (till it was mandated). Sad to say, but most people do not care about the neighbors as much as they care about their wallet.

Yes, I think your contribution was $12.