Bnechis

Well done

For those who have been pro pull box, your argument of speed & reliability is reasonable. Those against point to the expense of maintenance and the high number of false calls is also reasonable. What system works when all else fails? Sometimes the box, but without maintenance which most systems appear to lake, they maybe just as unreliable. What no one wants to acknowledge is the main reason that they are being removed & or not upgraded/replaced is budget. If you are the chief and your budget choice is keep your manning, close a station or ditch the box system (which has high false #s) which do you pick? No one is saying that back up system are bad, but it is a budget choice

What an interesting issue. I have seen a number of depts & unions that have fought to get "day-slaves" to deal with a lack of volunteers and just as many depts & unions that have fought against it. I think part of the issue has been the board still considers EFD to be a combination department, but with no volunteers left, it is really just a severly undermanned career dept. One problem I see is your land area is similar to NR or WP, but your population is almost 1/2 making it very hard to fund to the same level. The quint in EFD's case should not have an effect on the rating (they may have thought it would).

The Eastchester Fire District covers the Town of Eastchester which includes the villages of Bronxville, Tuckahoe and the unincorporated portion of the Town. Villages can have a municipal dept or they are covered by a district (which covers some or all of the town + the village), but generally they do not contract the service.

If the weight of the water on the roof is an issue, then the tactics of pooring water onto it from tower ladders is a waste of time and water. Bring those towers down to street level and get the water under the waterproof roofing.

After the 1st one gets it caught in the wheels of a roller coaster, I suspect they will have a policy. Can the group then riot for not discriminating against them?

So your post most be true......hehehehe

Can any of the LEO's explain what, if any, additional powers you are given under state law (or local laws, if applicable)? On the same note: When the politicians declare a state of emergency and/or mandatory evacuations, what law or law allows you to actually remove someone from their property, or is it just a great sound bite for the politician?

And what it looked like "back in the day"

Every company must have and be well trained with AT LEAST 1 T.I.C. for EVERY interior crew. If your department does not have at least 1 T.I.C. on every rig......WHY NOT? When you buy a new ladder that costs $750,000 - $1.2m and you cant afford a couple of $10,000-$20,000 T.I.C's you need to consider what you are doing. How much does the gold leaf or the fancy drawing cost?

Great points George. We had many similar questions until an insident a few years ago. We had a fire in a private single family home. Heavy smoke on the 2nd floor, almost none on the 1st. little or no visable flame. OVM took out a window in a 2nd floor bedroom. Heavy smoke pushed out and then it flashed. At the time an engine company on the 1st floor was in the living room below the fire. They were fully encapsulated including hoods. light haze, no heat (confirmed by TIC). When the room above flashed the force knocked down the living room ceiling and the crew encountered flame and very high heat. 1 member recieved 2nd degree burns to his ears after the hood burned thru 1 of its 2 layers. If he had not been wearing one, we do not know how bad the injuries would have been. I think the real debate of feeling the changing conditions is this: If you are crawling thru high heat, with a hood you may not notice the minor heat changes that occur as flashover nears. But, if you encounter a sudden change in conditions not having the hood will be a problem and having the hood will not limit your ability to notice (because it happens to fast)

They do not look at "single" events, they look at your average responses, so missing 1 or 2 out of 100's or 1,000's is not an issue. If they start doing that many depts will be in big trouble on every incident, since few meet any of the standards that the courts will use.

Two questions you need to consider: 1) how effective will your firefighting effort be during the storm? Will you actually change the outcome you set up? 2) How much additional risk are you placing your personnel & equipment in? How much risk to the community in all future situations if we lose personnel & equipment now. The key line is Risk vs. Benefit.

There are no direct legal requiremnts, however The General Duty Clause of OSHA states: 29 U.S.C. § 654, 5(a)1: Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees." Generally, thats close. We use (and got from many Fl. Depts) Sustained gail force winds (39 mph), but only if it is ahead of a hurricane.

Go back about 77 pages and the "history" is a couple of houses burning to the ground when the volunteers did not show up. Good thing it was at night and they did make the other 85%. If you go back a few pages I took a stab at the math and found that the proposed contract did not have enough personnel to cover the proposed staffing pattern even if none of the career staff were on vacation, sick etc. The only way is 4 engines? Maybe thats why ISO 9 is what exists in this area. I find it very hard to believe that no one has pointed out that water supply is a major component in fighting fire in areas without hydrants. I'll leave the truck and rescue functions out, since we have not even covered basic engine ops here.

According to everyone here most of the calls are M/A off the reservation and most of the calls on the reservation can bill Insurance, or Medicaid (which the county pays).

That would assume that the 100 year old fire house (that was determined to be structurally unsound by engineers) and is located in the flood plane is safer than ones private home.

Since the existing 4.5 packs sell for over $5,000 each, I dont think too many of us will see these in depts. anytime soon. Interesting biz. In 8 years the price went up 40%+. The NFPA standard, kept push the pack weight up with safety features which drove the cost up. Now they are to heavy so we can replace them with new ones.

I was going to post exactly that. Can you explain why you think the county should fund it?

Actually there is a more direct financial corrilation in the fire service. While the APD example thinks their will be a reduction in crime adding on the fire side has a direct impact on the ISO rating. If you do your math on it, you can calculate the rating change (which once you hire, you can call ISO and get re-rated) and the property owners can get a reduction in their premiums. Often the savings are at 10 to 1 ratio over the costs to the FD. And your Fire Patrol example iis not a valid one since they were insurance company funded and only covered a small portion of the insured properties in the city. While a wonderful resource, i suspect the insurance industry felt that the cost were not offsetting the savings (particularly if commercial clean up companies are readily available).

Like you got out of the city.........Look at them sea cow's

Why did the IV contain steak sauce?

20% is a common time off for calculating costs, The may be different, but its a starting point.

In NYS they must meet code. An inspection by code enforcement, would not detect a design flaw (just that it was built to an engineers plan) and may or may not detect an improper instilation.

1) Either he will or he won't. People leave for many reasons and its rarely on day one of the year. 2) You rarely get an answer. 3)Astorino does not have too. 4) Wiped out? He is looking at it politically not financially. His transition committee found a number of cost savings in both DES & DPS and almost NONE of them have been implimented.