Bnechis

Great statement, care to site where in NFPA it requires this? I'l give you a hand NFPA 1901 is the apparatus standard and I cant find anything in the standard that requires it. Thats why our new engine and many other have discharges on both sides.

Because they are not getting out the door for calls. Also they have a big problem with simple house fires, they keep burning until they either 1) run out of fuel or 2) SFRD puts them out.

You have brought this up before and you have been told that it does not mater if the union sanctions it or not. Unlike the SVFD firefighters, SFRD firefighters do not get to pick which calls they go on.

Nice pictures, but none of our boat?

The driver of the element must look pretty stupid with all those lights flashing while he is sitting at a traffic light or does he ignor those laws also. It does show how important he thinks he is, that if he does not get there quick all is lost. And most long island depts claim they get huge turnouts.

Interesting. The law still requires that all effected services be accounted for.

Did the Town of Somers perform an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) as required by law when this development was proposed? Did the Somers Fire Commissioners comment on it (as required by law)? Did they advise the community that this development would require additional service and that might raise the cost of the FD? Did SFD make adjustments to handle the increased volunm (and increased taxation?)? Funny I do not remember any of this in what I was sworn in. We have a number of new developments that tax our system, but we do not consider it unfair (on the part of the development). The solution, increase your capabilities to handle it. The community agreed to the development now live up to your word of protecting them. So then we should cut them off? Either find a way to reduce the volume (education is one way) or increase your ability to handle it.

We have tested every system and found many of the statements to be accurate. We did have a few different experiences. We tried an SCBA system (F.F.R.E.D.). it worked very well when bailing out and we placed 2 in-service for field testing. At an incident a ff wearing this got off the rig grabbed the can and went to the building. After 50 feet he fell, turns out the rope got caught on the rig and deployed, after 50' he came to a sudden stop. This is critical. Any systems needs to deploy quickly and without much effort, but at the same time NEVER hang you up (which could trap you). We tried a number of different locations for the rope and ended up developping our own design for a lumbar bag. Everyone who tried it liked this system best. It is being custom made for us, but will be commercially available shortly.

Career FD's have state mandates for basic and officer training and chiefs are civil service positions that have prerequisits for advancment.

That ship sailed long ago. Both offered to pay for ALS for the town (way back when) and the SFD turned them down because "Our residents dont want paramedics when they are having a heart attack, they want a friendly volunteer from up the block to hold there hand". And both already pay fire tax which supports the current system.

Not likely since the water is provided by a private company and not the city.

Ok So they gave almost 2 whole pages. Another 40 or so and it could even be a good start. It is not in the state curriculum, so your instructor "added it". So what did he skip? Most basic water rescue courses are 20 hours and that does not cover what was needed in this incident. As it is the FF1 class only schedules 6-9 hours to cover the 15 hours of Hazmat Ops material in the class. So did you get even less of that to fit water rescue in or did it come from some other minor area, like firefighting? Wow, some drills. If thats all it took why do we need formal courses for anything. You do not even know what information you do not know, this is the problem with having only a minor exposure to a serious topic.

Does the USCG enter into mutual aid agreements? If you do not provide a service and you ask another agency to do it for you, can you call it "mutual aid"?

They have asked for this every legislative session for the past 18+ years. It has never even made it to the floor. While anything is possible, I would not hold my breath.

A number of years ago a local PD responded to a fire in an animal hospital. Arriving ahead of the FD, the PO made entry to search for an attendent. The firefighters found the PO down and draged him out, then went back and got the attendent. All his actions did was delay rescue. The irony is the dept. gave him a medal and when I went to clip the newspaper article I noticed that on the back side was an article the PESH had given the PD a fine for violating labor law and not have a policy to instruct their employees not to enter an area that they were not trained or equipped to enter.

Ok so its in the book, is the material covered in class? Any hands on?

Ok so the next time someone is trapped in a confined space, you should jump in unequipped to save them (note 60% of those that do this have died) or someone is trapped in an unshored trench, you should jump in to save them or a sniper is taking shots in an open lot, instead of waiting for properly trained and equipped LEO's you should run into the kill zone because you are a human (but not likely after the shooting stops). or a fully involved fire, no gear, no SCBA, because someone said my baby is in there (he was refering to his car or her cat.) I am not saying we should not go in harms way, but we have policies to improve the chances of both the victim and the rescuers. Without the training & equipment, your death does not help this victim or the next one. Some here have said we are no 1 and the victim is no 2, An instructor of mine many years ago said we were no 7. No 1. is the rescuer No 2. is his family (particularly his children) No 3. is his partner or crew (some say #2 & 3 should flip flop) No 4. is the dept. (which will be hurt by his death) No 5. is the municipality or communicty (which will have to pay for the loss or litigation and thus will reduce service to the next victim) No 6. is all the lawyers that will be litigating this case No 7. is the idiot who most likely put himself into this position (and if rescued,will probable try again next week [even if the rescuers are killed in this attempt]). How dare you speak for those hero's. They were well trained, well equipped, well staffed, following long established policies and the extremly well respected Operations officer (Ray Downey) stated shortly before the collapse and his death that the buildings would come down but he thought there was enough time to resuce many/most of the people inside and still pull out in time. This is not the same, do not use 9-1-1 to put down others, their is no comparison. thank you.

Did you actually have "hydrant" on your wish list or it just happened that their was a hydrant in front of the house you found. Do you also have SCBA or do you plan on risking your life to save your home?

"An as needed basis"......ROFLMAO So nothing will change. A major step forward.............................."Remain Calm...All is well"

So is command staff incompetent if they have confined spaces and no confined space rescue team? Tech rescue teams take to long to cover confined space, and every community in America has confined spaces and very few FD's have teams. We saw last year what the cost of not having capabilities, but municipalities will roll the dice until they get away with it.

I just went back thru all the post and found that it took 73 post before it turned into a paid vs. volunteer discussion with this statement: "There is only one difference between a volunteer and paid department. Payroll and pension costs. Otherwise they're exactly the same." Prior to that I saw no one attacking either side or making false statements about either side. If I connect the 1st sentence with the 2nd you appear to be implying that I have stated "volunteers /departments suck!". I take great offense as I know many excellent volunteers and many excellent depts and have stated that regularly and work with many vol. depts. This week 3 different depts called me for assistance, which I have always given. I have clearly stated that depts or individuals that hide behind the shield of "volunteer" while providing substandard service are fair game. I have also spoken out against career and combo depts that also do not meet standards. You $315 is a nice low number, but hard to give a fair comparison since I do not know what the value of your home is or exactly which insurance district it is in. But I can give it a shot..... I pay $425 for a 100% career FD and all ALS EMS. I know exactly what services will show up at my house in 3 minutes. Do I pay more because of the services or because of the value of my home compared to yours...do not know, but economicly what do I get for my additional $110/year? I get an ISO rate that is lower than every structure in your town, In fact some parts of your town are listed as an ISO 9, that means I save anywhere from $80 - $540 in insurance than a comperable home in your town. The cost of fire protection is not just the FD Budget, there are many other factors and infact, even with a career FD, the smallest portion of cost for fire protection is the FD.

So making claims that you can not back up with facts is sharing? I am sorry that you feel that way. But you put a lot of issues out there and made many claims that you can not back up. I break them apart so my comments clearly address the comments and there is no confusion. Almost 100 posts and over 600 readers, the participation is better than some worst than others. Why thank you. There is plent of room for everyone to offer ideas, there are many ways to address these issues. A wise chief often told me "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story"....while that makes for good stories, I have real issues when people make claims that are simply not true.

This is one of the more frustrating aspects of being an instructor. For decades, you passed the course if you showed up and signed in and you passed. No testing. I've had students who fell asleep in the classroom and we left them, and went out to the drill yard. I have also seen many students who it was clear the dept did not want to drop, and was hopping we would wash them out and "solve" their problem. How as an instructor do pass a student who cant or wont wear SCBA? Great question, As JohnnyOV states below, this problem has been created by FASNY. But at a minimum, the Chief of the dept., can set the bar, as can the board of Fire Commissioners and the County Fire Coordinator. But to do so they need to accept the concept of quality over quantity. Well said

If you look at the per capita costs or better look at the amount of tax paid by each property is higher the lower the communities population is. This is not just a vollie issue. Yonkers properties pay less than New Rochelle and have better staffing, NYC pays less than Yonkers and has better staffing than Yonkers. Two years ago I evaluated the property tax in 15 volunteer fire districts in Westchester and found that the average property tax bill for fire protection was higher than the average was in the 3 cities listed above.

Agreed, and many depts need to consider this Thats a shame. So how do you deal with it? 1) make sure you have a fine system that continues to escilate, doubling each time is very effective. Another effective tool is making sure the building is fully evacuated, while you perform a complete search for the problem, works even better in the rain or snow, also works well with large commercial buildings, like supermarkets & home depot. Tough on the manager when he has to explain to corprate why the loss of sales. Mandating a fire watch when the building is occupied and giving the manager court appearance tickets everytime......make sure there are different court dates on each offence and document everything. We found that the judges were unwilling to get tough without showing a history of the problem, they also advised us that once a pattern is established and they start seeing the same issue in their court, they will consider contempt charges for failing to fix the problem. I did not suggest a paid dept. I suggested that if the town fails to effectivly handle the problem, the fire districts only response is a paid dept and clearly from your response that will stir the pot....just make sure its directed at the town for the problem and I believe they will solve the problem. Agreed, the problem is clear that many responders simply stop showing up. Excellent.