res6cue

I've never been bothered by riding in a seat with an SCBA in it, nor have I really ever heard our guys complain. The backplates of the Scotts are pretty comfy anyway, in my opinion. I'm not saying there aren't pros or cons to either scenario, but I definitely don't dislike having the pack right there and ready to strap on. It's a hell of a lot easier to strap up and walk away than it is to carry the pack out of the truck with you and have to do an over the shoulder or over the head donning. I can only speak to my own dept, but we pack up for every call where there is a potential for fire or other IDLH environment. Yes, that includes automatic alarms. I couldn't even imagine why anyone would selectively pack up. What happens if that BS automatic turns out to be a basement fire you stumble upon during investigation? Not only do you waste time running out to get packed up, but you've got no protection in the meanwhile. Nope, we go into all situations packed up and carrying tools and at least one can.

Not sure about Westchester, but here in Rockland EMTs can and do pronounce. I know back in the early 90s when I was still certified and working as a Tech, I personally pronounced my fair share. Back then we were told that Rockland was the only county in NYS to allow EMTs to pronounce, and it had to do with the County Medical Examiner allowing it. Not sure if that still holds true today.

Pics taken at the factory on October 9th (not by me though)...

Eli, hope you don't mind me posting the pics you took last week, figured some here might not've seen them posted at firepics.net. First, the new Tower... The mural on the new Tower... And two nice shots of the old Tower...

From KME's website: * KME Predator XLFD W/ 22“ Raised Roof * Detroit Series 60 515HP Engine W/ Jake * Allison 4000 EVS 5-SPD Auto Transmission * 27' - 12 Gauge Stainless Steel Walk Around Rescue Body * Whelen Warning Light Package * Will Burt Night Scan Light Tower * Fiberglo Compt Rope Lighting * 35,000 Watt Onan Protec Direct Drive PTO Generator * 4 Bank 6,000psi Cascade System * 3,200lb Palfinger Crane * Hurst Octo-Flow System * (2) Zip-Dee Awnings (1 Each Side) * (11) UPF Poly Removable Toolboxes * (2) 3/16” Pull-Out Tool Boards * (4) 3/8” Pull-Out Tool Boards * (2) Hannay Air Reels * (6) Hannay Hydraulic Hose Reels

I'm not sure why anyone using Firefox would ever switch back. IE7 is nothing but a Firefox ripoff anyway, complete with all the usual Microsoft flaws and security vunerabilities. IE also has terrible support for universally adopted Internet standards like CSS. Microsoft's long held position has been "If we didn't design it, we don't care to support it" and sadly, IE7 is no different.

I can't see them going away from Aerialscopes. Ferrara doesn't even make their own aerials, they're supplied by Smeal, and obviously they don't make any boom type towers, only ladders in 85' or 100' midmount configuration. As far as the engines, who knows. Anything is possible I suppose. Ferrara has already made a few FDNY spec engines and they clearly have their foot in the door what with all the SOC trucks they've built for them.

Interesting concept. I'd also be concerned about not waking up to just a voice, as Remember585 says, unless it's some kind of loud beeping I'm dead to the world. Maybe if this thing had 5 seconds of a loud alarm alternating with the voice message, that would be ideal. I don't think the voice alone is a good idea though.

They were fairly popular in the 60s and 70s here in Rockland. Blauvelt, Central Nyack, Monsey, Nanuet, Pearl River, Piermont, Spring Valley and West Nyack all had one or more at some point. The only one left in service is Central Nyack's 1976 pumper 2-1500. It was refurbed by Pierce and mounted on an Arrow chassis in 1995. It was originally in service as 2-1501 with a 750 gallon tank, but was upgraded to 1000 gallons during the refurb. (thanks to Brian "Photofires" Duddy for the detailed info!)

Interesting. There are quite a lot of copperheads and rattlesnakes around here in Rockland, especially up north and west along the edge of all the parkland. I used to live off 202 right alongside Kakiat Park and saw them all the time. Even took a video of a rattlesnake sunbathing in my backyard. I used to find the molted skins all over the yard.

How "vintage" are you talking? There are a few holdovers from the early 80s here in Rockland, although I'm not sure they're really considered vintage. Old and tired, maybe . Now, what might be a little interesting is that our 1984 E-One/GMC rescue is the only E-One in Rockland, and to my knowledge the only E-One ever in the entire history of our county. The replacement Pierce is due to be delivered very soon though, and the E-One will be retired in the near future.

Roll up doors are a body option, not a chassis (cab) option. The Velocity is a chassis redesign and will have very little to no impact on the options you can get on a Pierce body, whether it's a pumper, aerial, rescue or anything else you spec and they build. The new cabs are growing on me a bit, I have to admit. I definitely do not like them as much as the Lance/Dash, nor will I ever. I'm glad our rescue will have one of the last Lance cabs produced. One thing I still cannot understand is how the XT is large enough to house the 07 compliant engines but the Lance/Dash are not. There is very little noticeable difference between the designs, and it would certainly appear that they could be modified to comply. Oh well, no use complaining about it, what's done is done.

How about a nod to the classic flick "Planes, Trains and Automobiles (Boats too!)" or something like that?

One more piece of the long, proud and distinguished history and tradition of American firefighting unceremoniously done away with by empty suits. It truly is a sad day indeed. Good luck, brothers, in wherever life takes you now.

You know what, now that I think about it...the public SHOULD be outraged. I mean, 68 hits out of 110 shots is only a 61.8% accuracy rate. I think some of these guys need to be recertified, surely next time they can do better!

I haven't touched IE since I switched to Firefox many moons ago, and for good reason. I tried IE7 on a friend's computer and was not impressed at all. Firefox is superior in every way, especially with the right mix of extensions. As far as the sites that don't render correctly in Firefox due to ActiveX controls or whatnot, the plain truth is that those sites are coded terribly. They were coded for IE using Microsoft's proprietary junk. By the same token, IE has horrible support for adopted Internet standards such as CSS. http://www.windowsitpro.com/windowspaulthu...rott_47208.html

Waste of perfectly good bullets and money, perhaps, but not excessive. Whether they fired 1 shot or 110, either way they were shooting to kill this scumbag, as they should've been. There's no mercy for an armed suspect who just killed and wounded cops and clearly intends on taking out more. There are some things that make me truly sick to my stomach. Reading about the family crying foul over their complete piece of sh!t relative getting gunned down AFTER killing a cop, killing a police dog and wounding another is one of them. Reading some bullsh!t about how "it was because he was black!" is another. I love the quote by the Sheriff also. He's probably right, they probably only stopped firing after all their clips were empty. Good for them.

Yeah that was definitely a good one. Basically completely devoid of cheesy, stereotypical cliches, thankfully. I really liked the guy from Wisconsin, especially the story he tells of the guy with the "NO FEAR!!!" sticker on his helmet. We all know "that guy". He got it right though, as far as the glory part being only a small fraction of what we do overall.

You have to take the bad with the good. If you can't deal with the not so positive criticism, then you probably shouldn't ask for any input at all. You should know by now that it's more or less human nature for people to point out the negatives before they'll heap praise upon you. I think the sheer amount of people that post here and visit all your sites should be positive reinforcement enough, shouldn't it?

What does ANY of that have to do with actual firefighting??? It looks like nothing more than a circus act full of dangerous and juvenile stunts. Way to hose the taxpayers. As if buying million dollar apparatus, 10 million dollar palaces for firehouses, giving each commissioner their own vehicle, taking extravagant trips all around the country, etc etc etc weren't bad enough. I'm actually pretty stunned, I can't believe this crap actually goes on and no one has completely shut these districts down, sued them or had charges of fraud and misuse of tax dollars brought against them. Absolute disgrace.

You're talking about two different things now. If you want to b**** about mutual aid companies favoring each other, or companies skipping over each other because so and so doesn't like the other Chief, that's one thing. Discussing whether or not aerial ladders should or shouldn't be quints is quite another. The two points are these: 1. Some depts prefer quints, some don't. Some need that kind of apparatus because they can't guarantee they'll get many engines out, or they just don't have many engines to begin with. That's their choice and they go with what works for them. Just because it doesn't work for your dept doesn't mean a thing. As similar as we are with most things, we also have needs that are specific to ourselves that have to be addressed. 2. An Incident Commander should have every right to special call any unit he wishes, for any reason he deems it necessary. There may be reasons a certain piece is called for, or a certain company is skipped over, that might not be readily apparent. There are times we skip over a dept completely for mutual aid because we know given a certain day or time of day, calling them would create a manpower or apparatus void should there be another incident. On paper, mutual aid seems easy and it seems logical that you should pull from the nearest depts, but that's not always the best approach. The IC must retain the ability to run his operation as he sees fit. Now, if a pattern develops where it's readily apparent that he's purposely skipping depts because of a grudge, then perhaps a sit down is in order. But, in the end, he calls the shots. Period.

NFPA standard requires that all air operated accessories, including the airhorns, stop working when the system air pressure drops to 80 psi or below. Also, most systems have multiple dry tanks, one of which is used for the accessories while the other(s) are dedicated solely to the service brakes.

What the hell is wrong with these guys?!? Do they not learn their lesson? You know what the biggest joke is? That after all the fallout from the Newsday expose last year, including the passage of quite a bit of state legislation intended to curb this kind of nonsense and abuse, fire districts outside of LI have stood up and taken notice. Our district is now on edge about anything that might or could be misconstrued as irresponsible spending, which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But it angers me greatly to know that the very same districts that were examined for this abuse are still at it, as if to thumb their noses at everyone. What arrogance!

This is always such a hot button issue. The "To Quint, or not to quint..." thread on the firehouse.com forums is over 240 posts, some of them a bit hostile. Feelings definitely run deep on the topic. Personally, coming from a vollie background, I like having a pump/tank on our aerials. Both of our aerials are quints, the 75' single axle rearmount stick and the 95' tandem axle midmount tower ladder. They each have a 1500 GPM pump and 340 and 300 gallon tanks, respectively. What I like about them is that as a vollie dept, it gives you great flexibility. You don't have to worry about having an engine tied up just to pump the pipe. You also have another vehicle that is capable of extinguishing a fire if need be, especially if there is no engine immediately available. I like that self sufficiency. As of right now, all our trucks are wet, including the rescue. That will change when our new rescue is delivered, however, as there is no pump/tank on it. So in a way, we have gone away from the self sufficient philosophy, but we felt is wasn't any great loss on a rescue truck. There are a few things I don't like about quints, however. There is definitely more maintenance involved with them, and more moving parts that can put the truck out of service. They are almost always heavier than their dry counterparts, which can pose additional problems. Although this doesn't affect me, I don't like when they're used in a career dept to reduce staffing requirements by combining an engine and truck company. I do not like them to take the place of an engine at a scene, I think they're very ineffective when used that way. Especially if the driver doesn't position the truck for best use of the aerial rather than stretching lines. We all know once those lines are deployed, you're anchored in place. Our dept flirted with using the stick as first due back when it was brand new. That was a very short lived experiment though. Of course it comes down to individual needs and preferences. For our vollie dept, I think they're great, but only because we use them 99% of the time as a truck. We made sure not to sacrifice too much compartment space and we still have a big compliment of ground ladders on them (the 75' even has a 40' Bangor on it). We can get away with some reduced compartment space also, because we don't carry extrication equipment on the aerials like many depts do. We have a separate rescue and rescue-engine for that. Incidentally, neither of our trucks really experience any slow down of ladder ops when the pump is engaged. Even performing all three motions simultaneously when the truck is at idle is still pretty quick. The newer tower ladder is better, which I suspect is due to better gearing of the hydraulic pump PTO or just a more efficient hydraulic system design.

Ah ok, I see your point. In our dept, food for monthly meetings and parades comes from the company coffers, which is not tax money. That money is dues, donations, fundraisers, etc. However, food after calls, drills and training DOES come from the district. That's why I used food after calls as an example. I don't ever really consider anything coming from the company as being "payment", as it's all private funds. Maybe I should've used a better example, like if the district were to buy us all jackets or hats which came from tax dollars. Our district doesn't do that, but I think if they did, that would be borderline. I agree, but I do think it can be done in stages. If you were to start an incentive program like the one in NJ, but put a reasonable cap on it, that's a start. If you're still having issues with lack of manpower, you might have to look into a paid on call type of system. Then next step might be a combo dept (although in my personal opinion, those types of depts can be quite contentious and only lead to bitterness). The final step would be putting a full time career dept in place. So in a way it could be a gradual shift, but I don't think in the sense that you're going to directly convert your entire volunteer dept and all members to a full time paid dept.