helicopper

Yes, that is the way the law is written but who doesn't apply a little bit of common sense and turn the damn noisebox off on a straight away with no intersections, no traffic, and no pedestrians at 2:30 in the morning?

Your point is understood but I still disagree. Unless/until EMS agencies and VFD's start providing the level of comprehensive training and supervision that the military does, there is absolutely no comparision to the two. Yes, 18 year olds can serve in the military - after substantial training and with near constant supervision. Can EMS or VFD's say the same? Some of the other comparisons are the NYPD and college EMS agencies. Again, the NYPD example is similar to the military, they receive 26 weeks of training before they're allowed on the street and for the next 18 months they're on probation and supervised by an FTO, sergeant, CO, etc. so they're not blazing down Broadway with lights and siren - at least not more than once. College EMS agencies almost all have a faculty or administrative advisor so they're not completely unsupervised. Can an 18 year old be trusted to make the decisions required of an emergency vehicle operator. Yes, some can however they lack experience and judgement that only comes with time. Barry hit the nail on the head. He wouldn't want a new 35 year old driver either. Yes, the age to rent a car is 25 and even then you're probably still paying more than someone with more driving experience. So true about the siren phenomenon. Sadly some don't outgrow it and you can still find 40-teen year olds doing the same thing. Unsupervised is the key. EMS - volunteer and most career and most volunteer FD's lack the direct supervision that can help prevent some of these issues. Don't anyone misunderstand me either. I'm all for 18 year olds joining the emergency services (I did) but I think we need more supervision and training before we let anyone - especially a teenager or 20-something year old - operate emergency vehicles.

It isn't surprising that you don't think 18-21 is too young - you're 18-21. However, there is a lot to be said for the experience and judgement that comes with age. It can not be taught, it has to be learned over time and most companies won't permit an 18 year old to rent a Chevrolet Malibu and insurance is extremely high for this age bracket yet we let them drive heavy trucks with air brakes, etc. As for your analogy about the military - I will withdraw my reservations about 18-21 year olds driving ambulances and fire apparatus as soon as they start receiving 10 weeks of basic training (full-time) like the military. There's no comparing the training a soldier receives vs. the training a VAC or VFD provides a potential driver. I remember my VAC "driver training" and it was a joke, that was of course a long time ago but still... You're right that there are individuals that are more capable and experienced than their years but they are the exception and not the rule.

At least confer with the PD on scene before doing anything non-emergent to a vehicle involved in an accident (I'm not talking about extrication, I'm talking about things like cutting battery cables). If there is a serious injury or death and the possibility of an accident investigation cutting the battery cables may result in the loss of evidence and/or a difficulty in accessing evidence (computers, lights, vehicle settings, etc. More often than not you don't have to do anything to the vehicle especially if the victims are out. Cutting battery cables does not eliminate hazards from the battery - an overheating battery (at least in aviation batteries) can still explode even if disconnected. A damaged battery can still leak acid even if disconnected. Many of the things powered by electricity have their own capacitors so the hazard from them is not eliminated by cutting battery cables. Airbags are one such thing. Another good thing to confer with PD about is whether or not it is appropriate to put speedi-dry down. If they're doing an AI, they may prefer to have the tow service do it so the scene is "undisturbed" for investigative purposes. Again, all I'm saying is talk with your peers who have a job to do too. If we can help each other out, we should make the effort.

Very true. One of the problems is that everyone is budgeting for the bare minimum - not just in police and fire but in DPW and snow removal as well. Now that everyone is reaching into the municipal wallet again for yet another winter storm only to find that there's no money left. Then the knee jerk reaction is to try and find someone else to pay for it and Uncle FEMA is everyone's best buddy. Parts of western NY have received 8-12 feet of snow but they're not crying (too much) for FEMA. Municipalities have to start managing themselves and quit looking for a hand-out whenever it gets a little rough. The problem with all this is that FEMA money comes from us too so we're still paying even if they get federal aid. Too many act like it is "free money" because it comes from the feds.

Unified command existed and worked long before NIMS or HSPD-5. Herein lies another problem with the whole NIMS training plan. We're ramming a career's worth of incident management training (100-400 plus 700 and sometimes 800 courses) down people's throats in just a couple of years. We have people that have never been on an incident where a written IAP was needed going to 400 courses and learning about how to further expand the system. This is flawed logic. There are people out there who think, as a result of taking a 300 or 400 class that they're now "qualfied" to be an IC or fill another command or general staff position. At the end of a training class you're not qualified to do anything more than take the next higher level of that series. You need experience and proficiency to be qualfied and if people were learning how to use ICS as the tool that it is, we wouldn't be having this conversation so often. None of this is even 300 or 400 level stuff. It's really 200 level stuff and we're not doing it well. You don't have to agree for unified command to work, you have to know your job and your (and your agency) responsibilities. I've seen unified command work exceptionally well (I've also seen it fail miserably) and the reason for this was almost always inadequate training and not understanding how this process is supposed to help us do our jobs more effectively and efficiently. Having more to say doesn't change the municipal charter or laws that define your agency. You can be the DPW (to pick a neutral player) boss and run at the mouth incessantly, it doesn't give you any authority over police, fire, EMS or other municipal services. It isn't Utopian to think that if people are properly trained and experienced they can do the job right. On this point we agree. When you can't separate your ego from your actual responsibilities this process is on thin ice. Planning and meeting and training/exercising is exactly what I've been advocating. Nothing says that a unified command post has to be democratic to function, it has to be well-trained and experienced. I've seen some contentious discussions in unified command because of different objectives and priorities and you know what, it still worked because they knew their jobs. It's not just what the "government tells us". ICS has been working for nearly 40 years now all over the world. There must be something to it.

Thanks!

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm all for making necessary closures. When I was on the road, I frequently stopped all lanes so I could safely set up a flare pattern and let traffic back-up a little so it would have to slow down before passing the scene. Safety always comes first; I just think sometimes we do things because we can not because it's necessary.

Care to elaborate on this?

This is another one of the fundamental misunderstandings about unified command. There is no one person with final say. Each representative in unified command agrees to the objectives, agrees to the plan, and oversees their resources (99% of the time there is no Operations Section Chief but if appointed, he/she would be the conductor of the emergency service symphony. The EMS UC wouldn't be "messing up" a shooter at large call - he/she would convey his/her priorities to the other UC's and they would come up with a strategy to meet them. Perhaps LE would have to provide some security officers to accompany EMS or secure a corridor for EMS to quickly extract the victims to an area that is more secure. This is why the UC's need to communicate and have an understanding of this process. Likewise, at a clandestine drug lab, the PD may suit up appropriately trained responders to secure the building for HMRT responders to enter for air monitoring / hazard assessment. Then crime scene processing may occur, evidence secured by PD and hazardous substances (not deemed evidence) secured by HMRT for disposal. I don't see how anyone can argue that this isn't a PD operation and a haz-mat operation concurrently and it isn't because of who has the most resources on scene (if that were the case some people would simply call more so they could assert their authority over everyone else ). At an arson job, you'd have a hard time convincing me that there aren't concurrent responsibilities for PD and FD, and the list goes on. On highway jobs the FD/EMS piece is just one small facet of the overall response and PD has many responsibilities before and after the FD/EMS clear the scene. FD manages FD, PD manages PD, EMS manages EMS, and so on. There is rarely an instance where FD manages PD or vice versa so we operate in a unified command more often then we don't but because most are still not comfortable with the process it gets lost in translation. I think we do ourselves a great disservice when we only recognize the authority of the IC from our own agency/discipline too. If I'm the first poor soul at the scene of an incident, I am - by definition - the IC. As others arrive, that may change but the notion that the only IC is the FD IC is fundamentally flawed. Angry motorists are one issue with lane closures. These can lead to road rage and confrontations between drivers. Cascading events are another. When people start making illegal u-turns across a divided highway they create a substantial risk of another accident/incident. Driving the wrong way on a divided highway or exiting via entrance ramps, etc. are likewise major hazards. The longer you keep the road closed, the more problems and larger area is affected. Studies have been done by the transportation industry and they describe these problems in great detail. With regard to AI jobs, these are an incredibly small percentage of the total highway responses (I'd guess less than 1-2% at most) and when a road is closed for a protracted period, detours are established and every effort is made to communicate the closure to the public to avoid some of the above problems. On another note - why do we have HELP trucks? To help facilitate traffic movement. The goal is to reduce/limit delays caused by disabled vehicles and accidents. Why does the State (and others) spend so much money on this program if keeping traffic flowing isn't a priority? I'm not suggesting that our safety isn't a priority but I've seen the good the bad and the ugly at highway jobs. Interstate highways are directly connected to the economy and the cascade effect can be regional - again there are studies/reports out there on the subject. The bottom line is line is we can do better and avoid most of these problems with communications, training, and exercises.

It wouldn't be to everyone's benefit to "name the IC" because things are always different and rarely the same twice. There are so many variables that influence who should be represented in unified command - if we just did away the notion that a single person should be the sole person managing an incident we'd be much better off - that it is in our best interest to leave the law ambiguous but improve the training, support, and understanding of the process. The fire to conceal a crime scene, the accident that becomes a haz-mat, the clandedstine drug lab, the search for a suspect in multiple jurisdictions, etc.etc.etc. How do you just boil this down and say any one person is or should be in charge. The implementation of ICS needs to mature and people need to get beyond that first page in the book. There are some places that do this quite well and others, well that still thump their chest and proclaim themselves to be the supreme high mystic exalted ruler. Training and Exercises are two simple ways to resolve this. Every incoming fire officer and every new police supervisor should be trained and exercised on their roles and responsibilities and how to interact with one another - TOGETHER - not in two different training centers 100 yards apart with a 14 foot fence separating them (for example). As so many others have said, nothing is gained by lapsing into a pissing match on a scene.

It might have worked if someone had the fortitude to change it but leaving it the same for 9 years was pointless and it did become one of the most ridiculous things out there.

In that case it was not an "optional" fire protection fee. It was the only way to secure fire protection and the homeowner who didn't pay suffered for his decision.

One key point that we all have to get into our heads - the fire chief (or other officer) is not the IC of everything. He/she is in charge of his/her department and their response but there is no statute in NYS that grants such broad, far-reaching authority to anyone (Police, FIre, EMS, dog catcher). If you really think that all the police do is write a report and stay out of your way you're grossly ill-informed. It is time to get past the chest thumping and big egos and attitudes and start working like the team we all profess to be. As far as your 95% of the time the cops are "in the way" statement, you really need to pan out and start looking at the big picture - the cops were doing what you're complaining about - making the scene safe by stopping traffic and safeguarding the scene. In your other example you point out that a rookie cop parked his car in the wrong place - he learned, he probably won't do it again but your comments did little to foster the relationship between PD and FD. I will contend that there are an equal number of FF who don't know what the law is (or flagrantly disregard it), don't know when they should quit while they're ahead and frequently overstep their bounds. Shall I lump them all into one category and make condescending remarks about the fire service? If we start to practice what we preach and actually do ICS instead of just talking about who is in charge, things will start getting better. We also have to follow the advice of another poster here - when these conflicts arise, sit down in a room develop a plan, train everyone on the plan, and at least be a little sensitive to our peers in the other disciplines. I also agree with another poster that these are isolated incidents with one or two individuals involved and do not reflect the law enforcement / fire service relationship as a whole. They just get lots of attention for obvious reasons.

It isn't as simply as just throwing in a 10x12 bunk room, is it? Don't you run into ADA issues, facilities requirements for men and women, bathroom/shower requirements, etc.? I don't know the code requirements but maybe someone can clarify this wiht the actual regs. It is a great point that not putting in facilities now greatly limits your options in the future.

Maybe they're all refugees from Stamford! (sorry, I couldn't resist)

Don't the police in CT use blue lights? One of the issues was probably the use of a blue light for a non-permtted purpose and the actions of the dispatcher 'instructing" the caller to pursue the vehicle. It would appear that the driver of the suspect vehicle was indeed attempting to flee and the flashing lights may have exacerbated the situation. But of course, this is all speculation on my part.

If we get much more snow I may vote on Monroe County, FL also!

This doesn't include all the officers wounded by gunfire already this year. That would drive these numbers way up and be even more disturbing. 2010 2011 14 14 10 by gunfire.

JJB, great post. The only other tactical issue that I want to bring up that may contribute to some of these incidents is the use of a tactical team for high-risk warrant executions. We've all seen it, either first-hand or on TV or both. The street cops/agents throwing on big vests over their t-shirts and jeans and then storming into a house/apartment. Just like we've got to train the way we're going to fight, we have to use the right resources for the right jobs. Warrant-Fugitive units, narcotics units, other units should not be conducting tactical entries. Tactical teams should be conducting tactical entries. Too many administrators, supervisors, and unit members think that "they can do it" or they "should do it" for a myriad of reasons - only some of which are valid.

For those of us not familiar, what is the O/V position? Thanks, Chris

Excellent photos, Bill. I know you've probably been asked this here but I'll ask again anyway - what kind of camera and flash are you using?

It is truly mind boggling. I'd be very interested to see if these high-risk warrants are being executed by tactical teams or just warrant-fugitive units. BE SAFE!!!!

And since this thread was started the number has already risen by one. Yesterday a police officer in South Carolina was killed and another seriously injured in a head-on collision. Drive safely, the life you save may be your own!

A single FD for an entire COUNTRY. Amazing. 31 million does seem low but they're probably not a whole lot of bells and whistles and fluff on them. I think we've seen some local departments buying engines for about 400K and these average out to be just under 300K. Just basic, utilitarian apparatus for a developing nation and I'm sure they get a discount for buying so many.