AFS1970

I know of one nearby department that payed a per-diem wage to attend training. I do not know if it was hourly or not, but I know that I met guys in classes that were encouraged to take more training because of the money. In one class I was taking on recruitment and retention the instructor saw one of these students and had him stand up and tell us briefly about it. I kind of like this idea but I have some reservations of any plan that pays volunteers and still calls them volunteers. I also think that if you are going to pay it is backwards to pay me to sit in a classroom but expect me to go into a fire and die for free. I can think of a few departments that pay by response, but to me these systems are always one step away from fraud complaints. First would be a volunteer system that pays per call, but allows members to call in to say they were responding if they get canceled en route. It seems to me that on certain calls nobody has any way of knowing if you really got off the couch or not. I have seen similar systems in a couple of career departments where overtime was open book for certain types of calls. One friend told me he rarely did any work but often just had to drive by the scene and the chief waved him on. I was in a class once in a department that had a system of calling certain groups back on OT for full boxes ( I do not remember if there had to be reported smoke or fire) but a call came in and half the class left to take extra OT rigs to the scene. Some of the guys even said they were only going because they were in the building and might as well make some quick money during class. I don't know much about LOSAPS, however I know that Stamford promised to start one way back in the late 1990's. It never happened. I think that if managed correctly this could be a big retention aid as it would reduce some turnover. I have seen departments that use the tax incentives CT allows as a sort of LOSAP and they seem happy with the results. One department gives $100 off per year of service so it takes you 10 years to reach the $1,000 max. Another gives $250 per year for each of the last 4 years that you have made your quota. This way someone with a bad year may still get something, but a bad year will take 4 years to recover from. I know of one town that has worked out a deal with a neighboring city to extend tax relief to out of town members, although I am not sure of what kind of legal wrangling that took.

The rule does not say that for EVERY 2 inside there needs to be 2 outside. If this were the case it would quickly turn into the 4/4, 10/10 or even 100/100 rule as an incident grew. This would mean almost no department in the world would be compliant. It does say that for any interior operation there have to be 2 outside ready to be deployed. Now this leads to the next bit of confusion. In the fire service everyone loves to have battles over regulations. It is almost a national pastime. various government agencies (NFPA, OSHA, NIOSH) vie for supremacy and many departments try to see how far they can push adhering to the bare minimums. Sometimes this is a manpower issue, sometimes it is a budget issue and sometimes it is an old timer issue. The 2 in / 2 out rule has it's roots in haz-mat not firefighting. I would also say it has some roots in scuba diving. But how we apply it (which was the original question) varies greatly. I met some guys from a few departments in upstate CT a while back in a class. In their region they considered 2 in / 2 out and FAST to be completely separate animals. They described a typical response as Department A is primary they go out the door with whatever they have, let's say 2 guys on the first engine. Department B is sent mutual aid and also has 2 guys. This engine is the 2 out engine. They need to be on scene for the first engine to go to work. However Department C is also coming mutual aid, sometimes from more than a town away with a 4 man engine to be the FAST. They can be en route while operations are going on because the 2 out engine is there. Now as this OSHA reg developed into RIT / FAST programs, we realized some things. Most career departments have 3 or 4 man crews that they do not split up. So the RIT in those departments will be more than 2. Departmetns that have had to deploy RIT have discovered that multiple teams will be needed. I think Phoenix is now sending 12 (3 rigs) but I may be mistaken. I took a class that was all RIT scenarios in a burn building lots of obsitcals. None of us were bale to rescue anyone with only 4 guys. Most RIT's ran out of air and risked becoming extra victims. I would be tempted to say that based on this training 4 is not enough, but Pete brings up a good point in saying that not having a FAST in place does not seem to be that big a factor in LODD reports. I doubt the data is there but I would hazard a guess that having too small a RIT is not much of a factor either, except perhaps when there are multiple FF's that need to be rescued simultaneously. However in all cases FAST's get supplemented by other crews on scene. As for counting those with other responsibilities or of lesser qualifications as the 2 out, this is very dangerous. As has been pointed out those tasks still need to be done. However I will use a SCUBA scenario to prove the point. Would you send two divers into the water, knowing that your 2 out were two line tenders that could not swim and had never used a respirator?

Cool pic, thanks for posting it. One trend I have noticed that I find odd it the style of the markings. Here you have a big truck, clearly marked as a police vehicle, with red and blue lights and I am sure a siren or two. Yet the patch on the door is in subdued colors. What is this about? Is there any need for such camouflage or any actual value to subduing the markings on such a highly visible truck? I have noticed more and more subdue colors on uniforms lately, but as they are on darker uniforms I get that. Although my local PD now has bright lime green shirts with silver reflective stripes and subdued black and grey patches on them as an alternative uniform for traffic jobs. Again I have to ask what is the point of a subdued patch on a high viability shirt?

OK, so no matter if they are a good or bad idea, or what they may or may not say about a specific department of company, what do the codes mean? Also how are they used, do a certain number of a certain code add units to a response (like the FDNY 10-14 Engine)?

Other than the weapons a lot of focus has been on the uniforms. Now I personally think some of the newer uniforms are bordering on the ridiculous, but that aside, they are often saving money for the taxpayers. CT State Police still uses custom made uniforms.\, I think a pair of pants is priced out somewhere in the $50 to $60 range. A pair of BDU's at any surplus store is in the$20 to $30 range. Should it matter that there are more pockets or drawstrings at the cuffs? If any agency could cut even half of their budget that way, we should be applauding them. I have read about people complaining about the so called "tactical vests" which have pockets and straps but are also carriers for the body armor. These are generally worn on the outside of the uniform because the pockets would be useless otherwise. However the complaints always about how it looks. Most of the public would never suggest that the police stop wearing body armor, just that they don't want to see it. Seeing armour makes the public lift their heads from the sand and realize that various liberal policies have armed the bad guys more that then good guys. I noticed something interesting when I was in Canada a couple fo months ago. Considering it is a country that claims to have gotten rid of all those nasty hand guns. Almost every private security officer I saw in my travels was not only wearing body armor, but wearing it on the outside of their uniform. Some in contrasting colors, and some blending in with the uniform. In this country there are security companies that do not allow body armor because they have decided they do not face that kind of threat. However if private security were to do that here, there would be calls to stop the militarization of security. Just because the military does something does not make it bad. Almost everything on our uniforms has some historical military connection, no matter if the modern use if police, fire or EMS, yet nobody complains about that. This is just a new fad among the pro-crime lobby to try and make it easier to victimize the public.

Interesting article. When VoIP first came out there were big problems in getting correct addresses and even to this day many of them when correct are formatted wrong and cause problems for our automatic dumps from one system to another. When Optimum first started their cable phone service in CT all calls went to Norwalk because that was the PSAP for Cablevision. When this was pointed out to them you would have thought we were speaking some unknown alien language. It took a while for them to decide this was a problem that needed fixing. Some of the problems with 9-1-1 in general could be fixed by public education. Other could be solved with some more regulation (shudder) This article speaks of a nationwide 9-1-1 system, which is not true at all. Each phone company that provides the local service has their own system although they work along similar processes. Even the steps in the article happen quickly, with the data attached and the routing done before the caller hears the first ring. When we get a cellular 9-1-1 call, we get phone number and location, often just the tower location. Some providers will fine tune location, but even when we get an off tower location it is usually around a 300 meter radius from where we see it on the map. The phone company's map is so out of sate, it has streets that have not existed since right after WW2 and schools that were torn down or moved many decades ago. So sometimes even a valid coordinate puts it in the middle of a non-existant address. The worst part is we do not get a name. It seems to me that since all cell companies have this on file, so they know who to bill, they could easily provide us with a subscriber name, just like the land line companies do. As for public education we need to stop telling people about the national 9-1-1 system. More and more people think there is one big dispatch center that sends out all calls nationwide. I took a call the other night from someone who got a call from home and called Stamford for an ambulance for an address in the Bronx. We have no way to transfer calls to NYC and are limited to finding public numbers only if the dispatcher happens to have a personal lap top set up at their desk. I usually have my lap top with me but it is not always turned on. That caller was told to have the person who called him call 9-1-1 from the Bronx, so he hung up and called right back and got me again. The hacking / Swatting issue is important but is even a problem locally. A few years ago we were getting a series of false fire calls on a cell phone all over town. This was before we got anything other than tower location. We were able to flag the number as a probably false alarm, but still had to respond to the address given to investigate. Even on legitimate calls it is not always the closest tower that relays the call. Tracking these phones is quite a chore. Each phone company has their own protocol for releasing data and not all phone companies are 24/7. With the spoofed phones this will require the phone company to actually look at the routing information and I am not even sure if that is available in real time. The other night there was a swatting incident in Norwalk and they called looking for information of someone that might have encountered Stamford PD but we had no matching information to help them out.

I am just guessing looking at the one picture but here are some thoughts on this bridge. Even tied off to the aerial, that tie off would seem to make a hinge point. That means if the aerial shifts at all the ground ladder risks falling. By nature it would have to be this way at least until the first FF makes it across to tie it off on the building somewhere. As for a belay point, it seems like the only application for this would be somewhere where there is no higher point to tie off to. Harnesses and fall arrest systems seem like they would be of limited use until both ends of the ladder are secure. Even after being secure, a catastrophic failure would likely be in the middle and would thus leave the ground ladder hanging by its tie offs and dropping the FF a good distance before the fall arrest device would kick in. As for the training issue, I think the only way to train for a tactic like this would be with a prop made of an old fly section and put only a few feet off the ground. Perhaps only tall enough to allow standing on the fly to tie off the ground ladder. Not perfect but safe®. I am reminded of the scene from Bridge on the River Kwai where they decide not do do a practice jump because the chances of injury go up with each jump. Thus they decide it will be better for the paratrooper to make his first actual jump on the mission to blow up the bridge. The paratrooper was trained on ground based props only before the mission.

For those who remember Stamford had a unit like this called Squad 81. This was a unit staffed by 3-5 people, and responding on all full boxes in the Big 5 area. Most of the time it was an Engine, although it also used Rescues and sometimes a van, which lead to inconsistent resources for IC's. I was too junior at the time to ever ride the squad. It had a lot of potential but remembering that a camel is a horse designed by committee, the Squad was just such a camel. Now with the proliferation of staffed Engines around the city, such a Squad could operate without the need (although it would be nice) to be in a Engine all the time. I can think of one unit that would make a perfect Squad.

This looks like a cool project. Any pictures of the original floating around? It seems like a unique rig.

We have one small area of town where we were getting Two EMS agencies and Two Fire Departments on all medical calls. This was because it was in Stamford, but in the far Northwest corner along the Greenwich and NY state borders. The roads to get there from Stamford are narrow and contain many turns making response times slow. So as a result all fire calls in that area got Long Ridge Fire and Banksville, NY Fire. All medical calls got Stamford EMS, Greenwich EMS and Long Ridge Fire and Banksville Fire. Such responses while likely overkill in most cases are driven by the nature of the area being served. The first arriving unit does a size up and cancels what they do not need.

If they Keep Adam 12 and Emergency! where they are this will give us a 3 hour block each afternoon of "Educational TV".

There is a move to make all Police Cars Black and White across the country. I have mixed feelings about that, but it does seem to be the trend. I am surprised that they even made the ambulance match, and I am not sure that is a good idea.

There is another aspect to this which has nothing to do with the candidate's military service. He is related to a town official. Lately many municipalities have enacted very strict anti-nepotism laws. Those that have not done so yet, will soon feel the pressure to. I can see board members, although I would not agree with it, passing over a candidate who while qualified was related to an official simply to appear that they do not support nepotism. This is almost the same thing as the politically correct crowd, who will go to great pains to appear to not do something that they really were never doing in the first place.

Judging by all the used police cars out there, I would say no.

There has to be some museum that want's it. Anything but the scrap heap.

I am all for giving jobs to veterans. All things being equal that would normally be my choice. However all things are not always equal and even with the veterans points that are often given on tests it is possible for a veteran to not come in #1. Then you add in the various political factors that we all know exist and I can see how this could happen. Now unless there is some legal issue with the hiring, I am not a big fan of people contesting when they did not get a job. Most such protests are not based on the merritt system but on some perceived wrong that may not even exist.

I have been told that it was to give a better view of the situation you were approaching to aid in size up. However I only barely remember our open cab and when I was there it usually had this ugly after market vinyl top on it. So I can not verify that theory. I think it may just be that cabs on the horse drawn rigs were open, that continued to the first motorized rigs and then onto some of the first "modern" rigs. A neighboring department did not use doors on their cabs until the 1970's. Roofs have been available on some models since at least the 1940's but open cabs were being made into the mid 1960's at least.

Sadly I can't find the video on line I was looking for that clearly shows the interference angle. Interestingly enough I can still find some news coverage of the incident where the chief praises his guys for doing everything right even though they eventually tassed the guy 3 times. The news media only showed small clips that were designed to make the police look like they were ignoring calls by the girlfriend to get their supervisor. Later on in footage not shown on the news the supervisor shows up and ultimately arrests the girlfriend taking the video. And this morning on the news it seems that this fine gentleman's wife was just arrested for fighting with another woman. But of course these arrests were only to harass them because they video taped the police.....yeah right!

Is the color an FAA requirement? I have seen a lo of Airport rigs this color but I was [retty sure that not all of them were.

Regardless of the different definitions (which is something that probably needs to change) the fact is that the court of public opinion has just been incorrectly told that several police officers are murderers. This is beyond stupid. First of all it has tainted most if not all of any potential jury pool. Secondly it has undermined the trust and confidence in the police department. I have no doubt that this cause was picked out prior to the autopsy. It was 100% politically motivated. The powers that be will sacrifice a few cops and EMT's to prevent the professional warmongers, who will roll into town, from inciting a riot.

While there is some problem or at least the risk of a problem with interferance, the need to maintain freedom outweighs that concern. I have a much bigger problem with the way the media edits these videos down to make them as incriminating as possible. Les Moonves the head of CBS once said that there was no more impartial news media. Look at what happened in the Zimmerman case when NBC removed a question from a dispatcher to make the caller seem to be saying things diferently than he was. Even more frightening was that a judge recently rules that NBC was not wrong for doig that.

If they did in fact go to the IC and "tag in" then they were at least at that point not freelancing. I think the telling thing is that they did not get charged with stealing the vehicle, which tells me that someone probably told them to use it. I would bet that this whole thing stems from a confusion over incident command. If the IC was willing to use them, but their gear was not recognizable to other departments, I can see confusion getting the better of folks. Let's not forget that we are frequently told to be on the lookout for fake responders, and someone I did not know in unfamiliar gear would be the first one I would look at if I were involved with scene or perimeter security. IF the side bar is even close to being correct, I would bet this all gets worked out quietly and swept under the rug.

I am just guessing here, but if I ran a department that provided both Fire and EMS services, and I had some kind of grant money for firefighter training but not for EMS training, I would certainly look for certified EMT's that I could train as firefighters and not the other way around. This would seem to me to be the most cost effective way to accomplish the goal of having cross trained personnel. Now if two applicants came in at the same time and were essentially equal except that one was an EMT and the other was not, then I would expect the one who is not to have to wait until there were enough students to make hiring an instructor cost effective. This would mean that the EMT would advance within the department faster and most likely end up responding on calls before the other recruit. The recruit who is not an EMT would have the option of seeking out a class elsewhere, but as it was not department sponsored and not covered under the grant it would be at his own expense. No real problem with that as long as it is understood up front. If the non EMT recruit were already certified as a firefighter, it might seem that he was not being treated equally but in fact that would only be perception based on the limitations of the grant. Things will never be fully equal in any department because life isn't fair.

This seems more like an issue of priorities. I have seen fire departments that have EMS duties favor Firefighter training and even responses. I was once told by a senior member that I despite my being an EMT, and despite the department paying for my refreshers, that I was not bound to respond on EMS calls, even if I was in the building. I only HAD to go on fire calls. Why anyone would take this attitude is beyond me.

The problem here seems not to be in what the initial arriving reports but how that is interpreted by other incoming units. If you become complacent it is your problem not the problem of the guy giving the size up. Remember complacency kills! I will qualify that with a note about how information is relayed to us effecting our perception. Think about central station alarms. We all know that the false alarm rates are astronomincal. However the fire service definition of a false alarm is greatly different from the alarm industry's definition of a false alarm. For the most part they consider a false alarm as anytime they get the passcode from a keyholder, no matter where he is or what the situation is. For years as a dispatcher I would relay to responding units that the alarm company was attempting to cancel. None of the departments in Stamford will cancel a fire alarm but most if not all will downgrade to a single engine based on that information. Then once as an officer in a VFD we had an incident like this wher ethe alarm company attempted to cancel, our first due engine canceled everyone else and were met by the homeowner who had given the code to the alarm company. The homeowner told them not to worry, it was only a small fire. Now it was very small and had no extension, but complacency drove the downgrade. It was a combination of misplaced trust in the alarm company by the dispatchers (something I no longer do) and complacency by responding units about alarm calls. THe outcome could have been worse. It is how we interperate and react to incoming information that we need to fix because that is something we can do ourselves.