AFS1970

 
 
https://firematic.com/BRATprogress.htm

Date: 07/05/2019
Time: 12:51
Location: 124 Seaton Rd
District: SFD 1
Battalion: Central
Channel: Ground 1
Weather: 81 & Partly Cloudy
Units: SFD: E1, E6, E4, T1, R1, C4 (IC), E5 (RIT), U8 (Safety), FM103 (C&O), FM112 (C&O), C3 (AC)
          SEMS: M2
          SPD: 3C18, 3C30
Writer:  AFS1970

Description: Initially reported as oven fire, then kitchen fire. E1 arrived on scene and reported smoke condition and stretched attack line. C4 arrived, established command and declared working fire. EMS responded and treated 1 patient. Police requested to block road. Recall holding all units other than RIT transmitted by C4 at 13:11

Just wanted to share this website to anyone who may be interested. 
 
911dispatches.com
 
The site records audio of dispatches for a bunch of departments throughout Westchester and can text or email you the recording as soon as it comes in. You can subscribe to any department, and don’t need to be associated with any particular agency. 
 
They offer a free trial and the rates are reasonable. I’ve been using it for a while and it’s been working great. 
 
Just wanted to share with everyone. 

Date: 05/02/2019
Time: 11:08
Location: 2289 Shippan Ave (Shippan Point)
District: SFD 4
Battalion: East Side
Channel: Tac 1
Weather: 60 & Mostly Cloudy
Units: SFD E4, R1, E5 (Rescue Support), U6 (Safety) & U4 (Command)
          SPD 3D47, 8S3 (Sergeant), 3C31, 291, K9-6, TE2 (Reconstruction), TE3 (Reconstruction)
          SEMS M1, M901 (Supervisor)
Writer:  AFS1970

Description: Car drove to end off peninsula and hit seawall. Multiple callers reporting wall damaged, car partially on top of wall with partial ejection. One caller reported small fire that was extinguished by landscapers working near by. R1 arrived on scene and started extrication. 

 Rescue 40 Port Chester Fire 2019 Pierce  Arrow XT   leaving  factory for New York . 

No worries. I had no idea you did it manually. Thought it was a cut & paste thing. I am a numbers guy and I work part-time as a copy editor. All good stuff, thanks for posting it. 

Item 1: those are Squad 8's numbers. I mixed up 8 and 18. 
 
Item 3: Another typo. It should have been 48. 
 
They're all fixed now and thanks for nitpicking. (After a few hours of typing all those numbers I tend to get cross eyed.) 
 
 

I look forward to this list every year. To see the workload & breakdown the stats can keep me busy for hours!!
 
Couple things I picked up on:
 
1) It shows Squad 18 as having responded to 120 runs all year. I am wondering if they mean Squad 8 and the stats for that company in December when it opened and then accidentally skipped over Squad 18. ???
 
2) Engine 62 in the North Bronx sees a lot of work. From listing to the radio and reading the rundowns, it sounds like Division 7 (North Bronx) had a very busy year. It seems there were many "All-Hands or greater" within 1 mile of the Westchester County border. The Bronx in general seems to get their fair share of work.
 
3) I was surprised to see that Battalion 43 in Brooklyn, only responded to 18 "All-Hands or greater". I would have guessed more than that just based on the numbers for the surrounding Battalions (42, 33, 58).  They are far below the 2nd slowest Battalion (47) which had 44 "All-Hands or greater".
 
4) You've got to love the City Island (Bronx) pieces that turn a wheel maybe once a day at best. But if they weren't there, along with what would be long-runs for any other unit going in first-due, you could lose 1/2 of City Island with one fire! It's a small area but the fire load is compacted pretty tight and you need to protect it. 
 
5) Battalion 50 in Queens was the busiest with 200 "All-Hands or Greater" and they are always up there which makes sense because they are so centrally located and if they aren't the first chief in they are the 10-75 chief for many abutting Battalions. 
 
That's my VERY UNOFFICIAL first glance impressions.  
 

I mean yeah, when you can't even get volunteers to train on basic strategies and tactics once a week, of course you aren't gonna be able to muster up a very specialized and highly proficient team and keep them around for years.  Like anything, the interest is cool for a few months, and then the equipment collects dust.

I think you are more likely to get volunteers for a specialized team, at least in the initial recruitment stages. When it has the new shiny team feel. Then when the refresher training requirements come to light and the lack of call volume comes up membership either dwindles away of just gets apathetic. 
 
I have seen a local dive team and a local hazmat team both go away, thankfully to be replaced by other agencies. However it happens. 

A few more pictures  Englewood Cliffs Engine 1 Flowing water from  the back parking lot  And Ridgefield Engine/Ladder 1 Ladder pipe up front Also Cliffside Park Engine 5 feeding a ladder pipe unsure witch one



 

I have mixed feelings on dual membership. My old department had a specific rule against it but that rule was NEVER enforced, including on some high profile veteran members. My current department has no such rule and in many ways encourages dual membership. That being said, if a member can manage to meet attendance and training requirements for two departments then more power too them. I know this can be hard, especially if drill schedules conflict. I have found neighboring departments willing to work together.
 
I had a member who was going to be listed as exterior by another town because she had not met their training requirements. I wrote her a letter listing her drill attendance to their training officer, even offered him copies of drill reports, he accepted the letter and restored her interior status. I have personally seen more people not be able to handle meeting these requirements than those who have. 
 
One local chief is against letting dual members vote, because he does not want members of other departments voting on who is chief in his own department., While I think that is mostly self serving, I kind of see his point. I also don't like neighboring departments using dual members to pad out their rosters, as each member can only be in one place at one time. 
 
As for legal and insurance issues, those may be defined in statutes. Workers Compensation is usually required for all members, these laws are probably silent on dual members. Here in CT we also have a law that allows an individual to volunteer anywhere statewide as long as approved by the chief/IC and they are covered by their home department (I don't have the exact wording on hand). Now that is a call by call based law that probably never envisioned someone responding to multiple calls in another district, but the intent is fairly clear. 

I think you are more likely to get volunteers for a specialized team, at least in the initial recruitment stages. When it has the new shiny team feel. Then when the refresher training requirements come to light and the lack of call volume comes up membership either dwindles away of just gets apathetic. 
 
I have seen a local dive team and a local hazmat team both go away, thankfully to be replaced by other agencies. However it happens. 

I have mixed feelings on dual membership. My old department had a specific rule against it but that rule was NEVER enforced, including on some high profile veteran members. My current department has no such rule and in many ways encourages dual membership. That being said, if a member can manage to meet attendance and training requirements for two departments then more power too them. I know this can be hard, especially if drill schedules conflict. I have found neighboring departments willing to work together.
 
I had a member who was going to be listed as exterior by another town because she had not met their training requirements. I wrote her a letter listing her drill attendance to their training officer, even offered him copies of drill reports, he accepted the letter and restored her interior status. I have personally seen more people not be able to handle meeting these requirements than those who have. 
 
One local chief is against letting dual members vote, because he does not want members of other departments voting on who is chief in his own department., While I think that is mostly self serving, I kind of see his point. I also don't like neighboring departments using dual members to pad out their rosters, as each member can only be in one place at one time. 
 
As for legal and insurance issues, those may be defined in statutes. Workers Compensation is usually required for all members, these laws are probably silent on dual members. Here in CT we also have a law that allows an individual to volunteer anywhere statewide as long as approved by the chief/IC and they are covered by their home department (I don't have the exact wording on hand). Now that is a call by call based law that probably never envisioned someone responding to multiple calls in another district, but the intent is fairly clear. 

I've never heard of it called mutual aid membership, but times do change. I had to read the question twice. What I have always heard it referred to is dual membership status. It was very lax when it started back in the day, but I suppose with legal ramifications so prevalent that policies and procedures need to be in place. I'll be interested to see some of the responses. 

Had a light hearted debate the other day and figured I would spread it over here. I know we will likely not reach a consensus at all. Then again this is a largely meaningless topic for debate. 
 
On a standard job shirt with the embroidered logo on the chest, do you add patches to the sleeve or not? I went with no, but some others were telling me they do. 

I agree, NO

Had a light hearted debate the other day and figured I would spread it over here. I know we will likely not reach a consensus at all. Then again this is a largely meaningless topic for debate. 
 
On a standard job shirt with the embroidered logo on the chest, do you add patches to the sleeve or not? I went with no, but some others were telling me they do. 

Concepts like this often don't gain the traction they should or could. This is because you can assemble the best personnel & equipment, get the best training, and tell people you are out there as a resource. However you can't make departments call you even if they get one of the relatively rare calls you planned for.

Concepts like this often don't gain the traction they should or could. This is because you can assemble the best personnel & equipment, get the best training, and tell people you are out there as a resource. However you can't make departments call you even if they get one of the relatively rare calls you planned for.

Sorry for the absence, but I finally decided to check back in on EMTB after too long....
 
Up here in Western NY a squad is generally a pickup chassis with some sort of utility body on it (think brush truck without a pump or hose, or a utility for those of you in Westchester).  Usually, these trucks are equipped with EMS, pump-out, and salvage equipment.  Most departments throw in a couple of SCBA and extra brush fire gear.  Some departments will throw on eDraulics or spare hydraulic tools.  And almost every department just throws a bunch of random crap on them when they can't find another or useful spot for it.  These "squads" come to be extremely useful for the mass of EMS runs and the BS calls that we don't want to burn an engine or ladder for.  They're also useful for when you need a few extra people on scene or need to get yourself a distance from the paved road.

I would agree that the word squad may designate anything, anywhere. I would say that the word is the most commonly used word in the fire service with multiple, multiple definitions. 

I think the most common is the enhanced engine, but I have seen everything from SUV's to Heavy Rescues called Squads. In dispatch we use the term squad for the group of people who work together the way some fire departments use platoon or group.
 
One nearby department has a heavy rescue and has small extrication tools on their two engines. We just purchased a large amount of extrication equipment but only have a small amount of cribbing and air bags. We also don't carry struts or jacks. As we have no rescue, we are putting all of this on the second due engine. Some members wanted to call it a squad, but I argued that meant that those riding it had to be better at extrication than those riding the other engine. 
 
I am not sure that outside of a given department or region there is a traditional answer. Even FDNY started out differently than they currently operate. Even the squad numbers are all over the place. Squad 1 & Squad 8 replaced engines but got new numbers, the others retained the numbers of the engines they replaced. 
 
In NJ where my friend is chief, because the term squad also referred to his agency, they used to use Squad 1-5 as the officer ID's. So he would sign on as Squad 2 from home or in his POV, while going to get the squad (ambulance). They have since changed to a car number system as they share a channel with other agencies (some of them squads) and didn't want to have conflicting numbers. 

In the early 1940's, FDNY had a couple of Squad companies. They were manpower units only. They reported to incidents and were utilized for whatever was needed. In the 1950's through the late 1960's FDNY Squad Companies were equipped with step vans. They carried basic truck company tools and were again utilized for whatever functions were needed. In the late 1960's, The squads were assigned pumpers and responded as engine companies. Eventually the Squads were disbanded. In 1977, Squad Company 1 was reestablished in the former quarters of Engine 269 which had been disbanded. They were assigned a pumper and also carried Truck Company Tools. They were used for whatever the Chief needed when they arrived at a fire scene. In 1990, Squad 41 was established in the former quarters of Engine 41 in the Bronx. They were assigned a pumper and they along with Squad 1 were part of Special Operations Command. in addition to engine company equipment, they carried truck company tools as well as Hurst Tools, Air Bags and some other rescue related gear. In the late 1990's Engine 18, 61, 252, 270 and 288 became Squad Companies and all squad personnel were trained to the Haz Mat and Rescue Technician level. All Squads were then assigned a second rig (step van) designated as Haz Mat Support Units.

A neighboring town has just placed a new engine into service, however they call it a squad. I have a friend in NJ who calls his ambulance a squad. We used to have an engine called a squad in Stamford but changed it to an engine, I was told because the same mattered to ISO. Another neighboring town used to call utilities (including old chief's cars) squads. So what defines a squad in general? I believe in FDNY they are engines with enhanced equipment, which of course brings with it dedicated personnel trained to use that equipment. So do all the departments calling their engines squads make this distinction? What about the places calling their rescues squads, do they do something that other rescues don't or can't?