Doc

The biggest issue preventing a countywide fire service is actually the New York State Constitution. It specifically designates New York as a Home Rule state. So, to change that would require a change to the state constitution - which would require a statewide vote. Furthmore, and I have to look it up, I think NYS Municipal Law specifically prohibits the collection of county taxes for the purpose of fire protection. I think I saw this specifically in reference to a judicial test of NYS constitutional law regarding that fact. While there are exceptions (NYC for example - though that is actually a single municipality that encompasses many counties) any deviation would require the passage of an enabling law at the state level. So it would mean buttering up the crooks in Albany. However there are viable options. One would be to dissolve all of the fire districts in the county (which would require a petition signed by a majority of the taxpayers in the district like in this case) and the formation of a countywide fire district - also requiring a petition and vote. The problem is that any fire district that doesn't pass the petition wouldn't be part of it. So, you could end up with a patchwork quilt of county and non-county jurisdictions. I know that a half dozen counties upstate are presently studying this option. It'll be interesting to see how these proposals work. The other would be to form a countywide fire district starting in, say Poughkeepsie, and then offering municipalities the opportunity to "opt in" to it.

That seems to sum it up pretty well. As for why it makes sense to keep "paying the rent" to the fire company... consider this. The Fire Company owned building is a building like any other - it is the owned property of an individual - in this case a corporation - legally it is as if you or I owned the building. It would be well within the rights of the owners of the building, "the fire company" to not sell the fire station they own to the District if the District wanted to buy it but the company did not want to sell. The District has no more rights to the building than, say, the tenents do to their landlord's apartment building (only so far as the lease contract specifies). Even if the District did disband the company (in itself a legally complicated proposition ), they assume no ownership of the company property. The company would liquidate it's property however its Board of Directors saw fit. So, basically, "getting the fire station" would only be on the mutually agreed terms between the company and the district with both acting to protect their best interests. Of course the company would want fair market value to maximize return of equity to the "shareholders" (the members). If sale to Wal-mart or Redl Associates was in their interests, so be it. So, the district would be faced with the proposition of buying a million or more dollars of real estate for which they would either have to tap a reserve account (now consider the state mandated legal restraints for reserve funds dispursal), or float a bond - requiring a taxpayer referendum. In the case of East Fishkill, there is a scarcity of available real estate in strategic locations that isn't being sold at top dollar for retail / commercial tenancy, so replacement of the company owned facilities would be a proposition on the order of tens-of-millions of dollars, between property acquisition and the Wick's Law compliant building of fully ADA compliant facilities. They would be trying to do this at a time when voters are overwhelmingly rejecting capital improvement propositions at face value. In the end, it is more financially reasonable to simply "pay the rent", allow the company to bear the responsibility of maintaining THEIR building(s), hold the "landlord" to an appropriate lease contract and demand the annual auditing of the company books by a district approved certified public accountant at cost to the fire company (or some such due diligence oversight).

What really fries my grits on this issue is that THIS objection to the manger in Hyde Park was brought up by the Jewish Federation that just got special treatment for their menorah in the City of Poughkeepsie! A menorah that was constructed by City DPW workers, whereas the manger as set up by the local Knights of Columbus. And the Rabbi who oversaw the menorah lighting was SO busy announcing the triumph of the FREEDOM OF RELIGION, while at the same time they are squashing those of others elsewhere.

Congrats!!!! It was always a pleasure to work with the folks from Vestal Center!

Earlier this week (Wednesday?) about a half-dozen military trucks departed Newburgh on I-84 heading Eastbound. I ID'ed a M1089 Wrecker and 6 M1088's with empty trailers. First time I've seen that many together. I wonder what's going on.

Me and a buddy stopped by the HRPC some time in fall of 1992 because we had heard that they had some old fire equipment. We managed to find someone who worked there and he let us in the old fire station. I recall seeing the open cab ALF 600 or 700 series aerial and a Mack, I seem to think it was an enclosed cab "B", pumper. There might also have been a GMC or Chevy SUV - like an S-10, but it might not have been used by the brigade. Both rigs were in incredible shape but collecting dust - half the lights in the garage didn't work at the time. We both had cameras with us and got pictures of the trucks. I'll have to see if the pictures survived three moves. I always wondered where the aerial went. Thanks for the pictures Billy. Seriously, you should put together a book. You have an AMAZING collection and your photography is excellent.

In a perfect world, it shouldn't have come to this. In a perfect world there'd be an engine with a crew of six on every corner. But if people are going to build their homes in hazardous locations, I think it's refreshing that they owned up and took responsibility. This guy had the ways, the means and the initiative; kudos for saving his and his neighbors homes. Hey, I've never complained when the cook has the presence of mind to put the cover back on the burning pot of oil either, saving us the bother of a kitchen fire. Same for the people who put the trash can fire out with their kitchen dry chem. Sure they could get hurt, but they could also break their necks running down the stairs to evacuate. As long as they weren't throwing SCUBA tanks and dive masks on and going in for their cats and dogs, I don't have an issue with this. Otherwise, I guess he'd be another one of the peanut gallery sitting on a pile of rubble B***ing about some trumped up accusations about the FD while applying for FEMA money to rebuild the same house in the same hazard area. But I guess the days of people taking personal responsibility for protecting their own are over. It's a lot easier to expect government to save the day and have the opportunity to whine when their riddiculous expectations aren't met.

WOW! And here I thought FDJC was all business!!!

Speaking of Grapeville... http://rides.webshots.com/photo/1460443561055354443LxGOJN http://rides.webshots.com/photo/1460443570055354443JuIRPX Sorry, links only from webshots - also gives cred to the source.

Yeah Grapeville does purple. As for black - plenty of them. Here ae some I can think of off hand... Deptford, NJ http://www.deptford-nj.org/content/188/77/947/967/1121.aspx Boulevard Heights, MD (PG County) http://www.bhvfd17.com/images/gallery/5/l_...14572_thumb.jpg Allentown Rd, MD (PG County) sorry no link. of course MT. Horeb, Wisconsin (also owners of the best ambulance EVER) http://www.fdmh.org/prod05.htm

Here's my take on this matter. Some industries, despite being neccessary and sustainable, simply don't have the potential investment returns or predicted growth that the present generation of "show me the money" investors are looking for. The big attraction for many investors is growth. They want to put their money into immerging markets and reap the short term dividends. In mature, niche markets (like fire apparatus manufacturing) there isn't a lot of room to grow. The customer base is limited to the number of fire suppression agencies out there, and the anticipated life-cycle is 15 - 20 years or longer. It's not like LCD- HDTV's where everyone on the block is running out to get two or three and upgrade four more inches every six months. investors realize this, and therefore they view E-one as a big deadweight in their portfolio. Thus, there is an effective investment capital limit. Fire apparatus manfacturing will never be a flashy industry (ironic considering all the LED's and strobes) - It won't dominate the trade journals, spawn an entire Cable TV niche, and generate headlines. It's like water testing (a field I know a bit about) or making paperclips - it's got to be done, but nobody's going to get rich doing it - so it doesn't attract investors to the portfolio. A lot of investors are too busy chasing the excitement and cutting edge - like the latest bubble (DOT.COMs, Biotech, Real Estate)- to put their money into a less attactive, but mature industry. So, it's no wonder to me that the executives at Federal Signal want to make it go away. That it's losing money makes it all the more obvious. But in E-one's case, it's the chicken and the egg dilema... what happened first? Did lower quality (or the perception of lower quality) reduce sales, or did reduced sales induce reduced quanitity (or promote the perception of reduced quality). Did quality slip because costs were cut, or did cost cutting lead to quality slip? Or did E-one make a fantastically deadly marketing blunder. That's my theory. I don't think E-one makes a bad product - however there is a perception that their product is "off the shelf" and "low bid". And in marketing, perception is EVERYTHING. I think the big issue was that E-one was missing the customers. I blame Federal Signal's cookie-cutter - every business is the same - attitude. FS came into the game with no understanding of the Fire Apparatus market. They probably assumed that this industry would work like most other big-ticket commodity industries; just streamline production, leverage economies of scale, find cheaper labor, focus the product line to a few basics, and hype the intangibles (like "value"). Thus, the limited customizability - reliance on the "off the shelf" models and a very direct marketing for "value" - Concentrating on large orders - and attempting to "lead the market" by perpetuating the "less is more hoax". Whereas Pierce, Seagrave, KME, etc. were out telling you how they could build what you wanted - sky's the limit - just make your budget match your dreams - E-one was more interested in handing customers a menu and saying, "Just pick one of these, and spend the rest of your time running bingo nite or cooking dinner - no need to trouble yourself with ideas and your needs. We're THE BIG GUYS and we KNOW what you want." Whereas other manufacturers were turning out head-turning (laugh inducing) demo units, bold (maybe ugly) designs, and state of the art (impractical) technology, E-one kept creating flatter, plainer boxes with less and less expensive bells and whistles. I hate to say it, in a traditional field like this, the bells and whistles are par the course. This situation proves, once again, how the U.S. fire service bucks a lot of the "tried and true" tactics most businesses use to cut costs. The fire service is tradition driven and that extends to how we purchase. If you look at any other nation in the world, their fire equipment is almost standard. You could drop a Tokyo Fire Engine in Dusseldorf and the local Fuherweher would just get to work without a second thought. Why has 90% of the world been using Bronto's and Metz aerials for 60 years and you can still count the number of them in the U.S. on both hands. The rear-mount aerial tower with a permanent bucket is unheard of outside the U.S. and Canada. Unfortunately, I suspect the Federal Signal management at E-one was listening to the global market - not the U.S. market. They made the unfortunate assumption that the majority of apparatus purchasers in this country were looking for the $15.00 Wal-Mart toaster on wheels in red. The problem is, to most investors and business types, fire apparatus manufacturing gets lumped in with building cement mixers, dump trucks and street cleaners - it's perceived by the non-fire service that "a fire truck is a fire truck" - It's just another type of work truck. The financial performance of fire apparatus manufacturers is intuitively lumped into that. This flies into the face of the real apparatus market. There is no clear, by-the-books financial justification, that keeps FDNY buying Seagraves. Sure, it's there, but it requires digging and an understanding of why a fire engine is not a garbage truck - and most executives and fund managers don't have time to figure it out. The closing of Saulsbury was early proof that this mentality was guiding E-one. They took a highly respected, moderately profitable custom apparatus builder that probably would have run steadily (but not grown appreciably) for decades to come just on repeat customers, and obliterated it to make an almost unappreciable gain in market share, which they then lost to Marion and PL Custom (Rescue 1). Lost because the persuit of growth on the annual report took precidence over the market reality -that nobody wants to be thought of as having purchased a cheap fire truck. That's my take on it.

Best of luck on it. Philly is still a great city, assuming you avoid most of it. I helped a friend move in and move out of an apartment on Arch St. It was a great neighborhood, but when we returned the rental truck, we ended up getting a tour of the... ehm... battlefield? The trip through the northside was an eye-opener. I don't know how you fix that level of destitution.

Hey, that's cool. When I was in proby school the instructors had us all line up blindfolded and they picked one guy out of the line. He then walked 100 paces forward of the line. Everybody was then told to chant "And the point is?" The guy was then told to throw a sharpened pike pole towards the chanting as hard and fast as possible. Whoever got hit got to throw it next, but only if the pole stuck in him. Yep. Very practical and made us all men. I'm not trying to insult or put down tradition, but spear-chucking was a critical survival skill back in the day too, but we've given it up and replaced it with useful skills that aren't a brazen opportunity to kill someone. Frankly those Pompier ladders scare the Holy Mary out of me. MAJOR Kudos to anyone who used them!

Yes. If you provide enough water to effectively cool the burning magnesium and the resulting fire, you can quench the reaction and the fire! It's always exciting when something in a burning car starts blazing like a camera flashbulb and every time you start hitting it with the line, it gets brighter. The best tactic I've found is to stop hitting it until you can directly see what's burning and hit it directly with the stream- then let it have it until it stops burning and for a little bit after, to get the temperature down.

I can verify that Vermont allow any volunteer firefighter, with permission from their department chief, to display redlights and use a siren. Most limit it to certain officers (either chiefs or maybe line officers). I've been in towns where EVERY member has them. It's ABSOLUTE CHAOS when a call comes in.

Here Comes the Science: The batteries induce electrolysis of the water into hydrogen gas and oxygen. A small amount of the hydrogen gas and oxygen intercalates in the water (much as CO2 is retained in soda). The concentration of the gases at the water's surface is a mixture that is just in the flamable range and because the gasses slowly diffuse from the water, it has a wick-like effect. This is a reduction / oxidation process as the anode and cathode of the battery exchange electrons with the molecules in the water, breaking the H-O bonds. A similar reaction (though the oxidation predominates) happens when wet magnesium burns. Magnesium burns so hot that the water molecules are again broken down to H2 and O2. That's why hitting a burning magnesium engine block ( or a magnesium seat frame in certain Chrysler cars) with water is a HORRIBLE idea. You generate a highly explosive conflagration as the magnesium (which emits UV light that can damage your eyes) and hydrogen gas burn in the presence of oxygen. The hydrogen flame, which burns in ambient air at approximately 3800 degrees is considerably hotter than most burning hydrocarbon fuels. The added oxygen will crank this up to over 5000 degrees - in the range of a MIG welder - enough to melt steel - so as you keep adding water it keeps burning. Science lesson over. NOW BE CAREFUL!!!

I can see this grim process having some valid use. I hate to say it, but in some fields, there is no substitute for hands-on training. I'd rather the surgeons of the future have all the available opportunities to make their mistakes long before a human life is at stake. If fooling around with a dog's vagus nerve will make them better physicians, then I'll conceed it must be done. However, I 'd like proof that this is actually the case. How does the performance of physicians who have partaken in this particular class exercise compare to those that have not. Despite being a mush-ball for animals, I'm a scientist by trade and recognize that in some circumstances there simply is no substitute for a living test subject. But animals, even experimental subject animals should never be treated like equipment. There are basic ethical standards that must be adhered to and many professional and legal ceritifcations require it. We had a guy in our department for a short time who worked at WMC and his job was to implant pacemakers into dogs. The dogs would be exercised, probed, tested and whatnot for some number of weeks or days to assess the performance of the pacemakers. After the test period, the dogs were euthanized and the pacemakers removed and examined. This ongoing study was simply to provide the statistical performance and failure rate of these devices. There was no "dry" bench test that could simulate in-vivo conditions. If I recall, they went through dozens of dogs a year. Again, it makes you a little heart-sick to think of that, and the guy who did it did show emotional stress from the process, but it's the only way right now. Unfortunately, the human body is far to complex to accurately model on a computer or with a machine... and society still clings to the notion that certain criminal filth cannot be utilized for the betterment of science. Oh, nice doggies!

I understand OCC is in some legal hot water over some shady dealings on their iron works shop too. I guess the one son (who's never on the show) is the principle for OCIW and was having some cash flow problems. He had a lot of debt they wanted to clean up. So they quietly transferred most of that company's holdings and assets to OCC which was TECHNICALLY not his and had the iron works declare bankruptcy, thereby protecting them from their creditors. They're a real mixed bag.

Oops, too late.

I think this is an example, though a less elaborate one, of the manifold quick attack engine. I've seen departments use their mini-pumpers like this; Send the mini up the long driveway or dirt road, with a crew, dropping a 2-1/2" or 3" (or 4") supply line along the way, the engine or pumper-tanker hooks up to the line down at the road. The mini crew hooks the supply line to a pump inlet, opens it and opens the discharge valves for the attack line(s). The pumper down the driveway just pushes the water through the mini-pump, sort of like a very expensive motorized water thief. Fair enough for supplying 1 or 2 lines. This Hose Carrier 97 is just a very simple version of that. Obviously effective - as opposed to a lot of the overweight, underpowered "(f)Utility Trucks" that carry just too little of everything to be completely useless.

My Personal Favorite: Rocky Point 5A7-6 The Killer Bee! Back when my grandparents lived out on L.I. I used to ride with these guys for a few weeks a year. I spent some quality time getting tossed around in the back of this thing out in the state pine forest. This was taken, maybe in 1993... back when it only had 6 tires and the classy war paint. Now it looks a little more respectable. Company 1 had a M35 also (5A7-9, I think), though it wasn't nearly as fun as this one.

Some people in Endicott, NY have been screwing around with talk of reverting to a combination department for about five years. It's a local joke, but it hides a serious fact. Their poor fiscal situation is due to the ongoing population exodus and the loss of big industry presence. When IBM and Endicott Johnson Corp pulled out of the village and was replaced with tax-break equipped EDZ projects that keep failing, the taxbase shrunk. Now the declining population (-3% a year) of mostly elderly folks is left with the bill. This is a growing concern in upstate NY where a lot of communities are withering. Vibrant industrial cities are now becoming ghost towns with all the government apparatus of what they once were. I heard it once said, "Government once created cannot be destroyed". What happens when the community cannot support it's government services? There is no going back. Once the tradition of a volunteer fire department is dead in a community, it's gone forever - especially if it's been gone for a few generations. There's no fathers and mothers pressuring the kids to join up. In most of these dying upstate cities, it's worse because there simply aren't a lot of younger, able-bodied people with free time. The young and educated leave for opportunities elsewhere. The only solution right now is to cut services until it's dangerous, make due with a single engine company, rely on mutual aid for anything beyond smells and bells, and hope nobody gets killed. Until the legal apparatus exists to create consolidated county departments in NY, this is it. Even then you're just distributing the costs over a larger area - and if that area is poor and rural, you just might make matters a lot worse. Maybe NJ has other options, but once the vollies are gone, they're gone.

It sounds like Ford is flailing around a bit... I know the Powerstroke 6.0 has been a big problem, but I'm shocked that they'd so completely drop the ball on this. I simply CAN'T believe that Ford would jump ship on Diesel vans when they are a mainstay of commercial vehicle sales. Sounds to me like another all too typical Detroit misstep. As for Van ambulances... am I the only one that noticed that the doors and rear cab lines of the GMC 4500 / 5500 match the GMC van perfectly? I roughly photoshopped something a while ago... It's messy, but makes the point. Can't help but think that would look good in white with reflective stripes.

I believe that rig is from Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. All their new rigs are being delivered with two Q's. I'd call it OVERKILL. http://www.fdmh.org/ Also, check out their AMBULANCE with... a Spartan cab!! Some departments just CAN'T find enough reasonable ways to spend their money. With all the bells, whistles, do-dads and widgets they have, I imagine (I HOPE) their training program is second to none... but I doubt it.

This is sort of off topic, but it is about another unique PR or money making program. A small department near where I used to volunteer way upstate did this thing... for $50.00 you could have the FD show up with their Thermal Imaging camera and they'd find where you were losing your heat from. They'd do this whole home energy audit. A buddy of mine had them do it and he's still saving money from the caulk and weatherstrip that camera told him he needed.