velcroMedic1987

Nobody, including the Federal Government, knows what will or won't satisfy the ACA requirements! They're still finding out what the law they passed includes.

Or you can google it. Good luck!

Do we really have to start the union rhetoric and paid/volunteer nonsense here again? This isn't a union issue. There's no local being subverted by volunteers in Spring Valley. This is a volunteer FD. If you think that every volunteer FD should be replaced by a paid, career FD, that's your opinion and you're entitled to that opinion. Start a thread to that effect.

We have a tremendous influence over the issue of crash safety. That's by training drivers and making crews use personal protective equipment that's there. How many of the injuries are sustained by unrestrained occupants? We can change that without any help from the manufactureres

Thanks for the data. I can't speak to the assertion that this is a personal grudge but looking at the data you provided there are some other viewpoints. From a management perspective, if I have an employee leaving 328 times during the year, that is more than once per work day (260 work days). If they are all just routine calls that lasted an hour, I've lost an employee for 328 hours. How many of us get that much vacation or personal leave time? That's 17% of their total work time being spent not doing their job. Now if I'm the DPW foreman and 3 of my guys leave a job to go on a fire call, there is an impact. There is also the morale and productivity issue for the employees still on the job-site. If there are 10 guys in the village who are FD members, that's 3280 hours a year of lost productivity. How does the village board reconcile that while trying to live under a 2% tax cap? Why should the village bear that responsibility? Shouldn't the FD have to address their problems?

Bottom line is they are village employees and he is the mayor. Their employer. We can complain about it all day long but in the end it is his prerogative to deal with his employees and their budgets. Whether it is 5 calls or 500 calls really doesn't matter really. He may be making this an issue to force an apathetic FD to take action to correct its own staffing problems that have been ignored because they rely on village employees.

That is just a bill. I can't find anything in the current labor law relating to that and it is from last year's assembly so its not even pending.

A few battalions of what? Marines? Having participated in a few airport disaster drills over the years, I can tell you that the response to the airport is way inadequate. Not nearly enough resources and if it were the real thing they would never be able to manage it effectively.

Could be from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner too. They have some pretty big vehicles that are not marked very prominently.

§139.317 Aircraft rescue and firefighting: Equipment and agents. Unless otherwise authorized by the Administrator, the following rescue and firefighting equipment and agents are the minimum required for the Indexes referred to in §139.315: (a) Index A. One vehicle carrying at least— (1) 500 pounds of sodium-based dry chemical, halon 1211, or clean agent; or (2) 450 pounds of potassium-based dry chemical and water with a commensurate quantity of AFFF to total 100 gallons for simultaneous dry chemical and AFFF application. (Index B. Either of the following: (1) One vehicle carrying at least 500 pounds of sodium-based dry chemical, halon 1211, or clean agent and 1,500 gallons of water and the commensurate quantity of AFFF for foam production. (2) Two vehicles— (i) One vehicle carrying the extinguishing agents as specified in paragraphs (a)(1) or (a)(2) of this section; and (ii) One vehicle carrying an amount of water and the commensurate quantity of AFFF so the total quantity of water for foam production carried by both vehicles is at least 1,500 gallons. © Index C. Either of the following: (1) Three vehicles— (i) One vehicle carrying the extinguishing agents as specified in paragraph (a)(1) or (a)(2) of this section; and (ii) Two vehicles carrying an amount of water and the commensurate quantity of AFFF so the total quantity of water for foam production carried by all three vehicles is at least 3,000 gallons. (2) Two vehicles— (i) One vehicle carrying the extinguishing agents as specified in paragraph ((1) of this section; and (ii) One vehicle carrying water and the commensurate quantity of AFFF so the total quantity of water for foam production carried by both vehicles is at least 3,000 gallons. (d) Index D. Three vehicles— (1) One vehicle carrying the extinguishing agents as specified in paragraphs (a)(1) or (a)(2) of this section; and (2) Two vehicles carrying an amount of water and the commensurate quantity of AFFF so the total quantity of water for foam production carried by all three vehicles is at least 4,000 gallons. (e) Index E. Three vehicles— (1) One vehicle carrying the extinguishing agents as specified in paragraphs (a)(1) or (a)(2) of this section; and (2) Two vehicles carrying an amount of water and the commensurate quantity of AFFF so the total quantity of water for foam production carried by all three vehicles is at least 6,000 gallons. (f) Foam discharge capacity. Each aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle used to comply with Index B, C, D, or E requirements with a capacity of at least 500 gallons of water for foam production must be equipped with a turret. Vehicle turret discharge capacity must be as follows: (1) Each vehicle with a minimum-rated vehicle water tank capacity of at least 500 gallons, but less than 2,000 gallons, must have a turret discharge rate of at least 500 gallons per minute, but not more than 1,000 gallons per minute. (2) Each vehicle with a minimum-rated vehicle water tank capacity of at least 2,000 gallons must have a turret discharge rate of at least 600 gallons per minute, but not more than 1,200 gallons per minute. (g) Agent discharge capacity. Each aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle that is required to carry dry chemical, halon 1211, or clean agent for compliance with the Index requirements of this section must meet one of the following minimum discharge rates for the equipment installed: (1) Dry chemical, halon 1211, or clean agent through a hand line—5 pounds per second. (2) Dry chemical, halon 1211, or clean agent through a turret—16 pounds per second. (h) Extinguishing agent substitutions. Other extinguishing agent substitutions authorized by the Administrator may be made in amounts that provide equivalent firefighting capability. (i) AFFF quantity requirements. In addition to the quantity of water required, each vehicle required to carry AFFF must carry AFFF in an appropriate amount to mix with twice the water required to be carried by the vehicle. (j) Methods and procedures. FAA Advisory Circulars contain methods and procedures for ARFF equipment and extinguishing agents that are acceptable to the Administrator. (k) Implementation. Each holder of a Class II, III, or IV Airport Operating Certificate must implement the requirements of this section no later than 36 consecutive calendar months after June 9, 2004. [Doc. No. FAA-2000-7479, 69 FR 6424, Feb. 10, 2004; Amdt. 139-26, 69 FR 31523, June 4, 2004]

§139.315 Aircraft rescue and firefighting: Index determination. (a) An index is required by paragraph © of this section for each certificate holder. The Index is determined by a combination of— (1) The length of air carrier aircraft and (2) Average daily departures of air carrier aircraft. ( For the purpose of Index determination, air carrier aircraft lengths are grouped as follows: (1) Index A includes aircraft less than 90 feet in length. (2) Index B includes aircraft at least 90 feet but less than 126 feet in length. (3) Index C includes aircraft at least 126 feet but less than 159 feet in length. (4) Index D includes aircraft at least 159 feet but less than 200 feet in length. (5) Index E includes aircraft at least 200 feet in length. © Except as provided in §139.319©, if there are five or more average daily departures of air carrier aircraft in a single Index group serving that airport, the longest aircraft with an average of five or more daily departures determines the Index required for the airport. When there are fewer than five average daily departures of the longest air carrier aircraft serving the airport, the Index required for the airport will be the next lower Index group than the Index group prescribed for the longest aircraft. (d) The minimum designated index shall be Index A. (e) A holder of a Class III Airport Operating Certificate may comply with this section by providing a level of safety comparable to Index A that is approved by the Administrator. Such alternate compliance must be described in the ACM and must include: (1) Pre-arranged firefighting and emergency medical response procedures, including agreements with responding services. (2) Means for alerting firefighting and emergency medical response personnel. (3) Type of rescue and firefighting equipment to be provided. (4) Training of responding firefighting and emergency medical personnel on airport familiarization and communications. [Doc. No. FAA-2000-7479, 69 FR 6424, Feb. 10, 2004; Amdt. 139-26, 69 FR 31522, June 4, 2004]

Not with commercial aircraft operations. That's specified in federal law, isn't it?

Is the FAA going to go after the Westchester County Airport too? They don't have a fire department, they use airport ops people and managers who pull double duty as the airport fire "brigade". Why target the Port Authority and not other airports?

Don't see the correlation. If there was a separate FD, it wouldn't have changed the outcome in this incident. The vehicle is supposed to be able to go off-road, right? Maybe this is simply a mechanical failure and not operator error. Who knows?

For what? Or are they "giving" it to Peekskill forever since they got a new one?

Why? What's the point of separate organizations?

Just curious but why would this have to be unanimous or require a decision by anyone other than the Board of Fire Commissioners? That's their job and very often to do your job right you have to make unpopular decisions. The only problem is that Westchester County talks out of both sides of their mouth. They take on more and more responsibilities while cutting positions. How many people have been added to the radio room to accommodate the increased volume over the past 5 years?

Until an inter-municipal agreement is executed and all the procedures established it is just a rumor. They may be negotiating/discussing but until they reach an agreement all this does is get people fired up for nothing. How many times have we heard rumors like this? County DPS is taking over DES, departments are merging, etc.etc.etc.

I've never understood the need to staff an ambulance like a clown car. A crew of 5 is just absurd. I've seen a driver, crew chief, EMT, attendant and designated clipboard carrier (all wearing gloves of course but that's another rant). Do you really need someone to just carry the clipboard? What kind of "training" or "experience" are you getting by doing that? No ambulance is designed for that and it is just plain dangerous and inefficient. If the crew chief is that uncomfortable with his/her skills, don't be crew chief. Don't fill the ambulance with a pep squad. Ideal crew size for an EMS call is 2-3. 90% of calls only need one EMT and for the other 10% a second set of hands in the back is nice to have but three sets of hands will just get in the way. PS - It's not the BLS crews job to drive the ALS fly-car to the hospital so don't say you brought a valet for that reason. And don't drive to the hospital lights and siren with the fly-car but that is also another topic.

If you're talking about the OSHA requirements for IC (not necessarily fire chief) at a haz-mat incident, they're in 29 CFR 1910.120(q)(6)(v). If you're talking about the list of requirements to be a local fire chief, that's probably up to each and every department, company, and district 'cause we don't do anything the same (except of course on the career side, where every fire officer in the state goes through the same training at FDNY but that's training not requirements.

Rumors. Rumors. Rumors. I hear that 60-Control is going to take over dispatching for the International Space Station too.

They could offer a test but require as a pre-requisite certain training or certifications. I think the PA has to use civil service procedures like any municipality despite their "authority" status. Regardless of how they hire, I'm sure they're going to do training for everyone. Isn't that one of the terms of their agreement to split from the PD?

One more thought. If this is a common problem at a specific facility report it to your QA/QI program (stop laughing, we're all supposed to have them)

Agreed! If the staff gives you a hard time, ask them how often they accept a patient without receiving report. If they're too busy for you, wait. If your dispatch doesn't like it, have them send a supervisor to talk to the nurse's supervisor. The liability is on YOU once you accept the patient so make sure you do everything to minimize it - like appropriate documentation and exchange of information from the facility. Good luck!

You can also try contacting your State Department of Forestry or whatever its called in CT and have the Forest Rangers come to your station to do a seminar on brush/wildfires. They're already paid for by the State and probably do the training for people anyway so it shouldn't be that tough to set up. Or you could request another FD send an instructor to you for a few hours. Most will do it for free but even if they don't, it shouldn't hit your budget all that hard. There are lots of ways to get training. All you have to do is get a little creative. Good luck!