SageVigiles

I have to disagree with you here. I think the value of the informal organization (I hesitate to use the term "peer" since a Senior Man is and should be considered more than that) in mentoring new Firefighters is critically important specifically because the person is NOT of rank. I know it was pretty useful for me. Its the rank and file reinforcing the Officers and covering the things that they can't. Again, just my opinion. Also, in a time when most of us are still struggling to find qualified personnel to fill all Officer spots, I can't see opening up even more positions. As to the EMS Captain thing... In a Fire-Based EMS system I've usually seen EMS Captains or EMS Assistant Chiefs, because the Fire Chief is the ultimate boss. There aren't too many separate municipal EMS agencies in Connecticut and most of them use the term "Director" as their rank for Chief-of-Service. Why? I have no idea...

Rest in Peace Lou.

Commish, in my opinion we already have them. They're our Senior Men. A good Senior Man should have the same attitude and provide the same type of leadership and guidance an NCO would.

But I'd be willing to bet they assume (and expect) that a Lieutenant, Captain, Battalion Chief, Supreme Allied Commander, etc. has more training than the rest of the department.

I totally understand that Pete. What I'm saying is that its hard for volunteer fire departments to be taken seriously by the citizens when they ask about the promotion process and basically the only qualifications other than Fire 1 (for most departments) are "We like him or her best."

I don't know about you but I'd like my Fire Department leadership to be a bit better at their jobs than Congress and the President... Unless a department has some really strict nomination requirements that limit the candidate pool to only the most qualified candidates, I do not support elections for Fire Officers. 90% of the time it turns into a high school popularity contest. Some schmuck nobody has seen for 2 years comes out of the woodwork 4 months before elections and attends every drill, call and work detail and suddenly he looks like the most qualified candidate.

You have no idea how much I would love to implement that...

I'll lob this grenade of an opinion, lets see where it leads. In my opinion, if you are not a Firefighter (read: CURRENT, Certified Firefighter) you should not be eligible to vote for Firematic Officers. If you are not an EMS Responder you should not be eligible to vote for EMS Officers. If we're going to stick to an open season representative election of Officers (which I disagree with) that's fine, but then lets have those Officers actually REPRESENT the personnel in the field. Why should a person who isn't actually in the field have a say in who is going to ensure the safety of personnel on the scene? But that will never happen for the same reason we'll never get term limits in Congress. The majority of volunteer departments I've seen have way more social "members" than Firefighters or EMS Responders. Therefore, the only way that a change like that goes through is by a vote, and those social members will never vote to lose their voice in how the department is run.

I know we're kind of getting off topic here, but I'll bite: How can you have HAZMAT Ops if you're not trained to wear SCBA or a respirator?

Date: 12/11/13 Time: Approximately 0920 Incident Type: Structure Fire Location: 20 East Lane (Knollcrest) New Fairfield, CT Units: New Fairfield FD (All three companies), Sherman FD, Putnam Lake FD Description: Working fire in a private dwelling, Knollcrest private community on the North end of town. This community is a peninsula on Candlewood Lake, right down the street from quarters of Squantz Engine Company. Very tight streets, only one way in/out, not easy to get tankers in and out of without a lot of backing. Not positive, but typically by this time of year the water level in Candlewood Lake has been drawn down which limits the options in terms of fill sites, hence all the extra tankers. I was never that familiar with the fill sites on the North end of town, even when I was running with NF, but it could be a bit of a haul from the fill site to the job. Sherman M/A for an Engine and a Tanker Putnam Lake M/A for a Tanker

I didn't include it in my suggested outline because 472 Certification to the Awareness and Operational levels are now required by the State of Connecticut in order to be Firefigher 1 Certified, so its sort of assumed. Those of us who were Awareness/Operations Trained (not Certified) before the new requirement are grandfathered, but the training meets OSHA anyway so you're covered as long as you keep up with your refresher time. So here's an idea: 1. Establish minimum qualifications for Officers based on objective, comptency based training/certifications and time-in-grade 2. Qualified candidates will take a written exam based on certification material and department policies 3. Individuals who pass the written will be invited to an oral board/assessment center held by Officers from other agencies 4. Scores are calculated based off a weighted system written/oral and an "Eligible List" is created. 5. Candidates on the "Eligible List" are nominated and elected in the traditional way that Officers are now. At least that way you can weed out at least SOME of the incompetents and some of those who are just doing it for a helmet shield and a license plate will be too lazy to go through the process. If you want to be an Officer, work for it. Show me the reason you want to be a Leader. For the record, when I was a POLICE EXPLORER we had written exams and interviews to establish a promotion list. If 14-21 year old kids can do it, WHY CAN'T WE? Sorry lads, but its almost 2014, "That's the way we've always done it" just isn't going to fly anymore. When "tradition" gets in the way of ensuring we have the most competent people available in positions of responsibility, it might be time to change the way we do things.

There ARE some volunteer departments out there testing for officers. Too bad none of them are near me... I think training requirements should be escalating, just an off the top of my head list and this is minimum. Also CTs certification track is different than NY I believe: LT: Firefighter 2 moving towards Instructor, ICS 100, 200, 700, 800 Captain: Instructor moving towards Officer 1, ICS 300, moving towards Incident Safety Officer Chief Officers: At least Officer 1 moving towards Officer 2, Incident Safety Officer, ICS 400

Don't worry Moose, I stepped down as LT this week and I couldn't be happier.

That should be the bare minimum expectation for every call, not how we measure whether or not we are doing a good job. Are there going to be incidents when there's a question as to whether or not that's going to happen? Of course. But come on, let's all be honest here, the majority of us are NOT living on the razor's edge everyday... I'm not going to set up metrics for "good" vs. "great" but I think I get where Dinosaur is going with this. I'm all for positive reinforcement for your crew, you have to keep them motivated. I believe in praising in public and critiquing in private, but let's not push that to the point where we become the "everyone gets a trophy just for showing up" crowd.

http://www.westchestermedicalcenter.com/disastermedicalassistanceteamdmat There is also a DMORT team for NY/NJ/PA, but it doesn't have a website. Federal Type 1 DMAT/DMORT are assets federally controlled by HHS.

Those are all federal resources though, so if I'm not mistaken their vehicles will have federal GSA plates.

Rest in Peace Chief. Thoughts and prayers to his family and the Brothers and Sisters of Tarrytown FD.

WHAT?!?!? I don't believe it. Next you'll be telling me the taxpayers buy you T-Shirts and uniforms too! Unbelievable. Seriously, thank you for having some common sense. Happy Thanksgiving.

No, yes, no, yes. And of course we should.

I realize the scenario I was giving was an extreme scenario and actual circumstances will likely end up somewhere in between, but it illustrates the point I was trying to make, which is that making RIT/FAST a Special Ops resource and only considering certain departments in your county/region to be used for it is shortsighted. Because you might not be fortunate enough to have the county/regional RIT/FAST as your neighboring department, so you very well may be waiting for the guys from 3 towns over. Its all up to the geographical luck of the draw unless we hold ALL of our people to be trained on that task. IF we train ALL of our personnel in RIT/FAST we will be able to get a good cross section of experience assigned to most of the RIT/FASTs on our fire scenes instead, but it should be a training requirement because it is a function that MUST be set up at all structure fires. Its not an option, its a must. Period. Which means that it needs to be a part of our regular training schedule. There's no logical reason you're going to give me that will justify why we should NOT teach ALL our members how to self-rescue AND rescue their fellow members. Its an absolutely essential set of skills, end of story. Of course some people are going to be better at it or more into it than others. But we need to ensure we all have the basics. This concept is not going away. Look at Bridgeport, CT. Relatively large, very busy urban department. But unless something changed recently, one of the changes that came up after the deaths of LT Velasquez and FF Baik is that after every structure fire they do a MAYDAY/RIT drill. If they have the time, what excuse do any of us have?

I will pose the exact same scenario I've posed a million times on this forum: At the exact moment that YOU call a Mayday, would you rather have: A. The team of 18-21 year olds fresh out of Firefighter 1 standing on the front lawn, ready to go with equipment. -OR- B. The elite "Special Operations" FAST crew in their customized FAST rig still en route from 3 towns away. People are acting like the basics of a RIT operation are some form of black magic attainable only by the saltiest, most senior Firefighters. Sure, would it be preferable to have a bunch of experienced senior guys to do it? Sure. But the situation isn't always going to allow for that. Say it with me: RIT/FAST is NOT a specialized unit. It is a basic function that must be performed at ALL fires, just like fire attack, ventilation, search and rescue, water supply, etc. So ALL Firefighters need to be trained to perform it... Are some people going to gravitate towards that training more than other aspects? Sure, as with anything else in the fire service. But its not a something that any of us can say is "not our job." It absolutely NEEDS to be a part of basic Firefighter training.

Latest update is she's back on EMS. Thankfully.

In regards to your question about a different Field Comm for Ops, Logs, Plans, etc. I think you're using the idea of Field Comm and an Incident Management team interchangeably, when they are typically two very different resources.

They tested for PD several months back. But if you are really interested you can always go to the Port Authority website and see for yourself.

Rest in Peace Trooper. My condolences to his family and friends as well as his fellow Troopers at NYSP.