TRUCK6018

A story from Firehouse.com regarding emergency driving:

Just for clarification purposes, all vehicles are owned by the Lake Mohegan Fire District with the exception of the ambulances (69B1, 2, 3), the ems fly car the trailers (fire safety trailer, fire safety house and injury prevention trailer). These are owned by the Mohegan Volunteer Fire Association. The Association also owns two antiques, a 1941 Mack and a 1948 Chevy/Boyer. One interesting thing to note is the Chevy was originally owned by the fire district, sold, changed owners a couple times and recently bought by the fire association and since restored.

Let's take it one further. What justification is there to take an specialty piece of equiptment, ie ladder truck or rescue, numerous towns away and tie it up for a parade? I can understand if the department wants to take it to a local (mutual aid department's) parade where a stand by crew can be established and the rig can respond in a timely fastion. I'm talking about taking a ladder or rescue from say the sound shore region and sending it to a parade in the Hudson River region.

Why is it up to Westchester County to fill the void? What you had were state funded courses and now your going to put pressue on one county to pick up the slack? Numerous counties benefited from the training offered at Camp Smith. I've taken classes with not only firefighters from Westchester there, but also Putnam, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland and Ulster there. Maybe numerous counties in Southern New York could get together and come up with some sort of consortium. One thing that suprises me from that memo: I would think that number would be higher. To only have 1000 students cycle through there a year? Are departments in Southern NY not realizing what the programs offered at Camp Smith are or do they just not care? Many of the classes that were offered there are such that individual counties would not be able to fill the minimum attendence requirement.

When you are at a parade you are on your own time? That must mean you wear your street clothes, yes? I didn't think so. When you are at a parade you are on your department's time. If you are wearing your department uniform you are representing your department. The chief of department is at that point responsible for your well being, even if he/she's not there! If you do something stupid while at a parade, he will be the one to answer questions. If the town burns down while you were winning that trophy, he will be the one to answer questions. Let me tell you, it flows down hill! It will be difficult to answer to the taxpayers why the proper fire protection wasn't provided for because of your fun. As a former chief, I've seen these things happen. As we progress into the 21st century they will contiue to happen. Fire departments have been sued because of slow response times. One that comes to mind is a New England fire department getting sued because they were slow to respond and there was excessive fire damage to the house. The arrival time was less than ten minutes from the time of alarm.

If part of being a "volunteer" is marching in parades, then join the lions club! Being a volunteer firefighter is fighting fires, period. In order to do so, you must train, period. There is no such thing as training too much. If you think you train too much, you will get caught with your pants down. It sounds to me this member is trying to improve the department, not hurt it. If a departments first priority is parades, the department will hurt itself. This is probably a set of bylaws that were written in the 50's or 60's. News flash: The times have changed. While I'm all for department pride, I'd rather take pride in improving my deparments ISO rating than winning a dust collecting trophy. There's no point in trophies if your not going to answer the calls efficiently. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against parades. I'm against department that put parades before the task at hand, protecting the communty. Protecting the community is not acting like a bunch of clowns, hanging off the sides of fire trucks gooned up which a trophy in hand. That IMO is how departments get a bad name and ruined.

The only way the state can do that is through grants to the individual counties. The state won't upgrade facilities that they don't own or operate.

I could be wrong but isn't Dutchess the exception to the "norm"? It is my understanding that the Dutchess system is used as a model as far the way radio systems should be.

If you get injured in a paid career, whether is a firefighter or supermarket bagger, you get a percentage or your wages up to $400. You only get more if you have disability insurance through your employer/union or the employer/union makes up the difference.

Workers comp doesn't apply in this situation. Volunteer fire fighters are covered under VFBL (volunteer firefighters benevolent law). This is similar to workers comp as both pay out $400.00 a week. The difference is VFBL pays out immediatly after an injury. Workers comp doesn't pay out untiltwo weeks after the date of injury.

I think the hosebed comment was a poorly timed attempt of humor regarding another thread (just my opinion). However, this is a somber realitization what can happen non-emergency mode. A quick recovery to those involved.

Nope, firefighter heath and fitness are covered under NFPA 1583. We're talking about NFPA 1901/1500. Let's not change the topic.

I was the department that made themselves look bad. This isn't about what you feel comfortable doing. This is about safety period. Tail boarding has been a no no for some time now. This doesn't mean for just emergencies, it means for anytime the vehicle is in motion. The history of fire apparatus has evolved significantly to both the occupants and the public. Let's not throw the improvements out the window, expessially when it comes to a non-emergency function. One's own personal choice doen't cut it in the fire service. If you get hurt, you are not the only one accountable. This gets proven time and time again. If you get hurt, both you will suffer the consequences, along with the driver, officer and chief of department. They all should be held accountable because they were all at fault. Fire departments are paramilitary. There is a chain of command that must be followed. There are rules that must be maintained. I agree fire fighting is dangerous business. Let's keep ourselves safe with the things we can control, like riding in seats with our seatbelts on. If we can't keep ourselves safe with the easy things, we're not going to do it fighting the fire or mitigating the hazmat spill.

First, I didn't know trophies were more important than safety. Second, is it possible the younger generation thinks that trophies are the primary function of fire departments??? Who ever thinks this is the case, go join the Lions Club or something. A fire department is business first. First and formost is safety. Second is answering alarms. Third are social functions. If you're not going to understand the safety aspect, you might as well forget about the rest. Folks, get your heads out of the sand. If you're going to continue to spite "everyone who is against them" on this issue, you're going to be in for a rude awakening. Just because you are a "volunteer" you can be told what to do. If you don't like it, don't let the door hit you where the lord split you!

Easy identification? Additionally, rescue is blue, marine is green and squad is yellow.

Wasn't there an MVA several years back on I-287 involving a truck full of bee hives?

The fire chief of a district in NY State has little to no say on budget issues. During the formulation of a given budget, he can only request money be allocated for certain line items. It's the fire commissioners that have the final say. When it comes time for a purchase, again, the chief can only request an item is needed but he can't go out and get it unless ok'd by the commissioners.

Let's take it one further..... The state is laying of all "non-essential" workers because they can't pay them. Fine. The state gaming inspectors (non-essential) are getting layed off because they can't pay them. As a result the casinos close. Fine Because the casinos are closed, the state loses out on the taxes from the casinos, estimated to be $1.3 million a day. Fine. Now my question: Is it me or is the governor cutting his nose to spite his face by laying off workers that bring in that much revenue. I doubt it takes any where near $1.3 million a day to operate the gaming offices. Since their going that route, maybe they should send home the toll collectors on the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike and not collect any tolls. This way they will lose even more money.

Political quiz See where you stand. My score was 23.

You don't need multiple departments to get together to order on a state bid. All the state bidding process allows you to do is not go through a time consuming bid process. Any department can go right to a listed vendor and get the bid price.

You can probably count three more "apparatus" for the chiefs' cars. There's likely a hot rod (being on Long Island) and a vehicle to tow it with (yes, I'm speculating).

This is not meant to offend anyone here but why spend hundreds of $$$ for something that gets you nothing??? You have the same privliges on the road (none) whether you have a $50 tear drop or a lightbar larger than what's on most fire apparatus. What training should there be? If you use it, you don't pass cars, don't run read lights, you stop at stop signs and follow all the rules of the road. Pretty straight foward if you ask me. If you abuse the privlage of having a blue light, you lose you blue light card and possibly face charges. Is it worth the "wacker factor"? I don't think so.

Update on the rollover from The Secret List:

Fallon has two of those monsters. They also have two engines which are identical minus the aerial and the addition of a CAF system.

Motley'r than Mohegan's crew???