TRUCK6018

The Westchester County "Quick Attack" or "QA" designation originated in 1987. The theory of the designation is a vehicle that has all purpose, quick knock down capabilities. The first vehicle in the county to receive this title was Somers "QA 1" (more affectionately known as Quack Attack 1). This was a 1997 Ford F350 chassis with a utility body. In the bed was a skid unit that was nothing more than a giant fire extinguisher. If memory serves me correctly, it consisted of a 300 gallon water tank, a 500 pound ABC dry chemical tank and a 50 gallon foam tank. The unique thing about this set up is there was not pump! The fire extinguishing agents were powered by compressed nitrogen for the dry chem and compressed air for the water, water/foam mix. The suppression was delivered by a twin set of 1 inch booster hoses fused together. The theory was to knock the fire down with a quick shot of dry chem, then cool it off with the water, water/foam mix. Coupled with the extinguishing capabilities of this one of a kind vehicle was it carried a Hurst rescue tool. This would provide endless uses for this vehicle. It could deliver "quick" rescue capabilities and fire suppression in a nice small, easy to maneuver package. I guess Vista like what they saw so much that QA 2 was born. The major difference is the conventional fire suppression package. Fortunately the QA designation is now defunct and the county now uses more conventional identifiers.

Um, he was.

The bottom line as to which is better is up to the individual department's needs. There are pro's and con's to each. I personally think the walk around body (non-walk in) is better. Why? you gain a lot more space for equipment. It also reduces the limitations of the size of the compartments. In a walk through, you might have a few full width compartments under the passenger area of the box. In a walk around, every compartment can be full width (if desired). This is good for larger pieces of equipment that you may want to access from both sides.

Wear your seat belt and don't run from the cops. Even if they don't win, you'll lose. On the bright side, the tax payers of that municipality will save on this. No court room expenses, after all, a prosecutor won't have to worry about building a case. No jail expenses. Keeps one less fool out of the system.

Your department should be praising the ambulance squad for doing rehab. Macho thing or not, this day and age it should be mandatory for a firefighter to sit out after a prescribed time. Several departments SOP's I know of say after sucking down two scba bottles, you sit out, no questions asked. You are required to go to rehab, get evaluated by EMS (vitals, etc.) and rehydrate. If EMS says you're done, because they don't like what they see, you're done! No questions asked. Their decision over rules the IC. Additionally, I agree with having two ambulances on scene. One for rehab, one for transport (if needed).

I can understand your gripe with this individual. His actions not only make him less of a leader but less of an adult in his actions. If an officer has a problem with someone they shouldn't make it public knowledge. I'm a firm believe that if you have a problem with someone, to first, discuss the issues with the individual. If you don't get satisfaction from the discussion, then move to the next level going up the chain. This will avoid bringing out dirty laundry to those that may not have to be involved.

In my opinion the critiquing of incidents and critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) are to similar but very different things, serve two very different purposes and should not be done together under any circumstance. I have been involved with incidents where there was both post incident critiques and a CISD meeting after the fact. Critiques are part of training. After an incident you get everyone together and discussed what happened. The critiques I've been to were moderated by the incident commander of the incident. During the discussion you bring out not just what when wrong, but what went right! So next time we won't do what didn't work and do what did. In fact, in some preplanning text, a post incident critique is part of incident preplanning. This way written preplans can be changed if needed. When should critiques be done? In some form, after every incident. Whether it's just an EMS crew hashing out a better way a patient could be packaged after a run or on a larger level when a formal critique is done after a large scale incident. CISD is different than critiques because CISD meetings are not moderated by anyone that was on the incident, but by a the CISD team. The CISD meetings that I've called or have participated in resulted from a tragic (for lack of better words) loss of life. Either a MVA that involved kids (I've been to one that stemmed from a double fatality of teenagers) or some other loss of life due to extreme circumstances such as a house fire. A CISD debriefing isn't to discuss what was done right or wrong, but to help with the psychological impact of the incident. To help anyone that was involved with the incident open up about what happened. To prevent the "What should I have done different" questions.

Here's the rest of the article that the quote came from:

Anything by Walt "Butch" Hendrick and Andrea Zaferes. The two together run Lifeguard Systems, a company that travels world wide to teach puplic safety diving. They have an online catalog of their material on their website: Team Lifeguard Systems Inc.

The original post asked about opinions regarding the removal of SCBA's from the cab and referenced Chief Brunacini and Pheonix FD as they removed all SCBA's from all riding positions. The cab of the vehicle is not just the driving compartment but the total enclosure carrying personnel. What good is only removing the SCBA from the officer when all personnel are required to be belted in and all personnel are susceptible to injuries not being belted in.

Where's the pictures?

I've had pastrami sandwiches in alot of places and you're right. Katz's wins hands down! Just ask Harry and Sally.

It all depends on the agency's structure. The final say would be the governing body of that particular department/district. If it's a fire district, town hall has nothing to do with it as fire commissioners are town elected officials. If it's a fire association or fire protection district it would be the board of directors. If it's a village or city where the chief reports directly to the common council or village board, it may be them. Regardless, in all situations, the first person to ask would be the chief of department. It would then be up to him whether or not to approach the proper people.

Usually, the chief of a department can't "give away" old equipment as it is not his or her place to do so. The chief is ,more or less, only a manager of the equipment. If the department in question is governed by a fire district, the chief would have to approach the fire commissioners' to declare it surplus and they would have to make the ultimate decision. If the equipment is owned by a fire department, the board of directors would likely have the final say.

The IBM complex has their own fire brigade that does not hire from the list. In fact, they just posted an ad in last weeks Poughkeepsie Journal. It is not IBM that does the staffing, it's the property management for the IBM complex. Castle Point is a federal position that has it's own testing through the Hudson Valley Veterans Affairs. The testing is done for both Montrose and Castle Point VA sites.

A huge loss to the fire service:

Is this open to all departments now or still just Orange County departments? I know of departments getting turned away that were out of county in the past. Regardless, one of the most popular area competitions is Engine 260's out in Milford, Connecticut. It's usually the second Saturday in September and is attended by departments from the NY and New England area.

In regard to a cascade on a rescue, you need to weigh the pro's and con's. First you have to figure out the departmental need for it. You state that M/A co's have them. If you're going to deplete your own SCBA's on a job, chances are, you're going to have M/A come in anyway. Based on this, I don't think the need is there. I'm against duplication of resources such as this. Lets just say for the sake of argument, that the powers that be insist on having the cascade system on board. Will you have enough space for the rest of the equipment you want/need? Additionally, how much weight will the cascade add to the vehicle. These are all things that need to come into play. Cascade units take up a lot of room that can probably be occupied by more needed equipment.

From "The Secret List":

The key is released from the holder by a set of radio tones, similar to what activates the minitor pagers. If you ever hear a unit request their key be released, you will then hear a string of tones. This is the tone set to release the key. There is no other way for the key to be released.

Just a quick history lesson Ed, while Somers always had there own dispatch, they weren't always self dispatched. Back in the Rita Voris era, Lincolndale dispatchers worked until 1800. Rita didn't start until 2000. In that 2 hour gap the dispatching was done by Yorktown Police. In addition to the dispatch council at Rita's, there was another one at Past Commissioner Stipo's residence. Prior to the "present" Lincolndale Fire House, the dispatching was done in Granite Springs Fire House. Back to Ladder47's question. The current WEMS dispatchers are WEMS employees who work when scheduled. They do were WEMS uniforms.

Prior to Westchester EMS, Somers FD had it's own in house dispatching where the Lincolndale Fire House Communication Office was staffed 24/7 by Somers Fire District employees. At some point during the years 2000/2001, the Somers Fire District layed off all of their dispatchers and contracted out the dispatching services to Westchester EMS. I do believe that other FD's and VAC's have approached Westchester EMS for dispatching. The biggest issue is $$. Why pay someone to do something that's already paid for in taxes (60 Control).

There are two departments in Westchester (that I'm aware of) that carry 5000 feet of 5 inch in the hose bed, Bedford Village (Engine 108) as mentioned and a Pound Ridge engine. These two are almost identical.

Along with the Rescue and Fire Police company which runs out of Green Street with The Hooks.

Isn't that good enough reason? There's a former chief from upstate NY in prison for not following NFPA guidelines! No, you're not wrong.