RES24CUE

I am with you BNechis. I have seen a number of incentives given in exchange for activity, yet, it is my belief that none of them actually make more people come to each call / event. I have seen departments give out Meals, Perks, Gas Cards, LOSAP (Length of Service Applied Pensions) and, while all of these are great reinforcements for people who come to calls, it does not effectually make them want to be more active. It just rewards members (those who are more active) for being as active as they want to be. When I was a member in an Eastern Connecticut department, the town paid EMTs $50 per call to take in EMS runs on the ambulance. They would not pay all 8 EMTs that showed up but paid 1 Driver/EMT and one Patient Care EMT (unless the call was serious - then they would pay an extra EMT in the back i.e. CPR in progress). This effectively incentivized people to get their EMT training to make some extra money and to show up for the calls that no one wanted to go on. It even went a step further since "the juice was finally worth the squeeze to go on all of the crummy calls (I think I'm not the only firefighter who dreads the fact that the EMS job fell into our laps in a lot of places), people would come around the firehouse to hang out more hoping to be there when the call went out so that they could beat out the other guys to earn an extra $50...therefore, they would be there to take in all of the other calls. It also created a good amount of friendly competition that was fun for the guys. I can remember making $1500 in some months just to hang around the firehouse on the weekends and evenings a few days a week. The town would re-coup this money easily by billing the insurance companies of those who were transported to pay the volunteers. Another thing that I found to be effective were departments that had bunk rooms. In this day and age where the economy is crap and young adults are being forced to work more hours for less cash and can't afford to buy / rent houses in their home communities, they move away after high school or college leaving the departments that they have been with for 8 or 10 years. Departments that allowed members to "bunk," effectively kept members that were trying to get out of their parents' houses and gave them a free place to live where they could still give back to their community. There major rules: 1. You must have taken your firefighter 1 class. 2. If you are at the firehouse when a call went out, you must go on the call! 3. If you do something stupid, you can't live there anymore! This resulted in 3-6 free 20-30 year old live-in firefighters at the firehouse most of the time (definitely nights and weekends). You essentially had a full crew ready to roll. And, with 5 or 6 bunk people, there are seldom less than 2 guys there to take in a call at any given time. Lastly, you need to encourage training so that people don't just want to do the bare minimum. Training bonuses! Take Firefigher II, get a $300 bonus! The three aforementioned ideas utilized in conjunction resulted in the creation of a "quasi-paid" firehouse for very little cost. For the cost of a couple of sets of bunk beds and a few lockers, you got a full crew on staff at the firehouse who were happy to have a free place to stay and a pocket full of cash from training & taking in EMS runs. These 5 or 6 guys, subsidized by the rest of the volunteers, many of whom would hang around quite a bit to make some EMS cash, created a pretty good system where most calls were adequately staffed, response times were great, and the members were well-trained and happy. When i was a bunk person I was in college and loved it. I went to class during the day, had a free place to stay and more money in my pocket than a college kid could spend. The set-up allowed me to be an honor student and one of the most active members of my department with plenty of time to spare. Many of the other bunk guys had full-time jobs during the day, evening, or night and would come and go as they pleased.

This tactic does seem risky and I really cannot think of any practical use for it. That said, if I had to think outside the box and rig this contraption together in an effort to save my own life or rescue a fallen firefighter, then I'd climb across it. It can be done...it shouldn't be done...but it can be done... Now comes the double-edged sword...If it can be done, do you practice the tactic so that firefighters know this is feasible even though it is not recommended? Or is it too dangerous to even train on this tactic? I probably would have thrown a safety line on the guy at the bare minimum if it were me running the training! God forbid one of these guys gets hurt while practicing it though...lawsuit waiting to happen!

Hey Seth! If you don't believe that the public should be censored why are you censoring me? You took my post down yesterday for stating an honest opinion of Law Enforcement. While my opinion may not be popular, it was not derogatory, off-color, or explicit. And what's with this bullshit moderator queue that you put on my account. You are a complete and total hypocrite!

In a world where the police are just as out of control as the criminals I think that cell phone videos are the public's last defense against mistreatment and brutality at the hands of Law Enforcement. I think its an abomination that someone who barely got out of high school can tell a college educated citizen or even an attorney whether or not they are breaking the law when many of them can't even read the laws let alone interpret them. In a day and age where police officers require no higher intellect and no upper level of education and the liberal agenda is constantly trying to dumb the tests down to allow less qualified people to get hired in Law Enforcement, I have no faith in our enforcement system. These morons (most of whom are on a power trip) constantly overstep their bounds. The only difference between a perp and a cop is the badge in my opinion! I have no respect for the police (Don't get me wrong, I try to avoid them at all costs and not provoke because you never know how they will react).

I prefer "negative smoke or fire from the exterior." Less vague so nothing can be confused or misconstrued...

Plus EMTs are a dime a dozen...you can hire some pimply faced high school kid with a buff belt for like $9.00 an hour part time so that you don't have to pay for benefits. These losers will line up for the job tenting in their EMS pants at the $9.00 rate!

They quit! Why? 1. Last time I checked this was a team sport! The success of an operation cannot and should not be determined by the actions of the few (or the individual). When a member constantly trains and studies, but is surrounded by novices who can't perform simple functions, he (or she) will be discouraged. It is hard to be proud of or confident in your organization or your team when you know exactly what needs to be done on the fireground and are prepared for every emergency, but everyone else doesn't. It is discouraging to consistently do your job exactly by the book and have every operation fail because no one else read it. 2. It is dangerous! To be a knowledgeable and aggressive firefighter is a good thing. However, when an individual is experience and talented but surrounded by novices, who can you count on to come to your aid when the s*** hits the fan. Instead, it hampers your ability because you have to be overcautious since no one else can keep up (or get scared) and no one can get you out should you get into trouble (it happens to the best of us!). 3. Frustration! It gets tiring to know exactly what needs to be done to resolve and incident but have other people consistently screw things up! You get tired of having ceilings pulled down on you; you get tired of waiting for water because your CPO can figure out how to pull the right levers; you get tired of having rooms flash when you are in them because your outside vent team doesn't know how to properly vent horizontally and introduces too much oxygen to the fire; you get tired of having no back-up man on the knob because the guy behind you couldn't find his gloves; you get tired of telling your crew to pull a 2 1/2 with a smooth bore and getting an 1 3/4 with a fog tip! After a while you just realize that they don't care and that you don't want to be a part of them anymore. 4. Ostracization! When you are part of the small minority that actually cares about training, firematics, and performace, but 46 of the other 50 members of the organization only care about parades and pancake dinners, then you become the a******! You are the guy who is always critiquing everyone; you are the guy who is always telling people how to improve; and you are the guy who takes things too seriously (after all "We are just volunteers!"). So even though all you want to do is teach others and improve the effectiveness of your department, you are always the a****** who is ruining the fork and knifers' good time and telling them that they are doing it wrong! So instead of moving up because you are the most well-trained, you are voted out and replaced with the head clown in the popularity contest that they call an election because everyone loves him! Thats why they quit...

This could be a fire where nothing much went wrong. Or it could be a fire where nothing at all went right. The outcome is that firefighters showed up to a well involved fire where residents had self-evacuated, could not make an interior attack, and performed surround-and-drown operations while they watched the building burn down. We don't know if they had 5 members show up or 50 members show up. We don't know if it took them 5 minutes or 25 minutes to arrive on scene. That was my whole problem with this article. It seems like this article is praising a group of individuals for unfavorable outcomes and potentially shoddy performance. "Great job showing up and watching a house burn down." This gives the volunteer fire service, the residents, and the public a false (poor) sense of what is expected and what is favorable. The volunteers now know that they get a pat on the back regardless of whether or not the building is saved. The residents gain a false sense of security since the newspaper has just told them how great their local department is (that just allowed one of their neighbors houses to burn down without mounting a coordinated interior attack). The public now thinks that the volunteer fire service does a great job (when we all know that most volunteer departments are seriously lacking in manpower, training, and professionalism these days). I would imagine that this fire was not much different than the Vista helmet cam fire where everyone bashed them on this very website for their poor performance (we saw the article that they Huffington Post wrote about how great they were). This article is complete bullshit. Write an article when rescuers make a save. Not when a bunch of losers watch a house burn down. Don't mistake me for a career firefighter who love to bash volunteers. I am not a career fire fighter and have never been one. I spent 10 years in the volunteer fire service as a Firefighter, Lieutenant, and Captain and quit because I believe that the volunteer fire service is a façade and a waste of taxpayer dollars where members are more concerned with social functions than they are with training and firematics.

How well trained do you think these people are?

"A group of firefighters attempted to enter the house but were forced to turn back because the heat was so intense. Steltz called it the hottest fire he has ever experienced. “There was a lot of heat, a lot more fire than usual,” he said. No one was hurt. Residents Anne Impellizzeri and Dan Wright escaped injury but lost all their possessions." I love creative writing! "A group of firefighters attempted to enter the house but were forced to turn back because the heat was so intense." Surround and Drown!"Steltz called it the hottest fire he has ever experienced." And the only fire he has ever experienced! (and yes I read that he was a past chief - still a possibility!)"No one was hurt. Residents Anne Impellizzeri and Dan Wright escaped injury but lost all their possessions." The building was unoccupied upon arrival - No risk of life present!This is bullshit...you can twist anything to make it worthy of publishing!

Actually, I had a 10 year career in the volunteer fire service as a Firefighter, Lieutenant and Captain. I have never been paid firefighter. After 10 years I quit volunteering my time because, based on my experince, the volunteer fire service is hopelessly broken in many areas around NYC. If you don't believe me, take a look at the "Vista FD 10-75 Helmet Cam" forum here on EMTBravo. The volunteer fire service has eroded into a mess of inadequate responses, poor leadership, a serious lack of manpower, a dangerous lack of training, and zero professionalism. This, in combination with the huge amount of newspaper scandals and the toothless politics (that often times sided against improving firematics in favor of laziness and keeping what little manpower the department had left), made me quit wasting (volunteering) my time. I joined with the desire to help people and to better my organization. However, I quickly learned that the juice simply wasn't worth the squeeze.

They probably only invited reliable resources. You know, the kind that can be trusted upon to show up when there's an emergency. Not just send a few pimply faced kids and a plumber with no recognized training on a half empty rig if they even decide to show up at all...

Sorry about that smiley face...apparently the B + ) becomes a smiley face wearing sunglasses. Who knew?

I think that the kid who wrote this article did a great job parroting back everything that has been told to him by his old, salty instructors and the senior men who sit around the coffee table in the firehouse. However, I seriously doubt that in his brief career as a volunteer fire officer that he has accrued enough clout to be telling others how to do the job better. How much leading/bossing could he have done in his 3-5 years as a member of his agency, presumably responding to EMS Calls/False Alarms 90% of the time where little-to-no high stress, high adrenaline leadership is required. Frankly, when you have Chiefs like John Salka and VInnie Dunn writing books; officers who led fire crews through intense situations on a daily basis in every type of scenario in busy metropolitan cities, this "baby" lieutenant should know when to keep his mouth shut and his ears open. Moreover, the tennets that he referenced may be great suggestions for an officer to remember in a paid fire department situation. However, for the following reasons (from what I have seen in recent months in the various emergency services organizations with which I used to affiliate), I believe that leadership in the traditional firefighting sense has completely deteriorated in the volunteer fire service: 1. The absence of qualified members to hold officers positions - Many organizations have no (or insufficient) qualifications for member to become firematic officers. Why should being a member for a minimum of one year (and never having been in a fire) make an individual qualified to make a life or death decision on behalf of his entire crew at an emergency scene? But many organizations, due to a lack of manpower, can't give away these positions. I know of a department recently that had to set aside the by-laws to allow a Captain who did not meet the minimal time of service and training requirements as stipulated by the by-laws to become Assistant Cheif. They then had to make the same accomodations for a Lieutenant to be allowed to fill the Captains spot. And after all of this, they still had two vacant Lieutenant spots that they couldn't give away. The lack of competition undermines the electoral system of voting for those who are best fitted for the position which allows those who perform poorly to maintain their positions (or in some cases be promoted). The entire system is stagnant. Plus, if you are begging people to occupy officers spots regardless of adequate training or experience, they are not officers, they are SPOT FILLERS!!! 2. The absence of firefighters - Many organizations have no (or insufficient) manpower to fight fires. I have seen countless situations (most of the fires that I have been to) in my 10 year volunteer career where rigs are either riding with empty seats, or the seats are full of under-officers. In the former situation, you cannot be a leader if you have no one to lead. When the Captain jumps out of the front right seat and grabs some hoze and the nozzle and the 1st Assistant Chief backs him up, there is little leadership that occurs in this firefighting situation. The Captain must disregard his responsibilities of directing a crew in order to get things done (and because there is no one to direct). In the latter situation, when the 1st Assistant Cheif jumps out of the front right seat (of a rig driven by the 2nd Assistant Chief) and is directing the Captain, 2 Lieutenants, and an Engineer to perform the tasks of a crew of firefighters, 2 things are happening: A) The command structure is weakened by the absence of a Chiefs to perform safety, logistics, etc. and The line officers really aren't officers, they are firefighters. If you get a fancy badge and helmet plate but you are still grabbing the knob, it undermines the position. You are no longer a leader, you are a firefighter with a fancy title and helmet. Unfortunately, with the lack of manpower these days, everyone has a title and members must employ a mentality of "do what you gotta do" to get the job done. 3. Elections are popularity contests - The electoral system employed by most volunteer fire organizations undermines the promotion process in its entirety. Officers are not elected for good performance, they are elected because people like them. Within this system, the happy-go-lucky, friendly nice-guy who never trains and never gets anything done gets more votes than the guy who trains his ass off and pushes people to be better/better the organization. The members get annoyed because the dilligent officer is forcing them to work and support the cool, laxidazical officer when it comes time to vote. Frankly, in my career, I have seen a ton of cool guys who made it to Chief who were essentially useless at a fire. This is especially apparent in the slow volly firehouse where nothing ever burns and the men are never separated from the boys on the fireground.

From callthecops.net The academy class that started on July 29 is compromised of many people who did not pass basic entrance exams in previous years. A Federal Judge ordered the FDNY to alter basic entrance requirements to allow persons who were “unfairly denied” a job by low test scores or lack of physical fitness. Now after 15% have dropped out and large number on the brink of dropping, the judge thinks basic training is “unfairly hard”. “The FDNY is expecting people to run a mile and a half in 12 minutes. When is the last time a firefighter needed to run that distance? They ride in fire trucks! I can understand that back a hundred years ago the FDNY needed marathon runners. But today we have motor vehicle technology to get to a fire so no need to go running on foot.” This is completely ridiculous. Not only do the courts think firefighters don't need to be as smart (Lets be frank, even before the court rulings the FDNY was known for being New York's bravest, not New York's brightest) but now there is no need for them to be physically fit either. The judges must think that fighting fires is a pretty easy job. "It doesn't matter that you have inferior cognigtive capabilities and that you are out of shape...so long as you are the correct shade of brown you'll be fine." Shouldn't minorities feel bad about this too? Shouldn't they be ashamed that the bar has to be lowered time and time again and in every category so that they can pass the test? Soon we will have to teach fire suppression and survival in the Middle and High Schools so that every citizen is capable of self-rescue since the Fire Departments can no longer be relied upon. Full Article: http://www.callthecops.net/federal-judge-orders-fdny-academy-easier-people-pass/

RyGuy...Kudos to you. I thought that it would take pages of commentary for someone to notice!!! Well played!

The Navy’s new humanoid robots can detect fires on a ship, withstand extreme heat up to 500 degrees, and fight the fire shoulder to shoulder with human firefighters. Designed to fight shipboard fires at sea, the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot, known as SAFFiR, is a human-sized robot. Under direction and funding from the Office of Naval Research, Naval Research Laboratory researchers have been working with university researchers to develop the tech. SAFFiR is meant to move autonomously throughout a ship, learn its layout and patrol for structural problems. The robot will be able to interact with the sailors onboard, and take on many of their dangerous firefighting tasks. See link below: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/03/27/robots-join-navy-to-fight-fires-at-sea/?intcmp=features

Cost vs. Value! I think that we can all agree the monetary cost of development, production, and maintenance is less than the value of the life of 1 Firefighter... After all, work smart not hard!!!

More wasted taxpayer dollars. This is why they keep closing firehouses and reducing crew sizes. If we keep entertaining this garbage NYC is going to become Detroit.

This makes me want to puke. It's no longer about who is better suited for the position, it's a numbers game. I work in NYC and I'm buying an extinguisher, a water can, a bailout bag, and a AV-3000 with an escape canister just in case a truck full of these know-nothing cry-babies shows up in front of my office building for a working fire.

$69 Million withdrawn from ATMs in exotic vacation locations using pre-paid welfare debit cards... Millions withdrawn from Las Vegas Casino ATMs, ATMs in Hawaii, ATMs on Cruise Ships, and ATMs in South Beach, Miami. We work hard and pay our taxes while these savages have the times of their lives at our expense... See video below: http://www.youtube.com/embed/_wElqMl5TJM?rel=0

I am confused about this. The organization with which I was previously affiliated was looking into donating old equipment / firefighting gear / apparatus to some poor, developing countries through a local charity. The charity would incur all delivery costs, etc. However, the fire district, upon researching the matter, determined that according to the laws that govern fire districts (Side note, one of the fire commissioners was an attorney and they always had their district attorney present at all district meetings...so there were 2 lawyers interpreting these laws not just a an electrician, a school bus driver, and a DOT worker who are laymen and wouldn't know how to interpret the law anyway) they were unable to donate any equipment that still had any value remaining. The way that they read the law was that anything that was purchased with any taxpayer money could not be disposed of until it was completely without value. Therefore, completely regardless of NFPA and their time restrictions for apparatus / fire gear, if the piece of equipment had a reasonable fair market value, then they could not dispose of that item without some type of monetary compensation / attempt to get the most out of the taxpayer's dollar. Their interpretation was as follows...What right do they have to give away something worth $25,000 of the taxpayers money. They should sell it for the $25,000 and they charge the taxpayers $25,000 less the following year. This could be a significant amount of money on a ladder truck even if it is 15 years old.