M' Ave

From the field; there is NOTHING better than a great dispatcher. Best of luck in your future career!

The trucks were completely outfitted by Odyssey in New Jersey. I believe they have ordered 40(??) so far.

This is an issue that should be examined closely. This could very nearly have been a tremendous disaster. No one can tell exactly how many people would have been killed had this bomb functioned properly and the psychological ramifications would be extensive, bringing a fear that lurks in the back of our minds to the surface very violently. The police officer who responded to the vehicle was peering through the windows before realizing what was contained within. That's a little closer to a bomb than I can imagine most of us ever wanting to be. Supposedly did a great job at moving people away and bringing the necessary NYPD Bomb Squad and FDNY units. As terrible a reality as it is, this is something that we, as emergency responders, need to be very aware of today. Furthermore, there has been some scuttle about the intended method of detonation and whether or not the smoke was intentional as a device to lure responders. If there is any validity to that theory, imagine the process. Device creates smoke, brings responders and then the primary device detonates. What a terrible event.... The reality is, there are very sick people who come up with intricate ways to kill lots of people and specific people. Be safe and cautious and try not to let ever present complacency effect your level of preparedness.

Yikes....a tiller AND a quint... ...seems like someone set out to win the most over complicated apparatus award. At some point, IMHO, we're trying to do too much with one vehicle. We're getting so complex that we get to a point where we have something that does everything, but nothing well. It carries tons of equipment, but it's too big to manage, ect. ect. There are other examples for sure. Tillers are lousy for the volunteer service, as it's difficult enough to get drivers. Now we need two? Not a good plan. Tractor trailers are too big for most urban environments. They're just too ungainly to navigate during emergency response. A tractor trailer unit might make sense for a special unit designed for limited responses or prolonged operations, but thats it. An example of another approach would be Hazmat 1 in NYC. They simply use two rigs for a response. Lastly, Quints suck. They are little more than a band-aide that allows politicians to give us fewer pieces of equipment and short change us on manpower. They fall into the over-complicated catagory. Is it an engine? Is it a truck? From the firefighters perspective, what is your job a particular fire? From a management perspective, "who's doing what?" When you have engines and trucks coming in, the chief knows what is happening because everyone's positions are clearly defined. Most bread and butter jobs are well underway before the chief even arrives. Okay....rant over.

Oh, of course. I meant "supposed", as in, that's the word around the job and not first hand knowledge. Undoubtedly saved lives is right!

They are indeed a single engine. Very proud of it too! They are one of very few single houses in the 6th/7th divisions. Looks like a good drill. The Columbia complex is HUGE and certainly filled with many hazards. May not be a huge fire potential, but there are many people, many non-ambulatory, and the place is filled with chemicals and devices for research labs.

That's a GOOD one! I'm going to have to file that one away. The HUGE water balloon at the end of the Niederman track is always a good one. Guy comes to hook the rig up as it backs in, pulls the Niederman up to the front.....splash.... There are more, but I'm not gonna tell!

Chevrons = Awful..... It's a great omission.

Very little changes with a tiller vs. a rear mount. The tillerman is the O/V, so once on the scene of a job, he goes to work as the O/V would in any company. The chauffeur will set up the aerial the same way he would in a rear mount. There's really not much too it. Hit the parking break, put down both tormentors and raise the stick. I've only worked in a tiller a handful of times as a detail, but for operating purpose (other than driving) they act the same as a rearmount. Once the ladder is in position it's available for the roofman to take up, if he hasn't found an adjoining building that is. The chauffeur is also now free to assist with ground ladders in the front of the building, or assist the O/V if he's made it to the rear. The chauffeur becomes the utility man, just as he would in any other stick. Now, TL's are a whole different animal...

Wow, very good thing no one was hurt. 50,000 lbs rolling down the street is pretty scary. WHEEL CHOCKS!!!

So many more trucks should be tillers......it's amazing who doesn't have one and the streets they have to deal with.

It's a very nice looking rig. With the changes in vendors, were you able to keep most of the operating components the same? It seems like the YFD fleet is fairly uniform and I assume this is because of the advantages in both mechanical maintenance and for the firemen when detailed, ect. ect. Does this thing still have that HUGE lift on the jacks for leveling on those Yonkers hills? That was a very cool feature.

The FFT Unit is often used to assist the families of injured members, helping them in any way that they can. They are also used at funerals to transport family members. They are used, as indicated, to transport members unable to drive to the dr.. Both the Engine and the Truck in my quarters are heavily individualized! We take a great deal of pride in our company and the fact that our rigs appearance represents our tradition as an extension of the firehouse and the men who have and presently work there. We put our nickname across the windshield, Co. Number on the grill, street sign on the bumper and hand painted several accents.....and of course a buff siren. You will most CERTAINLY find these types of additions on many of the rigs in the area and that includes the companies with the newer rigs. Little tweaks take time, ya gotta give the companies a little while to add those individual touches! I believe that the fire scene unit is connected to the Marshals. I'm not 100%, but I believe that it has evidence preservation and collection equipment and other items related to the Bureau of Fire Investigations.

The only thing I can see from reading this string of posts is that a regional (perhaps a couple of regional) fire dept's is something that Westchester Co. is SCREAMING FOR! It needed it decades ago. It needed it when I volunteered in Westchester and it needs it now more than ever! There are too many wasted or under utilized resources, too many under utilized people. Certainly there are people in every department who want to and COULD respond more often. Put them to better use and enter a system without so many lines and boundaries such. Some departments do very well with turning out manpower and some REALLY don't. The larger the pool of responders you draw from, the better. No one is expecting a guy to run off the golf course and answer a ringing alarm, actually, I wouldn't expect a guy to run for a working fire if he was putting on the 13th hole, or whatever. People have lives and they're going to be unavailable sometimes. That's the breaks, so expand, regionalize and have a more consistent turn-out. There's more. There should be standardized responses that are arranged with the dispatch agency and are consistent county wide (larger more self sustaining dept's aside). I see things written in the paper, or on this web-site, that don't seem to have any REAL consistent meaning. What's a 2nd Alarm bring you? How about a 3rd and so on? When the word is given that you have a working fire (10-75 means nothing, according to anything I can find. It's 10-21 and 10-22) what will that bring to your scene? You should be able to transmit that you have a fire and without another word, certain resources should be sent by the dispatcher. You should DEFINITELY have a FAST unit right away. Do you get an extra engine, truck or both? Maybe more? I don't know the specifics, but those at the top should and it should be uniform for the area.

Close TWO fire houses? I have a lot of family in Yonkers and that's total B.S.! It wasn't too long ago that there was talk of opening a much needed firehouse somewhere having to do with Ridgehill, guess that's not needed anymore... For a city of 200,000 and filled with NFP buildings, they're undermanned as it is. To top things off, the South West corner is filled with tightly arranged rows of century old housing, much of which is not in particularly good shape. Does anyone remember the 6th alarm in Queens last year? Wind whipped fire through attached rows spanning most of a block. How about last weekend's 7th alarm fire in Chinatown? Conditions in Yonkers are ripe for this type of fire and they've had them in the past. I can remember a couple of 10 alarm fires from several years ago. These cuts will be very dangerous. Best of luck to you guys, stay safe.

New Battalion vehicles for Fire will look exactly like this, however the slide out tray in the rear will be completely different. It will hold spare cylinders, the command board, ect ect....

I like the member rating feature. It helps to highlight who may or may not be a sound source of information. Couple of guys getting close to 100, who's going to be first?! However, I was thinking it might be nice if giving someone a rating was not anonymous. Let someone know who you are when you give them an atta-boy and, likewise, when you criticize. I think everyone can take some criticism and this might help avoid vindictive negetives. Anyone's thoughts?

The senior man is a huge problem..... ....he is too few. At least in my neck of the woods. This lack of seniority has, in my limited view from inside the fire dept., been difficult. HOWEVER, the senior men who remain have been instrumental in leading us members of the Juniority in keeping up traditions and being willing to show us johnnies a thing or two at every opportunity. The burden of being in that positions is, no doubt, very great. In my experience, there are two kinds of senior men. There is the true top senior man who has tons of time and you respect him because, well, he's seen it and done it and you haven't. You take care of him, make sure that his 12x watch is covered and that you ask him what he wants when you are heading to shop for the meal. This guy bears the burden of passing on the firehouse tradition and seeing to it that things continue to run in the well oiled manner that they have since anyone can remember. He is the officer's right hand man, his go to guy. He won't deal with day to day problems directly, in fact, you might find a senior man that doesn't have a lot to say to the proby....ever. He'll pass the word down the chain and feed you to the 10 year jackals! The senior man makes house policy and sets the tone. He is the most important person in the firehouse and his experience is invaluable. The other kind of senior man is a little different. He isn't necessarily the guy with the most time, although he will certainly have more than most. He is a guy who steps up to lead in the firehouse everyday. He shares his knowledge and runs drills. I believe that the most effective "sub"-senior man is not the guy who breaks your chops all day from the kitchen table or the couch. He's the guy that you see DOING what you should be doing and without a word can make you run to help or steal that task from him. He won't say that you should be doing it, but you should realize that without anything being spoken. This is a guy who can make you want to step-up all of the time. Thankfully, in all of my 10 seconds on the job, I've been able to work with the senior men who will take advantage of any opportunity to show you a trick or run through the paces of fire tactics at even the most mundane and routine run. One thing aside from this, but important to note: I think that the lack of enough senior firemen in a lot of instances has changed the role of the officer, at least temporarily. They do need to step outside of the typical officer's role and to share stories and knowledge to help bridge the seniority gap. Thankfully there have been enough senior officers around in my short career to do this. I think that the 8 officers assigned to the two companies in my house have a combined 140 (2 have less than 10 years so you can imagine what that means about the others) of experience. This is a huge bonus when, of the 4 guys on the backstep, 2 are probies and the other two of us have a combined time of about 6 years!

You know what would be nice? If New York State did an audit of itself. Here we are in "financial straights" and I can't recall any pay cuts taken by elected officials or appointees, nor can I think of any other cutbacks in state Government. After they're finished with that, they can take a look at NYC, who's work force has grown by 50,000 +/- under Bloomberg. None of those jobs were in uniform services, but many jobs in those services were cut in those years.

Has it? What's the story?

This is very true and I agree that there is a different dynamic and set of challenges to officers in smaller dept's where the separation of officers, firefighters and politicians is much smaller. Thank you for the alternate viewpoint. This situation does and continues to impact members in larger jobs as well. You could be a boss in a company with someone who was in your proby class and still a fireman, ect. ect. I think a constant here is that being promoted is rewarding yet very challenging. One of those challenges is the need to sacrifice your standing as on of the men, not always, but sometimes. The best bosses (and I'm fortunate to work for terrific bosses) have the ability to be all business and lay-down the law when it is necessary and still be on deck cheering you on at the plate for softball. Some of the burden here is shared by the firemen as well. It is up to us to know how and where to draw the line. Your best friend could be your boss that day. You owe it to him to keep that separate and address him by his title at work, at least in front of the others. It's give and take. The successful officers I've seen know how to take charge and respectful firemen who are broken in the right way will give you the respect of the rank. If an officer were to seek disciplinary action against a subordinate, I would think it less likely that he is some hard-nosed guy and more likely that a subordinate backed them into a corner and left them no choice. Thankfully, I've never seen this happen. Any officer here care to share a bit about the transition? What was the first tour like? What did you do internally to make the change and what external factors helped/hindered the transition?

This was a great topic to start. To try and analyze the supervisor/firefighter relationship is very difficult, especially to someone who does not reside within the ranks of our respective profession. In other professions you do not eat three meals a day with your boss. You don't reside in the same building a few nights a week. Above all, you do not enter into hazardous environments with your boss. I believe that the underlying concept of the brotherhood and the responsibility we have for one another transcends rank, to some degree. I'm simply a fireman, no bars for this guy. Not yet at least and I like to think that I pay attention to the dynamic and here is are my observations. In New York City, following promotion, you are indeed removed from your immediate work environment to attend FLiPs. Once you complete that schooling, you are assigned to a division and often a Boro that is different from where you served as a fireman. Suddenly everyone calls you "Lou" and you are responsible for EVERYTHING that happens with that company during the tour. I have to imagine that this does help the transition since, in all likelihood, no one at that company knows you as anything other than a boss. However, you knew yourself as fireman, so I would imagine that it is a difficult internal transitions to make. Would I be wrong to assume that the first promotion is the most difficult to adjust too? In my limited experience, the best bosses are rarely feared, sometimes loved and always respected. In our system, we live in the same house as officers, right up to the rank of Deputy Chief. There should be a mutual respect between the rank and file and the boss. He is the superior officer. He has gained rank and with that comes responsibility and that should not be challenged by the lesser rank. From his perspective, you cook his meals, make up the rack for him and clean his office. To some degree, as you move past the Co. Commander (Capt.) and on to chief, he spends a lot less time with the men, but the best officers know how to balance their time. They know just how much time to spend in the kitchen and the sitting rooms with the men. They know whey to just head up to the office and stay there. In the best scenario, the men know when to let the officer lead and when to settle issues in such away as not to trouble the officer. I have always been told that in a perfect world, the men run the house and the officer runs the company.

This is true and a secondary panic avoidance-type break is a good idea. I'd never heard of that before. This device has been deployed several times and was first used (member actually out the window on rope) about three years ago. He was a seasoned guy, 25 years give or take, and he was able to use it successfully. He did burn his hands in the process. 2 things to take away from this: One, obviously he found it easier and necessary to remove his gloves. Although we train with our gloves on, in reality, you just might pullem' off. The oven mitts they issue are poor at best. More importantly, if his hands were burned at the height of the window sill, how hot do you think it was to chase him out the window. Considering that this device has clearly saved lives, it is something that everyone who will be in the building should have. You should be extremely proficient in it's use and mindful of the condition you keep it in. You owe it to yourself, your family and (very sadly) all of the brothers who's lives might have been saved by this device and who's passing created the urgency to provide these devices to the rest of us. Train regularly as ALS said. I'd say 6 months is a good time frame. Mark it on the drill calender, "practice bail-out and repack personal systems".

We use a system designed partly in house and in conjunction with Petzl. I don't know if this exact system is available commercially, but I would think that some variation is out there. It works in conjunction with the Gemtor harness that is worn over our bunker pants. Seems like a good system as far as it's being simple, straightforward and easily deployed. It uses a hook, which I've seen placed in MANY different locations in and around a window, or used as a tie off point when wrapped around a heat riser or radiator (Personally, I think the odds of having time to tie off before using this last resort system, are poor). The hook works great as long as it is held in place until constant tension is put on it, meaning, you are out the window and it is holding your whole weight. You have to hold it with the trailing hand as you roll out of the window, but with repetition, this becomes second nature. The descender device pays out quite nicely, as long as you packed it correctly with enough tail to get it past the window sill. Once out and hanging, you grab the EXO descender and it will lower you as you pull the lever. It takes some getting used to as pulling too hard will cause you to drop VERY fast. Currently, the whole device and 50 feet of rope are stored in a pouch on our right hip. It's not the greatest thing. It's about 8 more pounds and it's location makes you a few inches wider.....not good. As I understand it, an alternative location and bag design is working it's way through R&D, but who knows how long that will take. Talk is that it will be located somewhere around or just below the lumbar region. Not exactly sure how that's going to work with the mask, but we'll see. One thing that I cannot stress enough with this and (I assume) every system is; you need to train on this device at great length. I know that in the academy, a proby will slide from low platforms, hight platforms and do it repetitiously. I believe that this system is very good and reasonably safe, but it is definitely a last resort and you need to know how to use it when it's getting so hot that your best option is to go out the window. Do it blind, do it while timed and under pressure. This is not the kind of thing you talk about and slide once or twice. You should go through several scenarios with the device and have slid more times than you can count before you consider yourself comfortable. Maintenance and care is another issue and you need to keep the rope clean and you need to repack and inspect this device regularly. Think about it like this, this is mountain climbing equipment. Do you think anyone climbs a rock face without checking their gear? We do not use our own system for drilling (we use a spare), but we do repack it 4 times a year as a company. As an individual, you should check it at the start of every tour, or whenever you can (drill periods and such for volunteers).

Well done and well thought out. Excellent tribute.