mstrang1

Looks like someone missed the "DO NOT BLOCK" on that box for the FDNY Conveyor. What is that anyway?

I pout this under fiscal crisis and layoff to highlight the part about this city laying off five guys, closing two of three houses, and then having to divert funds and manpower to this... (I don't know how to link in the EMTBravo standard, if someone could help me out) http://www.fireengineering.com/index/articles/Wire_News_Display.1389074222.html

Not only is today the anniversary of Triangle, it is also the anniversary of the Happyland Social CLub fire which killed 87 people, in The Bronx.

What I hear is that the list is only good for 2 (or 3, depending on who I heard from) years after the list is certified. They do not plan on hiring anytime soon, so they will not certify it until they are ready to hire, just to keep that same list in effect longer.

In Stamford, we have MDTs, so we just touch the screen for responding, on scene (a fire call gets a size up on air), and clear the call. Also, this can be used for departing for secondary, arriving secondary (both usually the ER), in service, out of service, etc. This greatly reduces air traffic.

I believe the "k" is an end of message signifier, similar to "over" in CB talk. bvfdjc- I prefer to say "dispatch, this is engine 9" instead of vice versa. That way dispatch knows I will be calling them. It reduces the "dispatch to last unit calling" incidences.

Anybody have a photo?

RIP Corporal.

Mr. Sqd47bfd, I rather enjoy the formality of it, please let us continue in this manner. I realize I said BFD, but I meant the district, NOT the actual Fire Dept. My apologies to all. -Mr. Strangio PS. While my real name is no where on my profile, it was easy for you to look at an SFRD roster and figure out my name and identity. There is no way for me to reciprocate. jus' sayin'...

As we are being properly formal, Mr Cogliano and Mr Sqd47bfd, I think you are both misunderstanding my post. Maybe this is because I typed it at 200AM. I am not labeling BFD freeloaders. Quite the opposite, actually. I actually praised BFD for their willingness to step up to the plate and do the job at hand. Without quoting your post and wasting space, I will just respond to your post. It was my understanding that C and C/S residents (Belltown community specifically) paid for volunteer fire dept budgets, not SFRD. If I am wrong, I apologize. The definition of freeloader is "One who depends on another for support without reciprocating". So, it was my understanding that the TAXPAYERS, NOT BFD, were freeloading off of the taxpayers who pay for SFRD. When there is a fire downtown, the residents of Belltown (with the exception, obviously, of volunteers) are not responding to that fire. When I use the term "low trained firefighter" I am talking about fire dept members who have not completed FF1 and/or EMT. I find that, on some calls, we get a response from TOR members in a utility vehicle. On a medical call, a utility vehicle may be okay, as long as they are certified and they have the proper gear on board. Most SFRD and SEMS members, myself included, do not know if the guy walking in the room is an MRT, EMT, paramedic, doctor, whatever. It seems that TOR and SFCo (if they even get out)just get bodies out there without training. "You probably don't know about it, but whenever there is an incident or fire in the city of Stamford that potentially could tap citywide resources, notifications go out to the BFD members and they man the station. BFD stands ready to answer the call outside their district, even responding downtown if needed." I find this statement quite condescending. I have been a Stamford Firefighter for 10 years (anniversary in 2 weeks!), have been to several multiple alarm fires, seen and worked with volunteers at many of these, and also sat on the lone SFRD machine in service at HQ with BFD, GFD members, listening to the action on the radio. To assume that I am so high and mighty that I am not aware of the response to calls is shameful, really. The PERKS I talk about were the aforementioned career response without paying taxes for a career dept. I discussed this earlier. I was a volunteer at one point in my life as well, and understand the concept of learning on the street. In fact, even as a career firefighter, I am continually learning on the street. The problem I have is, as I stated earlier, when I ONLY get junior members as a response to a call.

Sqd- As I understand it, Belltown FD is in the "C" tax district. Downtown SFRD companies cover the A and B tax district. So every time Engine 1,5,6, Truck 1, Rescue 1, or any other downtown unit responds into Belltown, those residents are getting a "free" service. They are paying taxes towards a volunteer dept, and getting the response of a volunteer AND career dept. So, in my opinion, the residents of Belltown, whether they know it or not, are actually freeloading off of the A and B taxpayers. I am not saying that BFD does not have a decent turnout for calls (worlds better than TOR and SFCo!), but I am saying that those residents are getting "perks". I agree with Captain Hayes as well, but the truth of the matter is, outside of BFD, we are not getting that kind of response. I applaud BFD for stepping up and getting crews out. I do not know the answer, and am not trying to be accusatory, but I wish I knew the qualifications for whoever is showing up on a volunteer rig, from whichever Dept. At the Deep Valley Trail fire, somewhere after 2AM I was talking to a group of 4 or 5 young TOR members, none of which were interior qualified to my knowledge. Maybe a good idea is to inform the SFRD guys about how to quickly and easily identify volunteers who are not interior qualified. It is thought by some that this is purposely avoided, to show that volunteers are showing up, but in reality are limited in what they are trained to do. At tonights Board of Reps meeting, it was reported that there were approx. 80 volunteers at the scene and covering stations for the fire on Christmas Day. Sounds good, right? What was not reported was the level of training of those 80 volunteers. Having untrained or low trained volunteers respond on calls to show a volunteer presence is TRULY shameful, really. Although I do not know you name, you know my name, and I assume you know that I work at Engine 9. Yes, we leave the district to go shopping, get fuel, run other departmental errands, etc. If there were facilities in Engine 9s district to do these things, we would obviously not have to leave the district. The sad part is, we have been first due from the fuel pumps on Haig Avenue to Long Ridge Road! Absolutely no response from TORFD. A few weeks ago, as mentioned in an earlier post, I was working at Engine 9, and we had 4 calls for the day. I did not see a single volunteer for ANY of those calls. NOT ONE!

First off, I think the fact that at least 8, and probably 9, of the guys voted to go to SFRD is resounding. Secondly, how is a non guaranteed volunteer response better than a 4 person guaranteed response? In addition, an SFRD Engine from a neighboring district still goes on every call in BFDs district, thereby stripping that neighborhood of its resources to cover calls for Belltown. I am not saying that Mayor Malloys plan was perfect, but the residents of Belltown should have a career engine in their district. They went from having 2 career guys, plus a third on weekdays, to zero. This does not sound like the best interests of the district. Unless you count the freeloading that BFD takes from E1,5,6,7,8. Sounds to me like, instead of the best interests of the district and department, those chose the interests of the department OVER the district.

I agree with CTFF in regards to my stance on volunteers. I did find, through personal experience, that after I became a career FF that there was animosity towards me from members of my volunteer dept. I had some people asking my opinion on things, and then lambasting me for trying to suggest easier/different ways of doing things. Often the same person asking my advice was the one criticizing my answer. This drove me to resign from my volunteer dept. I have found that volunteers are often more critical of career FF than vice versa. In my experience, I found a lot of grief came from older guys who took tests when they were younger and did not get hired anywhere. I was relatively young (22-23) when I got hired by SFRD. There were guys I volunteered with who took tests for 10 years and did not get hired anywhere, and I found they resented me and were jealous. Yeah, they made fun of me for having to clean toilets and mop floors, but you could feel that a lot of these guys wished they had the opportunity to clean toilets at 629 Main St.

The guys that were LAID off did not choose to be laid off. They were laid off by way of BFD choosing to not go along with Mayor Malloys plan. So yes, the City was the one who actually laid them off, but it was the volunteer membership of BFD that caused it. Yes, the career staff at BFD chose in majority to become members of SFRD. That is not what I am saying. BFD COULDhave had an SFRD in its district, like GFD, SPFD, TORFD all do, and in doing so, create more jobs. BFD chose not to continue their relationship with Local 786 and have career guys in house. So yes, BFD did, in effect, through their own doing, "get rid of" a career engine that should have been in their district. Instead, they get a full volunteer response, plus the closest SFRD engine anyway. In the current situation, Engine 1,5,6,7,8 all respond into BFDs area anyway, when it simply could have been the hypothetical Engine 10 responding to these calls.

I don't mean to make this a gang up on Cogs thread, but I'll add my piece. A few pages back you(Cogs) said that you know of no volunteers actively pushing career guys out. I think if you look in your own backyard, or front yard even, you will find Belltown did just that. BFD employed 9(I think that was the #) firefighter/drivers. In 2007, the city was going to incorporate those 9 guys and staff a full rig in BFD. That would have been 16 jobs, 7 more than before. How many paid guys are in BFD now? 0. In addition, I remember giving money to guys that were laid off by Belltown FD because they did want to go along with the City. They voted NO on a proposal, knowing a few guys would, and did, get laid off. Sounds to me like they forced career guys out of BFD TWICE.

Most volunteer firefighters are considered "unpaid employees", thereby giving them (usually minimal) workers comp benefits and other coverages that volunteers are entitled to. So, for example, you would be considered an employee of BFD, who is contracted by the City of Stamford, to provide fire protection for BFDs district.

Looks like the self rescue ladder was not deployed in the earlier photos. This may have been a FF working in the attic space creating his own secondary egress with whats on hand, or, with what looks like a huge grin on his face, making some kind of joke <insert joke here>.

FD828- In Geppetto's original post about Quints, he had said to have everything Engine based ie Quints, Rescue engines, engine/tankers, etc. In this situation, the rescue pumper would operate similar to a squad, tankers could be an engine/nurse tanker, etc. This could be done through apparatus attrition, over the lifetime use of the current apparatus(HAH!!).

Not for nothing, but if they do not have an engine driver, I have been on calls where TORFD units have responded with either a pickup or an SUV. Maybe you will not have all the equipment, but you will have manpower, which is what is needed the most. Yesterday, Engine 9 responded on 3 calls, engine 8 at least 2, engine 7 at least 2, none of which had ANY volunteer response. This is not just on weekdays 9-5. This happens on evenings, weekends, holidays, etc. It happens ALL THE TIME. Are you saying that TORFD gets out to 80% of their calls? Yesterday, the number was 0% as of 9PM when I checked Engine 8s runs for the day. It definitely was 0% with Engine 9. There has to be some solid days to bring that average up to 80%. Based on my observations, TORFD makes approximately 50% of calls. On a related note, they do seem to have a much higher percentage when it is guaranteed they will beat Engine 8 or 9 to the scene (251 Turn of River Rd comes to mind). I am not sure how or why this happens, but I am not the only person to notice this trend.

Cogs- If there is enough volunteer "staff" to man apparatus, the career guys can take the engines, and the volunteers "should" be able to respond with, trucks, rescues, tankers, etc. This would mean that the career guys should not have to split the company and take multiple rigs with substandard crews. If they sufficiently man all of the apparatus that is available to them, it would be a formidable force to deal with most emergencies. So far today, Engine 9 responded on 3 calls, with no TORFD turnout to any of them. This is not "being subsidized by volunteers" as Mayor Pavia hopes would happen with the new plan.

Cogs- To clear it up a little further, the "fire tax" is not an actual tax in the same way. It will be for a fire district, so therefore, it will not be tax deductible. So with your example, only $5000 of the previous $5500 would be tax deductible.

It says Halliburton on the side, so one thing we know it does is waste taxpayer money

Just wanted to clarify, under the proposed plan, the "paid guys" would be employees of ironically named "Stamford Volunteer Fire Department (with 61 employees)", NOT SFRD. The union would have nothing to do with these paid volunteers under the new plan, except when they need mutual aid and the Mayor says that the union members will be right there to pick up the slack.

Someone I was speaking to earlier brought up the point that a lawsuit may constitute a lien on a corporation, and that the status or affiliations of a corporation cannot be changed while a lien is being held on that corporation. Anyone have any knowledge of this? It is way above my pay grade.

His qualification for this job is the only one that matters: He is friends with the mayor.