When the FD can get out for a call.

[Bnechis 3,961]

I have a couple of questions for Captain Barry.

For those of us in Vollyland, where we are suppost to bring 36 people, does that mean every call or every structure fire?

Also, what if an IC decides that the fire does not require 36 people and keeps apparatus and manpower in quarters? Can they do that?

Every "fire" call. ISO does not define this. It use to mean automatic alarms, but if you classify them as auto alarms and not "fires" thats another story. But any call that is reported as a fire (no matter how small) needs the full response.

Once the IC determines it is not a "fire"he can turn everyone around or keep them in qtrs. but you need toget a list of who was there (most do that for points anyway).

[helicopper 1,050]

Can you provide any case law related to this? Or examples of (successful) civil action resulting from one of these "failure(s) of duty to act"?

There are a number of notable cases, mostly involving Police and response to domestic violence (or lack thereof), in which State and Federal Courts found that while law enforcement had a duty to act, civil recourse could not proceed if there was infact a failure to act.

There was a sentinel case regarding law enforcement and the duty to act in a domestic violence case back in the 80's (I think). It was Thurman v. Torrington and the City of Torrington (Connecticut) took it on the chin for flagrantly failing to protect the plaintiff. It changed the way domestic violence incidents are handled nationwide.

As for similar cases in the fire service, I'm not personally aware of them but I'm sure someone else on this forum is!

[helicopper 1,050]

I work for a mulri billions $ corporation. If I go to a fire during the day I don't get docked pay. Yes I work from home and they don't have to know but not only have I told them in the past they incourage volunteerism. They even write these things up in the corporate newsletter. Most towns and villages know who belongs to the FD or EMS, they know you'll respond if a job comes in so get over it. Do you volunteer?

Completely different example. You're a salaried employee authorized to work from home. That's vastly different than a civil service employee who is leaving a job site/work assignment to do a fire/EMS call. Your employer expects you to complete your work - regardless of whether or not you went on a fire/EMS call. If that means you work 10 hours tomorrow to make up for it, so be it. You're not getting overtime for that.

I guarantee that a municipal worker who went on a call from 1000-1200 is STILL punching out at 1500 and going home. He's not saying, well, I didn't finish my work today so I'll stay late and finish since I took in that fire/EMS call. If he stays, he's looking for overtime.

If the fire/EMS calls can't be covered without taking other government services offline or away from their regular assignments - there is a problem that needs to be fixed!

[Guest ab2se]

If the fire/EMS calls can't be covered without taking other government services offline or away from their regular assignments - there is a problem that needs to be fixed!

Most municipalities don't have a problem with allowing their employees who are volunteers to respond to calls while they are working because they know it really saves tax dollars. The cost of having a career dept. with the PROPER STAFFING to provide fire /ems protection far exceeds the amount spent on employees going on calls.

[DOC22 1]

QUOTE(Chris192 @ Jan 25 2008, 09:41 AM) If the fire/EMS calls can't be covered without taking other government services offline or away from their regular assignments - there is a problem that needs to be fixed!

Most municipalities don't have a problem with allowing their employees who are volunteers to respond to calls while they are working because they know it really saves tax dollars. The cost of having a career dept. with the PROPER STAFFING to provide fire /ems protection far exceeds the amount spent on employees going on calls.

WEll, while what Chris said may be true in some areas, it isn't in my Department. We have the Town Highway crew and a local commercial entity. Both are run by past Chiefs. The employees are allowed to respond UNLESS their job assignments prohibit it. For example during the winter, burner service techs get tied up cleanings, and repairs, and, of course during "winter weather events" Highway crew is obviously unable to respond, and during summer the drew doing paving/patching can't whiy a load of hot blacktop in the truck. MOST of the time they can and do respond with no problem.

[ONEEYEDMIC 68]

There was a sentinel case regarding law enforcement and the duty to act in a domestic violence case back in the 80's (I think). It was Thurman v. Torrington and the City of Torrington (Connecticut) took it on the chin for flagrantly failing to protect the plaintiff. It changed the way domestic violence incidents are handled nationwide.

As for similar cases in the fire service, I'm not personally aware of them but I'm sure someone else on this forum is!

You got that right. Now we get to serve the BULLET PROOF ORDER OF PROTECTION LOL. The only thing this law did was take the LIABILITY away from PD's across the COUNTRY.

[Ging599 13]

I just realized that this is called "When the FD can get out for a call."

Shouldn't it be "can't" ???

Sorry, read my original post, I was up at 2AM thinking of this.

Anyhow, a lot of good conversation has been stirred up so I can deal with my typo.

I too would like to know of any examples or case history where an FD was held liable for not responding to an alarm in a timely manner.

[firemoose827 324]

QUOTE(Chris192 @ Jan 25 2008, 09:41 AM) If the fire/EMS calls can't be covered without taking other government services offline or away from their regular assignments - there is a problem that needs to be fixed!

WEll, while what Chris said may be true in some areas, it isn't in my Department. We have the Town Highway crew and a local commercial entity. Both are run by past Chiefs. The employees are allowed to respond UNLESS their job assignments prohibit it. For example during the winter, burner service techs get tied up cleanings, and repairs, and, of course during "winter weather events" Highway crew is obviously unable to respond, and during summer the drew doing paving/patching can't whiy a load of hot blacktop in the truck. MOST of the time they can and do respond with no problem.

My DPW is not civil service. My boss allows us to respond to structure fires, car fires and brush fires. We cant respond to smell of smoke, auto alarms, and cats in th tree calls. We get paid still for our eight hour day but no ot. The way I see it is we are not stealing from our town/village, we are still providing a service to our residents, whether it is patching pot holes or putting out someones house fire, and thats the way our boss see's it as well and he is prepared to support us to the end with the village board if it should ever come down to that. I dont see what the problem is, most everyone here is saying we need to provide a better service to the people of our districts, me included. But now we bring up the opinion of having local town/village DPW workers responding to daytime calls and all of the sudden patching pot holes or raking leaves in the village park are more important to the tax payers than saving someones house or even more important their lives. People need to make up their minds.

Granted, our boss also agrees, as do I, that if we are paving a road and we have 2 pavers hired out from the local quarry, 2 dump trucks from our neighboring town dpw, and 20,000 cubic feet of asphalt waiting to be layed out than we are not responding. Thats the way it is and most of us have common sense enough to figure that out, but on the same hand we are not always paving a road. We pave roads maybe once every 5 years when the money is in the budget.

But I guess there are different views from different parts of the state, especially on how DPW's are run and established. Up here we have no unions and no civil service DPW jobs, whereas down by you guys you do. I guess we need to look at it that way.

Good discussion all around.

[Ging599 13]

It seems these people will hold just about any civil service arena responsible for a variety of things:

http://www.trutestnw.com/investigation.htm

[TimesUp 148]

The link above should make a lot of Dept's think about the training they provide to their firefighters and officers. Not to mention enforcing or having dept. policy's.