An Interesting Concept

[50-65 205]

My brother, a Capt. in a Broome County department once me told of a concept that the county was putting into practice. To date, it is still in use, so I guess it has worked to some degree.

County Fire Control has broken up the county into areas, I guess not unlike Orange County has done with Battalions. The departments in that area have the option of participating. He is in the Central County area.

In his area, it is Engine 99. A manned engine that is dispatched along with first due companies, during daytime hours. Kind of an automatic mutual aid. Participating companies take turns "hosting" the engine. The unique thing about it is that not all FF on the engine are necessarily from the same department. You can sign up even if your department isn't hosting the engine/crew.

[Doc 11]

I had mentioned this a few times in previous threads but it never seems to ellicit much interest. The Engine 99 thing seems like a great idea and I understand that there is/was an Engine 98 and Engine 97 in the works. This cross-staffed engine concept is a great way to make automatic mutual aid more efficient. A lot of the departments in central Broome (and the rest of the county outside of the paid cities) have problems getting units out during the weekdays. Instead of getting a half-dozen understaffed rigs from a half-dozen departments on the road, under some sort of automatic mutual aid scheme, they put the people on one rig. I think Engine 99 involves 8 or 9 departments. They rotate which engine is used (and which station) from the participating departments and the shift staff mans that Engine, ready to respond to any of the participating departments calls. I've heard that they still have days where nobody's signed up, but that it's improved things a bit.

Edited July 14, 2008 by Doc

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

What does the response time look like for this engine? While getting out the door might be a snap, if the call is far away from the staffed engine, then the engine could be too far away to be make any difference and if it is staffed by members of the district in which the call came from, you could be taking away more members away than you would be gaining from the staffed engine. If they are too busy on the staffed rig, they will not be properly staff their home department.

[x635 4,066]

Thanks for sharing this with us, I otherwise wouldn't have known about it. I think that is an AWESOME idea, and something many people should consider implementing in some form or another.

Kudos to Broome County for once again being another agency to come up with and implement a progressive idea that probaly will take some agencies around here 10 years to figure out.

[firemoose827 324]

Ok...Enter the slow dumb guy!! Can someone explain this concept to me again please? lol

From what I gather, multiple departments in one county that have trouble with staffing Share one rig and staff it for calls? So you might get 1 FF from dept A and 3 from dept B but they ride together on the engine to get it out the door....Did I assume this correctly?

It sounds like a good Idea and Im interested in more info to try and bring the idea up here in my County.

[50-65 205]

Doc, according to their website, Broom Fire , Engine 97 and 98, are also on board.

bvfd, One of the things that helps mkae it work is that you can have a fully staffed engine but not all the FF's have to be from the same department. You could theoretically end up with 5 or 6 guys all from different departments, thereby not depleting any one department of its daytime manpower. As far as response time, the county set this up to only cover certain areas.

While the resopnse time might be longer if they had to go 2 towns away, how long would it be to resound the first due company a couple of times and then dispatch mutual aid? I know our policy is if we are not out the door in 4 minutes, we are resounded. After another 3 minutes, we are resounded again and the next closest department is dispatched. So, 7 minutes waiting for someone to respond or have an engine already on the road from the get go?

Moose, that's pretty much the idea. Guys that can do it sign up. They have an online calender where you can sign up for a shift. They get a crew together and basically hang out at the host company. I believe they cover 7a-5p.

Edited July 15, 2008 by DOC22
Activated Link

[firecapt32 282]

just a few questions that might arise--if these firefighters are not in the same deparment and this is a perment assigement(not always the same guy but a perment position) what position does the local take?? is it jobbing out? what if they are in "A" fire station one day and "B" station another do they have to do the same house assigements?? same training?? I see some problems if its a perment assigement espically with career departments. i am not saying its not a good idea or it cant be worked out but look at the whole picture.

[Doc 11]

just a few questions that might arise--if these firefighters are not in the same deparment and this is a perment assigement(not always the same guy but a perment position) what position does the local take?? is it jobbing out? what if they are in "A" fire station one day and "B" station another do they have to do the same house assigements?? same training?? I see some problems if its a perment assigement espically with career departments. i am not saying its not a good idea or it cant be worked out but look at the whole picture.

I don't know any of these details. You'd probably want to talk to somebody from Endicott FD (IAFF Local 1280). They are listed as participants in Engine 98.

[16fire5 693]

Concept has been in use for a while in Onondaga County, NY.

Here's some info on it.

http://www.mcfd.org/About/pages.php?page=e91

[Guest]

Its a good idea, but its not practical in the Northern parts of Westchester and Putnam. It could take you 10 minutes to drive from parts of Yorktown to Somers and from Yorktown to Mohegan. It would work in areas like Buchanan, Montrose, basically anyplace that almost has redundant fire protection. How does discipline work? I wont trust a guy from another Dept telling me what to do, and I am sure a lot of guys feel the same way.

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

What about the districts that you are entering if you are member of this manned mutual aid engine responding on this engine in a mutual aid call thats not in your district, or one immediately near it you will have no idea about area in which the call is located. We talk all the time about pre-plans and walk thrus but what good to those do if you have never seen any part of the district in which you are about operate in. Especially in Westchester where firefighters face various different property uses from industrial to commercial to residential all with various hazards and problems there is no way for a fire fighter to know every district that he is going to respond in. Tactics are also a very different from fire department to fire department, you have some districts with no municipal water supply next to districts that need 2 or 3 tankers upon the dispatch of a working fire. This mismatch of districts that we have in Westchester, in my opinion makes a concept like this difficult to use effectively and safely. I believe and I am sure that concept works well some places, just not here now. If regionalization were to occur I believe that my opinion would change.

roofsopen kind of reiterated and clarified my point about response times as well.

[Remember585 815]

What about the districts that you are entering if you are member of this manned mutual aid engine responding on this engine in a mutual aid call thats not in your district, or one immediately near it you will have no idea about area in which the call is located. We talk all the time about pre-plans and walk thrus but what good to those do if you have never seen any part of the district in which you are about operate in. Especially in Westchester where firefighters face various different property uses from industrial to commercial to residential all with various hazards and problems there is no way for a fire fighter to know every district that he is going to respond in. Tactics are also a very different from fire department to fire department, you have some districts with no municipal water supply next to districts that need 2 or 3 tankers upon the dispatch of a working fire. This mismatch of districts that we have in Westchester, in my opinion makes a concept like this difficult to use effectively and safely. I believe and I am sure that concept works well some places, just not here now. If regionalization were to occur I believe that my opinion would change.

roofsopen kind of reiterated and clarified my point about response times as well.

I'm going to disregard the fact that you are merely a kid - and probably haven't got much experience nor actual time fighting fires. (Yet.) Having this engine show up with a crew has many positive points. First, for departments that tend to go 2nd and sometimes 3rd tones to fill out a crew for one engine, this engine could be on scene before that first due department get out the door. How many times on your department's automatic Mutual Aid has Bedford Hills, Katonah, Kisco and/or Pound Ridge been there at the same time, if not ahead of, your units? Also, if you have a working fire or something that requires Mutual Aid anyway, do you make sure you are calling those that know your area? Most neighboring departments know a little about their neighbors and can find their way to a call. The point about water supply is a good one, but if you take an area, such as the Town of Bedford, you all know how to do tanker ops. Just like if all of Mount Pleasant merged their people into one staffed rig like Broome County does - they all know how to hit hydrants. Basic firefighting tactics are the same from one town to the next with slight differences. I am sure we all follow the same principles - like what line to pull, how to throw a ladder, etc.

It is an idea that has potential, but as Seth said, we'll never see it here. At least not until some departments wake up and realize they can't do the job NOW without calling Mutual Aid everytime...

My own Department is made up of 3 Engines, a Quint, a Tanker and a Rescue. Members always say that they are afraid to take in a call on another company's rig because if their company gets a run, it may not get out. It's a good point, but if the IC uses their head, they can send the already staffed rig(s) to the next run in addition to the one dispatched. Same thing career departments do when they have multiple runs - scale back an assignment or modify it.

That's just my two cents.