Protect Your Own District First And Foremost

[x635 4,066]

*NOTE-I'm not looking for conterversy or an argument, I just thought this would be an interesting topic to talk about*

One of my Dispatch supervisors taught me one "Don't strip down your district to go mutual aid".

I've noticed (listening to online feed, etc) that some departments basically dump house to go mutual aid. This, in some cases, includes all three Chiefs going, a fully staffed engine, and a utility full of firefighters-for a "bread and butter" fire.

Now, say, a call comes into your district. It's someone who pays your fire district tax, yet your most active and experienced firefighters are out of town on the mutual aid call. Your apparatus is delayed, you have bare bones staffing, and inexperienced or older firefighters that are not interior-certified. You may not even have the proper equipment.

Sure, there's mutual aid to cover houses, but then that problem just repeats itself in another district, as most people try anything they can to go to the call instead.

My EMT-I instructor, back in 1998, I believe he still is infulencing progress somewhere in Westchester ;-) ,, had a very well thought out Task Force concept, that would provide mutual aid without stripping down neighboring communities. He also had a plan for EMS as well.

Anyways, how would you explain the response delay to the citizen who pays a high fire district tax for you to be there as quickly as possible with the right manpower and equipment?

[SECTMB 612]

I think most deparatments have a standard mutual aid plan for themselves. In my department, my engine company was not typically the mutual aid engine. But when our department was called for mutual aid, essentially drawing down our own response capabilities, a number of my engine company members would come down to our station to be available should a call come in.

What I find most disconcerting is the lack of coverage within the district during parade season. Its your most active members who participate in the parades and we have never had a formal plan in place to leave a crew 'on duty' while everyone is out of town for the parade. I remember one time when we had all congregated waiting to leave for the parade, looked around at who was going and collectively wondered, Uh, who's left to respond? I stayed behind with another interior firefigher/EMT and the Chief told us to respond to anything in the district whether or not it was our normal response area. We took in two calls that days, both non-events but at least there was a response to deal with it.

With a volunteer department you don't know if your response is 1, 2, 10 or 30. If your going to send apparatus and/or manpower out of town, you should ensure that your own district is covered.

[dadbo46 50]

Smart supervisor !

Edited September 16, 2011 by dadbo46

[16fire5 693]

We've touched on this before probably as a tangent to other threads. It's a great topic Seth. Most places now have box assignments and they may involve move ups and relocates as part of it. It's not a bad idea to analyze coverage gaps that are going to occur as a part of multiple mutual aid requests. In most cases in NYC the relocators that occur on the all hands usually are not sent to the fire as additional alarms are transmitted. In places like Westchester it would probably be a good idea to send a coordinator to 60 Control on say 3rd alarms or greater and they could manage resources. One problem is that they may not have the power to relocate without the home chiefs permission. I think they should delagate this duty to the dispatchers.

[xchief2x 79]

16 fire5 In Westchester a Deputy Coordinator (Battalion) is dispatched upon the transmission of a 10-75 by the IC. Since NY is a home rule state it is the chief/IC's call on requesting mutual aid. Most departments have their major alarm policies in the CAD at 60 control usually up to at least the 3rd alarm. If I am on a scene as a battalion I only request through 60 control what the IC asks for, sometimes they say which dept they want sometimes they don't, in that case I will simply request (for example 1&1 to ABC dept) and leave the rest in the capable hands at 60 control.

Edited September 16, 2011 by xchief2x

[FFBlaser 24]

We send one tanker, which has a Class A pump, with Three Interior Guys, Nothing more. Sometimes (because we have more interior guys) we are called as RIT... but that is rare.

[ny10570 745]

One thing unique to the volunteer fire service that always struck me is how coverage improves when a department has a fire. Middle of the day many depts can barely get two rigs out the door, yet if they have a fire they'll pull an engine and ladder from their neighbors that usually come loaded up with firefighters ready o respond the moment an alarm comes in.

[AJU 39]

If I look at this using a cost/benefit analysis it seems pretty clear that the benefits of these mutual aid runs outweigh the risks.

The risks we're dealing with are that a fire will occur at home while units are operating on the MA fire. How many fires does any village in Westchester get per year? One, maybe two? Maybe even double that? So the odds of a fire happening at home are very low on any given day. Same is true of a neighboring village. Now, the odds of them happening simultaneously in the home and neighboring villages is tiny. So the mutual aid engine and chiefs can respond with a fair degree of certainty that there won't be a fire at home. If there happens to be an incident there are other apparatus and deputy chiefs to handle it, and one of the chiefs at the MA fire can always respond (if it's mutual aid, their response time is likely to be fast). The risk score here is quite low because the likelyhood is very low and the severity is mitigated by many factors.

As for benefits, there are many: developing a good relationship with MA departments, improving cooperation, training personnel, giving incident commanders more exposure to large scale incidents (training), potentially impacting recruitment and providing a boost regarding retention (firefighters might be becoming bored and spending their time elsewhere), and most importantly, saving lives and property that might not have been saved if fewer personnel responded. This particular MA fire might double the number of fires a village firefighter has worked! Doesn't this OTJ training make for better trained firefighters? This makes the village money better spent, doesn't it?

The benefits clearly outweigh the cost. There's a plan in place to deal with reduced personnel in case something happens - even without a MA fire to blame for the less than ideal response, the reality is that the volunteer fire service is an environment where you never know if you'll get a sufficient response for any given incident. What if an incident occurred while the department was at the county training center? Should there be no departmental training?

It seems to me that the benefits of sending members on MA calls significantly outweighs the risks.

[FD828 77]

I know that where I am in Putnam county, if mutual aid is requested it is usually specific. For example,1 tanker from department A, FAST from department B, Ladder from dept. C this way they are not stripping 1 particular department of all their resources. Where I work EMS in Westchester, if we only have 1 ambulance left because the other 2 or 3 are on calls and a mutual aid request comes in from 60 control, we still send out our last unit.

[firemoose827 324]

One thing unique to the volunteer fire service that always struck me is how coverage improves when a department has a fire. Middle of the day many depts can barely get two rigs out the door, yet if they have a fire they'll pull an engine and ladder from their neighbors that usually come loaded up with firefighters ready o respond the moment an alarm comes in.

Simple answer to that is most employers allow firefighters to respond to calls from work but they have to be actuall fires. They wont let me go for every smell of gas, CO detector, cat in the tree type calls that can be handled by a crew of 3-4 trained personnel. They require it to be a fire or major accident, haz-mat response, that can be backed up with a letter from the chief. So if there is a house fire most people are then allowed to leave work and respond. So contrary to what most people think, its not just a bunch of vollies that refuse to respond to smaller calls and only wait for the big ones ( Although there are those types of members and they do this routinely enough that it makes me sick)

Most people around me respond from work regardless, which eventually gets them in trouble with work. There are jobs like the Highway Departments that are REQUIRED to allow their firefighter employees to respond to all calls.

Is this legitimate? No. I am one of the volunteers that believe in having a prompt response to all calls for help with the properly trained crew. Around me, day time fires are a BIG problem, especially when you have manpower responding from their jobs BUT they are 10-15 minutes away. Most of the time we roll with our engine/tanker with a crew of 2, the driver and a firefighter.

Our mutual aid is simple, when we respond to a neighboring district with a tanker and manpower we have our other neighbor move into our house with an engine and crew. Nine times out of ten they also have additional manpower at their station with other engines to respond as well. If the mutual aid escalates then we move more engines with crews around to cover all affected stations which isnt that hard for us.

[JohnnyOV 2]

3-4 Interior firefighters and an officer should suffice for any type of request for an engine or truck, whether it be a relocate or a deployment. If departments wanted extra manpower when requesting units, they would call for extra manpower. When special units are called such as Rescues, manpower should be assessed and deployed based off the scale and type of the incident. A request for an additional hurst tool is quite different then a request for a car pinned under a overturned semi-trailer.

Departments that are requesting an additional 3 engines and 2 trucks for a room and contents fire, really need to think about why are they requesting so many resources on an initial assignment, that by the time they arrive on scene, will more then likely not even be needed. A department should be able to handle a bread and butter operation by themselves, with no outside help. However, we all know that man power is down, so an outside FASTeam, and a relocate is not a bad thing, and as always, if you don't need em, turn em around. Certain (not all) Battalion COORDINATORS (note they are NOT chiefs) also need to realize a) when they are stripping entire departments for a single job, and branch out past their own battalion and b ) the scene is not theirs to command.

I'll use my department as an example: on any initial report of a structure fire, A FASTeam is immediately dispatched along with our department, regardless of whether it is in the hydrant or non-hydrant district. Our M/A departments were asked if they were OK with this policy before it went into inception, and they had no problem providing a FASTeam on the initial dispatch, rather then the 10-75 assignment.

In the hydrant district, a working 10-75 brings in the BC, VAC/Medic, and the relocate of 1x1 to our HQ. Each additional alarm brings in an additional FAST, transfers the relocated 1x1 to the scene, and relocates another 1x1. 2nd alarm brings in a Cascade, and 3rd Alarm brings in the Field Com unit. The non hydrant provides the same, but with 3 tankers to the scene and additional engine for the draft or dump site. Our non-hydrant district has almost no access for 1 ladder, so after the first relocate of a ladder, 2nd alarms and above only bring in an additional engine on the relocate as the truck will remain on stand-by for the duration of the incident for the rest of the district.

There are a few specialty boxes that provide a different type of response based off the building type and hazards involved however. Each box was set up to try and not pull more then 1 apparatus from each department for the entire duration of the incident, regardless of the scale of size (3rd alarm in our residential, 4th alarm in our commercial district), however in some cases, it was impossible. Department Chiefs were contacted to see if they had any problem sending 2 pieces of equipment and manpower to a scene if that was the case, and those who are on the box, had no doubts they could cover both their district and provide aid to ours with multiple units pulled.

http://www.yorktownf...ent/operations/ / http://maps.google.c...08&source=embed

Edited September 16, 2011 by JohnnyOV

[CHIEFPHIL 90]

We respond with what is requested, nothing more.

Engine to scene or cover goes with a crew of 4, 3 interior qualified

Tanker goes with with crew 2

Tower goes with crew 5, two must be qualified driver/mpo , 3 interior qualified

BFU/EUV - goes with minimum 4 [crew cab on brush truck]

Rescue goes with crew 4

Only one chief allowed to go out of town in POV/"Car". Second chief can go on a rig if needed. Still leaves us with 2 in town.

No one allowed to go out of town on POV. No cadets [juniors] or probies allowed to go mutual aid.

Town has 4 Engines, only two allowed out to go mutual aid.

[JFLYNN 681]

We respond with what is requested, nothing more.

Engine to scene or cover goes with a crew of 4, 3 interior qualified

Tanker goes with with crew 2

Tower goes with crew 5, two must be qualified driver/mpo , 3 interior qualified

BFU/EUV - goes with minimum 4 [crew cab on brush truck]

Rescue goes with crew 4

Only one chief allowed to go out of town in POV/"Car". Second chief can go on a rig if needed. Still leaves us with 2 in town.

No one allowed to go out of town on POV. No cadets [juniors] or probies allowed to go mutual aid.

Town has 4 Engines, only two allowed out to go mutual aid.

My compliments to your department. This sounds like an well thought out and commonsensical policy. Unfortunately you are more of an exception rather than the rule. It would be good policy for more departments to implement such procedures as you have.

[JFLYNN 681]

If I look at this using a cost/benefit analysis it seems pretty clear that the benefits of these mutual aid runs outweigh the risks.

The risks we're dealing with are that a fire will occur at home while units are operating on the MA fire. How many fires does any village in Westchester get per year? One, maybe two? Maybe even double that? So the odds of a fire happening at home are very low on any given day. Same is true of a neighboring village. Now, the odds of them happening simultaneously in the home and neighboring villages is tiny. So the mutual aid engine and chiefs can respond with a fair degree of certainty that there won't be a fire at home. If there happens to be an incident there are other apparatus and deputy chiefs to handle it, and one of the chiefs at the MA fire can always respond (if it's mutual aid, their response time is likely to be fast). The risk score here is quite low because the likelyhood is very low and the severity is mitigated by many factors.

As for benefits, there are many: developing a good relationship with MA departments, improving cooperation, training personnel, giving incident commanders more exposure to large scale incidents (training), potentially impacting recruitment and providing a boost regarding retention (firefighters might be becoming bored and spending their time elsewhere), and most importantly, saving lives and property that might not have been saved if fewer personnel responded. This particular MA fire might double the number of fires a village firefighter has worked! Doesn't this OTJ training make for better trained firefighters? This makes the village money better spent, doesn't it?

The benefits clearly outweigh the cost. There's a plan in place to deal with reduced personnel in case something happens - even without a MA fire to blame for the less than ideal response, the reality is that the volunteer fire service is an environment where you never know if you'll get a sufficient response for any given incident. What if an incident occurred while the department was at the county training center? Should there be no departmental training?

It seems to me that the benefits of sending members on MA calls significantly outweighs the risks.

Otherwise known as the cross your fingers and hope for the best policy....

[AJU 39]

Otherwise known as the cross your fingers and hope for the best policy....

Hope for the best and plan for the worst. There's always a contingency plan in place, isn't there?

[JohnnyOV 2]

If I look at this using a cost/benefit analysis it seems pretty clear that the benefits of these mutual aid runs outweigh the risks.

The risks we're dealing with are that a fire will occur at home while units are operating on the MA fire. How many fires does any village in Westchester get per year? One, maybe two? Maybe even double that? So the odds of a fire happening at home are very low on any given day. Same is true of a neighboring village. Now, the odds of them happening simultaneously in the home and neighboring villages is tiny. So the mutual aid engine and chiefs can respond with a fair degree of certainty that there won't be a fire at home. If there happens to be an incident there are other apparatus and deputy chiefs to handle it, and one of the chiefs at the MA fire can always respond (if it's mutual aid, their response time is likely to be fast). The risk score here is quite low because the likelyhood is very low and the severity is mitigated by many factors.

If you want to play the odds game, you should get into politics, not the fire service. Crossing your fingers and hoping for the best is a hell of a way to operate. I can recall many times, my department alone has had numerous calls, possible fires, extrication and dive jobs in a matter of an hour, and there wasn't even inclement weather occurring. I can count even more times I've heard other departments trying to handle 2 or 3 major incidents at the same time. It happens, quite frequently, and its not time to play chance games.

Why even relocate apparatus to the effected department, since the odds of going on an additional run are so small? You're not playing poker, or blackjack where you can almost determine what your next hand is going to be based off statistics. It is strictly, "just something that happens" if a run comes in. You need to know exactly what your next play will be and one up the fire service god's before they get to you, if you will.

My point is, BE PREPARED to handle any number of major incidents at one time, not just the one you're currently operating at.

[AJU 39]

If you want to play the odds game, you should get into politics, not the fire service. Crossing your fingers and hoping for the best is a hell of a way to operate.

I said nothing about crossing fingers and hoping - JFLYNN said that, not me. I was simply examining the risks of responding mutual aid and leaving the home village with less manpower. And maybe I'm being simpleminded about this, but I think the weighing of odds is a critical part of size up and incident command (not to mention basic fireground operation), don't you? For example, does your department have a hard and fast policy of entering every structure on fire or is it discretionary based on the odds of survival and other factors?

My point is, BE PREPARED to handle any number of major incidents at one time, not just the one you're currently operating at.

I never suggested ignoring responsibility for the home village in order to respond mutual aid. In fact, I made a point of mentioning that the severity of the risk is mitigated by several factors. I think it goes without saying that a department wouldn't send a piece of apparatus on MA without a plan in place - whether it's an automatic assignment through county control for a mutual aid assignment on particular calls or other internal procedures - for dealing with the situation.

Please don't make my analysis of risks and benefits into a strawman argument stating that it's safe for a department to abandon their village. I don't know about you, but I took an oath to protect a particular village. That, obviously, comes first. This responsibility, however, can be fulfilled and simultaneously resources can be sent on mutual aid.

[Remember585 815]

It's true that most department may only run a few fires per year - and the odds of them happening at the same time as a neighboring district is minimal. But it does happen.

Case #1

9/15/04

The Croton FD was dispatched to a residential alarm on Truesdale Drive. Moments later, PD updated it as a working structure fire. Due to the large size of the home, the stone walls and multiple roofs encountered, more Mutual Aid than usual was needed.

Operating: Croton (All units), Ossining (Engine & FAST), Yorktown FAST, Bedford Hills FAST, Buchanan Cascade. An Engine from Montrose covers Croton.

Less than 90 minutes after this, Montrose is dispatched to a residential alarm on Mountain Side Trail. When the Chief arrives he find a working structure fire. The "Tri-Village" is activated, an he has an Engine from Buchanan and Verplanck respond to the scene. The primary FAST (Croton) is operating at their own fire, so Mohegan is called. The Montrose Engine in Croton's quarters responds back, moving Briarcliff into Croton. A Cascade unit from Continental Village (R39) is called in place of the usual Buchanan Cascade unit. Additional assistance from Peekskill (FAST) and the Montrose VAFD are also called to assist.

Case #2

4/7/05

Ossining FD has a fire in a 3-story townhouse. Original request is for a Croton FAST. Once it's realized that the fire is advancing, the IC puts Croton's FAST to work and calls another FAST (Yorktown) and a TL from Croton. A Cascade (R36) from Millwood and an additional FAST from Chappaqua are added a little later for relief.

15 minutes later...

Irvington FD has a fire in a mansion on El Rietro Drive. The IC calls for a FAST from Dobbs Ferry and an Engine from Tarrytown. Additional help is needed, so the IC later calls a 2nd FAST from Ardsley, an Engine from Elmsford and a Ladder from Tarrytown.

To cover all of these departments, the following relocates were deployed:

To Croton: TL8 from Montrose for Croton AND Ossining.

To Ossining: E94 from Briarcliff, E260 from Pleasantville and TL38 from Sleepy Hollow.

To Tarrytown: TL21 from Elmsford.

To Sleepy Hollow: TL49 from Valhalla.

To Valhalla: L47 from North White Plains for Valhalla AND Hawthorne (TL12 OOS).

There's more instances like this in other parts of the county over the past few years.

I'm not much of a gambling man, but I do know Mr. Murphy is usually lurking in the shadows.

If any department is going to send resources Mutual Aid - bottom line - make sure you have sufficient coverage in your home field, even if it has to come from another department.

[Chief21 8]

Times have defenitely changed when it comes to coverage. As it was said some departments ( I do not understand always why) strip their own department to cover either nearby or afar. Then, as I have seen the covering department gets a call in district and can not always divide coverage without stripping the department they were asked to cover.

Why when covering another department would a department have to send all Chief Line Officers, along with all their certified manpower.

The only time I see this as an option is in a neighboring request, where an Engine is requested by a small department with limited manpower.

But under the current disaster circumstances, why would a department strip their district for a known 72 hour tour (maybe 3 hours from home)?

I feel the best statement was made when you have your County Coodinator Staffed, and strategically dispatch/request assistance.

You get a big incident;

You do not :

strip every ambulance in the county...

activate every tanker in the county....

tie up every ladder in the county...

That is the purpose behind Inter-County Mutual Aid. Alternate Department Apparatus, Known your County Inventory, and know your counties response capabilities.

Just a few years ago, I remember hearing quite often on the scanner, County Control requesting 5 Interiors and a Class 1 to a large fire.

Any more is like throwing darts at a map. What happened to the coordination?

Also please, this is not a pun at any county in particular. There are some very well organized counties in this state. Others just seem to fall behind.

[firemoose827 324]

I should have clarified another issue from our area, we do both "stand -by's" and "stand-in's" depending on what the IC or the assisting fire coordinator requests. If they can cover a large enough area from their station then they stand by, if the area is spread out to a large area with multiple districts than they stand in someones station as a central location to respond to calls.

I like the idea of sending only so many chiefs, we cant keep ours from responding to every call. I asked once to have only one respond and almost got kicked out. Something about needing more than one officer to run a chain of command and most times the IC welcomes a couple of chiefs from mutual aid depts to help out with the IC positions. I still think its because they want to see whats going on. (half of them dont even remember what positions there are in the IC system or what their roles are, they just think the shiny reflective vests are cool and running with reds and sirens is fun) :angry:

In a perfect world I would like to see our area adopt something similar to the above mentioned SOP of only sending what they call for and only one chief officer accompanying that unit to the call. With our department its hard though only having an engine, engine/tanker, brush truck, and a rescue. If our MA dept calls for a tanker and manpower its usually our engine/tanker with 2 and our rescue with 6 (4 packed and 2 up front). Leaving us with an engine and a brush unit and a handfull of interior qualified people, so we call for our MA dept to "Stand By" their station to assist if anything else happens.

It differs from area to area and dept to dept, there are still a lot of variables that need to be known ahead of time before one can say anything about anothers MA policies.

[JohnnyOV 2]

I said nothing about crossing fingers and hoping - JFLYNN said that, not me.

I didn't even see JFLYNN had wrote that at the time, as I had been typing this out for a while since I'm at work. I wont speak for the Chief, but I interpreted what you were saying as a "we're not going to have a written plan in place, we'll just wing it as the incident progresses and hope it works."

I was simply examining the risks of responding mutual aid and leaving the home village with less manpower. And maybe I'm being simpleminded about this, but I think the weighing of odds is a critical part of size up and incident command (not to mention basic fireground operation), don't you? For example, does your department have a hard and fast policy of entering every structure on fire or is it discretionary based on the odds of survival and other factors?

I totally agree that sizing up an incident is imperative to a positive outcome. If we look back at the initial posters statement/question, I think that we can both agree that filling an engine with 8 guys and a chief's car with another 6 and sending them to another fire is a little ridiculous. There are so many different paths that we can go down with this, such as minimum/maximum staffing for M/A, % of available manpower required to remain at home to respond M/A, etc etc. Biggest thing I hope we can both agree on is that, if you dont' have a ratio in favor of your department to that going M/A at the time, you stay back and protect your town.

And yes, if conditions warrant an aggressive interior attack, we will make that push.

I never suggested ignoring responsibility for the home village in order to respond mutual aid. In fact, I made a point of mentioning that the severity of the risk is mitigated by several factors. I think it goes without saying that a department wouldn't send a piece of apparatus on MA without a plan in place - whether it's an automatic assignment through county control for a mutual aid assignment on particular calls or other internal procedures - for dealing with the situation.

Please don't make my analysis of risks and benefits into a strawman argument stating that it's safe for a department to abandon their village. I don't know about you, but I took an oath to protect a particular village. That, obviously, comes first. This responsibility, however, can be fulfilled and simultaneously resources can be sent on mutual aid.

I should have been more clear, but that last part was not aimed directly at you. It was more of a broad statement for departments in general. Listen to a scanner on a daily basis and you can easily tell who has their stuff together, and who does not.

[x635 4,066]

Excellent viewpoints on policies and procedures...these are the types of threads I like.

I know this has been discussed on this forum a million times, but if these departments are going to rely on each other for every actual fire, then why not combine operations? If a department needs to rely on another department for every incident, then the two can't function individually.

Also, I don't see why a RIT team can be in house. There are many departments that do it that way.

I understand there is going to be mutual aid for large fires and other large and possibly extended incidents, and tankers for water supply, but "bread and butter" fires, like room and contents, shouldn't need extensive mutual aid.

Also, we've also discussed this a million times, but what's going to happen Saturday, especially in Northern Westchester, when you have most of the newest frontline apparatus and active manpower commited to a parade? Do departments at least staff an engine in house with the full interior staffing and a Chief, just in case? I'm not knocking parades, or debating it because that's not what this thread is about and I don't want to get off topic.....but there are so many issues with staffing to begin with.

Again, how do you explain to the taxpayer his house burned down because the $700,000 engine that the FD "desperately needed" is at a parade? Would that impact things you need from a taxpayer in the future?

[Bnechis 3,961]

One of my Dispatch supervisors taught me one "Don't strip down your district to go mutual aid".

While a good concept, I see this done all the time. Consider dept. "A" and dept "B" each has 2 engines and a ladder. Dept "A" has a fire and requests dept "B" relocate its only ladder to cover its house (leaving its own house uncovered....and its done all the time.

I've noticed that some departments basically dump house to go mutual aid. This, in some cases, includes all three Chiefs going, a fully staffed engine, and a utility full of firefighters-for a "bread and butter" fire.

Why have a local dept. if it can not handle a "bread and butter" fire? I have no problem if you need something special or even to get a FAST unit. But I know many depts that have purchased many rigs and stations and are stretched to put 3 or 4 interior members to a room & content fire and have to call MA. If you can't handle something that simple its time to re-evaluate your service.

One problem is that they may not have the power to relocate without the home chiefs permission. I think they should delagate this duty to the dispatchers.

In a single dept. like FDNY this makes sense, but dispatchers in Westchester do not know what is going on in local depts. This is not a knock on DES, but they do not know if rigs are scheduled to go to training, medicals or the shops.

If I look at this using a cost/benefit analysis it seems pretty clear that the benefits of these mutual aid runs outweigh the risks.

The risks we're dealing with are that a fire will occur at home while units are operating on the MA fire. How many fires does any village in Westchester get per year? One, maybe two? Maybe even double that? So the odds of a fire happening at home are very low on any given day. Same is true of a neighboring village. Now, the odds of them happening simultaneously in the home and neighboring villages is tiny. So the mutual aid engine and chiefs can respond with a fair degree of certainty that there won't be a fire at home.

Based on this cost/benefit analysis we do not need 58 fire depts in Westchester. Why does every square mile need 3 engines, 1 ladder, 1 rescue & 3 chiefs if the risks are so low. Your risk assessment would allow each dept to drop down to a fire company instead of a dept. Then maybe they could also properly staff the rig.

As for benefits, there are many: developing a good relationship with MA departments, improving cooperation, training personnel, giving incident commanders more exposure to large scale incidents (training), potentially impacting recruitment and providing a boost regarding retention (firefighters might be becoming bored and spending their time elsewhere), and most importantly, saving lives and property that might not have been saved if fewer personnel responded. This particular MA fire might double the number of fires a village firefighter has worked! Doesn't this OTJ training make for better trained firefighters? This makes the village money better spent, doesn't it?

Is this OTJ usefull? Sometimes it is and sometimes it reinforces bad concepts. If you are using it for training, how do you evaluate this "training" and ensure its improving your personnel? Same holds true for IC being exposed, is it good or bad exposure?

If you have 2 depts responding with 10 firefighters & officers that equals 20.

If the 2 depts became one dept and had the same 20 members responding, they will perform better, because as 1 dept. they will follow the same procedures with less devistions than the 2 depts.

the reality is that the volunteer fire service is an environment where you never know if you'll get a sufficient response for any given incident.

Have you explained that to the taxpayers who believe you have got them covered? Maybe its time to address that.

[Bnechis 3,961]

Simple answer to that is most employers allow firefighters to respond to calls from work but they have to be actuall fires. They wont let me go for every smell of gas, CO detector, cat in the tree type calls that can be handled by a crew of 3-4 trained personnel.

In a commuter county like Westchester, the majority of the volunteers no longer work in or near town and even if the employer allowed them to leave. they are still an hour or more away.

A department should be able to handle a bread and butter operation by themselves, with no outside help. However, we all know that man power is down, so an outside FASTeam, and a relocate is not a bad thing,

Then we have a fundamental flaw in the system and MA is a bandaid, but we need a operation.

Hope for the best and plan for the worst. There's always a contingency plan in place, isn't there?

If the contingency plan for not enough interior firefighters is to call MA. Then you are hoping for the best and not planning at all.

If you want to play the odds game, you should get into politics, not the fire service. Crossing your fingers and hoping for the best is a hell of a way to operate.

The insurance industry has been playing the odds game for 107 years with dept ratings and they have figured out the odds and thats why depts. in this county have ratings that range from 1 to 9. The fire service has built itself up on the odds game.

Most depts. operate with crossed fingers and hope for the best (as they tone out for any available driver).

My point is, BE PREPARED to handle any number of major incidents at one time, not just the one you're currently operating at.

Wrong, evaluat your ability to handle each type of job and adjust. If you need help then get it. But if you can not handle call #1 properly, then you cant worry about call #2.

I know depts that will send 1 engine and 1 truck to a structure fire, and keep 2 engines back, incase another call comes in. But they are not dealing with the fire with enough to safely and effectivly handle it.

[x635 4,066]

I know many of you are sick of me comparing Central Texas to NY, but a lot of things make more sense to me (even though there are issues here too).

What type of alarm determines what type of response. And that respone doesn't neccesarily depend on apparatus, it depends on the number of firefighters. So, if you have a box alarm (small to medium single family dwelling), you get 19 firefighters, not "give me another engine". Of course, you have special call if you need a certain piece of apparatus. Dispatch knows, via MDT, how many and who is on each rig.

Here are the personel amounts required for each alarm in the City Of Austin:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/fire/typealarm.htm

Basic Attack:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/fire/basic.htm

And this kind of gives some background to the link above:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/fire/aboutafd.htm

Surrounding cities follow basically the same protocol. Some of the individual "quieter" companies see more structure fires in a month then some Westchester departments see in their primary district all year. And most of the time, routine fires don't even make the news because it's an everyday thing....fire departments fight fires, water department fixes water pipes, etc. And it is their goal to NOT escalate the fire.....a second alarm or higher is kind of rare, and it's not something to usually be proud of, especially if the fire escalates while you are there.

Anyways, now days with many departments having "Utilities" of some sort, does the department requesting mutual aid need an additional piece of apparatus or equipment, and/or the manpower? And can't that manpower be sent via the Utility instead of commiting a piece of apparatus?

[16fire5 693]

16 fire5 In Westchester a Deputy Coordinator (Battalion) is dispatched upon the transmission of a 10-75 by the IC. Since NY is a home rule state it is the chief/IC's call on requesting mutual aid. Most departments have their major alarm policies in the CAD at 60 control usually up to at least the 3rd alarm. If I am on a scene as a battalion I only request through 60 control what the IC asks for, sometimes they say which dept they want sometimes they don't, in that case I will simply request (for example 1&1 to ABC dept) and leave the rest in the capable hands at 60 control.

If that is all the coordinator can/does do then I don't see the need for the qualifications in the recent announcement. If you only ask for what the IC asks for and nothing more or less I really don't see the need for coordinators.