Yonkers Fire union blasts Mount Vernon on mutual aid

[Bnechis 3,961]

What about consolidation?Isn't that the answer to everything on this forum?

Consolidation can be an answer, but you still need everyone to pay there fair share. And under the current MV administration, they do not appear to be willing.

[ttomcap 18]

This issue has been going on for many years. Lots of talking but no solution to the problem.

[M' Ave 1,466]

What about consolidation?Isn't that the answer to everything on this forum?

Ya know....yeah, it usually is. When you're in Westchester County, you're living in someone's little fiefdom. Someone's little slice of the pie and it's a ridiculous exercise in redundancy. I'm paying my property tax bill (which is insanely high) and wondering why they're always asking for more money, but there are fewer cops and the roads are like the surface of the moon.

Too many Chief's, not enough Indians.....lets streamline the operations around here and put our money and manpower to better use.

It's all about ratio's with the fire service. We DO have some good resources here, so lets expand their scope of coverage and better utilize them. We could use an analogy that would apply to many volunteer departments around here:

Lets say Dept. A has 5, reliable and involved members and that department answers 2 calls a day. Dept. B next door also has 5 reliable and involved members answering 2 calls a day. Well, 5 guys is useless...and those guys would probably jump at the opportunity to do more with their dedication. So, COMBINE those depts. and you've got 10 solid guys handling 4 calls a day. You've doubled your available manpower and simultaneously increased staff utilization by 100%. In the process, you could eliminate half the chief's and their vehicles, probably a firehouse to maintain and a redundant vehicle or two.

But....that'll never happen, because everyone is too interested in protecting their slice of the pie....

[jr51070 7]

General rant not directed at any one municipality:

We had inadequate snow removal, potholes everywhere, understaffed and underfunded emergency services yet we live in the most expensive county in the stratosphere. Where is it all going ?

I ask this every day. It is crazy.

[Dinosaur 844]

Ya know....yeah, it usually is. When you're in Westchester County, you're living in someone's little fiefdom. Someone's little slice of the pie and it's a ridiculous exercise in redundancy. I'm paying my property tax bill (which is insanely high) and wondering why they're always asking for more money, but there are fewer cops and the roads are like the surface of the moon.

Too many Chief's, not enough Indians.....lets streamline the operations around here and put our money and manpower to better use.

It's all about ratio's with the fire service. We DO have some good resources here, so lets expand their scope of coverage and better utilize them. We could use an analogy that would apply to many volunteer departments around here:

Lets say Dept. A has 5, reliable and involved members and that department answers 2 calls a day. Dept. B next door also has 5 reliable and involved members answering 2 calls a day. Well, 5 guys is useless...and those guys would probably jump at the opportunity to do more with their dedication. So, COMBINE those depts. and you've got 10 solid guys handling 4 calls a day. You've doubled your available manpower and simultaneously increased staff utilization by 100%. In the process, you could eliminate half the chief's and their vehicles, probably a firehouse to maintain and a redundant vehicle or two.

But....that'll never happen, because everyone is too interested in protecting their slice of the pie....

Well said!

[FireMedic049 597]

Lets say Dept. A has 5, reliable and involved members and that department answers 2 calls a day. Dept. B next door also has 5 reliable and involved members answering 2 calls a day. Well, 5 guys is useless...and those guys would probably jump at the opportunity to do more with their dedication.

I'll have to disagree with you on this one as my experiences in a small career department who's minimum on-duty staffing is "5 guys" says otherwise.

Now, I don't mean this as argumentative as it may sound and please don't mistake my comment as saying anything close to "5 guys" being adequate on-duty staffing, because it certainly isn't anywhere close to it when we pull up to a working fire. However, we see a good bit of fire and just want to make the point that what we can and have accomplished with just "5 guys" (before reinforcements arrive) is anything but "useless". It's certainly not ideal, but unfortunately, it is our reality and that of many other small career departments out there.

[Bnechis 3,961]

I'll have to disagree with you on this one as my experiences in a small career department who's minimum on-duty staffing is "5 guys" says otherwise.

Now, I don't mean this as argumentative as it may sound and please don't mistake my comment as saying anything close to "5 guys" being adequate on-duty staffing, because it certainly isn't anywhere close to it when we pull up to a working fire. However, we see a good bit of fire and just want to make the point that what we can and have accomplished with just "5 guys" (before reinforcements arrive) is anything but "useless". It's certainly not ideal, but unfortunately, it is our reality and that of many other small career departments out there.

And ISO require departments without on-duty in the station staffing to respond with 15 members to get the same credit as they give your dept. with 5 members.

[M' Ave 1,466]

I'll have to disagree with you on this one as my experiences in a small career department who's minimum on-duty staffing is "5 guys" says otherwise.

Now, I don't mean this as argumentative as it may sound and please don't mistake my comment as saying anything close to "5 guys" being adequate on-duty staffing, because it certainly isn't anywhere close to it when we pull up to a working fire. However, we see a good bit of fire and just want to make the point that what we can and have accomplished with just "5 guys" (before reinforcements arrive) is anything but "useless". It's certainly not ideal, but unfortunately, it is our reality and that of many other small career departments out there.

Listen, I hear you, but 5 just ain't enough for anything. I'm not saying that you and your guys don't do all you can and work hard. I'm saying that 5 firemen is scarcely better than 0.

By the books....if you arrive on an Eng. with 5 guys;

1 is running the pumps

1 is an officer (who ideally shouldn't be humping hose)

3 firemen (one of whom has to stay outside with the pump operator to comprise a safety team until a FAST unit arrives)

So...you have an officer and 2 firemen on a line. Who's searching? Who's checking the rear and who's able to coordinate venting from the exterior?

You guys might bust your humps and thats great, but 5 guys just isn't effective and if you're looking to improve your staffing, you should be screaming about safety and effectivness to the elected officials who rarely give adequate value to our safety and operations.

[FireMedic049 597]

Listen, I hear you, but 5 just ain't enough for anything. Not true. Many calls can be handled adequately with 5.

I'm not saying that you and your guys don't do all you can and work hard. I'm saying that 5 firemen is scarcely better than 0. You may not be saying that, but you essentially labeled that effort as "useless" and "scarcely better than 0".

By the books....if you arrive on an Eng. with 5 guys;

1 is running the pumps

1 is an officer (who ideally shouldn't be humping hose)

3 firemen (one of whom has to stay outside with the pump operator to comprise a safety team until a FAST unit arrives)

So...you have an officer and 2 firemen on a line. Who's searching? Who's checking the rear and who's able to coordinate venting from the exterior? I get your point and I'm not saying that all of those things are being performed with only 5, nor am I arguing that more people aren't needed to accomplish those and other tasks. I was strictly speaking to your "useless" comment. We've been able to knock down many 1-2 room fires and have even managed to make a few grabs with only our on-duty staffing on scene. To me, that would seem to be greater than zero and far from "useless".

You guys might bust your humps and thats great, but 5 guys just isn't effective and if you're looking to improve your staffing, you should be screaming about safety and effectivness to the elected officials who rarely give adequate value to our safety and operations. We have managed to improve our staffing since I came on the job here 13 years ago. When I started, our minimum was 4 and we routinely worked with that or 5. Our minimum is now 5 and we're frequently working with 6-8. We likely won't see that increase anytime soon given the city's financial state and trying to maintain what we have now. However, when we do have a working fire, our off-duty personnel are called to respond. We're the only career/staffed department in our immediate area, so our off-duty response is the functional equivalent of a mutual aid response from the volunteers around us and they are also utilized as needed.

[M' Ave 1,466]

^^^^^

Okay....Idon't get it. You're the first fireman I've ever heard defend their understaffed operations. You're taking this personally and that means you're taking it wrong. 1 or 2 rooms of fire, a few grabs and only 5 guys? You're gambling and a lot of things aren't getting done.

If 5 can get the job done, why does my job have

1 Chief

5 Line Officers

and

23 Firemen

ON THE INTIAL RESPONSE FOR FIRE?

We're lucky too, to have the staff we do and we should have more. EVERYONE should have more.

This is not a personal assesment of you or the other brothers you work with. You clearly do a lot with little staffing, but it's an extremly dangerous situation. You don't have enough eyes on the outside and you have NO HELP if anything goes wrong.

5 is FUNCTIONALLY useless and doens't even meet NFPA/OSHA, ect. It is dangerous and the powers that be are careless in allowing you to operate with so little support.

[Bnechis 3,961]

By the books....if you arrive on an Eng. with 5 guys;

1 is running the pumps

1 is an officer (who ideally shouldn't be humping hose)

3 firemen (one of whom has to stay outside with the pump operator to comprise a safety team until a FAST unit arrives)

The department of labor (federal) and (NYS) (I realize you are in PA). have both ruled that the guy at the pump and the IC are critical and cannot leave their positions, so by law you need 1 more to be your 2 out. Before your team can even be an interior crew.

[Bnechis 3,961]

Listen, I hear you, but 5 just ain't enough for anything. Not true. Many calls can be handled adequately with 5.

Yes, many calls can be but not structure fires.

I'm not saying that you and your guys don't do all you can and work hard. I'm saying that 5 firemen is scarcely better than 0. You may not be saying that, but you essentially labeled that effort as "useless" and "scarcely better than 0".

I like the line "you do not know, what you do not know".

In other words, if you have never operated with proper staffing (which ISO considers 13 plus search crews, plus FAST & plus water supply if not hydrants) and (NFPA considers 16 or 17 for a 2,000 sq ft single family dwelling with out a basement, with more responders if it s a working fire or a bigger structure). So you are operating at 25 - 30% of what the standards call for.

If you have never worked with proper staffing, you have no way of really knowing how bad your situation is

[antiquefirelt 994]

It appears we're straying from the topic, but without a doubt I can tell you that there has to be a place for those FD's that are between no career staff and those who are completely staffed to cover the majority of their structures fires on their own. Some of you live in areas where the population and finances clearly should allow for a properly staffed career FD. Many of us (most of the country) do not live in the dense urban/suburban areas where that it reality.

If my FD demanded to be staffed so that we could have 23 FT personnel on the first alarm assignment our budget alone would exceed the rest of the municipal budget combined. So, what are we to do? Eliminate all FT staff since we can't meet this standard? That's better in your myopic view? We won't get to that level in my lifetime, right now we hope to remain at current staff, and that's an annual fight.

While we must acknowledge that running with 5 people as Firemedic notes is not enough for a structure fire, outside of the Metro FD world, few companies run with 5. So we have to treat our little crew as if their just a single first due company. Some places they ride all on one apparatus, some places more. Upon arrival, at least on my job, they all function as one and more often than not ensure the first line is positioned and operating. What others do simultaneously, we do consecutively? Optimal? No. Functional? Most of the time? Dangerous? As dangerous as the officers allow. We know there isn't a third due engine for 10 minutes, so we have to adjust our operation.

Two weeks ago my dept. had two structure fires a few days apart. In both cases, the first (and only) line was in operation in under 10 minutes from the time 911 was accessed. In the first case the fire in a SFD was knocked down as it extended from the garage into the house via a failed exterior window. Had we been a VFD or paid call like all around us, the fire surely would have been much more significant as the next in call company was 17 minutes from 911 pick-up. The second fire was in an apartment building with similar results. So while we got our 23 man staffing at some point, the initial 6 man crew had both fires under control before anyone else arrived. It's hard to imagine this is barely better than nothing?

Some of the comments imply there should be no FD that employs any less than 23 FT personnel per tour? So VFD or minimum of 69 man Career FD (that's only 3 tour system)?

These issues are not because the FD doesn't want safer better staffing, it's because the taxpayers are willing to accept a lesser service for less money. The sad part is when FDs and Chief's fail to show the reduction in service.This is not defending understaffing, it's merely understanding reality for a particular area.

I'm certain no one can convince the taxpayers that we need five times our budget to meet a standard that won't guarantee any noticeable difference in the results they get now. And again, not that we don't want for better staffing, but NFPA 1710 and 2 in 2 out haven't been around for much more than 15 years, so how might anyone expect to suddenly grow the majority of FD's in that time?

Edited April 22, 2015 by antiquefirelt

[FireMedic049 597]

^^^^^

Okay....Idon't get it. You're the first fireman I've ever heard defend their understaffed operations. But I'm not actually defending our understaffed operation. I'm explaining it as part of rebutting your comments.

You're taking this personally and that means you're taking it wrong. 1 or 2 rooms of fire, a few grabs and only 5 guys? I wouldn't necessarily say that I'm taking it personally, but it's hard to not be offended by the way you framed some of your comments that essentially minimize the difference that departments like us can make despite being understaffed (on-duty wise).

You're gambling and a lot of things aren't getting done. Yes and no. Our on-duty staffing requires a different mindset and approach to how working fires are handled, but it's also critical to understand that I'm not talking about handling a fire with only 5 guys.

When you guys pull up to a working fire with 5 on the first arriving engine and are the only unit on scene, you stretch your first line knowing that more units and personnel are on the way to help. Despite arriving on two apparatus, rather than just 1, we're pretty much operating the same way. The main difference is that our "back up" takes a little longer to get there.

Yes, we don't have the ability to do as many of those tasks concurrently as your department is able to do, but we still do them, it just takes longer to complete them. Knowing this means that we can't push as hard as we'd like in some cases during the early stages of the fire.

If 5 can get the job done, why does my job have

1 Chief

5 Line Officers

and

23 Firemen

ON THE INTIAL RESPONSE FOR FIRE? You're reading too far into what I'm saying. I'm not saying that "5 can get the job done" and no other personnel are needed. I'm saying that 5 can get the job started and have a significant impact on how that fire goes.

We're lucky too, to have the staff we do and we should have more. EVERYONE should have more. Agreed. Unfortunately, our reality is that we'll likely never see a significant jump in our staffing to the point where we have 15+ on-duty.

This is not a personal assesment of you or the other brothers you work with. You clearly do a lot with little staffing, but it's an extremly dangerous situation. You don't have enough eyes on the outside and you have NO HELP if anything goes wrong. I agree it can be an extremely dangerous situation and we are very cognizant of that and try not to overextend ourselves, but as I've stated, additional resources will be coming to push our fire ground staffing to a more acceptable level.

5 is FUNCTIONALLY useless and doens't even meet NFPA/OSHA, ect. It is dangerous and the powers that be are careless in allowing you to operate with so little support. I disagree on the "FUNCTIONALLY useless" part and again, it's really not a matter of having little support. It just takes a longer to get it there.

If you'd like to discuss this in more detail or whatever, feel free to PM me and we can discuss it there rather than hijacking this thread further.

Edited April 23, 2015 by FireMedic049

[FireMedic049 597]

Listen, I hear you, but 5 just ain't enough for anything. Not true. Many calls can be handled adequately with 5.

Yes, many calls can be but not structure fires. Correct and I stated such.

I'm not saying that you and your guys don't do all you can and work hard. I'm saying that 5 firemen is scarcely better than 0. You may not be saying that, but you essentially labeled that effort as "useless" and "scarcely better than 0".

I like the line "you do not know, what you do not know".

In other words, if you have never operated with proper staffing (which ISO considers 13 plus search crews, plus FAST & plus water supply if not hydrants) and (NFPA considers 16 or 17 for a 2,000 sq ft single family dwelling with out a basement, with more responders if it s a working fire or a bigger structure). So you are operating at 25 - 30% of what the standards call for. But we aren't exactly operating at that level. Our initial response may be as low as 5 (on-duty), but with our off-duty response and mutual aid RIT, we are achieving those manpower levels, but not necessarily within the time frame enumerated in those.

If you have never worked with proper staffing, you have no way of really knowing how bad your situation is

Maybe so, but if you've never worked this understaffed, you'll also lack a full perspective of the situation.

[M' Ave 1,466]

Okay, we went off on a tangent over a staffing comment.

The KEY point I was trying to make is that many small departments have good, dedicated people who are underutilized. I know, I was a volunteer in more than one place, just like that. By combining departments and enlarging response areas, we give those people more responsibility, responsibility that I'd bet they crave. I know I would have.

In doing so, we give people more activity and residents get more people responding on the initial call for service. Win. Win.

[AFS1970 504]

To take the idea from a few posts ago or combining 2 5 man departments that handle 2 calls each a day into one 10 man department handling 4 calls a day. Yes numerically this will work. However it assumes that the calls are never simultaneous.

If they are then we are back to the original topic or having to depend on mutual aid from the next town over, although because we already merged those two towns, we are now potentially waiting for a department to come from two towns away.

[STAT213 332]

Worry about the call that is, not the call that could be. Do you not send people you may need to that first call out of fear for the second call? No.

[61MACKBR1 222]

We can debate manpower questions until the cows come home. In my opinion, like what has been done successfully in other "Counties" throughout the United States, if Westchester County could finally come up with an agreed upon "Consolidation Plan" resources, equipment and manpower could be allocated and made available for the entire county to use. HOWEVER, to make this a reality, a number of large hurdles (or buildings) needs to be address, such as:

1) The ellimination of the "HOME RULE" that currently exists throughout New York State (which is probably the # 1 hurdle to overcome)

2) "REQUIRING" that every firefighter in the county are trained and have the SAME FIREFIGHTER CERTIFICATIONS that are required, regardless of whether or not they are currently a Paid FF or a Volunteer FF

3) Ensuring that every aspect of this CONSOLIDATED DEPARTMENT meetings all ISO/NFPA/OSHA requirements to the letter (No Exceptions)

4 Realize that with any Consolidation Plan, while the number of firefighters most likely will not change, the number of chiefs most likely will be reduced (you most likely will not need as many chiefs/assistant chiefs to run a County-Wide Consolidated Program (thus dealing with the Officers Union in each respective current jurisdiction, which will be another major hurdle to overcome)

5) Dealing with all of the Local Politicians, who like to have control over every little aspect of their respective communities

6) Dealing with the UNIONS which will be the final and last major hurdle to over come.

Can it happen? Yes. Will it happen in our lifetime? Probably Not

[soccers22 11]

Im lost just a quick question ? Would it make sense to consolidate ? Yonkers is a fairly busy dept and many times they put an extra engine and many times you hear them put battalion 3 into service if they were to consolidate wouldn't that be tacking away from them to service other parts of Westchester county ? and wouldn't response times increase ?

not trying to start problems i can see it working for small towns but not a city

[61MACKBR1 222]

Im lost just a quick question ? Would it make sense to consolidate ? Yonkers is a fairly busy dept and many times they put an extra engine and many times you hear them put battalion 3 into service if they were to consolidate wouldn't that be tacking away from them to service other parts of Westchester county ? and wouldn't response times increase ?

not trying to start problems i can see it working for small towns but not a city

Yes, you could say "Why would a city like Yonkers want to help support a County-Wide Consolidated Department, when they already have a terrific department that does a great job in handling issues within its city. BUT, the concept of a Consolidated County-Wide Department would be that cities like Yonkers, While Plains and New Rochelle, who all have self supporting departments, would have to give resources into the County Department to help support other areas of the county, that don't have the Apparatus/Manpower that others have.

If you say consolidated all of the departments and had a Structure Fire in Mount Vernon that could be responded to by not only the current FDMV Companies, but "without issue" Station 13 in Yonkers and Station 2 in New Rochelle, so that enough manpower was used to fight the fire. Then, by mandate of the county, other department rigs could be used to cover the stations in Mount Vernon, without issue, while the structure fire was fought. Hastings would now come to Yonkers. Scarsdale to Eastchester. Larchmont to New Rochelle, North White Plains to White Plains. Etc. Etc Etc, as dictated by the County Fire Commissioner/County Chiefs. They would no longer be any issue with regards to Mutual Aid, because it would all be under 1 "Consolidated" Countywide Fire District (PS - All of the Spare/Reservce Equipment/Apparatus that Yonkers currenlty has would be enveloped by the County and placed strategically throughout the county, as would any others current departments spare/reserve apparatus. AND as for Special Operations Apparatus, that too would be strategically placed throughout the county to support any/all needs that any location throughout the county would have, without and current Fire Department having issue doing so)

BUT - To get all of this to work and have it in place would require a tremendous amount of work as I mentioned earlier on. Could it work? Yes, Will It Happen? I doubt it.

Just my two cents and I don't believe that you will see this in our lifetimes.

[FireMedic049 597]

Im lost just a quick question ? Would it make sense to consolidate ? Yonkers is a fairly busy dept and many times they put an extra engine and many times you hear them put battalion 3 into service if they were to consolidate wouldn't that be tacking away from them to service other parts of Westchester county ? and wouldn't response times increase ?

not trying to start problems i can see it working for small towns but not a city

Consolidation doesn't necessarily mean a reduction of resources. Sometimes the primary benefit of consolidation is a more efficient management of existing resources. In this situation, a consolidation between Yonkers and Mt. Vernon may not alter the number of stations and apparatus on the street. Aside from some economies of scale benefits in purchasing and eliminating some duplication in the administration side, the operational difference may only be that the units that are responding into Mt. Vernon from Yonkers right now as mutual aid would become units from the same department responding to help other units from that department.

In this situation though, the reliance on mutual aid by Mt. Vernon seems to be more about not spending their own money to utilize their own resources and instead use somebody else's and let them foot the bill for it.

[61MACKBR1 222]

Consolidation doesn't necessarily mean a reduction of resources. Sometimes the primary benefit of consolidation is a more efficient management of existing resources. In this situation, a consolidation between Yonkers and Mt. Vernon may not alter the number of stations and apparatus on the street. Aside from some economies of scale benefits in purchasing and eliminating some duplication in the administration side, the operational difference may only be that the units that are responding into Mt. Vernon from Yonkers right now as mutual aid would become units from the same department responding to help other units from that department.

In this situation though, the reliance on mutual aid by Mt. Vernon seems to be more about not spending their own money to utilize their own resources and instead use somebody else's and let them foot the bill for it.

But instead of using city property taxes to pay for the Fire Services, one would use County Taxes paid for the Fire Services. So your City Property Taxes would go down but your County Taxes would go up. It essentially would balance itself out in the long term

[AFS1970 504]

But instead of using city property taxes to pay for the Fire Services, one would use County Taxes paid for the Fire Services. So your City Property Taxes would go down but your County Taxes would go up. It essentially would balance itself out in the long term

Do not fool yourself, taxes will not go down. Just because those local taxes are no longer paying for the fire service does not mean that they will come back to the people. Governments are very good at finding more things to pay for with existing money.

[TimesUp 148]

http://pix11.com/2015/04/27/yonkers-fire-department-says-mt-vernon-is-taking-advantage-of-aid/

[antiquefirelt 994]

http://pix11.com/2015/04/27/yonkers-fire-department-says-mt-vernon-is-taking-advantage-of-aid/

Sounds like all but one person in that story "get's it".

[SageVigiles 1,194]

What a jackwagon...

[PEMO3 523]

Start billing for the cost of mutual aid coverage and watch how fast they find their own in house solution. Of course aside from not possible this could be a double edged sword when the powers that be just take the stance of not calling in M/A and in turn put lives of the firefighters and citizens in jeopardy while the bean counters pay close attention to costs.

[ttomcap 18]

This has been going on for years. I remember it when I was union president. I'de say it's going on over 30 years.

[FirNaTine 370]

Wax on, wax off!