Mutual Aid

[SECTMB 612]

I know it is it is been standard practice for Ossining to ask for a truck from Sleepy Hollow when a working fire requires the use of their own two trucks, but that leaves Sleepy Hollow without a truck. Why not get the truck from Tarrytown which, like Ossining, has two? The distance between Sleepy Hollow's and Tarrytown's stations is fairly negligible with regard to response time.

Is it strictly the preference of the individual departments or does County Control have any input as to the deployment of the County's assets? I know this has no bearing on the paid departments which will call in mutual aid from significant distances rather than an immediate neighbor which is an un-paid department.

[dwcfireman 656]

The distance between Sleepy Hollow's and Tarrytown's stations is fairly negligible with regard to response time.

My opinion here is that since Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown are so close that if Sleep Hollow's ladder was in Ossining then Tarrytown has no problem sending one of their ladders on village up. Conversely, it does make more sense for a Tarrytown ladder to be sent to Ossining first (since they have two). However, there's an exorbitant amount of ladder trucks in the area (Tarrytown (2), Sleep Hollow, Ossining (2), Croton, Millwood, Pleasantville, Thornwood, Elmsford (2), etc.). With so many trucks around, you really can pick and choose who you want to run or stand-by for you.

Is it strictly the preference of the individual departments or does County Control have any input as to the deployment of the County's assets?

From what I understand of the mutual aid system, you can pick and choose departments and apparatus to fill out your 10-75, second alarm, etc. cards for the CAD system. If you go beyond the cards that you have filed, then 60 Control will pick for you at the moment, depending on who is available without stressing the surround area.

The way I interpret good mutual aid is to take an extra rig from a few of your neighbors, then start skipping around as you declare higher alarms. There's no need to strip four districts off all of their apparatus and personnel when we have so many resources available to us. Some good examples are the tanker and EMS task forces. 60 Control will skip around throughout the county to provide the apparatus you requested without depleting a region of everything it MAY need.