Archville FD and Pocantico Hills FD Being Left Out?

[SilentShadow 32]

First off, I'd like to say I am NOT "armchair quarterbacking" last night's fire in Briarcliff. The departments were on the run card that responded did so with plenty of manpower on each rig very quickly, as I am told.

I've noticed, over the past several months, there have been a lot of fires in Battalion 12 that Archville and Pocantico Hills haven't been called for, either to the scene or to relocate. In many cases, they were the closer units and not even called.

I know these are tiny departments with very low call volume, do they still, and again this is not a knock at them, have enough interior firefighters? Or is it because their location is kind of strategic and they can cover several fire districts from where they are if another call comes in? Maybe that's the way the run card works?

I know I'm going to be told I'm not owed an explanation here, but granted, I am curious.

[SECTMB 612]

Pocantico goes out to Sleepy Hollow fairly regularly.

I still don't understand the MA/Coverage calls though. Last night in Briarcliff, Millwood provided their only ladder to the scene rather than Ossining, which has two. Then, for coverage, Chappaqua provided their only ladder rather than Ossining. Engine to the scene is Ossining, for coverage Pleasantville. Makes sense even if its vice versa. But why not have Archville at least stand by in quarters while Scarborough E92 is going to be in service for an extended period such as last night?

At Ossining's South Highland Ave. fire Pleasantville proved a ladder for coverage, Millwood an engine. (Croton Fast and Briarcliff Cascade were already assisting).

At the Main Street fire Montrose provided a ladder, Millwood an engine for coverage. Buchanan provided the cascade. (Croton Fast and Briarcliff Cascade were already assisting).

At the Charter Circle fire it was a Fast from Thornwood after Croton's Fast went to work, Croton's Ladder for coverage and an engine from Sleepy Hollow after Millwoods engine for coverage was diverted to the scene. (Briarcliff's cascade was already assisting).

Usually it's Sleepy Hollow providing a ladder to Ossining. I can only assume that 60 Control is dispatching according to protocols and current conditions as they exist about the County. And, believe me, it's a lot more orderly and efficient now that dispatch is centralized.

[Using_All_Hands 140]

Pocantico Hills T12 does a decent amount of Mutual Aid. Their Engine often goes to Sleepy Hollow.

Archville is so close to Briarcliff's west side, there's really no advantage of moving them up to E92's house, in my opinion.

Ossining's 10-75 plan calls for Sleepy's TL38 to relocate. It's currently OOS (for a long time, I am told).

If TL38 is OOS, the next on the list is Croton TL44. With Croton down an Engine (E119) - it's a tough call pulling both their FAST (using U14) and TL44 out of town. Next on the list would be Briarcliff TL40 - which if R37 is already there it might be tough to staff. Next on the list is Pleasantville. When that Main Street fire came in, there was a large brush fire in Ossining that Briarcliff was working at (since it was actually in both districts). Briarcliff had Pleasantville Engine in their HQ, so the next available Truck in the area was Montrose.

Sometimes, it is better to leap frog and pull a unit to relocate from 2 towns away then the one next door. IE if Ossining has a job and calls Montrose TL8 to relocate instead of Croton, it could be argued that Croton runs a lot more calls and has a higher probability of needing their TL then Montrose would.

[nydude2473 79]

Or you could dispatch a Tarrytown Ladder that isn't far away and has an extra ladder to cover the village. Just because you want to stick "close by", doesn't mean your doing a better service. You might be actually doing a disservice to that jurisdiction, as in Montrose. Why would you take away their ladder that's covering their district when you have two ladders just 10 minutes away to the south. What it seems like is that there is still either this buddy buddy system when it comes to calling mutual aid or people haven't really taken into consideration what units are where and how it would actually affect that community. Distance does play a part for sure, but no reason in depleting a department's resources and then leaving them bone dry for them to catch a working fire. And trust me, no matter what, you will always get guys to staff a mutual aid call because everybody wants to lend a hand.