Apparatus Participation - Parades

[M' Ave 1,466]

This is not a new topic...but it hits close to home.  I live in a 6 story, fire-proof multiple dwelling.  This means...there are no fire escapes.  If a fire were to occur on the 4th, 5th or 6th floors, a resident could potentially be blocked from their front door....the only means of egress.  Whats the other way out?  An aerial ladder.  What good is that aerial ladder when its 20 minutes away at a parade?  Maybe farther!  My local FD has several engines and one, single ladder.  Why does that ladder, the only means of high-rise rescue, EVER leave town?  To win a trophy?  To show off?  To look cool?

 

If there were ever a tragedy, I'd expect those responsible to see criminal charges.

 

Im all for parades.  Im all for tradition.  Our volunteers give time and these kind of events are joyful and proper compensation for dedication.  We should have fun and maintain freindly relationships with neighboring dept's through social activities.

 

However, our first mission is life-safety.  If a town has 3 or 4 engines and 1 ladder....um....the ladder doesnt go to parades.  Smarten up, send an engine.

 

 

There wasnt a need to include a dept. name, because this dept. is not unique.  The list of offenders is long, sadly.

[KJ8806 44]

im not sure of the right thinking on this but my guess would be its the cheifs choice on what a department sends if a department wants to send a ladder then thats what they send same with a engine,rescue, my department sends our rescue to parades 

[AndyC3J 190]

There are enough people who will complain about an engine being sent to an out of town event, even if it's not the first due piece and there's plenty of manpower left behind.   

 

I see your point, however, and it is a good one.  

[M' Ave 1,466]

2 hours ago, KJ8806 said:

im not sure of the right thinking on this but my guess would be its the cheifs choice on what a department sends if a department wants to send a ladder then thats what they send same with a engine,rescue, my department sends our rescue to parades 

 

Yes, I'm sure chief's make these calls.  That doesn't make it a good plan.  

 

Does your Rescue carry extrication tools?  Do any of your other apparatus have them?

 

 

1 hour ago, AndyC3J said:

There are enough people who will complain about an engine being sent to an out of town event, even if it's not the first due piece and there's plenty of manpower left behind.   

 

I see your point, however, and it is a good one.  

 

People would complain, and they'd be wrong.  If you have three engines and you send one, with a small crew to a parade, nothing wrong with that.  It's thought out and well planned.  The issue only arrises when you take a non-duplicative resource away.

 

 

 

About 15 years ago my volunteer dept. went to a parade, 5 minutes away, next town over.  Chiefs order....the ladder doesnt go.  Well, that was disregarded and it went.  A Liut. and 4 firemen we're suspended.  Imagine that, consequences.  

 

I will most definitely be at my next village board meeting.  That rig seems to go to plenty of parades, but more often than not, doesn't make it on the road for alarms.

[AFS1970 504]

My old department was very proud of our truck and wanted to take it to parades, however we were on everyone else's run cards as the automatic aid truck. We finally convinced our chief to let us bring the truck to a parade, and he said he would coordinate with the other chiefs to make sure we were not stripping our city of trucks. I got to the station early and even called our truck out of service on the radio. I even called out early while we washed it so everyone would hear me.

 

So we go to the parade, it was only in the next town, and we could come back if we really needed to but there would have been a significant delay. So we are sitting in the staging area and I start seeing other trucks come in. I see 3 of the remaining 3 ones come in. All the departments claim they never heard of any effort to coordinate this. 1 truck was being driven by a chief.

 

As luck would have it, one of the other districts did get a chimney fire while we were all pulling into the lot for the end of the parade.

[vodoly 535]

Depending on the manpower to staff the other equipment my old dept a pumper to a parade or wetdown we never sent people to march if we did there would be very little manpower in town

[Tcs 9]

it's a little thing called Mutual Aid if you're too far away with a ladder you call for another one

[SOUSGT 357]

15 hours ago, M' Ave said:

This is not a new topic...but it hits close to home.  I live in a 6 story, fire-proof multiple dwelling.  This means...there are no fire escapes.  If a fire were to occur on the 4th, 5th or 6th floors, a resident could potentially be blocked from their front door....the only means of egress.  Whats the other way out?  An aerial ladder.  What good is that aerial ladder when its 20 minutes away at a parade?  Maybe farther!  My local FD has several engines and one, single ladder.  Why does that ladder, the only means of high-rise rescue, EVER leave town?  To win a trophy?  To show off?  To look cool?

 

If there were ever a tragedy, I'd expect those responsible to see criminal charges.

 

Im all for parades.  Im all for tradition.  Our volunteers give time and these kind of events are joyful and proper compensation for dedication.  We should have fun and maintain freindly relationships with neighboring dept's through social activities.

 

However, our first mission is life-safety.  If a town has 3 or 4 engines and 1 ladder....um....the ladder doesnt go to parades.  Smarten up, send an engine.

 

 

There wasnt a need to include a dept. name, because this dept. is not unique.  The list of offenders is long, sadly.

  

 

This is a valid point but also consider this:

If a municipality only has one ladder or rescue, do we permit them to go out of town to the fire training center with a significant amount of the department for training? To go a step further, as the FTC has the only live burn facility, is it ok to take the entire first alarm assignment out of town and rely on the next town over to cover calls with a small crew left behind?

Do we permit the only ladder or rescue to go out of town mutual aid?

Do we allow our only rescue to participate at a MCI drill several towns away?

Although the above reasons are nobler, wouldn’t the results be the same should a fire break out? My point is there are numerous times when any piece of equipment will not be available. Even a municipality with multiple ladder trucks may not have one available at any given time. Do we restrict our equipment to the district and prohibit it from ever leaving to ensure coverage? Prohibit the equipment from going out of service for repairs or upgrades? Of course not. But unlike mutual aid, MCI and breakdowns, we can schedule drills and training events and make plans for coverage.

As much as you may disagree, parades do serve a purpose. They are not there so you can look cool or show off, they do offer a chance to foster pride in your department, see what other departments have in the way of equipment,how they use it, get new ideas in equipment and helps in recruiting.

But the only real answer to ensure the safety of the residents of your building is to spend millions of dollars on redundant equipment and additional millions to build and staff a fire station across from your building. Sounds absurd? Of course it is. but you have to do the best you can with resources you have on hand. 

[KRF178 49]

Consider how it'll be interpreted when a chief sits on a witness stand, testifies under oath that his first due aerial or rescue could't respond because it was three towns away at parade or wet down.  Compare that to the testimony of a chief who's same equipment wasn't available because of the "nobler" reasons.  It's a lot better justification to be unavailable because of training or mutual aid rather than squirting water on the neighbors new rescue truck.  "We couldn't get there to extricate that family from their head on collision, because we were waiting for the trophies be announced at the convention parade!"

[Morningjoe 162]

Your district/city/village decided that it was of the utmost importance for life safety to purchase that apparatus, what ever type it is, using taxpayer money. 

 

To remove it from service to show it off places everyone at risk. 

 

To those who say "that's what mutual aid is for," if that's your excuse, why not just rely on it all the time and use them instead of purchasing your own equipment. If you can justify the extra response time a couple times a year, other than mechanical or maintenance reasons, how can you effectively justify your need for your own apparatus all the time? 

[M' Ave 1,466]

21 hours ago, Tcs said:

it's a little thing called Mutual Aid if you're too far away with a ladder you call for another one

 

That is not what MX is for.  Let's not forget ....that neighboring ladder is also at the parade .  You shouldn't take equipment out of town if it completely removed some lifesaving capability, like an aerial.

 

 

To address the issue of vehicles put of town for training, well, ya gotta train and a quick phone call to the neighbors to be on standby and a request with dispatch to automatically send another Dept's truck Co. can solve this problem.  

 

For training.  Not parades.

 

 

I remember seeing Broad Channel F.D. units at Westchester parades.  That's a looking haul.  Now, I know they just buff FDNY runs and the area is still covered, but if you can drive your ladder from Queens to Westchester.....you look unesccesary.

[Bnechis 3,961]

When it is out of town, it's almost as available the rest of the week when sadly in many departments, their are no members available to respond or as is the policy in many depts, the engine goes first, so by the time the ladder arrives, it is blocked out by hose. 

[SECTMB 612]

I guess I'll throw in my cents based on a personal experience.  I was in uniform, we were all assembled and then we started looking around and realized that most everyone who would be responding to alarms was going to the parade.  The Chief asked me to stay behind at my station and respond to any calls we received within the district.  My nephew was working up the road from the firehouse and would come down in the event of a call so we would be a minimum of two and of course others may show up but at least there would be one engine responding.  We ended up taking in one EMS call and one AFA during the time of the parade.

 

I think before you send your dept out of town, for any reason, you should make sure you have left behind at least a minimum set crew for one engine, your ladder and your ambulance.  And, depending on the size of your dept. if you leave town for MA or Training Ctr. you should have a crew stand-by in qtrs for your own dept.  If you can't fill out that stand by, you shouldn't be sending your resources out of town.

 

If you need to take your ladder out of town for training, you should have a neighboring dept stand by in qtrs while your out.  If their already in qtrs it will save the response to the FH time.