Automatic Mutual Aid?

[SQDBOSS 6]

I hope this doesn't strike a nerve,but I was just wondering if any Westchester Departments have AMA set up and ready to go in the CAD @ 60 Control. Please don't confuse Mutual AID or a special call by the IC. It's just seems that 60 Control shouldn't have to keep re-dispatching Department's over XXX amount of time before, someone either signs on or they request a Mutual Aid response. I was recently told that there's actually a time limit before 60 Control can move on ( Pls if this false, my apology in advance!) to a neighboring Department even if there's multiple phone calls "etc'. Also do any Dept's rely one a neighbor for specific apparatus on certain calls??

[BFD2553 75]

The Villages of Buchanan, Montrose and Verplanck have automatic mutual aid for any type of structural fire call- 24/7/365. The jurisdictional department is toned out first and the two others immediately afterwards to report for stand-by at their stations. It's called a "tri-village response". It's been in place almost five years and has proven to work exceptionally well. It proved most beneficial in late Dec. '02 at the Albany Post Road fire when the wrong department was dispatched. As members from all three depts. responded, there was almost no loss of response time to the scene despite the error. This also led to the renumerization of all addresses along the Albany Post Rd. corridor between Croton and Continental Village ( Town of Cortlandt).

[Guest]

Maybe the tri district response should consider making one Fire Dept. Mutual Aid shouldn't have to be called all the time just for a room and contents fire, or some Depts. call mutual aid for mva's. This is because of manpower problems through out the county. :-k just a thought.

[BFD1054 1,552]

pbvpm...The Tri-Village plan has worked great for us as stated. Its good for us (Buchanan) because we do not have a ladder truck in our dept., so we can utilze Montrose or Verplanck. I wouldn't say any of the 3 depts have manpower issues. All 3 of us do pretty well on alarms. The stand-by is great because you already have manpower geared-up at the station ready to go. Its rare that any of the 3 depts. will call one another to the scene, unless its a larger fire. Or in special circumstances where a ladder, engine or our cascade may be needed.

Theres been plenty of cases to prove that the Tri-Village response was a great idea and will hopfully stay around for a long time to come.

pbvpm wrote: "Maybe the tri district response should consider making one Fire Dept. Mutual Aid shouldn't have to be called all the time just for a room and contents fire, or some Depts. call mutual aid for mva's"

What exactly did you mean by this, maybe i can clear some things up? :-k

[pjtm4 4]

It's not just a tri-district response. Most fire dept's in Westchester call mutual aid , no matter how big or small the fire is. Very rarely does a dept. put out a 1 room fire on it's own. The reason for this in my opinion, is the lack of Manpower. Most dept's activate 3-4 dept's for a small 1 room fire, whether it's north,south or central Westchester

[Remember585 815]

Good topic to bring up 2503.

Not only is the CAD system at 60 Control not used to it's fullest potential, but the entire list of services that can be provided from 60 Control are under used.

Several Departments have automatic response assignments for various reasons. Some have special assignments for specific buildings or locations, specific times of the day, types of incidents, etc. A good example I will use is one I worked on myself - Croton. Once an IC reports a working fire or "10-75" to 60 Control, the CAD will recommend a FAST, Cascade, EMS, Medic and if needed, 3 Tankers. Problem we have is that our Chiefs don't know this, even though they asked for it to be done. Other Departments take advantage of this as well, and it seems to work out quite well.

As for sending someone when a Department fails to respond, I understand that there is in fact a time frame that if nobody is responding, then Mutual Aid will be sent. This applies to both fire and EMS.

Now go dry off - I'm sure you're saturated!!

[JBE 328]

The only thing we have is an automatic aid plan for one location. The BRP north of 233 Street. We send an engine,truck, and chief north, YFD sends an engine, truck, and chief south. There is a plan in the works to have volunteers enter the city when we go below a certain percentage of units citywide. There are no other protocols for automatic aid.

[Pudge3311 5]

JBE

The city is going to let volunteers provide mutual aid in the city? That would be very interesting.

[Guest]

Bfd1054

What I was trying to say is, In the last 10-20 yrs Mutual Aid is called almost everytime a Dept. has a small room and contents or sometimes for a MVA that nobody called for years ago, but in todays world Mutual Aid is called for everything. Yrs ago, : you had to have some huge Fire in order to call mutual Aid and if you did call, it was nothing more than a stand-by in 1/4's. This problem is because of lack of manpower through out the county. :roll:

[COMMANDCHIEF 4]

I anticipate a posting from MFC2257 in regard to this one. Take it away Ed!!!

[JM15 386]

Remember585 wrote:

As for sending someone when a Department fails to respond, I understand that there is in fact a time frame that if nobody is responding, then Mutual Aid will be sent. This applies to both fire and EMS.

Does this happen with departments that dispatch themselves and not thorugh 60. I only think that happens when departments ask for the mutual aid. Example for an EMS call after three tones.

[mfc2257 464]

Wow ! An anticipated post... That's a lot of pressure to perform...

Where should I begin...

Automatic mutual aid is something that folks (read ego's) in Westchester County have been fighting for decades. It is a wonderful resource that is completely underused. Today, too many departments wait for a chief to arrive and determine "on the fly" what mutual aid apparatus he wants and where they want it from. This is crazy.

60 Control isn't packed full of stupid dispatchers. When they take a call, they are capable of determining the severity of the intitial response. SO why not have a list (referred to just about every where else as a box card that corresponds to a specific geographic area in a fire department's first due area) so that the dispatcher can assign apparatus on the initial response that the chief is going to have to stop and call for anyway.

This all works out very simply. (Example) Millwood is dispatched to a structure fire, where the dispatcher has already assertained that the fire is 1) Legimit in nature 2) Severe enough that additional apparatus will most likely be needed, 3) any number of other factors that may throw a flag in their mind.... They simply go to a pre-made box assignment for the first alarm in that area (box area) of Millwood's territory. So for example if it's on Allapartus Road, instead of just Millwood being dispatched, the following would be dispatched... Millwood, Ossining E-97 & E-98/U51 FAST, Briarcliff R-37, Croton T-10, Yorktown T-14, OVAC.

Once 2251 arrives or Millwood apparatus establishes command, 60 control gives a roll call of dispatched and responding apparatus to the Chief (notice that he hasn't had to worry about any mutual aid requests, JUST whats going on with the fire) At this point, if the chief needs to upgrade to a 2nd alarm he can... But guess what it's already in the CAD under the box assignment for that geographic location and as soon as the command is given L-42, E-119, E-270, T-11, T-12, T-16 are added without the chief having to think about it. Once again leaving them to command the fire operations. If one of the assigned apparatus is OOS or fails to respond, chief doesn't need to be called and radio cluttered up, the dispatcher simply moves to the next piece of apparatus on the system.

The chief is able to make all the apparatus decisions for a fire/accident/etc in an office instead of on the fireground. It just takes a little bit of research to see which apparatus, in what order you want from which departments. Not all engines are the same... So saying over the radio while the craps hitting the fan at 4am that you need an engine from XYZ department isn't enough any more. I use the example of Chappaqua all the time... E-144, E-145, E-146 are all very different and highly effective pieces of fire apparatus... E-145's hose reel does be no good when I need 5in. E-144 does me no good when I need foam in a hurry... But E-146 is prepiped. Same goes for Ladders... L-42 and L-44 sure are different aren't they. Calling 60 control and asking for a ladder from Croton will deliver a rear mounted tower ladder to your scene (Allapartus Road is about as narrow as a one lane path)... That would be a great rig to have at a fire near the A&P in Millwood... Not in the middle of the woods where L-42 from Ossining would suit much better... It's a lot nicer when the decision to call for a 100FT straight stick from Ossining was made after some deep thought behind a desk... Not when you've got 4 guys in an attic that may need a way off the top floor of a house 10 minutes from now.

Food for thought!

[BFD1054 1,552]

pbvpm...thanks for clearing that up. I totally understand where you are coming from. Theres obviously manpower issues, not only in Westchester, but all over the Country i'm sure. You are right, it does seem that m/a is being used much more nowadays than ever before.

You also have to consider the additional resources. Alot of m/a is due to specialized equipment/personnel, such as cascade systems or FASTeams.

[x635 4,066]

mfc2257

Those are some good progressive ideas.

Bedford Hills uses a box/alarm type system already.

They are one of the few municpalities (excluding the cities) that I know of that use this type of system.

Check it out here:

http://www.bedfordhillsfd.org/content/map/

Put your mouse over the respective area, a window with the respective assignments for that area will come up.

Mutual aid shouldn't be determined by who is friends with who, who won what parade, etc. Mutual aid should be determined by closest capable available unit AUTOMATICALLY.

[jloftus 28]

:twisted: Dudes

Can only say Mount Vernon uses Mutual Aid like you get up and and go the bathroom. In Mount Vernon everybody is automatic Mutual Aid.

MANPOWER

MANPOWER

MANPOWER

Have a great day:

Two Truck-F.D.M.V.

[SQDBOSS 6]

So you mean, if my best friend is the Chief of Dept.XX they shouldn't be 1st due, and skip the 4 closer Departments ! LOL. As stated, it's a shame with the emerging capacity of 60 Control and CAD why should the IC have to worry about anything except how am I going to put this out. Is it a "tragedy" to get an Engine from X and a Truck from Y, turning wheel. If you don't need them, send them back. But it's a relief knowing that there on the way. Obviously, there could be an arguement regarding abuse with the above, but a little common sense goes along way. I know, what my Dept. has, but we NEVER get everything out the door, and even if you are able to, do you leave your district without coverage, until the IC can backfill.

[WAS967 97]

The city is going to let volunteers provide mutual aid in the city? That would be very interesting.

Who do you think cover a LOT of the firehouses in NYC while FDNY was searching ground zero?

[Guest]

NYC is a volly friendly place. I would have difficulty believing volunteers would be called for any kind of mutual aid to some paid areas of Westchester due to some volly-hostile people in Union positions

[msm232 69]

North White Plains and West Harrison have done Automatic Aid for years! There were multiple reasons of which manpower plays a role as with any fire department. The quarry area of Old Orchard Street and Park Lane in North White Plains/West Harrison has been for years a automatic aid response betweeen the (2) departments. Several criteria went into this plan: Remote area's of both districts requiring longer then normal response times. Lack of adequate water supply and a potential for a long stretch. (The fact that one side of the street is NWP and the other is W.Harrison) Also West Harrison responds with a engine and the tower ladder which complemented the 2 engines and rescue from North White Plains. It has changed a little bit with the quint but essentially the same plan is still in effect. It has proven successfull on numerous occasions.

[CG206 29]

Mohegan has Peekskill's Tower Ladder 45 respond dual response to all Automatic Alarms and structural calls at Hudson Valley Hospital. Mohegan also has Yorktown respond dual response with Ladder 51 to Holy Comforter Nursing Home under the same principles,

[firemn23 8]

I think the reason most departments wont do automatic mutual aid is cause they are afraid to have another department show them up and get there first.

[Guest]

Theres obviously manpower issues, not only in Westchester, but all over the Country i'm sure.  You are right, it does seem that m/a is being used much more nowadays than ever before.

You also have to consider the additional resources.  Alot of m/a is due to specialized equipment/personnel, such as cascade systems or FASTeams.

The # 1 reason Mutual Aid is used now a days is MANPOWER,or the lack of Manpower, It really isn't called for Equipment.

I understand why a cascade unit is called, that isn't anything new, Alot of Depts. always used to call for cascade units to scene. :wink:

[mfc2257 464]

I think the reason most departments wont do automatic mutual aid is cause they are afraid to have another department show them up and get there first.

This is definately a factor.

In places where the box assignement is filled out right away, there is always the chance that you'll get smoked by a mutual aid rig into certain parts of your own territory.

I've been part of two departments in PA/MD where this happens. Most of the time when we were on the first alarm, we were out the door before the company that was first due. Often times they were picking up our line, but occasionally they would beat us to our territory. This becomes less of a problem when the ego's relax. You'll find out that your rigs will get out faster because your guys don't want to pick up someone elses line in thier own territory.

The net benifit of all of this, is that you've got 3+ engines, a ladder, rescue, ambulance and often a handfull of tankers arriving well staffed within minutes of each other as upposed to when the mutual aid process is left for the chief to arrive and begin calling for help after he realizes that he needs a full assignement but the only apparatus on the road are the ladder and the first engine.

[Guest JQP442]

Millwood has had a automatic MA set up with Briarcliff Manor for some time. Whenever one of us get a MVA on the TSP, we are both called out. The reasoning is that for calls on the southbound side, they have to come up north, pass the call, turn arround and come back south when all Millwood has to do is jump on southbound. The same holds true for calls northbound in Millwoods district. BMFD may get to the call in our district before us but what matters is that the person who is hurt is getting attended to. It all comes down to helping the person(s) who need help. Lets get it to them as fast as possiable!

[Guest SQUADco119]

PBVPM i dissagree yes maybe sometimes departments call for mutual aid cuase the lack of manpower but i think its becuase the fire service has more knowledge now and arent afraid to call mutual aid just becuase its thier fire. Plus you also have to take into consideration now that FAST ops are big in the fire service now(GOOD) I dont think its a problem with calling mutual aid at all especially if people start utilizing the CAD system. You have to look at this way alot of the times you pull up to a fire it may look worse than it really is so you bring in your 10-75 assingment or special calls. If its not needed you can always cancel better to have at the ready from the start rather than realize 10 mins into the ops you could of used more apparatuss or manpower. Better to be safe tahn sorry