wraftery

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About wraftery

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  • Birthday 12/10/1946

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  • Name: William J. Raftery
  • Location Hartsdale NY, Now in Chespeake VA
  • Agency HFD

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  1. Have a great retirement
  2. Check out youtube on a search using "Thamesford Fire-Lessons Learned" It is one of the best critiques I have ever seen. Sorry I had to give you a phrase to search, but for some reason, I couldn't give you a link but my computer is giving me a hard time
  3. It looks to me like the spot the MPO cleared was not for the engine but for the ladder. Look at the spot he cleared. Was he thinking "Truck gets the front of the building?" That A/D corner is right where the truck should be spotted to cover two sides of the building. Also as capt2102 said, heavy fire on the roof of a 9 story building with no water on the fire. It could be a roofing materials fire except that I think I heard a Sprinkler Gong ringing in the background. That means that there is fire below what you can see in the video. This is at least a 2-alarm fire, maybe a third. Do you think maybe the engine was leaving room for at least two trucks?
  4. A rule almost written in stone: Truck gets the front of the building IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOUR DEPARTMENT IS BIG OR SMALL, the rule still stands You can't do that if there are four engines blocking the way
  5. It slices, it dices, it chops.... Remember those Ronco commercials? That stuff never worked well, did it? Whenever you buy something that claims to do lots of things, it rarely does any one of those things well . That's my feeling on quints. Then somebody says "we have a quint, why do we need an engine?" And then POOF! The Lay-off Genie appears.
  6. I should take that comment about bigger balls in NY and run with it, but I won't. Put a guy in a room full of fire and he won't care what city he's in.
  7. Oh, I forgot Bowling balls would not work: 1. I don't think they will fit in the incinerator door. 2. They will burn. We had a run for smoke in the area which turned to be a guy burning his bowling ball on his BBQ grill. It looked like an oil pit fire.
  8. Correct For incinerators you used it somewhat like chimney chains. They were used as the line was being stretched. As for water, we had a Doohickey that went over the faucet (all incinerator closets had sinks) and had about 4 feet of rubber hose and a shower head. Handy little tools they were. They went by the wayside when the EPA got rid of incinerators
  9. Does anyone (other than snotty and I) remember when we used to carry gallon jugs of water with a rope attached? Old timers, don't let out the answer. What were they used for?
  10. That would be great! Paint it white with dri-erase board paint and the side of the water tank becomes an IC Board. You won't have to put sandbags in the back for better traction in ice storms either.
  11. In older areas, natural gas distribution was low pressure. Gas suppliers have been changing the mains to high pressure which involves sliding plastic pipe through older galvanized pipe for building service. A gas leak in the street has the possibility of seeping through the space between the old pipe and the new pipe and entering the building. This is not to say it's the cause of gas explosions or the possible increase in odor-of-gas runs. I just wrote this so you are aware of this possibility.
  12. Re: Pompier ladders: We used to practice with them but not carry them. Way back when we had rubber coats and "Johnny and Roy" helmets, we also had a Deputy Chief who decided training for a day would be Pompiers. He had us pull two Pompiers off a rig that was going to be cannibalized for parts and had sat out in the weather for about 6 months. Bnechis said "Climb or go home" were the two options, but we came up with a third. We refused to climb them because they were abused by the weather and not tested. We refused to climb them but agreed if we got tested ladders from the training center, we would climb them with no problem. It became pretty touchy, but the DC eventually saw the light. Re: The Ladder Bridge: Bridging with a ground ladder was an acceptable practice for many years but I think that aerial-to-roof bridge is stretching the safety limits way too far. If you want to train on it (for that day you may have to use it), Why not do your risk/benefit calculation and come up with something with a little more common sense for training. How about aerial-to-3rd Floor Window instead of aerial-to-roof. From above add a belay line to a harness on the Firefighter. If you can find a tall building that abuts a shorter building, even better.
  13. Ten codes are not considered common terminology except for 10-4, which is not a 10 code, but it is a word. According ti the Cambridge Dictionary of Advanced Learning; 10-4 exclamation, Pronounced ten four;; An answer in the affirmative