robert benz

11 hours ago, somebuffyguy said:

And where do you think the insurance companies get that money from, Narnia? The cost is paid by the property owners paying their insurance.

If there wasn't a 2% tax, would the "taxpayer" have any say on what the insurance companies did with their money, once they pay their bill?

1 hour ago, trollman200 said:

Anyone hear anything about when physicals are to be scheduled?

What do you mean by physicals?  medical?  the academy starts on Monday.  you should have all your pre academy stuff done by now,  also your dept that is hiring you,  schedules your physical

2 minutes ago, LayTheLine said:

I know this will rustle the feathers of many, but think about it in terms of police. YES, Police. If a police officer is returning from training in another jurisdiction and comes across an accident, a robbery, or swerving drunk-driver, they will call it in to the either their dispatch or the jurisdiction the call is in and then render appropriate action until the arrival of the appropriate jurisdiction. The same thing would happen if they were near their own town line and saw something happen in the next jurisdiction. The questions are what did you know, when did you know it and what did you do about it? If the answer comes back to being reasonable, then I'm all for acting.

 

As a few have pointed out, the Scarsdale incident isn't very clear as to what happened. Eastchester could have very well been out on their own smoke investigation and come across the fire.  If so, report it to the jurisdiction having authority by common radio frequency or your own dispatch and then render aid in a reasonable manner until the "home team" shows up.

 

As for any incident near a town line, I would expect that if the FDNY were out on a smoke investigation near the Yonkers city line and they came to the Westchester border and saw smoke coming out of a building and some mother out front frantically running around that they would respond and do what they could do to assist until Yonkers showed up. If I were the FDNY Battalion Chief I would initiate operations, possibly make a rescue, and when Yonkers showed up I would go to the first arriving officer and say, "FDNY is on location, we have 2 engines and 1 ladder working. We rescued a child from floor 2. We have 1 line stretched in operation on the 1st floor. This is your city and your incident - you are in-charge, what can we do to help you?" If the Yonkers officer said continue operations and we'll stretch a back-up line I'd appreciate it. Once our troops arrive we'll try to kick you free ASAP" then I'd stay and do what was REASONABLE and respect the Yonkers officer's decision. If (I don't think Yonkers would do this) he said, "This is our fire and get out of our city" then I'd say, "Fine, pack-it up boys and let's hit the road. Good-luck!" 

 

This is not rocket-science. It's about what and when you became aware of something and then what did you do about it and was action REASONABLE to do. Working together is a wonderful thing!!

you are absolutely correct'  what was I thinking.  I know nothing of rocket science 

so if crossing borders is ok for an incident, yonkers and mt Vernon should be able to go a few blocks into the Bronx  and fdny should be able to go a few blocks north because they were in the area,  and why stop at fires  take in all their ems calls also  might be a cardiac arrest  and save a life. Good communications is what is needed  If I am first due  and I have apparatus from another district already on scene my game plan has to be modified very quickly.  

I have a different spin on this incident.  Lets forget who called who   and I am asking this of anyone at the scene,  what did you do?  Was it readily obvious that it was refrigerant that was leaking,  or had already leaked (puddle on the floor),  was the area metered by a 3 or 4 gas meter prior to hfd arrival?  and what were the results of that.  (decreased o2 levels), was the erg book used asap?  what did the HFD meters tell you when they were used?  And what did you do to mitigate the incident?  Lets learn from a haz-mat call   thanks. 

Yes there is a team  Contact 60 control   or ask for Chief Luci  at des    they have the info

Seems like a lot of the world we live in or deal with is nowhere near reality

when I did something wrong my parents made sure it would not happen again.  school is in a no win on this one  they do something the parents scream  they don't do something the same parents will scream "why did this happen".

Just an fyi   the practice test for CPAT    was this past Friday and Sat..  if you didn't get a notice to go  you probably didn't make the cut this time around.

guys and gals,  stop worrying about the pay  and steps  and work charts.  Focus on one thing at a time.  FAIL cpat  and you wont have to worry about anything else. Come to the test prepared or don't bother coming,  there are 300 people behind you on the list that will take your spot!!

Looks like the combined classes total 129 hrs.   BEFO has been around a couple of yrs now.  These courses still have to be taught by certified fire instructors, either state or county. 

Your reputation is what is salty  not your gear.  that being said,  ( I know ur lid is ur badge of honor) how many guys wash their earflaps? IF they are down during a job,  they will get dirty agree?  How do you wear your flaps most of the time,  tucked up inside your lid.  So now that dirt is directly transferred to your head.   Wash your earflaps !!!

Until the New York State "Home Rule" is totally abolished (and we all know that the UNIONS will 'Never' allow this to happen), the concept of either a Regional or Consolidated Fire Service in the County of Westcehster will NOT happen and this MADNESS of a CRIPPLED Mutual Aid System (specifically tied to the City of Mount Vernon) will continue to happen

why would the unions stop home rule?

Is that a full-time salary or part-time salary plus benefits?

Not saying it's a bad idea but what's the plan? Sounds like a smart way to add 125K to their reserve funds while seeming very proactive. And they probably have 125K in their reserve funds already so they didn't need to do this to have the funds available in 2016 (or 17) or whenever this is going to happen.

I am not at all opposed to the idea, I just think it may ultimately be the death of the volunteer department Somers.

Why become an officer if you can't become chief?

Why go to training if you can't become an officer? (not firematic training but higher level, officer type training)

Why should I volunteer if the chief is getting paid?

Will the first paid chief be one of the commissioners or family member of a commissioner?

See? Lots of unanswered questions.

so let me get this straight, the only reason to become a vol ff is to be chief? and with that thinking, every member that joins has the capacity to be chief. And by that thinking now if you pay a chief, all the volunteers should quit. Different way of looking at things. interesting

I am sure before too long, drones will be a part of the fire service. I can hear it now "urgent, urgent, or mayday, mayday, drone down drone down we need a mechanic and IT here now.

new Rochelle refuses to go to mount Vernon and mount Vernon refuses to go to new Rochelle for standbys if its a major incident and there needed to the scene then of course they'll go other then that that's that

really?? nr REFUSES to go and MV REFUSES to come here. As my boss used to say, "don't let the truth get in the way of a good story".

See you've been a member of this site since 2007, yet I don't see a single incident posted under your account. Why not contribute ?

I used to contribute incident alerts on occasion, but really don't have the time to sit and listen to the scanner for hours on end anymore.

Being that most of these incidents are now instantly posted up on Facebook these days, whats the incentive for users to spend hours listening to an incident rather than spending time with their families or other hobbies just so grateful users like yourself are satisfied ?

and members wonder why no one is on this site anymore. at least this wasn't a paid vs volunteer bashing. good job!

Glad I made history. Guess it's not dumber than parking 7 Engines on a 1 lane rd to transport manpower.

Danger, on 06 Mar 2015 - 10:33 PM, said:

Probably the dumbest thing I've read on this site in over ten years, impressive

ok here goes, the fire service in Westchester is FINE!!!! responses are great, fire ground accountability is perfect, manpower is more than enough.

NOW THATS THE DUMBEST THING WRITTEN IN THE HISTORY OF THIS WEBSITE!!!

Sorry to take away your title lad12erff.

Really not sure what you are asking, but here goes. Each county gets allotted state fire instructors based on need. Not sure what formula is used, but as a sfi, you have to get certified by the state ofpc to instruct any classes you want to teach. As an sfi the main goal is to get ff-1 classes out to the folks. Sfi's try to teach what is in demand, but certification in certain classes may be limited. Each course taught uses up the state hours. Any hours not used go into a pool if other counties need them. Sfi's that are certified in multiple skills can teach the most courses, in turn getting more courses taught in that county. If you have sfi's not teaching that is a whole different story.

As far as I know, there is no list of instructors anywhere. I have been an sfi for 15 yrs. this is what I know of how the system works.

Is there a list of SFIs are assigned to each county?

I am sure if you ask your cfc or ofpc fps assigned to your county or your county training div. You should get your answer.

The training hours are divided up per county depending on how many sfi's are assigned. Westchester has 15 instructors who are required to teach at least 175 hours so Westchester gets about 2700 hers. And then there may be more assigned depending on how busy the counties are.

The Westchester METU's sole purpose is nursing home evacuations. That's one of the criticisms.

Chief Benz, did the Yonkers METU come to your nursing home fire?

no, did not get requested because there were no evacuations. It was explained to me that we have several nursing homes in the flood zone and if they needed evacuation, The METU could be called in place of multiple ambulances. the nursing home staff is to act as the medical personal, des would send a driver.

I don't think anyone said that the METU could not also be used for evacuating nursing homes, the key to this thread is the lack of response to MCI's. I suppose if you had a multiple alarm fire at a nursing home at the same time as a train vs car collision with fire, then a decision would have to be made about which to do, but then again if you have two fires in teh same district that choice has to be made for every rig.

what I am asking is do you need to be a ems agency to respond to ems calls? And if you do respond who rides the apparatus? Who is the emt / paramedic? If it is sent to a nursing home to evacuate, is the medical staff still the responsible ems provider? We have firefighters in the nrfd who are

also paramedics, but are not allowed to act as such while on duty as a firefighter.

Do we owe the public the truth about their fire depts. ability to handle a structure fire? What I mean by that is we ask the taxpayers for money to run the dept, yet in truth, on any given day at any given time, it takes more than THAT dept to control the situation. Forget career / volunteer bs, this is across the board. This is not about the big one or needing a tanker/tender shuttle operation, this is the room and contents, fire that your patch on your sleeve proudly says WE CAN HANDLE.

Mutual aid to cover the empty fire houses, no problem.

Why is it the neighboring taxpayers responsibility to send its tax dollar funded dept to assist with your BASIC fire.

something is wrong here, and the longer we put our heads in the sand......................

I have a couple of questions for the ems folks on here, does Empress control or did they have something to do with getting the grant for the Yonkers METU? Who staffs the yonkers metu for a deployment? And do you need to have some kind of ems accreditation to respond to incidents?