ny10570

I think you are too caught up in FDNY operations. There are some parkways in Westchester County where a ladder or more likely, a tower ladder will not fit underneath the stone arch bridges.
We can not even agree on the definiton of a trained FAST team member , and you are worried about what type of apparatus they are responding in. you are putting the cart before the horse.

That can absolutely happen today in Westchester. If your dept establishes that as their dispatch policy with 60, then that is what they will get. I've seen some good ones, but none address the chief pile that usually results.
Say my FD, the world renowned and well respected Mt Crumpit FD responds with 2 engines, ladder, rescue and 3 chiefs. Upon transmission of the 10-75 signal 60 would automatically add whatever I previously arranged to have added. In this case its 2 engines, fast w/ chief, and a ladder. 60 is so reasonable you can even establish different dispatch protocols for different parts of town. No hydrants out in Bumm Ridge, they'll be happy to assign a tanker task force as soon as the fire is confirmed if that is what we ask for..
The hardest change would be getting depts to stop picking and choosing their favorite neighbors. We get it that Nantasket FD lets you use their training center and Kartroo throws a sweet parade, but Whoville is closest so lets use them.
Now the heads up dispatcher listening to the radio traffic from the fire hears that this fire is really cooking. They can start looking at who is next up if it goes to a second alarm. That way if Gwark Island, the first due second alarm engine catches a fire (its rare, but multiple incidents do occasionally occur) the dispatcher can line up whom ever they'll need and quickly turn out these depts when the call inevitably comes in.
The county has spent a good chunk of change upgrading 60 over the years and the dispatchers are from what I understand very well trained. Might as well use the service we're paying for.

This particular incident should be studied and made part of a mandatory personal vehicle/department authorized personal vehicle EVOC geared toward volunteers, as an aside program to apparatus operation instruction..
All the things that were done wrong here should be elevated to a level of mass distribution (Edit: for education), certainly within the county, if even the people with this forum take it forward and develop a program from it, geared toward their individual department.
:-)

Absolutely, the stats were in no way misleading. Your conclusion from those stats however was completely biased and unsupported.
You claim reckless driving is an "obvious problem" in the volunteer service. I'm not saying that it is not a problem. I just don't see any evidence of the problem. With every member driving and on average a younger and less experienced membership; there are piles of research demonstrating that if the fire service posts numbers correlating to those found in the general population the volunteer fire service should have a substantially worse driving record. I have not seen this in my extremely limited and cursory searches. This may be because the most common factors in young driver deaths; drugs, alcohol, reckless activities, and inattentiveness are rarely factors when volunteers are responding to alarms. Maybe its just poor judgement and it affects both sides equally.
I cannot speak for the posters stooping to snide remarks and cartoons, but I only look for accuracy in any side of a debate. Losing credibility in one facet casts a poor shadow on any other points. I am not attacking any departments, referencing isolated incidents, or defending anyone. I'm just trying to take an unbiased look at the facts. Want to say that the average Westchester VFD on the average day is providing an understaffed, undertrained, and slow response to calls for help? I completely agree. But to say that volunteers are obviously driving recklessly just doesn't stand up to scrutiny as far as I can tell. If you have the research, I'd actually like to dig through it. Post a link, send a message, anything.

Ok, so I'm not sure why the difference between the two stats you have. Was it just because the the time period studied or were there different criteria in the search? The "Selected Special Analysis" is throwing me off. But we'll go with what we got. From 92-02 Career ff's made up 9.9% of the deaths and from '00 to '10 they're up to 18.8%. Since the two over lap this is terrible statistics, but when I average it out we get 14.35%. As of 2010 All career and mostly career FD's only represented 14% of the firefighters nation wide. Arguably even in mostly volunteer FD's the career guys still probably do the lion share of the apparatus driving. That more than doubles the number to 32% of all firefighters.
All of this however could mean nothing because take yonkers for example. Your dept has how many apparatus on the road available to respond every day? A quick google search came up with 20 including the battalions. If you take your typlical westchester volleys responding from home to fill 18 rigs and two chiefs (lets assume only two members on each rig because its a beautiful tuesday afternoon) you're going to wind up with 56 separate vehicles being driven. You'd have to do 3x as many runs in yonkers to cover the number of trips taken by the vollys. Then there's the number of miles driven. What's the average distance for urban paid depts vs suburban and rural volunteer depts? Chief, you're over simplifying some very complicated statistics just to make a point. Without the proper data how can people not take this as a biased attack? It makes it seem personal no matter how much you insist it is not.

In the past week I've had two legit MOS cardiac events. Todays death in Brooklyn is looking like another according to early reports. I cannot stress how important this topic is for everyone. If you are not in perfect shape you need to be in better shape. Every time they research the physiological impact of our jobs (EMS, PD, and Fire) we go off the charts. The first studies of stress hormones in firefighters were so far off the charts they couldn't accurately measure them.

Ok, so I'm not sure why the difference between the two stats you have. Was it just because the the time period studied or were there different criteria in the search? The "Selected Special Analysis" is throwing me off. But we'll go with what we got. From 92-02 Career ff's made up 9.9% of the deaths and from '00 to '10 they're up to 18.8%. Since the two over lap this is terrible statistics, but when I average it out we get 14.35%. As of 2010 All career and mostly career FD's only represented 14% of the firefighters nation wide. Arguably even in mostly volunteer FD's the career guys still probably do the lion share of the apparatus driving. That more than doubles the number to 32% of all firefighters.
All of this however could mean nothing because take yonkers for example. Your dept has how many apparatus on the road available to respond every day? A quick google search came up with 20 including the battalions. If you take your typlical westchester volleys responding from home to fill 18 rigs and two chiefs (lets assume only two members on each rig because its a beautiful tuesday afternoon) you're going to wind up with 56 separate vehicles being driven. You'd have to do 3x as many runs in yonkers to cover the number of trips taken by the vollys. Then there's the number of miles driven. What's the average distance for urban paid depts vs suburban and rural volunteer depts? Chief, you're over simplifying some very complicated statistics just to make a point. Without the proper data how can people not take this as a biased attack? It makes it seem personal no matter how much you insist it is not.

Ok, so I'm not sure why the difference between the two stats you have. Was it just because the the time period studied or were there different criteria in the search? The "Selected Special Analysis" is throwing me off. But we'll go with what we got. From 92-02 Career ff's made up 9.9% of the deaths and from '00 to '10 they're up to 18.8%. Since the two over lap this is terrible statistics, but when I average it out we get 14.35%. As of 2010 All career and mostly career FD's only represented 14% of the firefighters nation wide. Arguably even in mostly volunteer FD's the career guys still probably do the lion share of the apparatus driving. That more than doubles the number to 32% of all firefighters.
All of this however could mean nothing because take yonkers for example. Your dept has how many apparatus on the road available to respond every day? A quick google search came up with 20 including the battalions. If you take your typlical westchester volleys responding from home to fill 18 rigs and two chiefs (lets assume only two members on each rig because its a beautiful tuesday afternoon) you're going to wind up with 56 separate vehicles being driven. You'd have to do 3x as many runs in yonkers to cover the number of trips taken by the vollys. Then there's the number of miles driven. What's the average distance for urban paid depts vs suburban and rural volunteer depts? Chief, you're over simplifying some very complicated statistics just to make a point. Without the proper data how can people not take this as a biased attack? It makes it seem personal no matter how much you insist it is not.

Ok, so I'm not sure why the difference between the two stats you have. Was it just because the the time period studied or were there different criteria in the search? The "Selected Special Analysis" is throwing me off. But we'll go with what we got. From 92-02 Career ff's made up 9.9% of the deaths and from '00 to '10 they're up to 18.8%. Since the two over lap this is terrible statistics, but when I average it out we get 14.35%. As of 2010 All career and mostly career FD's only represented 14% of the firefighters nation wide. Arguably even in mostly volunteer FD's the career guys still probably do the lion share of the apparatus driving. That more than doubles the number to 32% of all firefighters.
All of this however could mean nothing because take yonkers for example. Your dept has how many apparatus on the road available to respond every day? A quick google search came up with 20 including the battalions. If you take your typlical westchester volleys responding from home to fill 18 rigs and two chiefs (lets assume only two members on each rig because its a beautiful tuesday afternoon) you're going to wind up with 56 separate vehicles being driven. You'd have to do 3x as many runs in yonkers to cover the number of trips taken by the vollys. Then there's the number of miles driven. What's the average distance for urban paid depts vs suburban and rural volunteer depts? Chief, you're over simplifying some very complicated statistics just to make a point. Without the proper data how can people not take this as a biased attack? It makes it seem personal no matter how much you insist it is not.

Ok, so I'm not sure why the difference between the two stats you have. Was it just because the the time period studied or were there different criteria in the search? The "Selected Special Analysis" is throwing me off. But we'll go with what we got. From 92-02 Career ff's made up 9.9% of the deaths and from '00 to '10 they're up to 18.8%. Since the two over lap this is terrible statistics, but when I average it out we get 14.35%. As of 2010 All career and mostly career FD's only represented 14% of the firefighters nation wide. Arguably even in mostly volunteer FD's the career guys still probably do the lion share of the apparatus driving. That more than doubles the number to 32% of all firefighters.
All of this however could mean nothing because take yonkers for example. Your dept has how many apparatus on the road available to respond every day? A quick google search came up with 20 including the battalions. If you take your typlical westchester volleys responding from home to fill 18 rigs and two chiefs (lets assume only two members on each rig because its a beautiful tuesday afternoon) you're going to wind up with 56 separate vehicles being driven. You'd have to do 3x as many runs in yonkers to cover the number of trips taken by the vollys. Then there's the number of miles driven. What's the average distance for urban paid depts vs suburban and rural volunteer depts? Chief, you're over simplifying some very complicated statistics just to make a point. Without the proper data how can people not take this as a biased attack? It makes it seem personal no matter how much you insist it is not.

You said the overwhelming majority of these wrecks are on the volunteer side. Do you have the stats? With the sheer number of volunteer fire departments I would expect more volunteer accidents than paid. Add in that every volunteer is driving to the scene or station, are volunteers more reckless. I don't have any real info on this, but would be curious to see the breakdown of accidents per firefighter or even department. I doubt its out there, but per mile driven could also be really interesting. I'm sure the bias towards younger firefighters and older equipment bumps up the rate of accidents for volunteers. All in all a comprehensive review of this would be very interesting.

Ok, so I'm not sure why the difference between the two stats you have. Was it just because the the time period studied or were there different criteria in the search? The "Selected Special Analysis" is throwing me off. But we'll go with what we got. From 92-02 Career ff's made up 9.9% of the deaths and from '00 to '10 they're up to 18.8%. Since the two over lap this is terrible statistics, but when I average it out we get 14.35%. As of 2010 All career and mostly career FD's only represented 14% of the firefighters nation wide. Arguably even in mostly volunteer FD's the career guys still probably do the lion share of the apparatus driving. That more than doubles the number to 32% of all firefighters.
All of this however could mean nothing because take yonkers for example. Your dept has how many apparatus on the road available to respond every day? A quick google search came up with 20 including the battalions. If you take your typlical westchester volleys responding from home to fill 18 rigs and two chiefs (lets assume only two members on each rig because its a beautiful tuesday afternoon) you're going to wind up with 56 separate vehicles being driven. You'd have to do 3x as many runs in yonkers to cover the number of trips taken by the vollys. Then there's the number of miles driven. What's the average distance for urban paid depts vs suburban and rural volunteer depts? Chief, you're over simplifying some very complicated statistics just to make a point. Without the proper data how can people not take this as a biased attack? It makes it seem personal no matter how much you insist it is not.

Ok, so I'm not sure why the difference between the two stats you have. Was it just because the the time period studied or were there different criteria in the search? The "Selected Special Analysis" is throwing me off. But we'll go with what we got. From 92-02 Career ff's made up 9.9% of the deaths and from '00 to '10 they're up to 18.8%. Since the two over lap this is terrible statistics, but when I average it out we get 14.35%. As of 2010 All career and mostly career FD's only represented 14% of the firefighters nation wide. Arguably even in mostly volunteer FD's the career guys still probably do the lion share of the apparatus driving. That more than doubles the number to 32% of all firefighters.
All of this however could mean nothing because take yonkers for example. Your dept has how many apparatus on the road available to respond every day? A quick google search came up with 20 including the battalions. If you take your typlical westchester volleys responding from home to fill 18 rigs and two chiefs (lets assume only two members on each rig because its a beautiful tuesday afternoon) you're going to wind up with 56 separate vehicles being driven. You'd have to do 3x as many runs in yonkers to cover the number of trips taken by the vollys. Then there's the number of miles driven. What's the average distance for urban paid depts vs suburban and rural volunteer depts? Chief, you're over simplifying some very complicated statistics just to make a point. Without the proper data how can people not take this as a biased attack? It makes it seem personal no matter how much you insist it is not.

Ok, so I'm not sure why the difference between the two stats you have. Was it just because the the time period studied or were there different criteria in the search? The "Selected Special Analysis" is throwing me off. But we'll go with what we got. From 92-02 Career ff's made up 9.9% of the deaths and from '00 to '10 they're up to 18.8%. Since the two over lap this is terrible statistics, but when I average it out we get 14.35%. As of 2010 All career and mostly career FD's only represented 14% of the firefighters nation wide. Arguably even in mostly volunteer FD's the career guys still probably do the lion share of the apparatus driving. That more than doubles the number to 32% of all firefighters.
All of this however could mean nothing because take yonkers for example. Your dept has how many apparatus on the road available to respond every day? A quick google search came up with 20 including the battalions. If you take your typlical westchester volleys responding from home to fill 18 rigs and two chiefs (lets assume only two members on each rig because its a beautiful tuesday afternoon) you're going to wind up with 56 separate vehicles being driven. You'd have to do 3x as many runs in yonkers to cover the number of trips taken by the vollys. Then there's the number of miles driven. What's the average distance for urban paid depts vs suburban and rural volunteer depts? Chief, you're over simplifying some very complicated statistics just to make a point. Without the proper data how can people not take this as a biased attack? It makes it seem personal no matter how much you insist it is not.

Well said. As anyone who produces statistical modeling knows, you must correct for resultant bias within an acceptable probability ratio, or else your comparing apples and oranges. For a valid comparison, you must equalize in order to compare apples to apples.

As I think ny10570 was trying to say, the fact that the number of volunteers involved in accidents is higher is not surprising, but this number alone is meaningless without further data to make an objective comparison. You are comparing the numerators of two fractions while ignoring the denominator. Since there are vastly more volunteer than career firefighters, the comparison is not valid until you can compare it by the vehicle mile or something to that effect.
100 is larger than 10, but 100/10000 (0.01) is less than 10/100 (0.1)

You said the overwhelming majority of these wrecks are on the volunteer side. Do you have the stats? With the sheer number of volunteer fire departments I would expect more volunteer accidents than paid. Add in that every volunteer is driving to the scene or station, are volunteers more reckless. I don't have any real info on this, but would be curious to see the breakdown of accidents per firefighter or even department. I doubt its out there, but per mile driven could also be really interesting. I'm sure the bias towards younger firefighters and older equipment bumps up the rate of accidents for volunteers. All in all a comprehensive review of this would be very interesting.

The post office still provides a critical service. A full 1/4 of the us by population is still without regular internet access. UPS and FedEx turn to the USPS to reach areas that are not profitable enough for their operations. These debit cards that these non internet savy seniors will be using; how do you think they'll be distributed? The postal service needs overhaul, but not elimination.

In the past week I've had two legit MOS cardiac events. Todays death in Brooklyn is looking like another according to early reports. I cannot stress how important this topic is for everyone. If you are not in perfect shape you need to be in better shape. Every time they research the physiological impact of our jobs (EMS, PD, and Fire) we go off the charts. The first studies of stress hormones in firefighters were so far off the charts they couldn't accurately measure them.

I give the chief credit for recognizing a potential problem and wanting to address it. Too many firefighters are dying and getting injured each year responding to incidents in apparatus and POVs. The chief's plan is seriously flawed, however, and he should not put it into practice. If he wants to address speeding and possibly reckless driving by his firefighters there are better ways. He should start with a discussion of the plan with his assistant chiefs and company officers...what do they think? Are they part of the problem? They should be able to help enforce a safe response if they take their positions seriously and are respected by the firefighters. What about asking all members to sign a pledge to drive safely...similar to the pledge many firefighters have signed to wear a seat belt while responding to calls? One may say a pledge is only a piece of paper, but if the chief stood up at a meeting and asked all members to sign such a pledge he'd get their attention, maybe their signatures and hopefully their compliance.
No need for me to comment further on the need for the chief to respond to the scene and fulfill his duties as it's been said plainly by previous posters.
And I'm not a problem in my own department, I'm not a wacker and I don't have any blue lights. I'm a past chief and current officer who has his priorities in the right order.

Speak for yourself, pal. FYI, I live around the corner from my fire house and I generally walk down the hill to go a job. Don't paint us all with the same brush, lest you'd like to be painted, too. I'd venture a guess that youre house isn't made of glass, no?

As I read the IA about the 4th alarm with maydays in the Bronx yesterday (thanks ryang), I am confronted with strong concerns and reservations about how that would happen anywhere in the suburbs. This is not a paid/volunteer issue. This is a major incident response issue because no matter what your pay status, we've cultivated a recipe for failure in this region with absolutely no standardization, abysmal leadership/management training programs and experience levels, and no means to effectively coordinate the response.
Some are probably already cracking their knuckles and gearing up for a keyboard battle but before you do, take a deep breath and let me finish my thought.
Yesterday in the Bronx, a fire in ordinary buildings that we have all over our suburbs, resulted in the initial response of more than 40 "interior" (and I hate that distinction but more on that later) firefighters (4 E, 1 S, 3 L, 1 BC, S/C 1/1, plus 10-75 response). How many of our departments can honestly say we can put that many qualified, trained, and equipped FF on the road in the first three minutes?
Within five minutes, the 2nd alarm results in another TWO DOZEN fully equipped FF responding. All from the same agency, with the same training, SOP's, equipment, and leadership. Wow, who can beat that?
SIXTY-FIVE fully qualifed FF in five minutes with an appropriate span of control and properly trained supervisors for each resource. Imagine that?
I'm sure that some will argue that you don't need 65 FF for a job like that and they can do it in their agency with far fewer resources but my point is wouldn't it be nice to know that you have that many qualified guys at your disposal in a staging area a few blocks away and not 20 minutes and a dozen dispatches later?
Now, the other shoe drops. With all those resources already on scene and operating. With several highly experienced and qualified chiefs running the show, there's a collapse and multiple maydays.
What would you do as the IC?
What would you do as the attack officer supervising the missing FF?
Do you have training for that scenario?
Do you have a pre-plan for that?
Are there SOP's for the actions of everyone on the fireground when it does happen (and regrettably it will happen)?
In the Bronx, it resulted in the response of another SEVENTY-FIVE firefighters/company officers with at least another half dozen very experienced chief officers and support resources up the wazoo.
All this was coordinated by the County communications center (FDNY Bronx Radio). It wasn't the local police desk trying to coordinate all the requests from the field while answering the switchboard and trying to dispatch seventy different resources. It wasn't a dozen different PSAP's all doing it their own way. It was part of a plan! (Some will undoubtedly argue that it isn't a good plan or it is overkill or whatever but my point is there is a plan and a standardized response!).
The chief officers that handled this fire probably have at least 12-15 years of experience as an officer backed up and supported by alot of training, drills and exercises. (FDNY has one of the elaborate exercise programs I've ever seen).
What do we have?
What do we require of our officers?
How do we get them the experience they need for this type of incident?
How experienced are they?
Are there any SOP's so dispatch knows what to do when the mayday is transmitted?
The FDNY response and resources is without question unique but how would we handle this kind of response? In a simple 3 story frame house fire that spread to similar exposures. This wasn't a high-rise. This wasn't a big factory. This was a row of buildings like almost any town in the Hudson Valley, Fairfield, or north Jersey.
It's time to stop the petty bickering and organize. If we won't consolidate we should at least agree on training, equipment, and response policies so when the other shoe drops on you there's a fighting chance for the trapped members!!!
It's 2012. The time for 90+ different dispatch points in Westchester is long gone We need a single coordinated 911 center for police fire and EMS in every county with properly trained professional 911 call-takers and dispatchers doing their jobs.
Put the ego and attitide and bravado aside and start lobbying for what is best for not just now but the future!

Videos are already up.

There is it is called walking like they do in the City, works fine for them.

I was with you right until the dig on unions. The system you mentioned has substantial upfront costs. Figure the free market would find the cheapest and most cost efficient way of garbage hauling, right? Then why do all of the commercial haulers still do it this way? While some municipalities sacrifice speed in exchange for forbidding employees from riding on the back, I don't see any commercial haulers that ban the practice.