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Get well soon Sam

I believe the title of the thread was - not good for PUBLIC PERCEPTION, its not what is legal or not, its what the public views. A chiefs car from a district far away at a mall in this climate is most definitely noticed. People make comments when we shop for meals, they think the department pays for our meals outright, they have no clue its paid out of our own pockets. Its not what is actual fact anymore, its what a budget conscious public views.

Strong work by brother Yannuzzi!

Tragically the dog committed suicide by jumping out of a window......

"Back in the day you could tell the number of alarms a fire was by the length of the "stringers" hangin from the truckies noses when they poke their heads out of a window ...two inch stringer was two alarms, four inch stringer was four alarms and so forth."

Sorry chief I clicked like and finished reading and had to unlike because of your request

Shoot...ready...aim!

In a city the size and make up of New Rochelle there is plenty of POLICE work for cops to do supposedly, maybe they should stick to that since it is what the taxpayers are paying for. If they are looking to help at a fire scene, concentrate on clearing all the illegally parked cars out of the way so we can place our rigs where they belong. They can also assist with crowd control and helping the people that self evacuated since they have been thru a pretty traumatic experience. It would be a terrible thing for a P.O. to suffer any injury acting outside of his scope, and they dont need to breathe that crap in, they have enough hazards doing their job.

My father grew up on park hill and my grandparents lived a block away from Landy's. Nothing compares.

Capital City Fire Helmets in Hartford CT. He does great work repairing/refurbing. Check out the site.

I visited Italy 15+ yrs ago, same type turnouts and rigs in Rome. The brothers there were very interested in our setups as well.

We (the FD) are here to protect the people living inside a house more than the house itself. The proper way of doing that is through quick response times and proper manning, regardless of cost. Insurance companies can replace a house but not the people living inside it. Until now , I thought only non-fire personell lost sight of that fact. Thumbs up to Somers for doing the right thing and trying to provide their community with the best possible service.

I live in Somers. I am an FD member. I own my home. I pay about $10,000 in property taxes a year. About $500 are fire and EMS taxes (it says "fire and EMS" on my tax bill).

My home is made out of wood and there are no hydrants in my immediate neighborhood, though a recent water project put one in about 1800 feet away. At age 45 I have never had a fire in my home. I have never been in a structure that caught fire. (other than going as a fireman) No one in my family (brother, sister, mom, dad) has either. I have never met anyone that has been rescued from a fire. I have absolutely no expectation that under currant conditions a fire in my home would be extinguished in a manor that would save anything of value. We in Somers do not use the F.I.T. devices that allow 1 man to knock down a fire.

I do not want anyone risking their lives to save my house. It is insured. I have no ability to pay yearly taxes to fund a crew of firemen that may or may not be available (due to calls) to come and successfully/unsuccessfully save my home. I am told that the "loaded cost" of 1 fireman is about $140,000 per year (salary, pension, workers comp, OT for vacation/training, days off, sick time etc) So a small ( 4 guys- gotta have 2 in 2 out, right?)crew will cost me about 1/2 million dollars a year. Our Somers Town Budget is about $11 million dollars/year. The SFD budget is about 2.8 million, though they have managed to save over 4 million in various special accounts. (I have heard of tax and spend, but the SFD taxes and puts it in the bank!) So $500,000 every year in costs for the small daytime crew represent about a 20% increase in spending for the District. That is about $250,000 PER FIRE for the roughly 2 working fires we average a year. Yes it will be sad if my home burns. Even sadder if I and/or my family is home when it does. I have 7 smoke detectors ($7 each) and about as many extinguishers. For $500,000, I will step out the window into fresh air, walk across the kitchen bump-out roof, and jump the 9 feet, hopefully into deep soft snow (most fires are in winter). Since I am a 10 minute firetruck drive from the main station, I would probably have to do that anyway.

I am really sorry. I would love to see everyone get a great job as a paid fireman. I would love to have a standing army of highly trained and well equipped first responders in our four stations staffing 2 ladders, 5 engines a heavy rescue and a tanker. May as well throw in the scuba truck and ATV thingy too. I simply don't have the money it would cost to do that. As the "buyer" in this transaction, I am afraid I can't afford it. I will be careful to not overload any wires. I will keep the chimney clean. I will hope for the best. At 45 years old, I will be moving into assisted living in another 30 years or so. Hopefully I'll make it, house intact, then they can hire as many firemen as they want.

Wow, I cant believe someone in the emergency services field would make a comment like that. I believe your talking from your backside when you state you dont expect anyone to save your house (any fire we RESPOND to we risk our lives). You would be miserable and broken, not just sad if your FAMILY lost THEIR house. The statements you make are driven by personal economics. Why not get the fire services you deserve and pressure the towns politicians to do their job and cut from NON Essential services etc.. to afford what is your right to be provided. How long have you been in this buisness?

PLEASE! ENG 21 aka 30 A-4!

Do you guys in the west end even bother coming to work anymore?

If they want it to see fires it will go to E23. We can give it to E21 after we break it in

stop it.

Well said bro. The recent incident "discussions" posted are what I was hoping to get out of this website.

Quick Questioon?

How often do you guys train master stream operations?

After seeing the pictures and reading about the conditions on scene I am curious as to how often you guys train with those type of devices, we have several places of worship within our first due and in our MA district and I have been considering stepping up the amount of training we do with master streams...

If anyone can elaborate.

Hang and drop, or ground ladders. A 24ft extension ladder looks like it could sink quite a ways and still make the windows.

I will widen the spectrum a bit. Officers, what do you want/look for in a "Senior Man"? How does it benefit you to have a good "Senior Man"?

The senior man that would benefit an officer is ,in my humble opinion, someone who resembles what i would believe to be like a non-com officer in the military. Someone who squashes most firehouse B.S. and keeps the officer advised of any problems/concerns of the men, as well as the experience enough to offer his opinion in a constructive way. The senior man must earn his right to benefit from the title by doing the stuff that keeps the firehouse/firefighters on the right track before it needs to be addressed by the officer. That is what I was taught the senior man was and should be.

It's bad enough an Officer may have to be a prick and a hard nose towards guys that know the Job. Now throw into the mix incompetent individuals that have been hired due to the Standards being lowered and you have a whole different issue on your hands. It's called "Constant Supervision" or "Babysitting" for the most part. The caliber of people hired today is just not the same as it was 50-60 yrs. ago. The days of the Fire Service being a semi-military organization are long gone at least in these neck of the woods.

One quick one ....How many of you out there check your SCBA waist-strap buckle on a regular basis? If you need to use your scba as a "rescue" harness and the buckle doesnt hold, you could be in trouble......

Ahh you truckies, just face it without us water weasels you just aint squat. Or should I say squirt(water)LOL. No matter what you do the engine guys always make the fire go out. Your always up on the roof looking in some kind of hole watching and learning or looking in some window you just broke and again watching and learning. You say your venting for us but your really just trying to learn something- How does that fire go out when all is we do is watch? We crawl around inside making a save once in awhile and if we come upon fire will try to put it out with water from the can but it never seems to work 100%. What do those engine guys use boss, it must be magical water!

On a serious note without truck companies engine guys arent squat and withouts us engine guys truckies arent squat! Sorry I couldnt resist Lads and Gals, whos gonna be the first truckie to chop my head off.

Oh and another thing who cares what the general public thinks of us we always get a bad rap even when we peform our best as a well oiled machine! As long as thier is no lives lost or hurt which is a truckies main concern and they got a can to spray a little water iam sure thats good enough for a days work, plus any truck I know has more than one can. Nor do I see a problem with ladder guys imprivising(Ex. hooking a hose to a hyrdrant ) thats what this JOB calls for sometimes, us engine guys do truckie work sometimes. As long as the JOB gets done thats all that matters!

I do both in my department as iam trained in both and they are just as important and as fun as the other. Iam a water weasel at heart though!

Quints are okay, it all depends on how your department works and what works best for your department. But make sure if you have a quint that your have two operators, one for the pump and the other for the turn table, to have one guy do both is too much, not saying you cant do it but its to demanding I think. Plus truckies pumping? Would you want that fellow engine peeps while your at the end of the knob, I think not LOL!

Oh its not our fualt(us engine peeps) that truckies just want to be like us, hey can you blame them!???????

So bottom line is I think its great that some truck companies are keeping some hose on the rig not just for hooking into an engine. After all truckies know how to put water on a fire, call the engine LOL Iam just kidding they were tuaght this in the academy, just as engine crews in the academy are tuaght search for the simple reason we all know is that we dont usually know what we will be assigned to as a FF! Good topic.

Good post, however, I am not comfortable with idea of involving a truck in what is a basic engine function.....extinquishment. In most FD's Trucks and Truckies are at a premium, with Engine CO's almost always outnumbering them. Keeping a truck involved in an " engine co." operation is putting most departments in a little bit of a tough spot. If an incident should arise with the need for immediate truck response (structure fire, rescue...) it would possibly lead to trouble. Just a thought.

We don't carry any hose on our truck and probably never will. If we come up on something we'll use cans until the engine gets there. One think I was always taught was that a 2.5 gallon can, can accomplish a lot. Our rescue was on the road the other day taking some pictures for a size up drill and was first to arrive at a car fire, engine compartment going pretty good. They held it in check without a problem during the extra minute it took us to get there with the engine.

I agree. truck CO's do truck work and engine CO's do engine work. If you want to put water on the fire - transfer across the floor to the engine. There's plenty that a truck co. can do with a can until an engine co. arrives. Why tie up a truck co. stretching hose and making hydrants?

"Cowboy up"

you know it brother.

Doesnt the PD have enough on their plate. Some cops talk about their overwhelming workload ,if so, they should concentrate on crimefighting and leave firefighting to the people assigned the responsibility of mitigating fires and making rescues...the FD. Who's watching the streets while they're attempting "rescues" in a fire building. They are not trained or equipped for these duties, they should stick to their job. I realize many times they are trying to do the right thing, but lets face it, someone could get hurt ...or worse.

I thought traditionally the senior man and the officer filled that role.