791075

You're simplifying your example to make it suit your argument. Yes, Mrs. Smith calls 911 and gets a response. In a full-time, career department she gets (using your example) two engines and a truck with 10-12 FF's and at least a couple of officers in six minutes all of whom are fully-qualified interior firefighters capable of performing all of the duties expected of them at a fire scene. In the volunteer response, depending on the time of day and day of week you get two engines and a truck with a couple of drivers, a couple of exterior FF, a couple of interior FF and maybe (if they're not at work) an officer in 12-15 minutes.
I'm not saying all agencies have this problem. I'm saying that there is no "standard" and there are people running around calling themselves firefighters who aren't. They can't fight fires and they have minimal training.
I know that not everyone has LOSAP but those that do receive compensation so there is a cost. It is disingenuous to claim that volunteer FD's with LOSAP or other compensation to members do not have personnel costs. I moved to a volunteer community and almost 1/3 of their budget is for LOSAP. That is just one example but nonetheless, it is a cost.
What are the fitness standards in the volunteer fire service? Again, I'm not saying that all career guys are Joe Buff but there is a standard and they have to meet that standard to be hired and to complete their training. Some jobs require them to maintain it too. There is no comparable standard in the volunteer sector.
Please don't confuse me with someone who is anti-volunteer. I'm just anti-hypocrisy.

Didn't officially implement it, huh? Is that because it is asking for trouble?
How about sending the cops to check and advise if there's a fire. Wait, we've complained about that over the years and hate that idea. So instead of sending the cop who's already dressed, in the car, and on the road we'll wait for someone to get out of bed, dressed, drive to the fire house, and then drive to the scene to find out if it is really a fire. God I'm glad I retired. Stupid policies like this are going to cost somebody their lives one day.
As bnechis has said: solve the problem.
If you want to be a firefighter you have to take the BS as well as the real "jobs". Do it 100% or don't do it at all.

Wow, where to start...............
1st) who are the morons, the students or the FD who keep responding (or roll over and ignor it) without resolving the problem? We had a similar problem in one of our dorms at CNR, with AFA from smoke detectors, we forced them to change to rate of rise detectors near the microwaves and have not had a false call in over 10 years.
2nd) Whats the chance that it could be a fire? I hope no students are trapped. All bets are off. Re-tone? How long is the delay? Without lights and siren I've arived on your scenes well ahead of the 1st engine on a "cops reporting heavy fire" and I was driving from another community (in your flycar). Now you think the times will be acceptable, when most members will ignor the tones and go back to sleep. Your unofficial duty crew responds to the house, gets the rig and responds to the call (and they are in slow motion because we all know this will be another popcorn call). Once on the scene, if they find a serious fire and request a retone for a working fire, the rest of the members will start to head toward the scene. Honestly, what kind of delays are we talking? I know that that 1st rig took a minimum of 8 minutes to get there from the alarm time(and thats being generious). 2nd due will take how long?
3rd) Both OFPC & USFA have many documents on the problems of campus fire protection and also many case studies of 100's or 1,000's of false alarms prior to a multi fatal fire in campus housing.
I remember watching Boston FD pulling up infront of the Dorm across from mine, at least twice every night. The took it serious, full response, in gear, ready to work, after 3 months of this they rolled in one night and fire was venting from 12 windows across the top floor lounge. It was an automatic alarm (started near the micro-wave. They were suprised to see it burning, but there was no delay.
Yes its tiring, but ignoring it is unprofessional and will come back to bite the dept.
So is EMS more important than fire? Ok so nights were covered, but I always had to wait forever during the day
Clueless, have you ever explained to the community who services are provided? Maybe they bought the whole concept that career and volunteer are the same?

This is a serious concern for many depts. and there are proven methods to attack this problem, including the following:
1) Meet with the facility, try to convince them that this is there problem. The crying wolf could become a real disaster for them and that their failure to address criminal acts by their staff/residents is a big liability for them.
2) Pass a local ordinance that AGGRESSIVLY bills for repeat and or malicious alarms. Fee's should be designed to dramatically escalate so property owners are encouraged to fix the problem.
Fire Districts may not do this, but the town (thru the building dept can) and in Mt Pleasant they have an ordinance that’s at least 10 years old, but it has never been enforced. I spoke at length on this issue with your Board of Fire Commissioners about 10 years ago and they said the town would not enforce it because they wanted to be "nice" to the property owners.
If the town is unwilling to assist, you may have to play hardball. Advise the public that the situation is so bad that only 2 solutions have been determined: 1) the town strongly enforces its own ordinance or 2) your will be forced to hire enough firefighters to handle the problem this will result in 2x- 4x increase in everyone’s property tax to cover solution #2.....If you do not want this to happen, contact the town supervisor at 555-1234 and demand he/she solve this issue.
3)With enforcement efforts, we were able to address the collages and they started fining students who did not evacuate during alarms, at 4am this caused many of them to rat out those who were pulling the alarms and it no longer was a "game". With the funding from the fines they were able to purchase alarm covers, which made it easier to catch those pulling the alarm. They also established an expulsion policy (without reimbursement for tuition & board) for pulling a false alarm.
Our false numbers have gone way down because of these actions.

Ok lets consider who would be resistant to it?
The FD members - these members can be further split into 2 catagories: those that are strugling to make the calls and those who remmeber the good old days and are no longer responding to calls.
The chiefs - do they understand the personnal liability they have when no one shows up and they've known this is a longstanding problem. Yes they want to be chief, but consolidation does not mean they will no longer be it.
The commissioners - the ones who swore they would do what was in the best interest of the community. Do they understand how bad things have become?
The public - Has anyone told them, that the XYZ FD is having trouple getting out and their are 2 choices: hire people (and raise taxes) or consolidate....lets vote on it.
The union (while not applicable in this case, is a concern in others) - Do they fully understand the pros & cons of consolidation? The risks & benefits must be determined and discussed. Contracts must be considered.
Many places have done this, it can be done. Or we will continue to slide till we are gone.

Most people believe that they will never need us, but they hope we are 100% ready to go as they dial 9-1-1.
What does this mean? It means we have done a horrible job of educating the public as to the economic value of the FD. In my city because of our ISO rating we save every property owner 3-4 times what we cost. If we got rid of the FD and gave back all our costs, they will see a 70% increase in premiums which is worth 300% of what they pay for the FD. If we never respond to a single call, we are a great economic value. Now add 8,000-9,000 calls per year.
But the fire service does not sell itself.

Really? Are you serious?! You actually can't close ONE company without a problem. Get a couple of multiples going and you end up with companies all over the city being relocated and running like mad! As for the CFR engine program....let me start with this: I HATE EMS! I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT! That's why I'm a fireman and not an EMT/Medic. That being said, it is an extremely effective lifesaving tool. Your B.S. line that it doesn't work deprives the rest of your statements of credibility! To be blunt, it makes you seem as though you might be going through life with your eyes closed. We've performed CPR more times than I can count, for several cycles of the AED until the first EMS unit arrived. I've worked with crews that had pre-hospital saves, though fewer than those that passed. How worth while is it to have 4 extra guys to rotate in on compressions during an arrest? Do you really think the two BLS members are enough while ALS is tubing and pushing meds? IT AIN'T! We've been on traumas and car accidents with serious injury and had victims packaged and ready to be stuck in a bus the moment (sometimes 10+ minutes later) they arrive. To a lesser degree of importance, we've sat with people in minor pain, for 20 minutes waiting for a bus. Not miracle work, but I'm sure it's nice for that person to have the comfort of first responders on scene.
I don't like EMS work, but that doesn't change the fact that countless lives are saved (or at least made more comfortable) every year by the speedy response of a CFR engine.
The FDNY can't spare a single engine or ladder company. Not one. They might not be busy all the time, but they're needed when it counts. If running EMS helps justify they're existence to those who don't understand how the fire service works, then I'm all for it. The CFR engine program saves lives, both at EMS and by keeping more companies open and available when fires break out.

Progress is here:

Tradition is here:

I'm a little late to the party here, but I read this at the beginning of the thread and I need to call this out.
Why is posting a dept's name such a problem? What is heard over the radio is available to anyone. We're not in the business of keeping secrets here, we're in the business of saving people's lives (or at the very least, being there quickly when they call).
Going after someone's agency because they mentioned a manpower shortage of another is a really short-sighted move. I've heard dept's paging for manpower over and over again without a timely response. This is not acceptable. Some departments are manned well and others are not. Those that cannot field a crew in a respectable amount of time (to me this is less than 4 minutes) do not have the capability to act as emergency response agencies. Even if you can get a crew together MOST of the time, that's not good enough. Calling 911 should never be a crap shoot.
Consolidation Consolidation Consolidation!!!

I just can't understand how people can continue to think that just because they are volunteer they deserve special treatment. As if cardiac arrest and fire spread decide to stop the clock to give you time to go through three dispatches and 5 minutes to drive from home to get the rig. Three minute response time is very reasonable if you sit in the building that the big red trucks and big white boxes are in, I know this because I do this. Maybe the local VAC should. Maybe if the VAC guys don't wanna do this, they should consolidate with the other 13 VACs in town or hire people.

Bare minimum should be highlighted underscored and in italics! The chauffeur drives, hooks up and pumps. The officer takes a dash in to see what's going on and where the line should go, then he's tasked with directing the operation. That leaves 2 poor bastards to stretch hose? YIKES! We're talking about a lot of time and backbreaking work, especially for the back-up guy. How much running back and forth, clearing the hose past corners and getting extra slack, can one guy do?
We're down to 4 firemen in addition to the officer on every engine and it shows! Missing that 5th man on the back-step adds precious minutes to a stretch. It's been proven that the addition of 1 firemen on the line cuts the time needed to put it in operation IN HALF.
Staffing is everything. Training is important, so is equipment. Our commissioner loves to tote every little innovation, project and purchase as something that makes us the "best trained, best equipped fire department". (Believe me, the men get quite a laugh out of that line....) If you don't have staffing, you have nothing. That's the single most important component of firefighting.

Engine 21 is the "WORK HORSE" of the City

When the numbers are broken down, it really looks terrible. Summed up, the FDNY protects 8x the population with 40% of the equipment. You can't get into a literal comparison, because it's apples and oranges, but those numbers certainly call for some sort of review. Response times don't HAVE to suffer either. You don't have to close down each firehouse, but you could reduce the equipment compliment by consolidation. Perhaps rescue companies could be made up of some sort of task force between multiple agencies. Maybe each dept. doesn't need to have a Rear-mount AND a platform. Two neighboring departments could make use of one each and have dual responses.
There are many ways to reduce an AMAZING redundancy of apparatus without hindering response times or levels of service.
8, 10, 15+ million dollar firehouses are a completely different story. I think a departments quarters should be nice and offer some comforts and maybe a luxury or two to entice guys to spend more time there. Thats fine. However, when I go to work in a 100+ year old firehouse that is LITERALLY crumbling, it makes you scratch your head at some of these palaces being built. Somehow 50 people (11 at a time) manage to work, eat, train and respond to many thousands of alarms each year out of this small and well worn firehouse. Plenty of volunteer organizations do quite well with comfortable and conservative quarters. If your willingness to participate hangs on how nice your firehouse is, you need to reevaluate your priorities.

Nice post. Let's rename this thread Proper Grammatical Phrasing. Now you get a red check mark for the above quoted sentence. You left out a "to, too or two" Sorry, but your perfect 4.0 GPA has just been affected. j/k
I respect college edumucated folk. My sis and brother-in-law both hold Phd's. Heck, she did two years in China and speaks Mandarin. She'd be a great FD liaison, or a cop in a Chinatown community. But they both teach in Seattle.
Let's just say the skills you need; like how to properly phrase a sentence are grade level skills, no? High school used to prepare people for this world. Now it's just a launching pad for the next level. I think computers have leveled the playing field for "no-degree'ers" a bit...lol
A Good Chief, if he or she happens to be college educated as well, good for them. But "Good Chiefing" skills cannot be taught in my opinion. Budgeting, yes. Public Speaking? We get it at Flips. Tactical Considerations for a fire ground chief, yes. But in the end you either got it, or you don't. And a "good senior firefighter" could tell you in two seconds if his/her Chief is worth their salt.

I think you're aware, civil service has come up with a way for people that do work like firefighting to prove they're competent to be promoted and lead. It's called the focused "competitive exam." Not having a college degree sometimes means people went straight into the workforce. Some of us were employed with civil service as young as 21. College didn't show me how to operate the pumps, the fire academy did. My officers showed me how to be one; and I tried my best to be as good as some of them were.
The "inside joke" is one city fire chief.

Yes there are jobs that need to be done, but if you do not have enough interior firefighters, you might as well not even bother to respond because all your doing is being a spectator. If you look at most career incidents about 80% of the firefighters are inside. The few exterior people include the IC, safety officer, pump operator(s), FAST and those waiting to go back in. Out of 20-30 members on-scene thats about 5 members plus FAST. This is a very real difference from most of the scenes I've been to in volunteer communities, where crowed control on the front lawn is needed.
This is only partially true. If you "show up" without OFPC certs they will turn you away. You can and I have applied for equivalance certs from OFPC where you must provide them with course outlines and instructor qualifications prior to showing up. Again the law is clear that its the depts responsability and OFPC can not legally complete the training your dept needs to meet the law.

The Brotherhood just got lost down the wrong road somewhere and WE need to bring it back. WE are the ones that need to remember it and make it stronger. WE need to makes sure its alive and maintain it. Otherwise, WE need re-evaluate what WE are doing wrong.

Too the "Brothers" who have posted above about the "Brotherhood" not being lost, I have to respectfully disagree. I've also been in the F.S. for quite some time along with many of my commrades in neighboring Depts., some of whom work in the Depts you retired from and we all agree on one thing, the 'Brotherhood" tradition of the Job is gone. It's amazing how many retirees I talk to and when i ask them why they retired so early they all give me the same answer, " the Job just isn't what it use to be and I no longer have fun and enjoy goin to work anymore. The new breed of ff is a know it all and a****** who doesn't give a rats a** about their profession or their colleagues." Christ you can't even get guys to go out for "choir practice" anymore. As soon as their reliefs cross the threshold they're gone till their next shift. They may talk the talk in the kitchen but don't walk the walk. Yes there are a few new members who show initiative but they are far and few between. Did i work with some jackasses when i first went on yes, but they were the exception. Now the job is over run with them. If you guys didnt have this on your job then lucky you but i think many of us die hards just don't want to see it and accept it. It's time to get real.

No truer words have been spoken. I honestly believe the "Brotherhood" aspect of the Job is gone, partly because it isn't being passed on any more by the so called "senior men" but also many of the new generation just don't care. The Fire Service seems to have become just another job to many. There seem to be more guys these days just out for themselves and not for the good of all. Hell just take a look at how many guys attend a Union meeting these days. Many only want to be part of the "brotherhood" when something directly is goin to effect them. If they're fat, dumb and happy then nothing bothers them. There seems to be no more "pride" and "dedication" to the uniform that's worn. I've also noticed the disappearence of peer pressure and ball breakin on the junior men. Nobody can be embarassed anymore. God forbid we offend anyone we may be reported to the EEOC! Everybody just wants to be friends, due their tour and get out. It's ashame but true.

I have something that is worth posting here and is something I want all of you to read and really think about. This was forwarded to me by a friend. This was written by Meriden, CT, Battalion Chief Burdick.
These are words that I whole heartily beleive in and held true in my profession being a firefighter, from the time I started volunteering my service to my present career in the fire services. Next time when you use the term "Brotherhood" stop and think about it for a second and ask yourself how you use the term, live up to your actions, consider your self part of the Brotherhood. I see the term used often here, but are you truly in the brotherhood?
Just think.

I always like to get the insights of my colleagues in the fire service on incident management and size up. In that vein I'm starting this topic to tap into the knowledge and experience of the contributors here.
While pictures are good I like videos as they offer a more dynamic and true representation of what's going on. In this one the FD is not on scene yet, so it's open and there's no action to critique.
(edit) When posting replies to this video please identify that your response is in regards to scene #1 ( there are now 2 different incidents in this thread to discuss)
Here is scene #1:

I'll reserve my comments on the video so as not to spoil it. Take a look with no audio and describe your tactics based on the following;
You're the officer, you have a driver and 2 FFs on the crew with you. This is what you pull up on. It's unknown if anyone is inside and the next due Engine and the Truck are still 3 mins out......what would you do?
Cogs
ps If anyone has any other videos in which the FD has not yet arrived or is just arriving please post them for discussion.

Exactly my point...urban planning. The blight of American urban areas, Detroit comes to mind. If the arsonists don't burn them down before they go into foreclosure these days. The abandonment by American corporations, the decimation of the working class...the last vestige being decent cops and firefighters' jobs, now under attack, led by the corporatist element that profited so neatly by removing the "Heartland" of American manufacturing over the border to the war-zone side of Mexico. You know, the Canadians have fared by far the best over this whole North American, Free For All. But here........fugetaboutit...
The best thing Westchester has going for it, is it's proximity to the city, for stability in housing prices right now, a stable but fed-up tax base, with Right To work Ganneters over at Lohud trying to make inroads into OUR system, the one that WE BUILT with grief-filled hearts, with our Brothers' Blood, and back in the day when what was RIGHT was the RIGHT THING TO DO.
I'm so sick of Gannett and Murdolch trying to destroy what they could care less about, the history and the pain and suffering so many Brothers went through to get us where we are today.
I mean come on people, lets get real here, enough with the hype, learn your history before you come and attempt to revision the pension system. I have an Uncle who gave most of his life to the FDNY, and now they want to take away his and the other FDNY members' "Discretionary fund." This Brother did decades of work during the war years, has a measly regular pension, and losing the Discretionary would really put him in a bind. Hands off Bloombag.
Oh yeah, so that building actually was torched Barry?
Edited content. GG

Recently in another thread someone mentioned "Westchester Battalion Chiefs" which was later pointed out was a misnomer and that the correct title is "Battalion Coordinator"? Wouldn't each of these individuals have an up to date and complete list of the capabilities of his respective Battalion, and in fact, all of Westchester County at least?
In Yonkers, our Operations Division maintains an inventory of what is (realistically) available to us in this region. By realistically I mean the equipment actually does exist and is functional, it is able to be brought to the scene in a reasonable time frame, and it is operated by an adequate number of qualified personnel.
I think you have identified a critically important issue which has not been addressed properly by those who are responsible for doing so. However, I don't agree with your solution. Anyone can post anything on the internet. The information obtained from this thread may or may not be accurate, and it will almost certainly be incomplete. Why not just write a letter or make a phone call to Westchester County DES asking if this information is readily available and if not, suggest that it be collected and made available?
I will state in advance that it was learned the hard way in the days following 9/11/01 that the capabilities of many individuals and agencies can be greatly exaggerated and that these claims must be vetted and credentialed in advance of any event.

I am going to get on my very young and gung-ho soapbox right now and speak my mind. Feel free to let the flame war ensue since I'll be opening Pandora's Box right now.
Currently we have numerous, very active threads going on in the main board and that is fantastic. I am happy to be part of a very active discussion board that allows for open discussion on any topic we so choose totalk about. There is always a new post or discussion or someone chiming in on something that provides a new direction, or insight on the topic.
What does bother's me though, is the priorities that I feel many people have, as to what is actually important to the fire service, and it reflects on the types of threads posted and the activity of each thread. Currently we have threads about types of colors on chiefs cars, blue lights, other secondary/tertiary discussions as to who should have what. I have no problem with these threads as they enlighten others as to certain laws and other regulatory information.
What does bother me though is when you have a member post a topic about resources in the county and what department has special teams, only one person answers… Why? Do we really care so little about preplanning and foresight before an incident that we would much rather discuss the correct angle of chevrons over running an incident efficiently and smoothly? I know I personally was really looking forward to seeing what departments have around the county, so in case my department ever needs assistance to something we cannot ourselves handle butsomeone else can, they can be called upon.
We also have the "Tactical considerations" forum, which is a fantastic idea, but it rarely gets used, and when it does, only 2-5 people chime in with an answer. If you're wrong with an answer, who cares? It's only online training and you'll learn from your mistake. It's better done here, then out at an actual incident.
Sure I like to "buff out" every now and then as much as the next guy and get ideas from apparatus photos, but I think proactively talking and learning from other people about pre planning actual operations, or what an IC would have done differently at a fire is much more important then who won what at who's parade. There is such a vast wealth of knowledge on this board, it puzzles me that no one wants to actually release information for whatever reason they so choose.
Not a day goes by where I do not learn something new about the fireservice, and this board has definitely supplied me and numerous other people with a plethora of information. I can only hope that more people talk about the operational and tactical side of the fire service, as to me this is what truly matters and where departments stand out. The general population does not care about your roto-ray, or your undercover chief's car. They want their fire put out quickly and efficiently and their family member cut out of their car without any more harm being done. Sure things look cool, but to me, what is far, far more important is providing a homeowner or taxpaying company relief when we show up because operationally, we look like an organized, well oiled army doing everything in our power to help them out.
I'm not sure if I'm totally off base here and singling myself out, and this is no way a shot at anyone in particular but this is just an observation I have been making over the last few months and felt like it was time to share my opinion.
edit: transfered from M.Word and the format was screwed up

No second guessing going on here. Read the first line of my quote. I'm giving the Montrose IC the benefit of the doubt and reviewing the rule.