FirefighterJr

We gave our reasons now you give yours. You have made an unsolicited statement without offering any supporting information as to why you would make such a comment Real men do not offer opinions about others without giving a reasonable amount of supporting information to enlighten the audience as to how they reached their opinion.
So speak up or take your "I know things but I'm not going to tell you" attitude back to nursery school.

By saying Officer Hess is "far" from a hero you are implying (in the impersonal world of Internet chat) that he did something wrong.
So... Tell me sir, what would you do if someone ran you down and you were lucky enough to end up on the hood of the car and not under it and your sole means of neutralizing your life safety situation happened to be your firearm.......? Are you saying that you wouldn't pull the trigger?
Officer Hess is a hero because he chose a job that requires him to protect people like you and I every day. Officer Hess didn't jump on that car like Bo and Luke Duke but rather he was struck by the driver who was intoxicated and leaving the scene of an incident that Officer Hess was called to as part of his sworn duty to respond.

P.O. Hess was engaging an armed advesary, DJ henry was armed with a 2 ton vehicle and was using it as a weapon against officer Hess. PO Hess thankfully put down the threat but was severly injured in the process having his knee cap pushed up into his thigh.
P.O. Hess saved countless lives that night by putting himself in harms way instead of letting a highly intoxicated driver drive through a crowded parking lot. P.O. Hess acted heroically and selflessly. He is a hero in my book and is deserving of a lot more than a medal.

Wow, very salty...aw shucks, you make it seem so simple Lt. ....
Tell me, if the fire was bigger then the one pictured, would you suggest 3.5"?

Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the Waldbaum's fire in Brooklyn, NY where 6 firefighters perished, when a bowstring truss roof collapsed, sending all to their fiery death. I remember this day like it was yesterday. My dad, Tony Dragonetti, was assigned to E-254 and worked the 9x6 tour. He was walking into the firehouse as 254 & 153 were pulling out onto Avenue U. He would have been on the roof in place of Terry Cambell who was badly burned. I was 14 and remember waking up to my mom's screams, when she heard the news of the fire on the radio. We took a ride to the scene from LI and found my dad sitting on the back of 254's rig in tears. I never saw my dad cry and my mom hug my dad like the way she did at that moment. I still well up with tears when I think about that scene. It was a sigh of relief for me to see my dad safe and extremely sad at the same time to hear him say the names of the guys that perished. I spent my entire childhood life and beyond at the firehouse and these brave men were my family and will always have a place in my heart. May they be remembered forever and RIP......

I think the main point of Seth's response was first the community service aspect as in a "punishment" for his crime, being that he is 12 years old. For God's sake we are letting murders off with less punishment in this country! I also think Seth was looking at helping change the direction of this kids life. Obviously he is troubled and everyone must be giving up on him. I commend you Seth for the willingness to help and possibly mold this kid into a productive member of society. If it doesn't work out what happens? He goes back to where he was. What if it does work? What if because Seth took a chance and helped this kid, he joins a FD and saves a bunch of lives? You never know...... (and yes I realize that Seth is not actually here doing this, but it's the thought that counts)
P.S. - there are plenty of examples of firefighters starting fires so judging him that way isn't exactly fair

I think cops pull too many cars over. I'm staging a protest on I287.
Morons...

As always, all of these photos are mine and can’t be used without my consent. If you enjoy these, you might want to check out all of my photos from today. They can be found on my flickr page (link below)

Hope you enjoyed the photos. As usual, all of the photos I took can be found on my flickr page. A link can be found bellow.

I started driving an ambulance at 19, while working for a commercial service. I became a fire apparatus operator when I got hired at my job at the age of 21.
That being said, in my volunteer fire days, I did not drive or pump, and it was great, because I was too busy learning the inside of every building, every hydrant I would have to dress, and every task that would be expected of me. I was too busy to want to drive because I wanted to learn how to be a firefighter first. Not an engineer, not a captain or a chief, a firefighter. I think alot of people get into this business and want to jump right up the chain of command, get on he driver list, and the like.
There is a great deal to be said about being a smart firefighter. Its not about who has the biggest collection of certificates or the most badges, its about who can be a part of the team and contribute to the cause. Its also about having the maturity and gumption (some get it sooner than others) to deal with the dicey situations we find ourselves in.
There is an entire lifetime to drive an emergency vehicle. But without properly trained workers to handle the emergencies, those vehicles are worthless. They are also worthless if they don't get to a scene. Perhaps paramount, the operator should also be keenly aware of every task his crew is expected to perform, and that comes with experience and training.
That is the end of my diatribe.

Guys - just remember, that one of the main reasons so many of the local fire photogs stopped posting pics here is for posts like these. Images capture one MILLISECOND in time at an incident that is typically very busy. What you very well may be seeing is a guy putting his helmet down to take safety glasses out of the crown (common place to put them), then popping it right back on...could have been stung by a bee...anythinG!
It is not always perfect, textbook operations on a fire scene, you do what needs to be done to save lives and property. If you have a problem with something in a picture, make a note of it, and make sure YOUR guys don't do it...use it as a learning experience.
It is NOT our place to second guess the members actions in public, well, unless of course you work for Firefighter Close Calls..
I am glad the Chief posted above - clears up some questions. And let me clarify, I was not MMQ'ing the FAST decision, I was adding MY opinion. As a fireman who routinely operates without the added benefit of a deidcated FASTeam, it is something I feel is very important. Someday I hope to work to fix that on our end....
Good to see RM in action to boot!

To all questioning F.A.S.T team. between Cheslea,Beacon, and Castle Point we had approx. 40 firefighters on scene. Approx 25 interior. We were using 5-8 members at a time either interior or on roof. That left about 15 members outside for relief and/or F.A.S.T.. there was also 2 engines sitting idle for back up if needed. I felt with the manpower at the scene we did not need a 2nd alarm or formal team on scene. All of my interiors are at least survival trained and most have F.A.S.T. . This was just a fire on second floor and under control in about 20-30 mins. the guys made a quick stop of the fire and kept the fire damage to the front 2 rooms and part of the roof. Any further questions feels free to p.m. me. Bob Van Tassel Chief Chelsea

Ive read this post many times and I still fail to see the reason for posting it but it most certainly requires a response.
From what I know of you, you have no background in Law Enforcement so your ideas of how cops should feel about being cops and what they should do on duty may be how it is in a perfect world but in reality thats not how it works. This would be like me who knows nothing of fire fighting making critical observations about the fire service and putting all over the post " No offense guys" and " this is not a knock to firefighters".
As far as I've seen, you're the only member on here from texas so you are the only one who could answer your own question of " why are police officers down here so different ?"
I've been a cop for 12 years and I go balls to the wall every day I go into work as do most cops I know. Would it be nice to follow up with every crime victim we deal with ? Yes but we don't have the time or the manpower to do that stuff. How do you know that cops up here don't know their post as well as cops in Texas ?
Cops are in a unique situation to be cross trained in rescue, where as FD's can't be trained in law enforcement specific things... thats just the way it is.
You ask why is there competition ? There always has and always will be competiton in the emergency services and it's healthy to a degree.
You ask why are there not more hudson river patrols ? There are in the summer but not so much in the winter but what does one thing have to do with the other ?
The bottom line is that expanding the scope of your working capabilities means more job security and possibly more state and federal funding.
The biggest difference between cops up here and cops in texas is that maybe cops in texas enjoy a lot more community support than cops in the north east get.

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.

Brotherhood isn't gone. I see the same brotherhood that I had (and still have as a retiree) in my sons and the brothers in their FD. It's thhe same brotherhood I saw when my father was on the job. Sometimes you have to look a little harder than you would like, but the brothers are still here today.
It's not in drinkin' with the guys or playing softball, or the union or the vols association. Our brotherhood is an attitude, a code of conduct,if you will. It's helping a brother move to a new home; it's covering his shift because he is out of sick time; it's giving him a hand when you see him struggling with a task.
Brotherhood was in full speed on 9/11. The world saw them respond. What I saw also were guys reporting for work without being recalled to duty. In their hands were their own private colection of sawzalls, sledges, prybars, etc. They were going to look for their brothers.
How do you find one of these true brothers? You might have to wait until the circumstances are just right. For example, you might be advancing a line down a hallway. It starts getting hot, smoke is banking down lowering your visibility. You don't want to admit it, but you are getting a little scared, and now the heat and smoke have got you as low to the floor as you can get. Look over your shoulder. You should just be able to make out a dim flashlight, just about a foot behind you.
THAT is your brother. Take care of eachother.

With all respect Brother "Men Of Fire" I have to disagree with you. As far back as firefighting goes, there have been hairbags that come into the service either by volunteering, or somehow scoring well enough and bluffing their way onto a career job.
But we cannot take a broad stroke of the brush and paint all junior men/women into one complete group of people in the service who do not care about keeping the traditions, the nobility and the comrade-re of the Brotherhood alive. As an example, just look at how many of our members here on Bravo in the younger age group have become such active members here, and show so much interest in those traditions, and learning "the ways" of the fire service.
I remember hearing senior men, when I was a junior man, extolling their observations that the Brotherhood wasn't what it used to be; that the Brotherhood was doomed to extinction.
Those that do believe in the virtues of our Brotherhood need to be reassured by senior men such as yourself, that the traditions you speak of are indeed still alive, and need to develop the belief in themselves that they are part of something larger than just a job, and need to be taught that they will in the near future be the ones responsible for carrying on the Brotherhood, when they move into positions of seniority, promotion, and leadership.
If we truly care enough in our fraternity to want it to survive and thrive well into the future, then senior men today need to redouble their efforts in seeing to it that these junior men are properly taught about the sacrifices our fore bearers gave to this noblest of professions. All members in senior positions, and leadership today need to be asking themselves a very personal question; are my judgments about the future being clouded by my personal disappointments about things that have happened to me through the years of my career?
It becomes very difficult at times as the years pass, to maintain the motivation to want to pass on our finest traditions. To want to help our junior members succeed in gaining the true understanding of how the Brotherhood continues to evolve, through generations of sacrifice, members being killed in the performance of their duty, members fighting to gain workplace improvements through the collective bargaining process, and members becoming sick through a lack of workplace safety.
I always believed the best way to educate our younger members about these things was to show them examples of what conditions were like before improvements were made. To tell them the stories of what our members went through to gain the improvements we have in place today.
Some things obviously cannot be easily taught. Some things members are just going to have to learn for themselves; generosity and caring for each other, being able to forgive each other for mistakes and not hold grudges.
But I truly understand how you feel. Sometimes it feels like paddling upstream against an overwhelming current. Sometimes we just want to throw it all down, and simply walk away. But the past generations of Brothers who fought so hard for all of the improvements we enjoy today; the firefighers who never got the chance to enjoy some of those improvements, because they got sick or were killed from the very things they were fighting so hard to improve; for the memory of these Brothers passed, we owe it to their memory to continue the fight. To continue to impress upon on our newer generation of firefighters that some things are worth fighting for, some things are worth giving our all for; and the Brotherhood is the greatest of attributes we share in the fire service.
It may not feel like you are making much headway in passing these lessons on, but I guarantee you when the time comes and you have moved on from the job; if you have put in the effort to share with your newer members all of the greatest things about the Brotherhood, your efforts shall not have been in vain.

They should have fixed spelling...rookie mistake!
I like how it says "We will not stop until Mr Hess is held accountable for killing our beloved DJ." Shut up...your beloved DJ tried to use his car as a weapon and kill or injury our beloved cops (and good friends)!
I understand that this is a hard time for the family and friends of DJ and his death is a tragedy since he is just a kid, but the family and friends of DJ need to move on...cops eliminate deadly force with deadly force. They will not just stand around while their lives or their fellow Officers lives are at risk.
Instead of putting all blame on the cops, blame DJ and his terrible decision to drink and drive while not intoxicate but s***faced.
Smart people make stupid decisions, but so do stupid people. From what I heard about DJ's grades...he is not the genius, his friends and family made him out to be.
It is a shame that this all happened and that DJ's family lost a son, but now it is time to continue on with this nightmare journey and get to the end of it.
RIP DJ...thankfully because you are doing so, our Police Officers are not.

Wow! Considering the fact that 252 had water out the windows and the fire knocked down within a couple of minutes of arrival, it appears that your criticism is fairly harsh and uncalled for. It appears that 252 took the hydrant that was closest to the fire building, I don't see another hydrant on the block had they passed up the one that they hooked up to. I didn't see any truckies running, it did appear that a couple of firefighters were jogging toward 252's rig (probably firefighters from the 2nd due engine coming to assist with stretching the first line). I agree that reckless running at a fire scene could cause a slip / fall incident, but there does need to be an accelerated (albeit controlled) level of movement by responding personnel due to the rapidity of fire growth coupled with the dangers of smoke, heat and toxic gases on exposed victims as well as firefighters who are operating in the fire area as well as above it.
To the Firefighters who operated at this incident, a job well done.

95 footers in the city are, (Off the top of my head) 9,12,14,44,51,58,107(presently operating 75 foot spare, 95 footer was wrecked in 09),117,119,121,152,161,163,172.

Looks like 21 Truck, so that would be a 75 footer.

All,
I was wondering what REALLY does it mean to "expidite" your response as a driver of apparatus. There seem to be certain levels of "unofficial" response with in the response SOP.
A) The "it's the 8th time an Automatic Alarm went off at the same location in the past 6 hours" response.. SOP says Red lights and sirens, but as a driver, I think most people drive to these at a "slowed" (as compard to normal emergency response) pace, with the lights on, an hitting the siren for only the "really dumb drivers" infront. Almost like your responding non code, but with lights.
The "maybe/maybe not call" Drive like you mean to get there: Red lights, and siren/air horns going "normally" Driving within SOP's for emergency response, using due regard,
C) The working fire call. You know what that means. As above, driving within SOP's for emergency response, a sense of urgency, using due regard, ect. The officer and crew are making plans/giving assignments, and in general getting ready to go to work.
D) The Chief's radio call to "expidite to the scene" Consider your know your heading to a working call before you leave the apron or get the "expidite" call enroute. The Chief gets there does his scene size up, and the radio call is "Engine 1, expidite to my location"
If your driving, your already amped up, driving with a sense of urgency, siren, lights, airhorns, and due regard. What does the expidite call do? The crew is already in "working mode" as above, so they really have nothing else they can do until they get there. The plan has been made, and unless they are told to change the plan, they are basically just waiting for the engine to arrive on scene.
As a driver, do you drive any different then you already are? Does the expidite order give you "authorization" either offically or unofficially to do anything above and beyond in a response other than burn the bearings out of the Federal Q?
For myself personally and my dept's SOP, it doesnt exist. I imagine it's the case in other dept's, but you hear it on the radio frequently.... So whats the deal? Is the term a hold over from long ago, and just needs to go the way of laying dual 2.5 inch hoses as a supply line? I think so.
What do you think?

And what "business model" do you suggest?
I certainly don't disagree that analyzing your operation to see if changes are warranted is appropriate. However, an inherent problem with the "run it like a business" line of thinking is that FD deployment and working conditions are not like most business operations.
Probably one of the closest comparables is the food service industry. Typically, a restaurant will have a dynamic plan regarding their operation. Their staffing will typically peak around the "normal" meal times and then shrink back between meal times. This makes sense since you know when your highest demand periods will be each day and you can adjust for it. Now, there will be times when you get an off-peak rush, but you can generally handle it and the main consequence is generally a dining experience that isn't as efficient with the smaller staff. Additionally, if a meal period isn't as busy as predicted, some staff may be sent home early.
This type of planning doesn't lend itself well to the fire service. The main problem is the inherent unpredictability of the work and the varying levels of personnel needed to perform that work. You can look at call volume and see that "more" calls occur during the daytime than at night, but you'd be foolish to base staffing on just that. Most calls aren't going to be very labor intensive and require large sums of personnel, however some will and you will need those people in order to effectively and efficiently mitigate that problem. Another problem is that we also don't know where to problem will occur. The restaurant will always know that they will be feeding people in that one location. The fire service doesn't. Like call volume, we can identify areas that have historically had higher requests for service than others, but that doesn't provide enough information for deployment.
A large factor in FD deployment is response time. NFPA 1710's standard for the response of the first company is 4 minutes travel time and the full alarm in 8 minutes. If we knew where/when our calls were going to occur and what they would be in advance, then the fire service could reasonably tailor a dynamic deployment plan to match. Unfortunately, that's not possible, so the goal is to be able to provide a somewhat uniform response.
So, the inherent problem with closing fire companies at night, rolling brownouts, etc. is not so much with handling call volumes or handling "minor" calls, but rather for "serious" calls like building fires where the "extra" delay because those companies are closed becomes a big factor in terms of fire spread, civilian safety, etc.

Because I said so!!!! lol

jc, the situation I was mentioning was simple. R-4 was assigned to this bus accident, and R-3 was requested as an additional Rescue company. They were released, and assigned to a 10-75 nearby. I am not sure of the specifics, but I wouldn't doubt it if they got in before, or with the second due companies. I understand your desire to have them up north where they may have to and will save your hide if you get in a jam, but believe it or not, R-4 and R-1 are the primary Rescue Companies to be covered in case it goes to poop out on the street.
Now, as far as your post is concerned about having Firefighters as dispatchers, here's where you and I will politely agree to disagree. You don't have to have crawled down a number of hallways to be good at what I do. Does it help to have a little bit of knowledge of firefighting and fire operations?? Absolutely. I've said this a number of times over the course of my career, you don't have to know anything about what you guys do out on the street to be good at what I do, but it sure does help. Ask some of your brethren in LA City how that's working out for them. I think many of them, and I would fathom a guess that you would much rather be crawling down that hallway than relocating 93 Engine to 37 Engine at 2 in the morning. I have some firefighting experience from my years in the Vols(as we call them at work), and the military. Luckily, most of the guys I work with do as well. I also have the knowledge of geography and firehouse locations that make me good at what I do.
Next time you see a car wreck on the highway in the city, don't call 911, call me. I'll get you what you need, and handle the knuckleheads on the 1st floor of 11MT. bc, I appreciate your candor. I am asking these questions because I think that those in charge have really lost sight of what's right. I try to follow the rulebook as best I can, but there are times when you can throw the book out the window and go seat of your pants.

Here are a couple of instructor quotes from actual pump operator courses. One is the New York version, the other is the Virginia Beach version. They are quite similar. I would like to hear the Califoirnia version.
FROM THE SOUTH:
What should you flow that nozzle at? 40psi, right? Sure you could flow it at 50 or 80. Can you hold on to it? I don't know. What's the worst that could happen? Slide around on your back on the floor for a bit 'til you hit a wall and that's where you fight fire from...it's just that simple yall
FROM THE NORTH"
To determine correct Pump Pressure, simply throttle up slowly until the nozzleman just leaves the ground. Then throttle back 1/2 turn (on digitals, quickly tap the "Decrease" button twice).
If the nozzleman is in the building or otherwise out of sight, this can also be done audibly.