mfc2257

All depends on how they are built. A lot of people classify a utility with a small pump or a brush truck as a Mini Attack when they aren't. In 1990 Millwood replaced the old MA-10/E-246/R-36 with two rigs. A Ford L9000 Rescue and a F350 MiniAttack. MA-10 is truly a mini engine. It has a 750gpm (yes 750 not 250 or 300) single stage (that will actually do close to 1000gpm with a good source) and a pre-piped "B" foam line, 1000 ft. of 4in, 3 pre connects, a 16foot combi ladder, winch, chain saw, Indian tanks, several hundred feet of forrestry hose, full complement of extinguishers, adaptors, rakes shovels, rescue rope etc, etc, etc. Truly a mini engine. It was designed to be a font line pumper for gated driveways that a class "A" pumper cant get into, car fires and brush fires. 4wd makes it great to run first due in a snow storm.

NO WAY... Our old E-246 I mean MA-10 I mean R-36 .... I can't believe that this thing is still on the street. Hopefully they converted it to a diesel it was a gas fired pig.

Breakfast - Rockys in Millwood OR my 1 pound bacon & eggs Lunch - Anthony's in Mamaroneck, Walters Dogs in Larchmont, the Pizza place (don't know its name) next to Bed Bath & Beyond on Central Ave. in Yonkers Dinner - Monday - Wednesday anything I'm makin' Thursday Peabodys for a Steak & Cheese or a "staff special" Friday - Saturday Via del Sol in Kisco or Long Ridge Tavern on Pound Ridge/Stamford border Sunday - My Chili Fast food is Micky D's but if Chic Fil 'A moved north of the Mason Dixon it would be top dog. Road food... Crackerbarrell hands down.

Sorry... I was typing fast.... I meant Bedford Village that doesn't have a ladder... How could I forget that sweet lookin Seagrave Baker in B. Hills. ..... My point was to say that there is a good system in place for B. Village and Katonah because they have an ladder available to them from B. Hills.

The problem isn't that people are buying towers. It's who is buying a tower. Does Mt. Vernon need a tower.... Maybe I couldn't say as I'm not familiar with what they already have vs. their building exposure... The problem is all the departments that bought towers because they "liked them" not because they need them. People percieve that they have a need without research. Such as "we have a shopping center or a school so we need a tower" WRONG. One facility (assuming it's not a 5000 acre industrial site or something like that) doesn't create the need for a tower. It's unfortunate that districts don't look at what surrounds them before they purchase. How many cascades does the county need. How many heavy rescues (not that many companies are really fully trained to act in the capacity of a heavy rescue either) do we need. How many towers... etc. Right now Mount Pleasant has 4 towers. Chappaqua just bought one. Sleepy Hollow's got one. So if you want a straight job..... the only way to get a 100 footer is to call Kisco Ossining or Briarcliff. Seems like a long way to call when there are 6 ladders available but none are straight sticks... I'm not singling out one Mt. Pleasant Dept... Just the general idea. There is too much identical equipment sitting side by side from town to town. I commend Katonah and Bedford Village for operating successfully without a ladder. I commend Mohegan for not owning a rescue. I commend Ossining for not putting a cascade one their rescue. I commend Buchanan for providing a unique service unit with the new Utility.

46.26 should be a dedicated (fire only no EMS unless it's a MVA or fire) dispatch channel with 6-8 county wide operations channel. When each apparatus responds they signal this on 46.26 and the dispatcher assigns them to the proper frequeny. EMS should have a seperate dispatch and operations set of channels. No more self or PD dispatch. We pay the county to do this for a reason.

I at that point would have no choice to assume that he is EDP and remove via force. The alternative is to go outside and tell his daughter that her pops didn't want to come out so you left him there. I don't think that her or her legal counsel are going to like it if you left him there with a bucket right out side the window.

I really think that 10 codes should be done away with in favor of plain english. The differences in the codes from PD to EMS to Fire and the additional codes that departments add for themselves and the fact that too many people don't know what they are makes it all very confusing for your average firefighter who doesn't drive and isn't an officer. I called back to a mutual aid rig the other day that they could go 10-8 and relay a 10-30 to 60control. Well needless to say, the operator only knew what 10-17, 19, 20 and 2 were. He called me at the station to ask what a 10-30 was. Plain text for the FD works fine... Responding, on location, use caution, expedite, return when ready, working building fire, situation under control are very easy to understand and don't add a ton of time to on-air broadcasts... They also eliminate confusion when situations are tense and complicated. As for narratives... They should be as simply worded and complete in every detail. This is the only to CYA in our lawsuit happy world.

This actually happened on a job when I was in college. Engine and Quint nose to tail enroute to working structure fire on a two lane main road (Like Rt. 100 between Yorktown & Somers) Car pulls over for Engine, doesn't see Quint and pulls back into lane and is sideswiped up drivers side. No injuries. Quint continues to call. Thiswas against policy. Asst. Chief was driving with full crew on board. He was suspended for 30days (nothing unfriendly or evil about it... that's just the policy). What should have happened.... Quint should have called fire dispatch and been replaced on the box. After PD arrives they can continue to the call. Without an official witness there is a ton of liability with leaving the scene. There really isn't any room for error here. You've got to stop. You're out of service at that point. If other rigs are approaching ask them to stop and pick up the crew, but the officer and driver need to stay with the rig. Also, a Chief if available to be freed up from the job should divert to the MVA for supervision. If possible a civilian witness should be asked to stay as well.

Residential fire - Straight stick... I prefer to make roof cuts and do other peaked roof operations off a straight job. You need on average aprox. 25 ft less clearance around the truck to set up a straight job making driveways etc. easier for the strait stick. Not many are made any more, but the mid mount strait stick is one of the best fits for a residential department. Also just because you have one or two commercial structures in your district doesn't mean you need a tower especially if you have one as a mutual aid option. Commercial fire - Tower ladder... There tends to be more on and off the aeriel device movement at a commercial fire. Also larger crews operate on the lid of a commercial structure. Towers are easier to get people onto and off of those large flat jobs,

MSM232 you make a good point about the problems with thread differences from one municipality to another, but it shouldn't be a limiting factor in lending apparatus. Briarcliff and Millwood have different threads, but we work together all the time. At the Kings college fire, E-247 successfully hit a Briarcliff hydrant and laid 900 feet of 5in to the building. We have adaptors. SO if someone had odd threads and needed to borrow a rig, you'd have to shop around for adaptors. I'm with some of the others on this one... If a FD really wanted to lend a rig they easily could without incurring much or any risk at all through the use of a seperate insurance policy provided by the borrowing department. The problem is that people tend to look for reasons NOT to lend when the request comes to them instead of finding a way to make it work.

Millwood Officers currently paged via nextel aprox 5-10 seconds after voice dispactch. It's great... No missing calls b/c your pager didn't go off. Can't tell you the amount of times I've been in dead Minitor areas where I've gotton the nextel page. Even if you don't have cell service if it's 2 minutes after dispatch when the cell gets service again, you get the call. You don't have that luxury with a minitor.... IF you miss the dispactch you're toast until they re-dispatch or you hear it randomly on a scanner.

No Seagraves in Millwood.

I see this as being an even bigger asset in the back of the rig when you are trying to push drugs read the tape from the monitor etc, all while southbound on the TSP to WCMC. It's one less person that has to hover over the pt. while enroute. Also free's up someone to give the pre-hospital report. Certainly not a substitute for traditional CPR training, but what a great way to modernize the process when appropriate. Go Mohegan!

Millwood has two... One on E245 (our Squirt) and a mini Bullard on E247. They are Great Tools! HOWEVER I have two big issues: 1st, is training. I strongly believe that training without a TIC is imperitive. I feel like everyone who is going though basic these days just want's to finish so that they can use a TIC when they get to their first real job. The senses that a salty old FF has are not replaceable by a camera. Everyone should be of the opinion that when they get to a job that they probably won't get to use the TIC either because something is wrong with it (it didn't charge properly or someone forgot to plug it in after drill) or because the Truck Co. already has it inside doing search & rescue and now you have to go in with the knob to put the thing out and you don't have the camera. 2nd, is training with the camera. TIC's do not give a FF a very good depth perception. Thus, when operating in a tense situation where you are already succeptable to heat, fatigue, and fear, (yes we do get scared) the image on the screen apears to be so close, yet it is really 10-20 feet farther away. This can get people into trouble as they rush to get to the spot that they see in the camera. Now they have just covered 20 or so feet in a room that they probably haven't checked for danger (weak floor, another crew, etc.) I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I think it's easier to get in trouble with a camera than without

Looks like a great invention... The only question I would have, is are they heavy enough to withstand the wind or traffic from blowing them over AND how well do they hold up to getting bumped or run over as we know happens ALL too often.

It's not that a FAST team needs to be dispatched to every call where the word "fire" is used. Dryer fire, oven fire, chimney fire etc, leave the FAST team in bed. This is what we have dispatchers for to ask the caller questions.... "Ok sir I have dispatched the fire department, now exactly where is the fire... In the bedroom.. oh and in the hall, ok sir I am going to alert more units, can you hold on a moment." Essentially, when a caller states "my home is on fire" Or a passer by states that "there is fire coming out the window" It's safe to say that the first few minutes of a fire are the most dangerous. We need to rely on the dispatchers to take the calls and determine the severity of the fire so that if a FAST team is needed that they are added to the box in a timely mannor. Another problem is Police dispatching instead of the county. The county gets paid to do it (I know their system leaves much to be desired) so they should be taking the calls for fire dispactch. If the PD take the call and dispatches, the callers tone of voice and the specific words that they use are lost by the time the 60 control dispatcher starts needing to coordinate a mutual aid effort. Had 60 Control talked to the initial caller there is a better line of communication as to what is going on. Instead when the DP does it, they are trying to coordinate a fire/ems response (something they really aren't trained or paid to do) AND get their own cars to the scene as well.

About 8 years ago I rode the back step of Price Georges County MD Truck 12. This truck was a convertable Pirsch (I think) with only a 4 man cab so two men rode the step. However I believe that it is actually against the law today.

It's amazing how funding for emergency services are struggling to maintain staffing and funding, but our legislators are willing to spend millions so that special interests can thrive. You make a good point about having a successful simple paper system and how it will be hard to justify upgrades following it's success. It's a double edged sword. We need immeadiate help and if we are successful in implementing a temporary system the policy makers will view it as a final solution. To help combat the problems with staffing a CAD system, I feel that a portion to the solution would be to give each department a computer format that they must provide the necessary information to the county in. Then as the county recieves the information, it can be downloaded into the system instead of manually imputted. I realize that this takes time and money to develop but at this point we need to be looking at long term solutions anyway.

This is going to sound crazy, but until we have an efficient CAD in place, we don't need to stop the process of becoming more streamlined in our mutual aid process. Break each territory up into Boxes. Create an excel spreadsheet with the box numbers and types of alarms MVA, Structure, Collapse, Hazmat etc.... Then include 1st, 2nd etc alarm assignments and the chief's choice of apparatus. These cards are laminated and kept in a rolling hanging file drawer at each dispatcher's side. A call comes in and they reach into the department's file, and for that address, dispatch the proper box assignment. Until this can be computerized this is a perfect and unbeliveably simple solution that works (I've seen it)... And also provides a backup in the case of computer or data failure. The chief of each dept. should be required to submit changes to box assignments 2 times a year to keep them current. If a chief has Engine xyz on a box, and they aren't getting out fast enough then he has the opportunity to change that assignment on the box card 2 times a year. If XYZ engine is out of service, all the dispatcher has to do is look to the second alarm assignment for that box and dispatch the next engine that the chief has listed. This is also a way to make sure that a chief gets what he wants. If he for example lists E146 from Chappaqua as his 1st due mutual aid engine because of its 5in capacity and it's not available, any other engine from Chappaqua might not due. An engine from Chappaqua can come in three different flavors... E145 with the 3in hose reel, E-144 with 3in and 5in and E146 with enough 5in to lay from here to Manhattan. Thus his next choice may be from another department from the oppisite direction not just one of Chappaqua's other engines. This can all be layed out on a very simple card. If anyone would like examples of box cards please email me at mfc2257@yahoo.com

Don't quote me on this, but I believe Portchester sends a Truck, Engine, Rescue to calls within the RB district. There have been some pretty nasty battles over this territory and the fire service there. It has changed a few times in the past decade from what I believe was full Portchester coverage to Rural Metro without PC coverage and now to RBFD with some type of support from PC.

Agreed... Combi tools aren't necessarly a replacement for a full set of tools... However there is also a slightly different way of using them... Thanks to Matt at AAA who sold us ours (It's on E-248 not R-36) myself and a few guys on the department can take just about any car apart in comperable time. Taking a door or a roof job is easily accomplished.... The combi tool does start to lose some of its capabality on cars that have sustained major damage through rollover AND high speed impact. But on these calls the combi tool is a great way to do hydraulic work on other parts of the car that need work but unfortuately can't be touched yet b/c the big tools are in use doing something else. Example... Access is needed for EMS to the pt. The spreaders and cutters are being used to free the door. The combi can be making roof cuts and taking the other door so that after the pt is stablized by the medic, easy extrication can be done quickly without having to wait for the big tools to finish the original task of getting pt access.

Absolutely... In a forum like say... The Mt. Pleasant Chiefs Assn. meetings, departments should band together and tell the county what we want. After all we are the ones who's lives are on the line... Not the county emergency policy makers.

Sorry.. Didn't want the point to come across as whining... And yes we do a good job... It appears that we aggree that it doesn't matter who arrives first. But I am a realist about the macro situation. Our mutual aid system is very antiquated. The days of cheif's having to spell out the details of their mutual aid request over the radio while enroute to a call should be long gone. They should just have to ask for their second alarm assignment etc. We called for tankers 10 & 14 the other day and Tanker 10 was out of service. Instead of going directly to Tanker 11, 6 or 16, the dispatcher called the chief to ask his preference. Who cares just put the next due available rig on the job. We should be over the garbage like... "we don't call xyz dept for mutual aid ever... Our chief's have never gotten along" but we're not over it. Same with "well that's just the way it's always been"... I really don't like hearing that stuff. Fact of the matter is that our departments are doing a great job on their own (Millwood/Briarcliff and Katonah/Bedford Hills etc) but I don't think that there is a ton of continuity county wide. I don't think that the administration at 60control has helped us to grow and improve our dispach process and mutual aid. In fact the politics down there have done nothing but hurt us.

Food for thought..... I find that around town on the twisty roads where you are turning, speeding up slowing down etc, that on-spots are great. However, when making long runs on straight roads, I pick them up. Above 20mph chains arent really doing you any good. You have inertia behind you and they aren't providing any additional traction at that speed. As far as stopping goes, once a rig is moving it is extremely hard to overcome the laws of physics chains aren't going to help stop the rig until you slow down below 15 miles per hour... In fact they can cause a wheel lockup easier at highway speed. Also... Has any department even done winter weather drivers training.... We never have, but I think it's a great idea. Dr. Jones doesn't have to go out in the snow, but we don't have a choice. There are plenty of MPO's that have never driven in a foot of snow. It's not a bad idea in my mind to get one of the older rigs to the local school or train station on a bad day and let the guys figure out how the rig acts in a panic stop and accelleration. Also in the dry when the boost from turbo diesel's spools up it doesn't effect us. In the snow, a modern turbo diesel will produce enough boost and torque to get the largest of trucks sideways.