dwcfireman

"Absolutely an attempt to stifle patriotism" or this is a labor management thing, where the board is flexing its muscles?
 
a lot of people have assumed the first and most are blind to any other possibility 
 

As one of my partners said, "Any good EMS reality show  needs to have an entire episode showing EMS crews in the day room watching and TV criticizing other EMS reality shows."

Maybe they will show the abuse of the 911/EMS system. Tooth aches at 3am. Fevers all day but wait till 1 am to call. Call an ambulance to go one block instaed of a cab  All the drug ODs  Even though those can be good when they come out of it. . I am sure they won't  .  Doesn't make for good TV

http://www.emsworld.com/news/12247760/new-orleans-ems-receives-active-shooter-kits

Speaking for the volunteer realm, these chronic lift assist calls are no different that the chronic automatic alarms.  They keep coming in day after day, week after week, and eventually you'll find that fewer and fewer responders are showing up for these calls.  The underlying problem here is volunteer burnout.  One can only respond to the same alarm so many times before they can no longer put up with it.  I'm not condoning a volunteer's action by not responding to these situations, but it's a reality that fewer firefighters and EMT's tend to respond to the "BS" calls as they become more and more frequent.  I've seen this first hand in ALL of the volunteer agencies that I have been involved with, whether it's the same old auto alarm at a given location, or the same old call to the doctor's office for an EMS assist, or even the same old lift assist at the same address.
 
Within the the career realm, it's just a little bit different.  We're already on shift.  We respond with the whole crew as we always do, whether you're on an ambulance or on a fire engine.  But, the same burnout is there.  You go to the same alarm time after time, you respond to the same call again and again.  But, this is where the complacency starts.  And complacency isn't just within the realm of the paid personnel.  Just look at the last paragraph.  The volunteers have the same problem.
 
So what's the fix to the problem?  I don't know.  But I really do like what SECTMB said:
This is totally a possibility!  Or...
 
Wouldn't it be nice if the Affordable Healthcare Act provided a system to take care of the people who really, really need it?
 
The bottom line is there is no immediate fix.  We can dwell on what is the right answer all day, but we're still responding to these alarms.  I think it would be great if there was a system or service to essentially deal with non-emergency medical calls.  But then again, what do you define as emergency and non-emergency?  What if the 99th lift assist call is actually the same person in cardiac arrest?  What if that 99th auto alarm is a working fire?  THAT'S WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO!  We dwell on the "what if" to ensure that people and their property can be saved.  Are there remedies to make our jobs easier?  Of course!  Unfortunately, it's just not up to us at this point of how those remedies are placed (at least on the EMS side).

But the taxpayers have given the commissioners total control of them. The only say the taxpayers have is voting for one commissioner each year and an up or down bond vote to purchase.

Yes it has , I have shots of it coming in the show last night

 
Do not try an introduce open-mindedness, common sense or any attempt to try to get to the bottom of this story. It will delay the mob mentality response, which must proceed unabated! Flying off the handle at the slightest slight, real, perceived or completely imagined, is the way to get things done!

You raise a good point, which I failed to post in my initial post; our Policy is Paramedic, EMT or under the supervision of one; the one exception to the rule is if the call involves CPR and you are currently a holder of a valid card, then you may actually engage in administering CPR.  Otherwise hands off.

I actually prefer smaller flags that are on the right bumper indicator posts.  Large flags off the rear or the rig are generally in the way, and like Barry said, tend to get filthy.
 

I actually prefer smaller flags that are on the right bumper indicator posts.  Large flags off the rear or the rig are generally in the way, and like Barry said, tend to get filthy.
 

I actually prefer smaller flags that are on the right bumper indicator posts.  Large flags off the rear or the rig are generally in the way, and like Barry said, tend to get filthy.
 

I have read on a number of sites the backlash, almost all based on the board being unpatriotic or trying to be PC.
 
Beyond, what the board reported as being a safety issue, no one knows what the motivation is. 
 
But, I have witnessed, flags getting larger and larger on the back of rigs, to the point that we are disrespectful of the flag.
 
On engines, I have witnessed hose being laid over a flag that's so large that without wind or driving it hung below the level of the bed.
 
On ladders, I have witnessed grease and tattered ends on the flag where it whips against the turntable gear. I have also seen where it rubs on ground ladders as they are moved in and out of the ladder tunnel.
 
On all rigs, I have seen filthy flags, because the dirt that swirls around the rear of the rigs.
 
On the safety side, I have seen them hiding flashing safety lights, turn signals and break lights. Saw one get burned by high intensity flood lights and have seen firefighters grabbing the flag to help them climb the rig.
 
This is not patriotic, nor is it how the flag should be respected! I am not saying they should be removed, but consider how we are displaying them.

While this obviously is a show of patriotic display, there are strict guidelines contained within the US Flag code for the proper display of the flag and displaying the flag as they have (and many other departments have as well) is considered in violation of the code.  I'm including a link which shows the proper way to display the American Flag.
 
http://www.legion.org/flag/code

Speaking for the volunteer realm, these chronic lift assist calls are no different that the chronic automatic alarms.  They keep coming in day after day, week after week, and eventually you'll find that fewer and fewer responders are showing up for these calls.  The underlying problem here is volunteer burnout.  One can only respond to the same alarm so many times before they can no longer put up with it.  I'm not condoning a volunteer's action by not responding to these situations, but it's a reality that fewer firefighters and EMT's tend to respond to the "BS" calls as they become more and more frequent.  I've seen this first hand in ALL of the volunteer agencies that I have been involved with, whether it's the same old auto alarm at a given location, or the same old call to the doctor's office for an EMS assist, or even the same old lift assist at the same address.
 
Within the the career realm, it's just a little bit different.  We're already on shift.  We respond with the whole crew as we always do, whether you're on an ambulance or on a fire engine.  But, the same burnout is there.  You go to the same alarm time after time, you respond to the same call again and again.  But, this is where the complacency starts.  And complacency isn't just within the realm of the paid personnel.  Just look at the last paragraph.  The volunteers have the same problem.
 
So what's the fix to the problem?  I don't know.  But I really do like what SECTMB said:
This is totally a possibility!  Or...
 
Wouldn't it be nice if the Affordable Healthcare Act provided a system to take care of the people who really, really need it?
 
The bottom line is there is no immediate fix.  We can dwell on what is the right answer all day, but we're still responding to these alarms.  I think it would be great if there was a system or service to essentially deal with non-emergency medical calls.  But then again, what do you define as emergency and non-emergency?  What if the 99th lift assist call is actually the same person in cardiac arrest?  What if that 99th auto alarm is a working fire?  THAT'S WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO!  We dwell on the "what if" to ensure that people and their property can be saved.  Are there remedies to make our jobs easier?  Of course!  Unfortunately, it's just not up to us at this point of how those remedies are placed (at least on the EMS side).

Speaking for the volunteer realm, these chronic lift assist calls are no different that the chronic automatic alarms.  They keep coming in day after day, week after week, and eventually you'll find that fewer and fewer responders are showing up for these calls.  The underlying problem here is volunteer burnout.  One can only respond to the same alarm so many times before they can no longer put up with it.  I'm not condoning a volunteer's action by not responding to these situations, but it's a reality that fewer firefighters and EMT's tend to respond to the "BS" calls as they become more and more frequent.  I've seen this first hand in ALL of the volunteer agencies that I have been involved with, whether it's the same old auto alarm at a given location, or the same old call to the doctor's office for an EMS assist, or even the same old lift assist at the same address.
 
Within the the career realm, it's just a little bit different.  We're already on shift.  We respond with the whole crew as we always do, whether you're on an ambulance or on a fire engine.  But, the same burnout is there.  You go to the same alarm time after time, you respond to the same call again and again.  But, this is where the complacency starts.  And complacency isn't just within the realm of the paid personnel.  Just look at the last paragraph.  The volunteers have the same problem.
 
So what's the fix to the problem?  I don't know.  But I really do like what SECTMB said:
This is totally a possibility!  Or...
 
Wouldn't it be nice if the Affordable Healthcare Act provided a system to take care of the people who really, really need it?
 
The bottom line is there is no immediate fix.  We can dwell on what is the right answer all day, but we're still responding to these alarms.  I think it would be great if there was a system or service to essentially deal with non-emergency medical calls.  But then again, what do you define as emergency and non-emergency?  What if the 99th lift assist call is actually the same person in cardiac arrest?  What if that 99th auto alarm is a working fire?  THAT'S WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO!  We dwell on the "what if" to ensure that people and their property can be saved.  Are there remedies to make our jobs easier?  Of course!  Unfortunately, it's just not up to us at this point of how those remedies are placed (at least on the EMS side).

Didn't Obama Care solve everyone's health related needs?

I remember two cases from my VFD days of chronic lift assists.
 
The first was an elderly gentleman named Mo. He was mentally sharp as a tack but his body had given out on him. He walked with a walker, but that did not make it any easier for him. He was barely verbal. He had a live in health aide, who simply was not strong enough to lift him up. So almost every evening he would get up from the chair and with the help of his aide and his walker he would make it to the bathroom. That was about it for him, he lacked the stamina to get off the toilet and go to bed. His aide would call us and we would go help. Yes it was repetitive, although rarely did it interfere with other calls. I vividly remember that I could see on his face how embarrassed this grown man, who had raised a family, felt to have a crew of younger men come in and help him off the toilet. I did my best to reassure him, but I never felt that he was even a little bit OK with needing us like that. He eventually was unable to stay alone and the house was sold. Oddly enough we used it as a drill house during the new owner's renovations. I remember thinking of it as Mo's house even as I was cutting the roof off.
 
The second was an elderly couple. The wife had a stroke many years before. She was non-verbal and spent most of the day in a chair, watching TV. The husband was frail but did his best to care for her. Their daughter came over as much as possible. Their insurance paid for an aide for half a day, so the aide would get her out of bed and dressed and into the chair, then go home after lunch. As she was not mobile that left her husband and daughter to get her back to bed, which they could not do alone. She was heavy and unable to help at all. We responded almost every night. Most days this required using a scoop stretcher to move her. The daughter came by the firehouse looking for help with the insurance company. We were more than happy to give copies of the reports to her. We worked with her and they finally decided they would pay for a lift, so the daughter could get her into bed. It was better than nothing I suppose. However we were still there to help her a few times until they were finally able to argue successfully for an aide at night.
 
So there are other agencies available, but they will not be paid for so the families are in a bind. When they are paid for there is no guarantee the help is adequate. Besides everyone knows when you call the FD will show up and handle the problem.

 
That is an interesting point. In particular the part about "renting out a room to someone who could assist". That was exactly the case recently I know of.
 
An honest, trustworthy woman, moved in to care for an elderly person. She was NOT a certified CNA, and did NOT drive a car. But she was there to take care of that person and a family member did the shopping etc, or to cover for a day off that this caregiver was given. She was NOT employed through any agency. She took very good care of this elderly person until the person passed away. The problem for her was once she passed away, she was out of work. With no other skills and no drivers license, she was then had no place to go.
 
 As a result, she had to move out of state where I believe she is now living with her son. She is willing to work but few will offer her the chance.

IMO, the video also shows a deficiency in the areas of training/tactics/experience.  The first in suppression unit appears to be just out of view on the right hand side and appears to be an engine.  The appear to park a fair bit back from the house and stretch a couple of handlines and a couple of minutes later, what appears to be a weak stream from a deck gun appears.  The deck gun is doing little to help since the stream is so broken/weak by the time it gets near the house.  It kind of seems like they had the right strategy, but the wrong execution.
 
This fire was begging for the first engine to park directly in front of it and dump it's tank on the fire with the deckgun while a water supply was established and handlines stretched for protection/suppression (assuming the manpower to do that which they appear to have had in this case).
 
While arriving quickly is certainly important, it's equally important to know what you should be doing once you get there and then do it.

As Alan said studies like these are always going to show the results in the client's favor...those results are bought and paid for by the client so it can be no other way. With that said almost universally volunteers are going to cost less...and that is just a simple mathematical fact. Don't think so, then riddle me this:, Where does the vast majority of the money go in a career FD's budget? Salaries and benefits of the employees, aka career firefighters...that's where. No salaries= a significant reduction in cost. So let's not try to pretend that an all paid service is going to be cheaper...it won't case closed. On the flip side of that coin though is the quality of service provided for the money spent and in this the level of service provided by a paid department is almost universally going to be better than that provided by volunteers, for all of the reason so often cited here...case closed there too. So where does that leave us? After spending tens of thousands of dollars to get the study results you want and then touting those results as fact what has been accomplished? Not much really...wanna know why? Because for all the dollars thrown at the issue of which type of fire protection is better, in the end we don't decide the matter, the citizens do. And that my friends is just as it should be, after all it's their tax dollars and their lives is it not? And since it is, the type of fire protection they get is THEIR choice to make not ours. Point being don't waste your money on studies everybody knows are skewed anyway, they don't rally matter to Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public. Fact is that money could be far better spent dealing with the real issue...
 
And what is that real issue? That's a gimme boys, ...the real issue is the adversarial relationship that has grown ever more ingrained and vicious between paid and volunteer firefighters in recent times. Well guess what fellas, paid or volunteer, we all do the same job...protect lives and property. Do some do it "better"? sure they do. Do some do it "cheaper"? you bet, but the fact is, we all do it...period  Now you can thump your chest and stomp your feet...why you can even take that study you paid for in hand and go yell your point from the rooftops. Sure get out there and let everyone know how much better trained you are, or how much cheaper you are or any one of a hundred other BS arguments, but in the end, for all of our bombast, that's all it is, bullsh!t...no matter how many studies you pay for to "prove" otherwise. Here's the deal, our self imposed divisions serve no one and have done nothing to better OUR fire service and each and every one of us should be ashamed that we've let it degenerate this far. Worst of all though is that the biggest losers from all of our bullsh!t are those we are all supposed to be here to protect and serve, our citizens ...anybody remember them in all this?
 
The best thing we as a service could do is to start trying to find ways to work together for the greater good of everyone...firefighters and our citizens alike. Now sure there are many things which divide us, some valid some not, some real some imagined, but there is one thing which unites us all as firefighters and that is our common mission...protecting those in need. High time that came first. High time THEY came first.
 
I will leave you with this: Many moons ago when I joined my first VFD, standing on the firehouse apron one evening, I was told by a old weathered veteran member, "Remember kid you're not here for you....you're here for them" as he pointed out to the neighborhood around us. In my 36+ years I've never forgotten that piece of advice. So tomorrow morning, as you look in that mirror, let those words ring in your ears as you start your day serving your community. With that as the basis for our actions we will find the common ground we all know is there to make OUR fire service better today than it was yesterday...And that my friends is a win/win no matter what side of the coin you're on.

A similar study was done in PA several years ago with a similarly "large savings" attributed to the volunteers.  Unfortunately, the study had some significant flaws, but it is still mentioned from time to time.
 
As I recall, some of those were.......
 
A large part of the "savings" was in salary costs, but the way they determined and sold it was flawed.  It was described as the cost to replace all of the volunteers with career personnel, but it didn't fully take into account some important factors.  They essentially took the number of people on the rosters of the volunteer departments and multiplied it by a per-capita cost.  So, to replace X number of volunteers with X number of career firefighters would cost Y.
 
Anyone who knows much about the volunteer fire service in PA should be able to see the problem with that.  For those unfamiliar, many VFD/VFCs over report their membership numbers.  Rosters can include life members (retired volunteers), social members, associcate members and so on and not accurately reflect the true number of active members who are trained and routinely responding to calls.  I've seen ones where they have 100 on the roster, but only 20-25% actually respond to calls to some extent.
 
Additionally, we have a number of areas which have way more individual fire stations/VFCs than are necessary.  For example, my department covers a small city of just over 5 sq mi with 2 stations (down from 4 in its prime) operating 4 large apparatus and 3 support type vehicles.  A nearby group of 3 communities that comprise a school district collectively comes in at just under 5 sq mi.  Until a year or so ago, they operated from 7 stations (6 now) with at least 14 large apparatus and 7 support vehicles.  Collectively, they run less total incidents per year than we do, a percentage of which are automatic mutual aid responses outside their area.  We do very little mutual aid (not by our choice).  We run far more working fires in our city than they do in their collective 1st due.
 
The study didn't really look at "right sizing" the delivery of fire services.  County wide, we average 1 fire station for every 3+ sq miles.  For comparison, PG MD and Fairfax VA average 10+ sq miles for every fire station.  The study didn't really take into account the fact that a more regionalized approach to delivery would reduce the total number of stations & apparatus needed and also result in not needing to replace volunteers on a one for one basis.
 
It didn't really account for other economic factors like you mentioned, insurance ratings and property loss and how they are impacted by volunteer and career delivery models.
 
So while there clearly are savings realized with the volunteers, they aren't necessarily as large as claimed by the study for the above reasons and others.

FASNY paid an economic research and statistical analysis company to write a glowing report about the excellent services being provided by volunteer fire departments. It's questionable as to how they came up with the figures presented that represent the cost of replacing volunteer departments with career departments. The response time information for volunteer departments isn't specific (Are they referring to the time the 911 operator received the call until first unit *not a chief's car* arrives on the scene, or the time the first unit signs on the air responding until they arrive at the scene? Are they referring to response time for all calls, just fire calls, just non fire emergencies, just EMS?). The bottom line is people rely upon fire, rescue and EMS services to respond quickly, be properly staffed, trained and equipped. Seconds count, and it's far more likely for a 24 / 7 career department to be able to provide an appropriate response in an acceptable time frame than it is for  a department that relies upon volunteers who in most cases must respond from their home or their place of work, to the firehouse before they can gear up and respond with the necessary apparatus. I volunteered for 17 years and am very aware of how understaffed departments are during normal work hours from Monday to Friday and how difficult it is to get a sufficient number of personnel to get out of their beds in the middle of the night for a call when they must be up for work or school in a couple of hours. I worked alongside many dedicated, well trained volunteers during those years, but regardless of how dedicated they are, work, school and family have to come before being available to get trained (initially), maintain annual training requirements (courses and drills) as well as respond to calls. 

Did this study ALSO look at the direct cost of "property damage and insurance claims" ? If not, somebody pays for that as the result of not having on duty career firefighters. Actually, my guess is that WE ALL pay for that through our homeowners insurance premiums.
 
Did this study look into the ISO (Insurance Services Office) ratings and insurance cost ? There could be a significant difference in what is paid by home owners, particularly businesses. A business served by a Class 1 fire department will be able to save a significant amount on their fire insurance payments versus a place with perhaps a Class 4 or higher number rating (Class 1 the BEST, Class 10 the WORST). Of course one of the main concerns is water supply. A city with good water mains generally does very well.
 
 Just as a comparison, in Connecticut there are THREE Class 1 Fire Departments, Hartford, New Haven and Milford, Ct. All have a good water supply and that gets high marks. However, all are also served by fully career fire departments.
 
   In the earlier thread of "A Fractured Fire Service Norwich, Ct", that city generally has a good water supply, except for one small area. That city is given a Class 4 rating. Part of the city served by a career fire department and the other part of the city served by five separate volunteer departments.
 
  The difference between Milford, Ct and Norwich, Ct is about 10,000 people more in Milford. However, for the same business to operate, the price for insurance coverage would be quite a difference. Maybe an interesting point to consider when paying your tax bill, how much actually goes to the fire dept, and paying your homeowners insurance bill.