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  1. x635
    x635 liked a post in a topic by SECTMB in Things FD-PD-EMS Babys Born in 2011 Won't Know   
    I think that 18 years from now when those born this year become eligable to be firefighter/EMS personnel, the volunteer system will be as necessary as ever due to the prohibitive cost of providing paid coverage to all the areas currently services by volunteers. However, because of the continued escalation of the tax burden I envision the individual village/town/protection districts being consolidated into a single County wide department, administered by the County, stations consolidated by distance and population, apparatus, procedures and protocols all standardized. Dispatching by the County, Chief Officers are County employees, Line Officers and firefighters/EMS remain volunteers.
    If you take a couple of neighboring Villages (look at your own and your next door Department) and analyze their individual departments you can find
    10 Engines, 3 Trucks, multiple Rescues, Tankers, Ambulances and ancillary apparatus in half a dozen firehouses servicing a response district that, were the department a paid department, have one third or one quarter of the equipment and infrastructure of the volunteer departments.
    Given that municipal goverment expenses continue to rise with the burden being passed onto the taxpayer, I don't think any possible methods of saving money while preserving and perhaps enhancing service will be left unexamined. Given that Engines and Trucks today are costing $700K to $1M does it make sence for Dept A and Dept B to each buy a new Engine of Truck and station them a mile or two from each other when only one piece of apparatus could service the same geographic area if you erased the local village/town border?
    And, if your a "County" volunteer firefighter, when your smart phone sends out an alert, if you are in the vicinity, anywhere in the County, you can reply to the alert via your smart phone that you are responding either to the nearest station or to the scene and dispatch can be made aware that the call will be covered by the "closest to the call" station or an additional alert is required to cover the call.