fireguy43

One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen on here in a long time. Many others have beaten the horse to death- if you are relying on a bunch of high school kids for your first alarm assignment, you have big problems. I started back in the day as an 18 year old with 6 months of high school left to go. My department had no "junior" members and therefore no special rules. Small town, everyone knew me for many years, it was left to my discretion, my parents didn't put any limitations on me, and I graduated with high honors from high school. Fast forward 35+ years, I have my own son who is a 17 year old junior member where we live now. Just finishing FF1 this week. Given the chance, he'd be running on every call he could grab. I as his father have placed limitations on what he is allowed to respond to, and that generally means he goes to NOTHING on school nights once he goes toes up in bed (I still go, but without him). No one in previous posts has mentioned the parental element in this discussion. As a parent of a minor, I make the decisions for my son, not the fire district and not the school when it comes to this topic. He can make all the weekend calls he wants, but if I find out he left school for an alarm, or took his pager to school, that's the end of it.

Yes MLSS covers Monroe and Goshen but that is as ALS provider and sometimes BLS back up not as primary response they have Volunteers for that and if anyone care to check the reason GOSHEN gets out for all there call as well as TOWN OF NEWBURGH ems it is because MLSS staffs them anywhere from 5-7 days a week and between the hours of 6a-6p. I am not saying this is the wrong thing Volunteers do need help and it is a way to out source staffing needs. At the same time I have also heard that Chester had added paid staff to help cover calls for them and by the sounds on the scanner have been crewing for calls. No matter what I feel Everything should be tried before you close the doors to a Volunteer agency. I also believe Chester VAC owns there equipment and rigs so they may be without a home per say and the Town Supervisor don't want them they are still a DOH certified agency and technically still able to operate.

MLSS is a vary well names company but also maybe you shold look into the debt they are in that noone knows about. The owner of the company has been trying to sell for a few years now but the wants you to buy the company and take the debt with it and they do not own most of there stuff. Why do they keep nice new vehicles because they do not own any of them they lease the and get new to look good. all there stations leased MLSS HQ well they don't own that.

First of all, you are so wrong on so many aspects of this post that I don't even know where to start. How would you know the debt structure of a privately owned company? How do you know what their financial statements look like, and what they own vs. what they don't own? And if you are running an EMS service, shouldn't you try to have vehicles that are "nice and new" as opposed to old rust buckets that are unreliable? When did that become wrong and reason to criticize? Running an EMS agency with a fleet of vehicles, each equipped with the standard load of equipment, eats up a lot of cash. That means that an EMS provider usually has a fair amount of debt. How much debt is really none of your business, has nothing to do with the level of service provided, and has zero impact on response times. Your earlier post that this happened because the Chief was a female was laughable, but now you crossed the line to an uninformed rant.

I would like to know why this was not brought up at a Town Board meeting, in front of the public. Why wasn't EMStar Ambulance Service considered as a provider for Chester? EMStar is a large multi state company with more resources than any of the other providers in our area. EMStar was already servicing the Town of Chester for ALS and for BLS mutual aid when Chester VAC could not get a crew for a call. Also, up until recently EMStar was providing the daytime staff for Chester. For one reason or another, EMStar is no longer providing the daytime staff, but that does not negate the fact that EMStar has been servicing the Town of Chester already. I guess MLSS came into the Town Supervisor's office for a secret meeting and brought some nice Irish Whiskey, some imported cigars and a few free games of golf at a local country club. There was no recent relationship between the Town of Chester and MLSS, so in order for MLSS to even be considered, they must have come forward with something sweet for the Town Supervisor. MLSS works behind the scenes and thru backdoor deals. Back when Chester VAC wanted to dump MLSS in favor of Regional as the ALS provider for Chester, MLSS admins came and met with the Town Supervisor for a secret meeting. The Town Supervisor never even told the rest of the Town Board about the meeting or what was discussed until the next meeting happened. At the next meeting with the Town, the Town Supervisor blindsided Chester VAC & the rest of the Town Board when he brought up information from the meeting and spoke in favor of keeping MLSS. In the end, after some long and heated discussions between the Town Board & CVAC, the right choice was finally made.....and that was to get rid of MLSS as the ALS provider for the Town.

This is irresponsible and obviously you have some sort of ax to grind against MLSS. Whiskey and cigars? You state that there was no recent relationship between the town and MLSS, but don't they cover Monroe and Goshen? If I'm the Town Supervisor, the logical first call would be the service that covers the towns on either side of me. What a novel thought......the articles in the press allude to slow response times, complaints by town residents, fiscal problems, and a lack of communication with the town board. To represent that this was all a scheme by MLSS or the Town is just ridiculous and apparently baseless. Unbelieveable....

Folks, a rare treat...... this is probably the most intelligent point that I have read on this site in the last two years. And in the same thread, another poster directs those ignorant of Islam to learn from the unquestionable source for all things factual- Youtube!!! Classic, and one of the dumbest things I have read on here in two years. Why not add Wikipedia as well? You can go on Youtube and find all kinds of groups (or "friends" thereof) that post junk. I can't beleive that after all these years, there are still people that believe that "it's on the internet, so it must be true".

Kudos to PR 5012 for having the fortitude to make this post. I agree with what he says, and some of you guys need to just calm down. Where's that negativity policy that is supposed to be enforced around here? Most of these posts are not commentary on the incident or the operation.

This is a ridiculous blanket statement, and this along with comparing the Muslim brotherhood to the vast majority of Muslims shows that you have only a vague and/or slanted understanding of Islam.

Look, I agree that the rules are the rules and that no one, regardless of their religious practices, should be exempt from rules that are designed simply to keep them safe. Its obvious that head coverings of the kind at issue here would be dangerous on a number of rides in the park as they could become caught in tracks, etc. And I agree that the event organizers, having been informed of these rules, didn't do a very good job of communicating this to event goers ahead of time. You'll get no argument from me that this is largely to blame for this incident occurring in the first place. But I also know from accounts of people who were there (and no one has mentioned this possibility so far) that the park rangers involved in the initial altercation didn't do a very good job of diffusing the situation. It's mentioned in one of the articles cited here that they pushed some of the women who confronted them which, unless they truly felt threatened (and come on, seriously?), just seems like a really bad idea. Putting your hands on a woman in a confrontational way in front of her husband or any male relative would surely escalate any situation regardless of the religious persuasions of those involved. Oh and by the way, those rangers are totally fine.

Long and short? I'm saying that there's blame to be placed pretty equally on both sides of this situation. And chalking this up as some kind of anti-American Islamic riot or an attempt to impose Sharia law in the US is just completely absurd. It was the unfortunate result of poor planning and poor communication, nothing more. This could have happened with a Jewish group, a Sikh group, or anyone else who's religious beliefs happened to conflict in any way with park rules. Making this out to be the fault of Muslim "animals" trying to take over our country as many of you have just makes you sound like close-minded buffoons. Sorry, but it's the truth. Should we blindly adopt some of their more out-dated (and little-followed) views as our own without questioning them? Absolutely not. But should we, by the same token, write off all their beliefs as "savage" and demand that they give them up without first questioning that logic? Absolutely not. A little cultural sensitivity isn't the same as being stupidly "PC" and a little worldly education goes a long way in averting this kind of incident.

Bring on the hate, I know it's coming.

Amazing...... someone notices that four calls went unanswered in Croton, and asks, very innocently enough, if anyone knows why. Two pages of thread later, people are coming out of the woodwork to declare that Croton EMS needs fixing, when not one fact was shared as to what the real, factual reason was for the lack of response in the first post. Not only does Croton apparently need paid EMT's, but we really ought to be talking about consolidation and regionalization! Maybe all Croton needed today was a good mechanic, but we don't know that, do we?

Perfect example of the rush to judgement and advancing one's own personal agenda without bothering to learn the facts.

I have no affiliation to Croton EMS, but I hope someone from that agency speaks up and at least puts on record what the real situation was today.

Nice try with the picture, but unless two people drove separate cars from Alaska to Beacon and parked them next to each other yesterday, that ain't it.

Was water supply an issue here? Doesn't look like too much water is being used in these photos...

The Wiccopee Fire Company will host its 51st Annual Steak Roast on Saturday, September 12th from 1 to 6pm at the main station.

See http://wiccopeefireco.org/ for more information. Hope to see you there!

SUNDAY September 12th, not Saturday

Rant is about the most appropriate name for this thread you could think of.....

Perhaps before we draw conclusions, we should try to ascertain the facts of a situation, especially when we have no first hand knowledge of what happened. The company that went four dispatches was mine. We did not go to Lake George, so the entire premise of the comment is invalid.

For the record, there were four members geared up an ready to go at the firehouse, but a driver did not respond. A response was eventually put together with an officer and an engine from another company of the same department. That same company responded at 12:30 am to a mutual aid structure fire in Lagrange, but no one was awake to hear that one....... why a driver did not respond is a separate issue and has nothing to do with parades.

As to the Orange County MVA, I cannot comment as I don't know what happened. I know, isn't that a novel idea.

Well, we didn't go. But I did hear a company from Dutchess County go 4 dispatches for a AFA Saturday morning with only an officer ultimately responding. And yesterday an Orange County department had a serious MVA with entrapment. It took them 2 dispatches to get their rescue out. BUT, they had a another company from 2 districts away respond for them.

Yes, clean your uniforms, polish your trucks, take the whole department 100+ miles away for the weekend and make us proud boys!

Congrats to the "winners" and hope all had a good time.

Tommy- Two words- Spell Check

Earthquake Hits California. I know thier is a few guys and gals on here. I was woundering if they can tell us how things are over thier. My prayers are with the familys out thier.

PoJo.com

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100404/NEWS03/100404014/Earthquake-shakes-U.S.-Mexico-border-region-

Thomas

Ah.... memories. My first run was M/A to Chelsea, cold winter day in '76. Fire in a bar on 9D. They still had the Howe back then. What year did the Seagrave arrive? Couldn't have been too much after that. Herb Muller, Jim Tompkins and Mike Cabrerra were the primary drivers.....

All Photo's I Posted Were Via KC2OBW And fireguy30 I Give Them All The Credit!!! They Are Copy Righted To Them And Me, LOLOL!!! Thank You Boys For Sending Them To Me. I Have To Say Great Job By All That Were Putting Water On The Fire And Taking Pictures.

PoJo.com

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100424/NEWS01/100424004/Former-psychiatric-center-building-is--total-loss-

Thomas

Tommy- You can't just post other people's pictures as if they were your own with no attribution or credit. That's just not right.

I had a terrible golf game last night and was a little POed to begin with, so I apologize as coming off a little to rash to you.

All I am saying is that if you acknowledge that this occurs and no one steps up to said members of the department that pull that crap, which is what it is in a lot nicer terms, then how is a problem getting fixed? All you are doing is validating there wrong actions without any consequences. If you, I and everyone else agrees its wrong, and no one tells the repeated offenders they are wrong, but say hey, look we do have plenty of members here now, but its 20min, 30min an hour into an operation, that is a problem in and of itself. You/your officers and anyone else who feels that way are only justifying their wrongdoing to make the moral feel better.

People who don't come on the first call out, obviously don' want to be there to begin with, are the guys who have had years in the volly department and think that "nothings changed or evolved from 10 years ago so there is no need for me to show up unless its a good job", haven't shown up to a drill in months or years yet still want to do something. These are the people who will be getting hurt, hurting others, or worse at a fire scene, hence why I have no use for them.

You might be old and crusty, but hell, show up more and teach the younger guys how its done the right way and set a good example.

Let's be careful with the sterotyping and broad brush statements. Someone your age would consider me old, and if you knew me, you'd probably agree to "crusty" as well. However, I've been doing this for 34 years plus, and I still turn out whenever I am home. Perhaps you are confusing older guys with guys who have more responsibilities, like a wife, kids, baseball coaching, soccer, school projects, etc....... It ain't the same as when you're young, unattached and carefree. You miss more alarms, more drills, more everything because you have other obligations as well. Not complaining about it, just a fact of life.

What really makes me chuckle about your post is that just as recently as last Friday morning (about 1:15 am), I was sitting in the cab of the engine, ready to respond to an attic fire in my district. There I was, 50+ years old, out of the house, down the road, and ready to roll. Where were all the "young guys"? Tucked into bed in their jammies. All of those Monday night warriors never seem to be around when it's time to act. Let's be careful about beating on the old guys, and be cognizant of the fact that there are plenty of "young guys" who don't show up all the time either.

You have to draft from 2 inlets inorder to pump the capacity of a 2000 gpm pump.

My bad, you're right. Thanks for the info

Flexible hard suction.

FDNY - Brooklyn 2nd Alarm - Bushwick - 02/19/2010 - "FirstOnScenePhotos by Lou Minutoli"

Storage issues aside, it makes you wonder why it isn't more common outside of the city.

I can understand one length, two max., but four?

So efd capt115 has a sweet ride like that, is retired, and living in the Florida Keys (according to his profile)..... And his biggest problem is getting the bike out a bunch of stones? Nice...... wish that was all I had to worry about!

It has been brought to my attention that my earlier post may have been misconstrued. What I meant, in a humorous but sarcastic sort of way, was to make light of the fact that a guy retired from the job and living in the Keys had no other worries than a bike stuck in the rocks, a set of circumstances for which I am envious. In fact, his predicament could sound like a Jimmy Buffet song in the making. What it may have been misinterpreted as, was a malicious jab at EFD Capt115. That was not the case.

If you take a look at EFD Capt115's profile, his "rep points", or read any of his posts, you can see that he is a valuable member of our little community and a valuable source of information on a variety of topics. My comments were not meant negatively, and I apologize publicly to EFD Capt115 and other readers of the original post if they were interpreted as such.

So efd capt115 has a sweet ride like that, is retired, and living in the Florida Keys (according to his profile)..... And his biggest problem is getting the bike out a bunch of stones? Nice...... wish that was all I had to worry about!

I may be showing my ignorance, but can anyone explain why each of these new engines has four lengths of hard suction? We are talking about NY City, and by the engine numbers, these units are assigned to Manhattan and/or the Bronx, not some outpost in the far reaches of Jamaica Bay. Why would they need/use four lengths?

I recall something similar up in Sullivan County about a year ago. Code violations all over the place, also a Yeshiva I think. Anyone from Monticello area have any info?

According to the census info, 11 residents have left this "City." My guess is they lived here, met the fire department and decided to move.

What kills me is that this seems like a simple operation. They could of advanced that line in the front door, had someone take that window, and knocked it down. I personally wouldn't of wasted time / manpower venting the roof, horizontal ventilation would have been sufficient. Also, did anyone check if the door was unlocked?

I've seen similar actions at almost every fire I have ever gone to. People get to the door without their tools, forget pieces of their gear, and basically turn into PPE covered jello molds. Why? Any incident should be treated as an unscheduled drill. We all spend so much time focusing on doing stuff the right way at drills, yet at calls there's always a few hammer-heads that forget what was covered at that last drill. (Of course, many think they're above basic drills and usually manage to muck up something at a call).

When ALS emailed this video to me, a bunch of us watched it together at the firehouse. Needless to say, we cracked up. I made a point to remind the guys that this could very well be us, as the availability of cell phone cameras, flip video cameras, etc. have grown faster then anything else out there.

Be smart, train often, and keep your calm.

Excellent point(s)

Sad, sad, sad. So much for that thread about the words "professional" on a vollie rig. This is at least a combination department (can't tell for sure from their website). Chief is at least a career position, and he's laying on the lawn. There are "professionals" and "un-professionals" in both career and vollie ranks. No one has an exclusive on either.

Congrats..... best job in the world. Wish you and your wife many years of happiness with the new arrival. Now go out and buy her her first helmet.

This fire took place during Kids Expo, I believe in the late '90's or early 00's. Ladder 2 was located on Main St., for the event and was blocked in due to the event, with a long delay in getting out. Ladder 1 was Out of Service with the Reserve Engine Running in its place. So obviously, by the time Ladder 2 was able to make it's way to the scene, there unfortuneatly wasn't much it could do. You are correct that Ladder 1 is located at Clover St., and Tower 2 is at Main St.

Good job. Thanks

Nice pictures, really shows how fast things can get worse..... seeing how this is a " Learning site " and since I do not have the ( truck company experience ), Ladder # 2 appears to be totally wasted in this position. I am asking the more experiened truck guys here, should the Ladder of been place more forward and towards the center of the road...

I am not busting balls or try to make anyone look bad, just want to know more.. In Croton we are trying to think more of leaving room for our ladder, so this is the reason for my questioning.....

I'm no truckie, but I agree with you. Between the pole and the wires, the ladder stays in the cradle. If you look at some of the pictures toward the bottom, it looks like they eventually moved the truck out of the way, it's no longer at the curb. Same as you, no offense to PFD, just doesn't look right to this tanker driver.

Would love to hear from someone that was there. Isn't Truck 2 on upper Main St. and Truck 1 on N. Clover? That would have made T1 first due ladder, but T2 is in front of the building. T1 OOS, another alarm, or just out of the picture?

Used to go to this place occasionally way back when I was going to Marist College. Ah, the good old days.......