FireMedic049

Interesting read, glad FF Dorner was able to walk away. Is it me or does it seem that a FD the size of Toledo could figure out a better shift assignment plan then have four FFers with less than 4 years on the job assigned to the same company?

I had a similar thought when I read the story the other day.

I want to say that I read somewhere that Toledo had a large retirement a few years ago that depleted a lot of their senior members and resulted in a large influx of new members and promotion of some others without significant time on the job.

If I recall correctly, there was mention of something regarding crew make up in the NIOSH report from the double LODD he referred to. I don't think it was listed as a specific contributing factor in what occurred though. I think it was more of a making note of it and the obvious issues that can come with a less experienced crew.

This is pure gross negligence. What I wonder is if a few years down the line, these guys get cancer, who's fault is will it be? God forbid, and I hope this is not and never the case, will it be considered an "LODD"? Are the same taxpayers who funded the SCBA's to prevent this also going to have to pick up the tab for the consequences of not using them? Sure, there's lots of other ways firefighters can get cancer, but any way we have to lower the risk, we should utilize.

Those are tough questions to answer in general since it's often impossible to pinpoint an exact cause for any specific cancer. Outside of something like 9/11, it's more likely that the cause of cancer is going to be the result of multiple minor exposures over a career rather than a specific exposure. Cancer doesn't show up until well down the road unlike the broken leg after falling thru a floor or off the building.

This is why it is so imperative for firefighters to be covered by some sort of presumptive cancer legislation that acknowledges our significantly higher risk for certain types of cancer vs the general public, removes the burden from our shoulders to find the proverbial "needle in a haystack" to prove it's job related and provides us with the care and benefits due to us for an occupational illness.

That said, it's imperative that we (individually or organizationally) actively work to reduce our risks by limiting exposures as much as possible and ideally not doing things that could potentially be used to disqualify oneself from that presumptive benefit, like tobacco usage for instance.

Quite frankly there are a lot of so-called career departments operating every day with no regard for staffing standards so the lack of standards is not strictly a volunteer issue.

I wouldn't necessarily classify it as having "no regard for staffing standards" in the career departments that are "understaffed", at least not at the FD level.

Typically the guys/gals on the street know that they are "understaffed" whether it be in terms of individual unit staffing, number/type of staffed apparatus and/or overall shift staffing. We often have to work with the hand we are dealt rather than the one we'd like to have. Very few firefighters in any career department have any real influence when it comes to setting staffing levels. The unions can only do so much to address the matter and sometimes it comes down to deciding what is the best of several bad options.

A few years ago Gary, IN was having severe financial issues (not that they aren't now) and the decision was made to reduce staffing on all companies in order to save money. Pretty sure it was a reduction from 4 to 3 per unit. The contract called for minimum unit staffing of 4 and the union filed a grievance over the reduction. It eventually went to arbitration and the union won the grievance and the City was ordered to put the 4th FF back on all in service units.

The City complied and immediately put the 4th FF went back, but at the same time they closed several more companies in order to do it and still save the money. The legal precedent regarding staffing is basically that unit staffing is enforceable in arbitration, but overall shift staffing and number/type of apparatus in service essentially fall to managerial prerogative and can't be imposed by an arbitrator.

So, in this situation, the union technically prevailed and kept the 4th FF, but they ended up losing a few engine/truck companies. So, it begs the question in a situation like this, are you better off with 5 engines & 1 truck staffed with 4 FF each or with 6 engines & 2 trucks with 3 FF each?

In my small career department, if we were to have to comply with a 4 FF per unit requirement, it would pretty much close our second unit (engine) and station almost every day. Right now, our first unit has 3 on it most of the time, occasionally 4 and the second has 3 probably around half the time. Being forced into a single unit would significantly impact our operational flexibility, increase response times to half of the city and in all honesty, not be any "safer" for us. We'd love to have more on-duty staffing, but that's just not in the cards anytime soon. This works for 90+% of our calls and we rely on our off-duty personnel and neighboring VFDs for the calls that need more.

In an ideal world everybody wears their mask. In the real world these guys are working from the outside so you're going to suck smoke. Can't wear a mask all the time. Good job knocking it down with a can.

Yes, there will be instances where you have to take immediate action and may take in some smoke doing it, but this was clearly not the case in this situation.

With what we now know about the link between the products of combustion and firefighter cancer, there's pretty much no excuse to not use your SCBA these days.

Wasn't 304's new Ferrara originally assigned to 313?

Yes. It was stated in the Yonkers thread on firepics.net that it may have been reassigned to a busier company for a better opportunity to evaluate.

Maybe I'm missing something since I live in another state, but if another fire department has a working fire and needs more help, why wouldn't a department send whatever help was requested or what they could reasonably send?

I can understand putting your foot down if the other department is abusing the system, like Mt. Vernon appears to be doing with not calling in their off-duty personnel, in order force the issue, but I've always been of the opinion that you shouldn't short a working incident in progress because another call might happen during it.

If responding to the working incident leaves your area short, then call back off-duty personnel to staff reserve units or transfer units into the area to cover.

I'm not very familiar with rural fire departments or PA for that matter, but this confused me:

Are there many areas that receive fire protection yet pay no taxes for their fire department? Yes. Many areas served by volunteer fire departments in the state often receive little to no direct financial support from the municipality that they serve. A number of areas do have a dedicated fire tax, but it oftentimes does not cover all of the operating costs. It's kind of rare to find a VFD in the state that is fully tax supported.

How do these departments meet their budgets, simply through fund raising? Pretty much. Sometimes there's also grants and donations. There are a number of places that are trying to implement or increase dedicated fire taxes to help pay the bills. In some cases, the fire tax is pretty much the result of the VFD(s) in the municipality giving them the ultimatum, help fund us or we won't be able to continue operating.

Either way I don't see this affecting many home owners as I'd imagine most live in a city or fire district that pays taxes for fire protection. Not sure what impact this will have if implimented.

And don't forget that there are times when we can go days or more without power during / after a storm. Or God forbid if cell /radio networks get damaged or attacked. What happens when members can't charge their cell phones and pagers or get service for days? It's easy to say "ah that will never happen", but in our modern world if there's one thing we all should have learned by now it's that yes it can. Just because a technology is old doesn't mean it doesn't work. And I'm sorry but if an FD has been using a horn/siren for as long as you've been alive (whether you lived in town or not) you'll just have to suck it up snowflake and deal with it.

Horns /sirens (and pull boxes too, remember them?) - Antiquated? yes, obsolete or useless? no

Additionally, if your means of notification goes down, you staff your station to ensure a response.

The fact that some companies don't use sirens and some companies only blow the siren during certain hours shows that the siren simply isn't essential for member notification or for the public for that matter.

If they were, every station would have them and use them every time there was a call.

Why does this just have to be an "unfortunate coincedence" and not the predictible result that comes from lowering (or ignoring) performance standards in order to achieve a diverse workforce regardless of fitness/ability to actually do the job?

I glanced over it. Nothing I have not heard before at a conferance. I would say "fire is best suppressed from the outside in" is a pretty well rounded general idea of the content in the article. It's more than just one article and like I said, if your this is your takeaway from the research, then you didn't comprehend the information or if you just glanced at it, then maybe you missed a lot of important information.

They mention a lot of tactics in this article. I can agree with some, but not all of the points. Sure, I'm pretty much the same.

What do imagine a heavy volume of fire is to you? Contents? Fully involved room? 2 rooms? Through the roof?

Im sure you've been around the block and nobody has to tell you...You would be surprised what an 13/4" with a smooth bore and a set between your legs could do. Hell, a lot of Departments are going to 2" with smoothbore for even more GPM and unnoticeable maneuverability differences... No, I'm not surprised at how much fire a 1-3/4" line can handle since I frequently see it when we catch fires.

I feel a lot of peoples idea of "heavy fire load"are off in proportion due to the lack lack of fires today all together. Im waiting for the chief to call the 2nd alarm for a smoking cigarette butt on the sidewalk. I agree, I see it frequently in my area with many of the other departments. I've listened to multi-alarm fires that sounded like a major conflagration, but later when I see pictures of the fire on the news or on Facebook it hardly looks like there was even a fire.

Im not saying the tactics in this video are the right ones...but it goes to show you a little aggression can do a lot.

Im a firm believer in quick response, making the stretch, and getting to the fire room. Me too.

Research also shows that a nozzle firemn' inside a fire room is like an adrenaline junkie, pig in s*** causing a chemical reaction in the brain of hapiness and accomplishment when the job is done.

Lets admit, we are all stubborn firemn' and this is the real reason none of us will ever agree with these "studies". Thank you for taking the time to find out fire is best suppressed from the outside in but im going to stick with what I was taught 9 years ago. I will also be teaching my kids the same.

(here come the safety nazi's with the firefighter fatality reports...right abouuuuut....

NOW. [by the way im healthy and not heart attack prone.] )

If your takeaway from the research information is that "fire is best suppressed from the outside in", then you clearly didn't comprehend the information.

New link today from FH.com with a lot of the information we're discussing here: http://brevity.next.firehouse.com/issue/561fcf363bab46bf780c3752 #10 in particular is all about "firestreams pushing fire".

Yup, that's what I was referring to in one of my responses above.

Guess they liked the Ferrara pumps?

Or at least the price.

Was the new Engine 313 Ferrara reassigned to Engine 304?

Yes.

Per, a Yonkers guy on another forum, possibly to evaluate it at a busier company.

I do agree that this tactic has it's place. With that said i am not a proponent of it. As FFPCogs and BBBMF stated, the scary part is that there are departments out there that are using this tactic at every fire they go to and are in fact not going interior and are standing outside shooting water through a window. If they are not going interior, then they are clearly not utilizing the tactic being discussed. They are simply operating in a defensive fashion and yes, that is a problem if conditions allow for interior operations.

You can not look at this as a one size fits all. Agreed.

IMO, you can push fire despite what is suggested with these studies. If you haven't seen it yet, there's a suppliment to this month's Firehouse magazine that you should read. It discusses "20 Tactical Considerations" related to the recent UL/NIST studies. Number 10 discusses pushing fire. I thought it was a pretty good read.

I also think that when we debate about this there are too many variables involved. Is the structure so involved that hitting it from the exterior for a few seconds necessary just to enter? Or are we talking about a one or two room fire and are hitting it from outside just because it is too hot that you don't want to enter or whatever the excuse may be? If its the latter, you should think about doing something else because being a fireman isn't for you. In addition to there being many variables, there's also times in which we aren't all discussing the same thing. I think this is one of those times. The tactic being discussed is briefly flowing water in a window where the fire is in order to "reset" the fire ahead of an immediate interior attack. If the fire is so advanced that it's not safe to enter before knocking the fire down first, then we're probably talking about a more traditional transitional attack. If the fire is being hit from the outside, without the intention of going inside or at least not until the fire is extinguished, then we're probably talking about a defensive attack.

If you're operating defensively on a fire when conditions allow for interior operations, then I would agree that maybe this isn't a good fit for you.

Correct. However, many departments are employing this strategy without having enough additional manpower to stretch that second handline to the interior. In addition, researchers believe it's ok to be putting a handline in place on the fire floor while a line operates from the exterior because you cannot move/push fire. I find that to be vey incorrect and extremely dangerous. Last time I saw this tried, a handful of guys went to the burn center. Fire is going to move when a force acts upon it.

If they aren't also stretching on the fire, are they really employing this tactic?

I think you may be misinterpretting the information from the research. If doing it properly, the exterior line shouldn't be flowing long enough to really push the fire much at all. Additionally, the tactic requires coordination with the interior team so that you aren't putting water in the room while they are operating in that area. Considering that the exterior line will only flow for maybe minute at most, it's very likely that the line will be shut down before the interior team gets to that area and won't be working against it anyway.

Fire really doesn't move if you are properly applying enough gpms to overwhelm it.

While this may have its applications; circumstances dictate procedures. If you have limited manpower on scene or a fully involved basement with limited access this tactic may be a good move. BUT, at the same time, you are writing off any viable victims. These new procedures were written because scientists working in a laboratory think you can no longer push fire (my experience tells me otherwise) with a handline and it's ok to knock a fire from an exterior window to take some energy out of the equation. Does it work, in some circumstances yes, but if you cannot access the seat of the fire, you're severely delaying water and now you'd better have another team ready to advance a handline inside after you transition to an interior attack. And not the one that's stretched and charged in the backyard, from the outside. Like an earlier post said, we won't hone our skills on interior attack and search if we are fighting fires from outside. When it's time to go inside, everyone will get lost.

The tactic coming out of the research, as I understand it, is to apply water from the outside while another line is being advanced inside, with the possible exception of applying a quick hit if you can do so from your entry point.

FDNY does not regularly do this. The FDNY prides itself on aggressive interior attack. I think he may have been referring to the more traditional transitional attack - hitting heavy fire defensively in order to transition to interior operations and incorrectly associating that with this tactic of "resetting" the fire.

As far as the discussion goes, making conditions more tenable sounds great except, 75% of fire victims die from smoke inhalation. Flowing water through a window to make conditions more "tenable" for firefighters to enter won't save victims. Getting them out of the building will. Since when does a firefighter put the rescue of a civilian at the bottom of the list? From my understanding of the research, this tactic really isn't a matter of putting the civilian at the bottom of the list as you put it. The (limited) water being flowed thru the window is to be done while a crew is stretching a line to the fire inside. The line is only supposed to flow briefly to darken down the fire, not fully extinguish it. One of the primary benefits of this was found to be the disruption of the fire growth and preventing the attack crew from being caught in a flashover as they advance. If conditions are more tenable for the firefighters, then that should aid their ability to search for those victims.

The training of firefighters is about developing skills. Firefighters are taught to put out fires from the interior advancing through a structure a certain way. These are just the basics and the basics take time and is not something that is taught in 5 minutes. Firefighters who have battled fires from the inside learn from experience and repetition how to do it better and more effective which allows firefighters to have the skill levels to extinguish fires from inside. When a firefighter shoots a stream through a window all of the skill development is over. There is no skill level to that and only lowers our skills and is a fire service failure. While your points are correct, as I stated above, this tactic isn't a matter of abandoning the interior work. While the outside firefighter may not be developing their skills throwing some water in the window, the ones advancing on the fire from the interior are. Now if departments are just fighting fires from the outside when conditions allow for interior operations, then that is clearly a fire service failure.

Another example of fire service failure is that we still have firefighters who cannot operate a 2.5 inch line due to poor technique and education.

"A fire department that writes off civilians faster than an express line of 6 reasons or less is not progressive, it's dangerous, because it's run by fear. Fear does not save lives, it endangers them." -- Lt. Ray McCormack FDNY

http://www.firehouse.com/blog/10631380/transitional-attack-is-whack

I think this is a poorly framed poll question. The question asks for a one size fits all answer for something that has far too much variability for that type of answer to work.

I think there will be times in which this tactic will be a wise option and there will be times in which it is the wimpy option.

But you could. Nothing says you need your own custom turnout gear.

True, but we should be wearing gear that properly fits us, which in the context of what we're discussing is essentially the same thing as having "custom turnout gear" since the only thing that is typically individually customized within each department is the sizing and name tags if using them.

As for the masks, you are not fitted with a custom mask.

Not necessarily. Technically, I was custom fitted for my current mask and the one prior. In both cases, I was using a medium mask, but the medium nose cup insert was replaced with a small one in order to get a proper fit.

You wear the size mask that fits you. S M-L or XL. Nothing special about it and at 300 bucks a pop, that's big bucks to some departments with lots of members.

Right, you should be wearing the size mask that fits you, just like you should be wearing the size TOG that fits you. A prime reason that the vast majority of departments no longer use a community gear pool is because we are not all of the same shape and size. Because of that, the community gear pool can have significant limitations.

The same would be true with the masks. It'll probably be a routine occurance on most calls that somebody is probably going to be wearing the wrong size mask or not be able use one that is available because it doesn't fit right. In the current age, if someone were to be seriously injured or killed while wearing the wrong size mask, I'd be curious to the extent that a department would have liability for that and if it could have a negative impact on any benefits due to the person or their family.

You are missing the point I was making. Many of the same people who take offense to the confederate flag are the same ones that destroy our flag. Plenty of flags are burned or stepped on and they never face consequence even though there are laws in this country against doing so. I cant recall hearing of one arrest for it. I know people take "issue" with it but it never seems to go further than that. There is a law on the books. We need to start enforcing it.

I didn't miss your point, you failed to make the point you wanted to make. There is a difference.

I find it amazing that people find that flag offensive but no one sees a problem with standing on, mutilating or burning our American flag.

You must not be paying attention really well because I've seen lots of people taking issue with the things you listed and they have been doing it for a long, long time.

Im lost just a quick question ? Would it make sense to consolidate ? Yonkers is a fairly busy dept and many times they put an extra engine and many times you hear them put battalion 3 into service if they were to consolidate wouldn't that be tacking away from them to service other parts of Westchester county ? and wouldn't response times increase ?

not trying to start problems i can see it working for small towns but not a city

Consolidation doesn't necessarily mean a reduction of resources. Sometimes the primary benefit of consolidation is a more efficient management of existing resources. In this situation, a consolidation between Yonkers and Mt. Vernon may not alter the number of stations and apparatus on the street. Aside from some economies of scale benefits in purchasing and eliminating some duplication in the administration side, the operational difference may only be that the units that are responding into Mt. Vernon from Yonkers right now as mutual aid would become units from the same department responding to help other units from that department.

In this situation though, the reliance on mutual aid by Mt. Vernon seems to be more about not spending their own money to utilize their own resources and instead use somebody else's and let them foot the bill for it.

Listen, I hear you, but 5 just ain't enough for anything. Not true. Many calls can be handled adequately with 5.

Yes, many calls can be but not structure fires. Correct and I stated such.

I'm not saying that you and your guys don't do all you can and work hard. I'm saying that 5 firemen is scarcely better than 0. You may not be saying that, but you essentially labeled that effort as "useless" and "scarcely better than 0".

I like the line "you do not know, what you do not know".

In other words, if you have never operated with proper staffing (which ISO considers 13 plus search crews, plus FAST & plus water supply if not hydrants) and (NFPA considers 16 or 17 for a 2,000 sq ft single family dwelling with out a basement, with more responders if it s a working fire or a bigger structure). So you are operating at 25 - 30% of what the standards call for. But we aren't exactly operating at that level. Our initial response may be as low as 5 (on-duty), but with our off-duty response and mutual aid RIT, we are achieving those manpower levels, but not necessarily within the time frame enumerated in those.

If you have never worked with proper staffing, you have no way of really knowing how bad your situation is

Maybe so, but if you've never worked this understaffed, you'll also lack a full perspective of the situation.

^^^^^

Okay....Idon't get it. You're the first fireman I've ever heard defend their understaffed operations. But I'm not actually defending our understaffed operation. I'm explaining it as part of rebutting your comments.

You're taking this personally and that means you're taking it wrong. 1 or 2 rooms of fire, a few grabs and only 5 guys? I wouldn't necessarily say that I'm taking it personally, but it's hard to not be offended by the way you framed some of your comments that essentially minimize the difference that departments like us can make despite being understaffed (on-duty wise).

You're gambling and a lot of things aren't getting done. Yes and no. Our on-duty staffing requires a different mindset and approach to how working fires are handled, but it's also critical to understand that I'm not talking about handling a fire with only 5 guys.

When you guys pull up to a working fire with 5 on the first arriving engine and are the only unit on scene, you stretch your first line knowing that more units and personnel are on the way to help. Despite arriving on two apparatus, rather than just 1, we're pretty much operating the same way. The main difference is that our "back up" takes a little longer to get there.

Yes, we don't have the ability to do as many of those tasks concurrently as your department is able to do, but we still do them, it just takes longer to complete them. Knowing this means that we can't push as hard as we'd like in some cases during the early stages of the fire.

If 5 can get the job done, why does my job have

1 Chief

5 Line Officers

and

23 Firemen

ON THE INTIAL RESPONSE FOR FIRE? You're reading too far into what I'm saying. I'm not saying that "5 can get the job done" and no other personnel are needed. I'm saying that 5 can get the job started and have a significant impact on how that fire goes.

We're lucky too, to have the staff we do and we should have more. EVERYONE should have more. Agreed. Unfortunately, our reality is that we'll likely never see a significant jump in our staffing to the point where we have 15+ on-duty.

This is not a personal assesment of you or the other brothers you work with. You clearly do a lot with little staffing, but it's an extremly dangerous situation. You don't have enough eyes on the outside and you have NO HELP if anything goes wrong. I agree it can be an extremely dangerous situation and we are very cognizant of that and try not to overextend ourselves, but as I've stated, additional resources will be coming to push our fire ground staffing to a more acceptable level.

5 is FUNCTIONALLY useless and doens't even meet NFPA/OSHA, ect. It is dangerous and the powers that be are careless in allowing you to operate with so little support. I disagree on the "FUNCTIONALLY useless" part and again, it's really not a matter of having little support. It just takes a longer to get it there.

If you'd like to discuss this in more detail or whatever, feel free to PM me and we can discuss it there rather than hijacking this thread further.