FireMedic049

Personally, I found this part validates much of Yonkers Fire union's claim.
Despite criticism by its own union president in recent years that the department is understaffed, Davis said the department has an "adequate complement" of firefighters but that relying too heavily on overtime during occasional shortages was cost prohibitive.
"The days are gone when we had unlimited budgets," the mayor said. "If we spend it all on overtime, we can't buy trucks, we can't upgrade (equipment)."
The Mount Vernon Mayor is essentially saying that they could handle more of their own business, but rather than using overtime and/or having their taxpayers shoulder the financial burden to do that, they are consciously putting that burden onto the taxpayers of other communities.

Personally, I found this part validates much of Yonkers Fire union's claim.
Despite criticism by its own union president in recent years that the department is understaffed, Davis said the department has an "adequate complement" of firefighters but that relying too heavily on overtime during occasional shortages was cost prohibitive.
"The days are gone when we had unlimited budgets," the mayor said. "If we spend it all on overtime, we can't buy trucks, we can't upgrade (equipment)."
The Mount Vernon Mayor is essentially saying that they could handle more of their own business, but rather than using overtime and/or having their taxpayers shoulder the financial burden to do that, they are consciously putting that burden onto the taxpayers of other communities.

I've made this same point several times discussing this in my area. The public is often conditioned to think that when there's a fire in their community, the house will be a loss and anything short of burning the entire block is a "good job" and will praise their FD for their efforts. The public also doesn't always recognize the football fornicating monkey show when they see it.
To some extent, this holds true for some of the departments involved. The amount of back slapping I see on social media these days on the heals of a fire in many of these communities is crazy. Everyone always did "a good job" and everyone going home safe is often used as the yard stick to measure the effort. They may have given 100% and done the best that they could, but that doesn't always mean that they actually did "a good job", did it in a reasonably safe fashion or that their efforts made the situation better.

I've made this same point several times discussing this in my area. The public is often conditioned to think that when there's a fire in their community, the house will be a loss and anything short of burning the entire block is a "good job" and will praise their FD for their efforts. The public also doesn't always recognize the football fornicating monkey show when they see it.
To some extent, this holds true for some of the departments involved. The amount of back slapping I see on social media these days on the heals of a fire in many of these communities is crazy. Everyone always did "a good job" and everyone going home safe is often used as the yard stick to measure the effort. They may have given 100% and done the best that they could, but that doesn't always mean that they actually did "a good job", did it in a reasonably safe fashion or that their efforts made the situation better.

Back in the early stages of my career in the fire service we had a big snow storm one night. I forget how much snow we actually got, but we started running calls in the afternoon and well into the evening and overnight. Mostly the low budget stuff that comes with a heavy, wet snow - wires down, trees sagging into wires, accidents, etc.
We were a big volunteer department in a college town and at the time, only one big station. Figuring that the calls would keep on coming, a number of members camped out at the fire station for the night. There were no sleeping quarters at the time and not much in the way of alternative sleeping accommodations.
The calls slowed down overnight and as the saying goes, idle hands are the devil's workshop, particularly within a group of college kids. The morning came and we learned that a few of our members has spent some time outside playing in the snow. They had completely covered another member's vehicle in a big pile of snow in the parking lot. The only thing visible was the top few feet of his big mobile radio antenna sticking out of this huge mound of snow.
Needless to say, he didn't quite see the humor in it like the rest of us.

I've made this same point several times discussing this in my area. The public is often conditioned to think that when there's a fire in their community, the house will be a loss and anything short of burning the entire block is a "good job" and will praise their FD for their efforts. The public also doesn't always recognize the football fornicating monkey show when they see it.
To some extent, this holds true for some of the departments involved. The amount of back slapping I see on social media these days on the heals of a fire in many of these communities is crazy. Everyone always did "a good job" and everyone going home safe is often used as the yard stick to measure the effort. They may have given 100% and done the best that they could, but that doesn't always mean that they actually did "a good job", did it in a reasonably safe fashion or that their efforts made the situation better.

Back in the early stages of my career in the fire service we had a big snow storm one night. I forget how much snow we actually got, but we started running calls in the afternoon and well into the evening and overnight. Mostly the low budget stuff that comes with a heavy, wet snow - wires down, trees sagging into wires, accidents, etc.
We were a big volunteer department in a college town and at the time, only one big station. Figuring that the calls would keep on coming, a number of members camped out at the fire station for the night. There were no sleeping quarters at the time and not much in the way of alternative sleeping accommodations.
The calls slowed down overnight and as the saying goes, idle hands are the devil's workshop, particularly within a group of college kids. The morning came and we learned that a few of our members has spent some time outside playing in the snow. They had completely covered another member's vehicle in a big pile of snow in the parking lot. The only thing visible was the top few feet of his big mobile radio antenna sticking out of this huge mound of snow.
Needless to say, he didn't quite see the humor in it like the rest of us.

I've made this same point several times discussing this in my area. The public is often conditioned to think that when there's a fire in their community, the house will be a loss and anything short of burning the entire block is a "good job" and will praise their FD for their efforts. The public also doesn't always recognize the football fornicating monkey show when they see it.
To some extent, this holds true for some of the departments involved. The amount of back slapping I see on social media these days on the heals of a fire in many of these communities is crazy. Everyone always did "a good job" and everyone going home safe is often used as the yard stick to measure the effort. They may have given 100% and done the best that they could, but that doesn't always mean that they actually did "a good job", did it in a reasonably safe fashion or that their efforts made the situation better.

I've made this same point several times discussing this in my area. The public is often conditioned to think that when there's a fire in their community, the house will be a loss and anything short of burning the entire block is a "good job" and will praise their FD for their efforts. The public also doesn't always recognize the football fornicating monkey show when they see it.
To some extent, this holds true for some of the departments involved. The amount of back slapping I see on social media these days on the heals of a fire in many of these communities is crazy. Everyone always did "a good job" and everyone going home safe is often used as the yard stick to measure the effort. They may have given 100% and done the best that they could, but that doesn't always mean that they actually did "a good job", did it in a reasonably safe fashion or that their efforts made the situation better.

I've made this same point several times discussing this in my area. The public is often conditioned to think that when there's a fire in their community, the house will be a loss and anything short of burning the entire block is a "good job" and will praise their FD for their efforts. The public also doesn't always recognize the football fornicating monkey show when they see it.
To some extent, this holds true for some of the departments involved. The amount of back slapping I see on social media these days on the heals of a fire in many of these communities is crazy. Everyone always did "a good job" and everyone going home safe is often used as the yard stick to measure the effort. They may have given 100% and done the best that they could, but that doesn't always mean that they actually did "a good job", did it in a reasonably safe fashion or that their efforts made the situation better.

I've made this same point several times discussing this in my area. The public is often conditioned to think that when there's a fire in their community, the house will be a loss and anything short of burning the entire block is a "good job" and will praise their FD for their efforts. The public also doesn't always recognize the football fornicating monkey show when they see it.
To some extent, this holds true for some of the departments involved. The amount of back slapping I see on social media these days on the heals of a fire in many of these communities is crazy. Everyone always did "a good job" and everyone going home safe is often used as the yard stick to measure the effort. They may have given 100% and done the best that they could, but that doesn't always mean that they actually did "a good job", did it in a reasonably safe fashion or that their efforts made the situation better.

The reality is that most citizens and local politicians don't care what it says on the side of the fire apparatus at the fire scene as long as the fire is put out. Given the choice between properly funding the local FD to ensure they're capable of handling a first or second alarm fire on their own, or utilizing "free" mutual aid, they'll always choose the cheaper option. Unless a bunch of communities in a region are seeing growing expenses due to providing the mutual aid, chances of any one wanting to be more self-sufficient is unlikely.
The problem is the public doesn't know a good job from, mediocre or worse. If you arrive in any reasonable amount of time (longer for VFD's), don't look like the proverbial Monkey/Football, the fire goes out without getting worse after arrival, they'll be happy. In fact often they'll hail the FD for being hometown heroes, while having no clue they just got mediocrity. So trying to tell the public too spend more for a problem they fail to see or understand is a real uphill battle.
The fact is we're our own worst enemy far too often. We (as a whole) take what they give us (less and less), accept increasing risks to our personnel, and still get the job done to a level that is satisfactory to the masses. Until we start pointing out slower response times, equipment failures, lack of training or skill development and relate these to the loss of funds and personnel, the public will continue to push for lower taxes, as at the end of the day, unless they've experienced a fire, they have no real skin in the game. To the public we're one very expensive insurance policy, that appears to work when needed. Only when they use us themselves do they truly judge how well the money they've paid over the years was spent.

Yes we do, but more so we owe it to ourselves to be honest with ourselves. What I mean by this is that we are the greatest obstacle to solving the problem of inadequate responses and until we can admit that truth there is little hope of progressing. Like an alcoholic the first step in fixing the problem is admitting we have one and having the willingness to do what it takes to fix it. Most can readily admit to the first part, that there's a problem, but very few can honestly say they are truly willing to do what it takes to fix it. Oh sure, many will loudly jump on the consolidation bandwagon and proclaim that this is "the answer", until that answer involves them making concessions to serve the greater good. "We must consolidate, but my agenda is more important that yours", "we must consolidate, but don't change my contract", "we must consolidate, but don't touch my apparatus", "we must consolidate but don't take my rank" and so on and so on. Sadly, egos, agendas and a warped sense of self importance makes it virtually impossible to progress out of the tradition of putting ourselves first. And make no mistake we have always put ourselves first, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. The public will only get what they deserve when we put their needs above our wants....and that my friends is a tall order indeed.

True, but there's no guarantee on how fit that 19 year old will be in 15 years. There's a sufficient number of firefighters that are or were fit enough to work until mandatory retirement at 65 (in some states) that an employer can't legitimately reject an applicant (if fit enough currently) because he/she might not be fit enough to reach full retirement eligibility, especially when you already have no age restrictions for the position.

True, but there's no guarantee on how fit that 19 year old will be in 15 years. There's a sufficient number of firefighters that are or were fit enough to work until mandatory retirement at 65 (in some states) that an employer can't legitimately reject an applicant (if fit enough currently) because he/she might not be fit enough to reach full retirement eligibility, especially when you already have no age restrictions for the position.

It's not exactly the trivial thing that you seem to be inferring. I don't have a specific term to throw out there, but here's an example to help you understand the argument.
Let's say that everyone who belongs to a fire department is titled "firefighter" regardless of what role they perform or don't perform. Using that same logic, everybody who works for a hospital can be titled "doctor" regardless of what role they perform or don't perform. We don't do this because titles do matter. The titles doctor, nurse, ER tech, janitor, aide, etc. help the patients and staff distinguish between the different roles and what they each contribute to the overall operation. So, if you are sick and in need of a doctor, you wouldn't want a "doctor" (aka janitor) to treat you.
If you polled the average citizen on what a "firefighter" is and what their expectations for them are, it won't be that they just drive or just help outside if that person's house was on fire and a loved one was trapped inside. Therefore, using the title "firefighter" for all members is misleading in the same fashion that "doctor" doesn't mean the person who pushes the broom down the hallways of the hospital.

A major part of what we do is code enforcement.
Every day we spend hours inspecting properties, educating the property owners and enforcing the NYS UFP&BC. This also leads us to having CIDS info for many occupancies. In my department that's over 12,000 man hours per year. As part of code enforcement we also do plan review, oil burner and oil tank instillation/removal inspections. This also means regular code training and building construction training re-inspections and occasionally going to court to enforce the code.
How important is this? 31 years ago this week 5 Buffalo FD members were killed in an illegal propane tank explosion. Proper code enforcement prevents tragidies like this.
EMS is another major component, which results in 50% of the service we provide and again adds training and in-service continuous training. A shoot of from this is we do a fair number of assistance calls where we generally are checking out then picking up the "I've fallen and cant get up" citizens. This leads to another program, the "Patient Assist Assessment" program which is a referral system where we evaluate elderly and other at risk residence and get them assistance such as home healthcare, special home equipment, and facility placement when needed.
Fire training as you say, but we also have to maintain full Hazmat/WMD tech training and Technical Rescue (rope, confined space, trench, collapse and water). This training is done both in house and with WSOTF (and 2x year with FDNY)
Also because of our call volume, our equipment and maintenance needs are much higher, so a good deal of time is taken up with this as well.
Their are other smaller items, but this is a major part of the difference

There's always going to be disparities among related groups and those disparities don't necessarily indicate the presence of a true problem. There's disparity between a 20 year PD officer and one fresh out of the academy.
There may be major disparities among police departments, but at least all of those wearing the police uniform are trained to a specific standard and can perform the core functions expected of a police officer. The same can't be said of the American Fire Service.

Right and with that (over time) came a huge increase in the care that EMS can now deliver to your doorstep. It also brought a level of standardization on what care one could expect from a BLS ambulance, an ALS ambulance and QRS/response units.
Government involvement greatly improved the delivery of prehospital care in this country!

Maybe if you would actually answer the questions being asked of you, we might be inclined to move on to a different topic.

I can definitely relate. The county I live and work in has over 200 fire stations. Roughly 30 of which belong to the 2nd largest city in the state. I did a comparison a few years back on station distribution (# of stations per square miles). I looked at PG County, MD and Fairfax County, VA and found that their distributions were in the area of 10 square miles per station. My county came in right around 3 square miles per station - both including and excluding that city
in the calculation.
Another thing I looked at was the cost of career fire protection in my city per household. Using my department's annual budget and the most current census data at the time, I found that as a homeowner, I pay a little over $200 per year for career fire protection. And that figure excludes anything commercial properties are contributing. Now, I'll readily admit that we have less staffing than we probably should have and aren't as fully equipped as we should be, but considering how much most people pay per year for "essential" things like cell phones, cable TV or the internet, we're a pretty good bargain.

1) So please tell, I have been active in both volunteer depts. and in the union and I would like to know because we have way more important things to worry about than that. My efforts have never been to work against VFD's but to get them to open their eyes and see that everything is changing and they need to change too. And if they do not they will fail. Its a big conspiracy....we meet late at night to cover up the Kennedy assassination and to destroy the VFD's...not.
2) Actually based on the latest figures put our by NFPA it has dropped to about 60%. And its been dropping by about 4-7% per year on a national level. Also consider that career depts. protect approximately 80% of the population of the U.S. and respond on 80 - 90% of the calls for fire service.
3) So did I and my former FD still calls me for advise thank you and I gladly assist them.
4) That's great. As you said, "more than most"....Then my comments do not affect your dept. but they affect many depts. that (career and volunteer) that do not meet the standards.
5) Its not volunteer bashing. Its pointing out substandard service and it does not mater if its vol, combo or career. I have nothing against volunteers, I have a lot of issue with those that fail to uphold their oath and failing to speak out when you know their is a problem is no different. Its to bad you can not see that.

While this may not be the norm, it does happen. A lot!

While this may not be the norm, it does happen. A lot!