FireMedic049

If it makes you feel any better, I just read this thread and recognized the quote immediately. Good stuff.

I won't tell you that a 75 year old is still fit to drive and the fact that it does happen doesn't make it a good idea and certainly has very little relevancy to whether or not someone under 21 is fit to drive.

Who is the "we" that you are referring to?
The fire service I'm familiar with does focus on the victim and their family when tragedy strikes one of our own.

Does that really matter? The intent is to make the vehicle more conspicuous and the reflective chevrons certainly do that. From that perspective, does an oncoming driver really need to be able to distinguish between your unit and my unit in order to avoid hitting it? Besides, if the lettering is lost in the chevrons, then the problem is the color of the lettering. I've seen plenty of chevron marked vehicles in which the lettering within the chevron is very distinguishable.You are correct that there should be a strong emphasis on proper placement in order to provide a safer working area in the first place, however I think too often views expressing opposition to the chevrons seem to focus on the minority of drivers who for whatever reason are distracted to the point where they still don't avoid hitting us rather than accepting and welcoming the fact that the markings DO make our vehicles more conspicuous and that WILL absolutely catch the attention of at least some drivers and avoid some accidents that otherwise may have occurred.To me, that's worth the price of admission and trumps the esthetic aspects.

So does this change any opinions of the incident?
http://statter911.com/files/2011/06/drowningtimeline.pdf

You are so full of sh!t!!!
A nearly 300 lb suicidal man in neck deep water while fully clothed and 150 yards from shore IS NOT "basic water rescue"!! Typically in a water rescue situation, the victim is highly interested in being rescued. There's really no guarantee or indication that this person would not have resisted the rescue attempt.
Sure, you can sit here and say that you just needed a boat, pfd & rope, but did they actually have access to all of these items?
You continue to make derogatory statements about their command staff and make baseless accusations about this situation. Yes, there was a lack of training, ONE THAT EXISTED BECAUSE THEIR CITY TOOK AWAY THEIR EQUIPMENT AND FUNDING FOR TRAINING IN WATER RESCUE!
What "lack of cooperation with other agencies" are you talking about? THEY QUICKLY CALLED FOR THE COAST GUARD TO RESPOND! If the Coast Guard would've been able to respond with a helicopter immediately and it arrived quickly and made the grab would you still be asserting a "lack of cooperation"?
I'll ask again even though you keep ignoring the question...............Exactly what should they have done that they didn't do under the circumstances they were under? They lacked the equipment and training necessary for the task at hand. They quickly contacted an agency who did. That agency responded. Don't give me any BS answers about how they should've been trained/equipped for water rescue, because we're all in agreement that they should've been. Exactly what else should they have done?!

You are so full of sh!t!!!
A nearly 300 lb suicidal man in neck deep water while fully clothed and 150 yards from shore IS NOT "basic water rescue"!! Typically in a water rescue situation, the victim is highly interested in being rescued. There's really no guarantee or indication that this person would not have resisted the rescue attempt.
Sure, you can sit here and say that you just needed a boat, pfd & rope, but did they actually have access to all of these items?
You continue to make derogatory statements about their command staff and make baseless accusations about this situation. Yes, there was a lack of training, ONE THAT EXISTED BECAUSE THEIR CITY TOOK AWAY THEIR EQUIPMENT AND FUNDING FOR TRAINING IN WATER RESCUE!
What "lack of cooperation with other agencies" are you talking about? THEY QUICKLY CALLED FOR THE COAST GUARD TO RESPOND! If the Coast Guard would've been able to respond with a helicopter immediately and it arrived quickly and made the grab would you still be asserting a "lack of cooperation"?
I'll ask again even though you keep ignoring the question...............Exactly what should they have done that they didn't do under the circumstances they were under? They lacked the equipment and training necessary for the task at hand. They quickly contacted an agency who did. That agency responded. Don't give me any BS answers about how they should've been trained/equipped for water rescue, because we're all in agreement that they should've been. Exactly what else should they have done?!

You are so full of sh!t!!!
A nearly 300 lb suicidal man in neck deep water while fully clothed and 150 yards from shore IS NOT "basic water rescue"!! Typically in a water rescue situation, the victim is highly interested in being rescued. There's really no guarantee or indication that this person would not have resisted the rescue attempt.
Sure, you can sit here and say that you just needed a boat, pfd & rope, but did they actually have access to all of these items?
You continue to make derogatory statements about their command staff and make baseless accusations about this situation. Yes, there was a lack of training, ONE THAT EXISTED BECAUSE THEIR CITY TOOK AWAY THEIR EQUIPMENT AND FUNDING FOR TRAINING IN WATER RESCUE!
What "lack of cooperation with other agencies" are you talking about? THEY QUICKLY CALLED FOR THE COAST GUARD TO RESPOND! If the Coast Guard would've been able to respond with a helicopter immediately and it arrived quickly and made the grab would you still be asserting a "lack of cooperation"?
I'll ask again even though you keep ignoring the question...............Exactly what should they have done that they didn't do under the circumstances they were under? They lacked the equipment and training necessary for the task at hand. They quickly contacted an agency who did. That agency responded. Don't give me any BS answers about how they should've been trained/equipped for water rescue, because we're all in agreement that they should've been. Exactly what else should they have done?!

You are so full of sh!t!!!
A nearly 300 lb suicidal man in neck deep water while fully clothed and 150 yards from shore IS NOT "basic water rescue"!! Typically in a water rescue situation, the victim is highly interested in being rescued. There's really no guarantee or indication that this person would not have resisted the rescue attempt.
Sure, you can sit here and say that you just needed a boat, pfd & rope, but did they actually have access to all of these items?
You continue to make derogatory statements about their command staff and make baseless accusations about this situation. Yes, there was a lack of training, ONE THAT EXISTED BECAUSE THEIR CITY TOOK AWAY THEIR EQUIPMENT AND FUNDING FOR TRAINING IN WATER RESCUE!
What "lack of cooperation with other agencies" are you talking about? THEY QUICKLY CALLED FOR THE COAST GUARD TO RESPOND! If the Coast Guard would've been able to respond with a helicopter immediately and it arrived quickly and made the grab would you still be asserting a "lack of cooperation"?
I'll ask again even though you keep ignoring the question...............Exactly what should they have done that they didn't do under the circumstances they were under? They lacked the equipment and training necessary for the task at hand. They quickly contacted an agency who did. That agency responded. Don't give me any BS answers about how they should've been trained/equipped for water rescue, because we're all in agreement that they should've been. Exactly what else should they have done?!

Doesn't sum up my feelings about the incident in any fashion.
The Fire Department was set up to fail by their City Administration! It happened and like usual, the ones most responsible for this "system failure" are not the ones taking heat for it and the Firefighters are painted as the "unreasonable" ones because they want to be properly funded to provide the services their community expects from them.

Considering the overall financial state of things these days, you're probably vulnerable just by being a public employee.
My department is similar in that we also have a minimum staffing of 5 and a max of 7, however we don't have a volunteer component and our minimum will be going to 6 at the start of the new year.
My recommendation would be to get prepared for the fight that very well may be coming your way. I would avoid referring to staffing of 7 as "full staffing" because in all reality, it really isn't "full" at only 7 on-duty. Since what the number 7 actually reflects is the maximum number of FFs allowed to be on-duty each day, I'd refer to it as such. I'd also document how working with 5 instead of 7 impacts your operations. Does it reduce the number of units you staff? Does it impact your ability to handle more than one "minor" call at the same time? What fireground tasks get delayed because you are missing 2 FFs?
To go along with the above to address the question of "why not 5 all the time?"..........Drive the point home that dropping down to 5 is a sacrifice on your part (the FD) in order to help your municipality out (financially) and not a matter of being able to do the same job with less people.
Since you are a combination department and it appears that your volunteer component's ranks may be being misrepresented, I'd recommend putting together some info regarding such. First, if you don't already know, find out who is listed on their roster. Then for each person, document their actual participation - how many calls they make, how much training they attend, what level of participation they are at (full duty, driver only, outside FF, etc.), what level of training they have and anything else you think would be helpful, like still being alive. This should give you the ability to counter any misrepresentation of their participation.
Good Luck.

Since we're being "totally honest", who wants to be counting on a fellow FF who's not on disability and he/she drops because of a heart attack? You're kind of mixing issues here. Being on disability doesn't specifically increase the risk of heart attack.As already stated, the threshold for many volunteer departments is pretty low.

I agree with M'ave, the issue isn't so much the tests themselves, but that the results give the appearance of some sort of bias towards minorities, specifically blacks.
I know in several instances, the perception created is that minorities as a whole did poorly, when the reality was that many did pass the exam, but may not have scored high enough in relation to other applicants to get hired.
I also think the argument about written tests' inability to determine who would make a good firefighter is misplaced, particularly in a large department like Chicago and FDNY. Firefighting requires two things: brains & brawn. I believe the intent of the written exam is to provide an initial assessment of the "brains" part. Basic competency in reading, comprehension, math, writing and such is necessary to successfully complete the training academy. I believe the intent of the physical agility test is to provide an initial assessment of the "brawns" part. A certain level of physical strength, endurance and athletic ability is necessary to successfully complete the training academy.
To me, the testing process is about weeding out candidates that do not have a sufficient level of both, not determining who will or will not make a good firefighter - the start of that determination begins at the Fire Academy. Considering the cost aspect of training a recruit, it makes perfect sense to select candidates who performed the best on both parts and realistically have the best shot at completing the training.
From an efficiency aspect, in terms of both cost and time, it also makes perfect sense to administer a written test to "thin" the applicant pool before giving a physical agility test.
Considering some of the tests in question that I've seen, I don't think the problem is the test or an institutional basis towards minorities, but rather factors external to the FD and the desire for "special" rather than "equal" treatment by some people and organizations.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for pass/fail testing. There are points in the process were it is applicable, like in the physical agility test (i.e. you can either drag the dummy 100 feet or you can't.) or psychological testing or background checks. However, I strongly believe that written testing should not be simply pass/fail.If the entire process is "pass/fail" then it creates a situation where you will have to randomly select people to hire among those that "passed" rather than selecting those that performed the best. I just don't believe "random" hiring is the way to achieve the highest quality workforce.
What was the gap on those test scores?
A co-worker of mine has taken the FDNY test once or twice. If I'm not mistaken, he scored in the low 90s, but ended up being pretty far down on the list. Far enough that based on previous hiring trends, he would likely not get hired before the list expired. If you're talking about only a 10-15 point difference between the highest scoring person hired and the last person hired from that same list, to me, that could easily explain why there wasn't a "provable" difference on outcome - the gap itself wasn't "significant". A 10 percentage point difference on a 200 question test is only 20 incorrect answers.
Now if the gap was more like 30-40 points between first and last hired, then you should be able to prove much more definitively, one way or the other, the impact list number has on the quality of the firefighter they become.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for pass/fail testing. There are points in the process were it is applicable, like in the physical agility test (i.e. you can either drag the dummy 100 feet or you can't.) or psychological testing or background checks. However, I strongly believe that written testing should not be simply pass/fail.If the entire process is "pass/fail" then it creates a situation where you will have to randomly select people to hire among those that "passed" rather than selecting those that performed the best. I just don't believe "random" hiring is the way to achieve the highest quality workforce.
What was the gap on those test scores?
A co-worker of mine has taken the FDNY test once or twice. If I'm not mistaken, he scored in the low 90s, but ended up being pretty far down on the list. Far enough that based on previous hiring trends, he would likely not get hired before the list expired. If you're talking about only a 10-15 point difference between the highest scoring person hired and the last person hired from that same list, to me, that could easily explain why there wasn't a "provable" difference on outcome - the gap itself wasn't "significant". A 10 percentage point difference on a 200 question test is only 20 incorrect answers.
Now if the gap was more like 30-40 points between first and last hired, then you should be able to prove much more definitively, one way or the other, the impact list number has on the quality of the firefighter they become.

In the context of what the IAFF by-law restriction is, Yes.There's a difference between doing nothing to help your actual neighbors in a time of crisis and routinely responding to calls as a volunteer firefighter in the restricted fashion.Your right, it is kind of like holding hostages, but we probably aren't in agreement on who the hostage takers are. Is it really what is probably a small number of IAFF members in any given community that are abiding by the rules of an organization that they are affiliated with?
or
Could it in fact be the VFDs themselves, by not definitively addressing a potential problem and/or making the community aware of the problem and allowing them the opportunity to decide what level of service they want and/or are willing to pay for? Besides, there's probably more able bodies in the community that aren't IAFF members.
All of those examples are relevant. The fact that there were "budget constraints" prompting the disbandment is irrelevant. Would you actually get rid of personnel performing an essential service if nobody volunteered to be their replacements?
The third department I cited, the matter was toughted as a budget problem necessitating it, however via legal channels it was clearly established as more of a personal vendetta by the Mayor than any true budgetary problem.

In the context of what the IAFF by-law restriction is, Yes.There's a difference between doing nothing to help your actual neighbors in a time of crisis and routinely responding to calls as a volunteer firefighter in the restricted fashion.Your right, it is kind of like holding hostages, but we probably aren't in agreement on who the hostage takers are. Is it really what is probably a small number of IAFF members in any given community that are abiding by the rules of an organization that they are affiliated with?
or
Could it in fact be the VFDs themselves, by not definitively addressing a potential problem and/or making the community aware of the problem and allowing them the opportunity to decide what level of service they want and/or are willing to pay for? Besides, there's probably more able bodies in the community that aren't IAFF members.
All of those examples are relevant. The fact that there were "budget constraints" prompting the disbandment is irrelevant. Would you actually get rid of personnel performing an essential service if nobody volunteered to be their replacements?
The third department I cited, the matter was toughted as a budget problem necessitating it, however via legal channels it was clearly established as more of a personal vendetta by the Mayor than any true budgetary problem.

Sorry, but your counter argument is flawed too.
A college education in many occupations does equate to being "better". Doctor, Lawyer, Accountant & Engineer are a few that come to mind right away.
You are right that a college education may not make someone a "better" firefighter or company officer no matter how long they spend in school. However, the converse can also be true. Some people, no matter how great a firefighter/company officer or how long as one will automatically make them a "better" Fire Chief. They may be prepared to lead a scene or be able to make other operational type decisions, but 20+ years on the front lines may not prepare them for the rest of the job, like preparing budgets, directly dealing with city officials, writing grant proposals, preparing and delivering presentations to acquire additional or protect current department resources,etc.
I think there's a legitimate argument for a Fire Chief to have some degree of college level education.

As I mentioned above, the IAFF's position on this matter is pretty simple IMO and is pretty much what you stated. Contrary to what some volunteers may think, in general the IAFF really doesn't care if its members volunteer as firefighters in all volunteer fire departments, particularly those in the less urban areas where the tax base and call volume usually doesn't support having career firefighters.
What the IAFF does care about and has a by-law forbidding is its members serving as volunteer firefighters in fire departments in which another IAFF Local exists.
I can't say how often this happens, but I do know it's very prevalent in the metro DC area - particularly in Prince George's County MD. Many of that county's volunteers are career firefighters in other departments in that region and I'd speculate that they come to PG County to run calls not out of the desire to serve their hometown community, but rather for their own personal gratification given the amount of fires they have there.

Sorry, but your counter argument is flawed too.
A college education in many occupations does equate to being "better". Doctor, Lawyer, Accountant & Engineer are a few that come to mind right away.
You are right that a college education may not make someone a "better" firefighter or company officer no matter how long they spend in school. However, the converse can also be true. Some people, no matter how great a firefighter/company officer or how long as one will automatically make them a "better" Fire Chief. They may be prepared to lead a scene or be able to make other operational type decisions, but 20+ years on the front lines may not prepare them for the rest of the job, like preparing budgets, directly dealing with city officials, writing grant proposals, preparing and delivering presentations to acquire additional or protect current department resources,etc.
I think there's a legitimate argument for a Fire Chief to have some degree of college level education.

Sorry, but your counter argument is flawed too.
A college education in many occupations does equate to being "better". Doctor, Lawyer, Accountant & Engineer are a few that come to mind right away.
You are right that a college education may not make someone a "better" firefighter or company officer no matter how long they spend in school. However, the converse can also be true. Some people, no matter how great a firefighter/company officer or how long as one will automatically make them a "better" Fire Chief. They may be prepared to lead a scene or be able to make other operational type decisions, but 20+ years on the front lines may not prepare them for the rest of the job, like preparing budgets, directly dealing with city officials, writing grant proposals, preparing and delivering presentations to acquire additional or protect current department resources,etc.
I think there's a legitimate argument for a Fire Chief to have some degree of college level education.

And what "business model" do you suggest?
I certainly don't disagree that analyzing your operation to see if changes are warranted is appropriate. However, an inherent problem with the "run it like a business" line of thinking is that FD deployment and working conditions are not like most business operations.
Probably one of the closest comparables is the food service industry. Typically, a restaurant will have a dynamic plan regarding their operation. Their staffing will typically peak around the "normal" meal times and then shrink back between meal times. This makes sense since you know when your highest demand periods will be each day and you can adjust for it. Now, there will be times when you get an off-peak rush, but you can generally handle it and the main consequence is generally a dining experience that isn't as efficient with the smaller staff. Additionally, if a meal period isn't as busy as predicted, some staff may be sent home early.
This type of planning doesn't lend itself well to the fire service. The main problem is the inherent unpredictability of the work and the varying levels of personnel needed to perform that work. You can look at call volume and see that "more" calls occur during the daytime than at night, but you'd be foolish to base staffing on just that. Most calls aren't going to be very labor intensive and require large sums of personnel, however some will and you will need those people in order to effectively and efficiently mitigate that problem. Another problem is that we also don't know where to problem will occur. The restaurant will always know that they will be feeding people in that one location. The fire service doesn't. Like call volume, we can identify areas that have historically had higher requests for service than others, but that doesn't provide enough information for deployment.
A large factor in FD deployment is response time. NFPA 1710's standard for the response of the first company is 4 minutes travel time and the full alarm in 8 minutes. If we knew where/when our calls were going to occur and what they would be in advance, then the fire service could reasonably tailor a dynamic deployment plan to match. Unfortunately, that's not possible, so the goal is to be able to provide a somewhat uniform response.
So, the inherent problem with closing fire companies at night, rolling brownouts, etc. is not so much with handling call volumes or handling "minor" calls, but rather for "serious" calls like building fires where the "extra" delay because those companies are closed becomes a big factor in terms of fire spread, civilian safety, etc.

And what "business model" do you suggest?
I certainly don't disagree that analyzing your operation to see if changes are warranted is appropriate. However, an inherent problem with the "run it like a business" line of thinking is that FD deployment and working conditions are not like most business operations.
Probably one of the closest comparables is the food service industry. Typically, a restaurant will have a dynamic plan regarding their operation. Their staffing will typically peak around the "normal" meal times and then shrink back between meal times. This makes sense since you know when your highest demand periods will be each day and you can adjust for it. Now, there will be times when you get an off-peak rush, but you can generally handle it and the main consequence is generally a dining experience that isn't as efficient with the smaller staff. Additionally, if a meal period isn't as busy as predicted, some staff may be sent home early.
This type of planning doesn't lend itself well to the fire service. The main problem is the inherent unpredictability of the work and the varying levels of personnel needed to perform that work. You can look at call volume and see that "more" calls occur during the daytime than at night, but you'd be foolish to base staffing on just that. Most calls aren't going to be very labor intensive and require large sums of personnel, however some will and you will need those people in order to effectively and efficiently mitigate that problem. Another problem is that we also don't know where to problem will occur. The restaurant will always know that they will be feeding people in that one location. The fire service doesn't. Like call volume, we can identify areas that have historically had higher requests for service than others, but that doesn't provide enough information for deployment.
A large factor in FD deployment is response time. NFPA 1710's standard for the response of the first company is 4 minutes travel time and the full alarm in 8 minutes. If we knew where/when our calls were going to occur and what they would be in advance, then the fire service could reasonably tailor a dynamic deployment plan to match. Unfortunately, that's not possible, so the goal is to be able to provide a somewhat uniform response.
So, the inherent problem with closing fire companies at night, rolling brownouts, etc. is not so much with handling call volumes or handling "minor" calls, but rather for "serious" calls like building fires where the "extra" delay because those companies are closed becomes a big factor in terms of fire spread, civilian safety, etc.

Well, to me an obvious thing to learn from this is that you can't use an "everyday" approach to a "once in a decade" event that you have advanced notice of.
As for at what point does NYC reach out for help...........
Call it a Devil's Advocate thing if you will, but considering the scope of a storm like this, simply calling in Mutual Aid may not be much of an actual solution for a variety of reasons. It's quite possible that the communities being called for assistance may be experiencing an increased call load also and you may be creating a situation where you're "robbing Peter to pay Paul". Additionally, considering the volume of NYC ambulances getting stuck and having problems getting around on the snow covered roads and around the abandoned vehicles, would adding more units from out of town help the situation or compound the problem since it's likely that some of them will have the same problems?

I find it interesting that anytime this notion of responding and not using the red lights and sirens comes up, most people seem to have a bit of tunnel vision on the matter. It seems like they forget that we respond to more than just fires and life threatening situations.
The fire service in general could easily respond non-emergently to a good number of calls without an adverse effect, other than not arriving as quickly that is.