bad box

Spending $500,000 to $1 million for a heavy rescue vehicle if all it does is carry an extrication tool and whatever non essential leftovers that don't fit on another rig is a senseless waste of tax dollars. Any full size pumper or aerial device can carry an extrication tool and cribbing. If a department reevaluates the left over stuff that's carried on their expensive rescue truck they may well find that much of it isn't needed and the rest is a duplication of items that are on other rigs or can be carried on the other rigs.

Spending $500,000 to $1 million for a heavy rescue vehicle if all it does is carry an extrication tool and whatever non essential leftovers that don't fit on another rig is a senseless waste of tax dollars. Any full size pumper or aerial device can carry an extrication tool and cribbing. If a department reevaluates the left over stuff that's carried on their expensive rescue truck they may well find that much of it isn't needed and the rest is a duplication of items that are on other rigs or can be carried on the other rigs.

A friend of mine (RIP) did a comparison study of a career county fire department in Maryland that is a twin to Nassau County and found the career county department operated with a budget half the size of the amount it costs to operate all of the Nassau County's VFD's. The FDNY operates FIVE rescue companies in a city of 8000000 people, Suffolk County with 1,200,000 people has OVER ONE HUNDRED rescue trucks and no career fire departments. FDNY has an average of 10,000 rescue responses annually. I don't believe that Nassau and Suffolk County have anywhere near that amount. 

The Nassau County departments that have heavy rescues generally also have one or more aerials (including tower ladders). If you think it's justifiable for Nassau County to have that many heavy rescue rigs then more power to you. The fact is, it's a massive waste of taxpayer dollars.

The Nassau County departments that have heavy rescues generally also have one or more aerials (including tower ladders). If you think it's justifiable for Nassau County to have that many heavy rescue rigs then more power to you. The fact is, it's a massive waste of taxpayer dollars.

 
Sir, no matter how I try, whether I type in Village of Colonie, NY or Town of Colonie, NY, I still come up with the same number of people. That is 7,913 according to a 2013 censes.
 
And when we start to talk about Rescues, or the FDNY, I got a feeling "Bad Box" knows exactly what he's talking about. Both from a career, as well as a volunteer firefighters point of view.

A friend of mine (RIP) did a comparison study of a career county fire department in Maryland that is a twin to Nassau County and found the career county department operated with a budget half the size of the amount it costs to operate all of the Nassau County's VFD's. The FDNY operates FIVE rescue companies in a city of 8000000 people, Suffolk County with 1,200,000 people has OVER ONE HUNDRED rescue trucks and no career fire departments. FDNY has an average of 10,000 rescue responses annually. I don't believe that Nassau and Suffolk County have anywhere near that amount. 

A friend of mine (RIP) did a comparison study of a career county fire department in Maryland that is a twin to Nassau County and found the career county department operated with a budget half the size of the amount it costs to operate all of the Nassau County's VFD's. The FDNY operates FIVE rescue companies in a city of 8000000 people, Suffolk County with 1,200,000 people has OVER ONE HUNDRED rescue trucks and no career fire departments. FDNY has an average of 10,000 rescue responses annually. I don't believe that Nassau and Suffolk County have anywhere near that amount. 

Wow !!!
 
But it's all done for FREE right. On a smaller scale kind of reminds me of a place I am very familiar with in Eastern, Ct.

It has nothing to do with the quality or capabilities of the latest FD officials, it's the political oversight that is unwilling to allow the FD to manage itself 

You seam to be the only one with a real problem.
 
sure lets take Port Chester out, I can change the name to many many other communities that believe the local FD is properly staffed when it is operating at such low numbers it can not even meet two in two out without mutual aid. These depts include volunteer, combo and career. My fight has always been about under staffing and calling people something they are not folks the public and the department.
 
last year acity councilwoman in another Westchester community made the comment that she was so proud of the 120 volunteers in their department. The Fire Chief almost fell out of his chair. He had to explain to her that most of the members were in their 70's and 80's and no longer responded to calls, but they were still "members". That brought the total number down to about 50, with only 18 or 19 being interior he said. And of those only a few were really active. In fact they average less than 2 interior firefighters responding to calls. 
 
Not too worry, their are plenty of members!

The misleading term is firefighter, because the public expects a firefighter. When your kid or parent is trapped inside and a bunch of people show up with turnout gear, they expect them to actually do something.
 
Recently, the Mayor of Port Chester claimed that the PCFD had 300 members, 150 interior. But we know that they only paid for 75 bailouts (required by NYS Law) but 16 were for the career FF's of both PCFD and RBFD. So they only have 59 at best. To many depts lie, even to themselves about the number of members.

I no more want to see the police in charge of the fire department than fire in charge of policing. Like it or not when a position of this is created, the likely appointee will come from one of the existing services, that means experience in one and not the other and probably some sort of bias.
 

All you have to do is look within your own departments and see that the number of active members, and I mean real actual active members, is not as many as a couple of years ago, less than a few years ago, even less than a decade ago.  For all the reasons that have been identified within these forums the ranks of volunteers is dwindling.  Certainly the way departments are dispatched affects this.  
 
How many times can you drop what you are doing to respond to an automatic alarm that turns out to be caused by steam from a shower or dust from construction workers? Or to be cancelled before you even get off the ramp?
 
And, everything now requires an ambulance.  The public has been over educated to dial 9-1-1 for even the most minor maladies.  It seems nobody gets to the hospital under their own steam these days. 
 
Eventually it will have to become all paid.  Since I left Westchester I have lived in three Southern counties that provided paid fire/EMS-Paramedic services.  Palm Beach County has some pretty pricey areas like Westchester but the other two were/are not nearly as wealthy as Westchester.  If they all can provide paid fire/EMS to their citizens, so can Westchester.  
 
And for those who keep bringing up that laws and fire districts and all that prevent changes, well, change the laws for the benefit of the people.  That's what legislatures and legislators are for.
 
 

"Firefighters attached an automated external defibrillator to Cipullo and performed CPR. They shocked him with the AED and continued performing CPR with the help of a LUCAS CPR device, which administers chest compressions.
Yonkers police and Empress EMS then arrived and helped care for Cipullo, who was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville."
 
It seems that the patient is grateful for YFD's quick response [the reason so many communities dispatch the nearest fire company to life threatening medical emergencies as first responders]. The article gives credit to both YPD and the private ambulance company for their part in the patient's treatment and transport.

I am guessing but for ANY fire service to take on the ambulance service for a city involves a lot of behind the scene work.
 
This new duty would also have to be negotiated with the city and firefighters bargaining unit as it is a change in working conditions. Would additional firefighter/emts have to be hired ? Do the current firehouses have the room to house these ambulances ? How many go into service on a shift and who covers the city if those ambulances are tied up on calls ?
 
The fire service is the perfect place to run an ambulance service. The firehouse is manned 24 hours a day, the members are trained to deal with emergency situations, and fire stations are placed throughout the city.  Can it be done ? Of course it can. But not just overnight.

One thing is for sure, not all fire hose is created equal. A lot of hose is manufactured in China as a result of rich corporate types who don't want to pay Americans a living wage for them to produce a quality product.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31C5OYcwjGw

It's so sad that some folks who live in NYS (within an hour or less ride from NYC) and dress like firefighters don't understand that 9/11/2001 was the most tragic event that the American fire service ever experienced. HUNDREDS of first responders (firefighters, police officers and EMS personnel) were murdered that terrible day, THOUSANDS more are suffering from disabling effects of the exposure they had to the many toxins at the WTC site during the rescue and recovery operation and HUNDREDS more have died due to their exposure to the toxins. It definitely is not asking too much for members of the fire service to honor one day out of 365 every year. I worked with and was close friends with many of the Firefighters who were murdered that day and although some people here claim to know that these fallen heroes would want 9/11 to be just another day, I know that is not what any of them would want. These heroes come from a culture that has tremendous respect for our nation, our first responders and their families. I've retired from the job and live in Florida. Down here (1200 miles away from NYC) Firefighters honor 9/11 every year with remembrance events and fundraisers. These men and women get it, I'm sorry that some of you don't.

+1 to this. SOP's have the control man flush out the standpipe before hooking-up. However....you can't flush 20 foors worth of water (or 40, 50, ect) and something could very well come through the line and clog at the tip. However, you're much better off with a 1 1/8th smooth bore tip, both for lower propensity to clog and for it's superior penetration ability.
My personal belief is.....automatic/fog nozzles have no place in interior structural firefighting. They have a multitude of applications in brush, rubbish, decon, utility emergencies, exterior and many others....but a straight up house or apt. fire.....i'll take the smooth bore.

Another good reason to avoid using fog nozzles for standpipe operations is the fact that even after flushing the standpipe (prior to connecting the attack line to it) there will still be rust and sediment present. These contaminants will clog the fog nozzle creating a loss of GPM's or even a complete loss of water from the nozzle. Debris must be fairly substantial to occlude a 1 1/8" smooth tip ( although I've seen many unusual items that have caused problems even with the smoothbore tip over the years.)

Another good reason to avoid using fog nozzles for standpipe operations is the fact that even after flushing the standpipe (prior to connecting the attack line to it) there will still be rust and sediment present. These contaminants will clog the fog nozzle creating a loss of GPM's or even a complete loss of water from the nozzle. Debris must be fairly substantial to occlude a 1 1/8" smooth tip ( although I've seen many unusual items that have caused problems even with the smoothbore tip over the years.)

Some outfits have gone to 2in. hose with 2 1/2 in coupling. Interesting concept less friction loss and no need for reducers at valve. However the most important feature is the 15/16 straight tip nozzle, it was shocking to see how many Departments had some sort of fog nozzle which required 100psi to operate correctly on standpipe lengths ( A major issue in Philly Meridian Plaza fire, when standpipe pre set reducer valves were put on wrong floors coupled with fog nozzles, thus causing a pressure disaster, as I recall three firefighters died and fire operations were stopped and the building abandoned as they were afraid this high rise would collapse into downtown Philly.
Straight tip nozzles would have used the available pressure and developed some sort of fire stream, maybe not perfect but at least a stream not the dribble from the fog nozzle. Sadly, they ended up stretching 5in supply hose up something like 22 floors, could you imagine ??

FDNY: total of 519,798 runs for the Fire Suppression units, broken down as follows: structural fires- 26,531; non-structural fires-15,512; emergencies-226,724; medical emergencies- 231,122; malicious false alarms- 19,909. The EMS Bureau did well over a million calls in addition to these numbers. The year 2014 was the busiest year in terms of total alarms.

NYC EMS 1,600,000