boca1day

Until then drill on/after runs in the buildings in your response area. This way you see more than one setup. You get to know where they are located and the different things you do for each one.

The belief was that you could not size up a fire properly when rolling in. It gave the officers a view that they couldnt have with a coovered rig. I liked tillering but it was rough in the bad weather with old WPFD rigs. Also was not pleasent in the snow with a open cab.

In Los Angeles, LAFD ran open cabs until 1990. At this time NFPA required all open cabs to be covered and also at the same time they began using MDT radios that could not be wet.Now keep in mind the open cabs where mostly reserve companys but.. a few where still in front line. When i was a explorer with LAFD the Captains did say they liked them for size ups as they arrived on scene. Plus it was tradition.

So it is closer to 50% of the agencies in the county are paying people for coverage.
If they did an analysis and staffed according to volume and response times instead of antiquated, arbitrary jurisdictional boundaries, there would probably be a great improvement in the level of service provided with no increase in costs.
If an agency pays for one EMT and can't get the second crewmember, they're really just pissing away money.
Too bad there is no oversight in EMS. NYS BEMS is a toothless tiger and the regional EMS councils don't do anything.

And the 4 or so other VAC's in the same town(s) are doing the same. It would be much better to take those 2 one manned ambulances and CONSOLIDATE into 1 two manned unit so response times would be reasonable.
Each of these agencies is paying 1 EMT to do 1 or 2 calls in 12 hours. Most city ambulances are doing 8-12 calls in that time.
Big waste of $$$ and the response times still stink.

I find most "communities" haven't the slightest idea what level of risk they have. They do not know if the dept. is staffed or not. They see trucks parked in the station and they believe they are protected.
If the FD takes a week to respond as long as its not their home that is burning, they are ok with it.
And the costs in their mind is almost always too much. They want to pay nothing, because they know they will never need it. And they pray like made that the dept is well staffed, well trained and well equipped as they are dialing 9-1-1.

1) they only staff with the 1 firefighter, so when he switches their is no one left on the rig.
2) Since the State has imposed a tax cap, with penalties on the community for breaking it, no one is going to spend more money to improve services, even if they know they are woefully understaffed.
3) I know of only a few in the county that even come close to meeting the standards.
4) how many depts. even prep for it? How many that have fire stations in the flood zone even know enough to get out.

With regard to The Villages.... Apples to Elephants comparison....
For fire protection it is an IAFF local. For EMS, for about a decade ending in 2011 Lake/Sumter EMS (Lake County, FL and Sumter County, FL) provided EMS as a bi-county municipal entity. In 2011 Sumter County opted out of the bi-county agreement that established Lake/Sumter EMS and contracted with Rural Metro. Lake County decided that the previous model was still efficient and merely removed the Sumter half of the logos from the rigs and went on operating as is.... This is an apples to watermelons comparison with regard to anything in Westchester....
The Rural Metro has the contract for ALL of Sumter County which is 580/sq miles and has a population of 101,600. Within Sumter County, 51,500 of the 101,600 residents are located within The Villages which is 5.5sq miles which includes the hospital of choice for transporting within Sumter County. So R/M gets a major economy of scale. A contract for 101,000 folks where nearly half of them (the half that are most likely to have medical issues and who ALL have Medicare as their reliable healthcare payor source) are living in a 5.5sq mile area with a hospital right down the road. Lesson here.... You've got a captive group of folks who all have a reliable means of reimbursing an ambulance service making up half the lives that are covered in the County contract all living within spitting distance of each other AND the hospital. NO BRAINER.
Eastchester you might say is very similar... 32,500 residents in 5sq miles with a hospital nearby. Thats where the similarities end. R/M doesn't have the contract for ALL of Westchester County nor will they ever get it. So if R/M goes it alone in Eastchester they have no economy of scale, the median age is is 40 years old vs. 66 years old in the Villages and thus the payor mix for reimbursement is going to be vastly different than it is for the Villages where everyone has coverage and work will be consistent to say the least.. Lesson here... EMS in Eastchester is NOTHING like EMS in The Villages AND.... Rural Metro doesn't do a good job of running fire departments in heavily populated areas. They currently have Fire Contracts for Pima, Pinal, and Yuma County Arizona whose population density ranges from 36 people/sq mile to 107 people/sq mile. Their other two fire contracts are for Knox County, TN at 751P/sq mile and Josaphine County, OR at 50P/sq mile. Eastchester has a population density of 6,500P/sq mile and Westchester County as a hole has a population density of 2200P/sq mile. Providing fire protection in Westchester, especially Southern Westchester is NOTHING like Sumter County Florida where the County covers most of the unincorporated areas with an IAFF local and the Villages has a stand alone IAFF department.

This is happening all over Westchester. Flycar medics are transporting BLS calls because local agencies can not or will not provide minimum staffing.

Then after the job the powers to be have to get together and hammer out the issue(s). The "crime scene" card can only be used so often before it's a case of chicken little. And what crime are we talking about? Labor laws? OSHA regulations? NYS Codes? Since when do the cops ever investigate those and declare crime scenes.
If we are all going to do ICS, then there is no trump card like crime scene or potential fire so the chief's always in charge. We have to stop all the rhetoric and just do the job. It works well elsewhere, why can't it work here!

More water supply, NRFD E-1

Yes they were !!! and I thank God everyday I joined when I did and was able to be a part of that fire service.

I would not agree that there are "too many Officer" positions in Eastchester. There is one Captain and two Lts. working on any given shift. As far as Eastchester being a combination Dept., we have not had an effective volunteer element for over 20 years. In fact I think it's been about 8 years since volunteers were terminated from all fire response. Like many areas in lower Westchester the numbers are not there. Local 916 thinks that residents should know that just because they see a Ladder truck parked in the firehouse, it is not staffed and is out of service.

Thanks, Snotty, I knew somebody out there would bring up Education in The Fire Service. Way back when, before there was a FLIP, or for that matter, any formal education (except FDNY's Academy) there was a number of individuals who demanded education. My father went to the Delehanty Institute in NYC ni the late '50s. Then a new concept opened in Mount Vernon in about 1958. Imagine a course for firefighters taught by Manny Fried, FDNY who wrote the book on strategy and tactics.
The "nob" was then passed to guys like DC Oreste Spallone and Capt Seely Burigo who made Fire Science an Associate Degree course. Our education was now "official." We weren't done six or eight of us persuaded Mercy College to offer a BS Degree based on John Jay's curriculum and in 1977, I was proud to be in the first graduating class with a BS in Fire Science. Meanwhile, Doc Kiernan and a few Chiefs were working on a Career Chiefs Academy for new firefighters, then FLSS for new officers which was Statewide and Required.
Now, instead of taking 25 guys and burning things down (we called it "building a parking lot"), we can now take 150 guys, fighting a fire in a organized manner, and leaving fire buildings bruised but still standing. We also have better accountability, better equipment, and special teams like Hazmat, Tech Rescue, etc.
So what's my point in all of this? I sometimes hear of the new generation pointing fingers at prior generations saying today's way is better. Sure, it's better, but the new generation didn't make it better. It took a lot of work on the part of older generations to develop these innovations and hand them to today's firefighters.
You don't have to tell the old guys that they were doing things screwed up. They know that. That's why they changed things. Now, new generation, it's your turn to "take the nob." If you don't like something
change it, but remember, these things take time.
Oh, by the way, if you happen to run into an old guy, just tell him "thanks."

Pull up rubber boots, riding the back step, open cabs, SCBA for a few, not all. Please don't post any more photos, I feel old enough already.

A very important part of fire training is being left out and that is Chief's Training, it would stand to reason that after probie training of 229 hours ( at least) , 100 hours in service and 160 hour first line Officers course, the next logical step would have the Standards Commission mandate a Chief Officers Course, NYS law states in order to be a barber you need more than 1000 hours training and none to be a fire chief, that is crazy. This would be a good cause for the various Fire Organization to champion.

I was in FLIP school april of 2012, our class was 30 guys 15 upstate and 15 FDNY. Avg age of the upstate guys was 40 FDNY was 30. I did notice that many of the FDNY LTs worked in 1 company for their 10-15 years on the job and have experienced only 1 neighborhood. I cannot say enough about the school, the instructors and the value of everything learned

It is very respectable, but only when you consider that some agencies on some days take 60-90 to get a call covered.
On the same note its criminal that the homeless in every city get an ambulance in 8 minutes or less and a high end taxpayer gets a hope and a prayer.

You took this very differently than I had intended.
1st the FDNY group were the top 45 guys on a new list. 42 came from trucks, 1 rescue, 1 engine & 1 FM.
2nd. Yes in extrication we were way ahead as at the time only FDNY Rescues practiced it and NYPD ESU was responsible city-wide for it.
3rd My point (which I may have missed) was that because we operate differently we have different outcomes. The upstate depts. have no back up on search, no more truck companies and as such the upstate crews were more conservative which lead to finding fewer victims. But also ment when the time limit hit we were not as deep. I do not know if the time line was a realistic one, but it was very effective from a training perspective. The FDNY crews were more aggressive because the normally know they have more back-up, so they covered more ground and found more victims. I also think the scenario was less realistic for FDNY crews than upstaters, in you normally have more than a single 3 man search team.

I believe the course is called "FLSTP" (first-line supervisor training program. It is run by FDNY but it is for any NYS career firefighter promoted to the next up supervisory rank (usually Lieutenant, but it could be Captain or Chief, depending on the size of the dept.). When I went years ago, we had officers from Yonkers to Syracuse to Cohoes to Johnson city to Albany and buffalo. It was 4 weeks long, and the lessons were all taught in a generic manner, meaning they were relevant to any career dept., not just FDNY (there were only 2 days where the FDNY lieutenants were separated from the rest to teach specific FDNY admin matters). It was really interesting when we had a tactics class- each student had to explain to the class how they would handle a fire on the 3rd floor of a 5 story multiple dwelling. The small departments really showed us "big city" guys how they attempted to "do more with less". We all got a lot out of the class, and had a lot of laughs.

State law is silent on who provides law enforcement, other than the requirement to have law enforcement, so village town, county (which includes Sheriff) or State is acceptable.
State law specifically prohibits county fire. In fact in the 1980's they had to pass laws to allow counties to run hazmat teams and in the 1990's to run USAR teams.

Every time the IC gives a progress report, they give a condition of the incident. "Doubtful will hold" is given if it is doubtful that the incident will be mitigated with the units on scene. "Probable will hold" means that units are making progress and this state precedes "under control".

We're still using those terms. If something is going to change, no ones let us know in the field.

Mt Vernon Hospital got out of the biz 20 years before we wrote the number system. Cortlandt Vac was started after the numbering system, that's why its not in the alphabetical order. Note: I say we, because it was written by a small committee and it was 1st written on my PC.
And Montrose VA was added to the municipal/commercial numbers 30's & 40's since it clearly was not a volunteer agency (50's - 80's)

I knew cortlandts number was out of place, didn't know about the va. Thanks for the info. It's great to have seasoned vets such as yourself around to get some facts. Thanks again.