Dinosaur

Given the taxes that are paid for the service that may not be provided we should expect and demand much better.

Yeah it sucks he cant be put out of our misery for what he did.

Nope, its just as stupid to hire a guy on overtime to drive a truck in a parade when their first-due companies are understaffed all year long. Are there still departments that take a front line piece out of service for a week before the "big parade" to clean, wash, wax, polish, shine it? Do these "work details" count for LOSAP credit? Why? Don't try to tell me we dont do stupid stuff like this. Ive lived it.

Do you seriously doubt the benefit of getting an injured patient to a hospital quickly? What good are we going to do keeping them in the street? Now we do the same thing for MI and stroke. Crowley may have been advancing his agenda but medevacs proved themselves in Viet Nam and Korea.

Cause they don't transport any faster than the ambulance. I've seen a ground ambulance leave and make it to the Medical Center at the same time as the helicopter so it never made sense to me.

So dont read it.

So what its been discussed before. Who cares? You don't want to read it don't read it. I'm so tired of the paid/volunteer crap. This has nothing to do with that. There are FDs that send almost all their first line apparatus out of town for parades. Asking how you cover is a legit question. How about Lake George? That always pissed me off. How many trucks and guys do you send at the taxpayers expense to a party weekend in Lake George? This isnt a parade for a couple of hours. Its a whole weekend a hundred miles away. How much does that little trip cost? To the guy that said you have 150 members. How many are fully qualified firefighters? Not support, not exterior, but real, qualified, interior firefighters. I'm just curious because the trend I used to see is that of that number only a fraction are actually capable of doing the job. One FD I was involved with boasted 300 members. 200+ were "associate members" and couldn't fight a candle let alone a house fire. 75 were drivers or exterior leaving about 25 to actually do the "job" that everyone boasts being here to do.

And we've never seen a cat skeleton in a tree.

Is the police budget affected too?

Most of the experienced guys who've responded disagree with you. Westchester wouldn't have done fine, it would've been a mess and mutual aid isn't adequate for it. Some of the cops on this board are suprisingly well versed in our business and other things and I've never taken their input as uncourteous or disrespectful. Are you talking about the ISO ratings regarding FF's? There is a difference between on duty and on call. The difference between most career and volunteer FF's is their training. Career guys get hundreds of hours before they hit the streets and there is no standard or requirement on the volunteer side. We can strive for the same thing but some are better prepared to acheive it then others.

Yeah, they consolidated in the movie but here in New York they're still fighting consolidation so it's still F&B and Unity around here. Pathetic.

And they hang the flag wrong to boot! :angry:

Are we all too afraid to call it what it is? It's a bunch of whackers who can't get real jobs who are playing in the emergency services. Black crown vics and tahoes with emergency lights? For search and rescue? Bull... These guys are just loose cannons and some probably have some political connections and get away with things for now but the first mishap they'll find themselves out in the cold and nobody will be there to back them up. Good intentions do not equal legitimacy.

Dude, I'm with you 100%. But some people have big egos that need to be fed.

It ain't broke? Are you kidding? YOU pay my tax bill then. This isn't beating a dead horse. We have a new governor and an entirely new climate toward public services ala Wisconsin. If you think that taxpayers aren't going to support consolidation you're crazy. Now more than ever these ideas are being discussed and you can either be part of the solution and help guide it so it works when they're done or you can be part of the problem and find yourself in a system on the outside looking in.

Tom, your faith in Pelham Manor is admirable but be realistic. What does Pelham Manor have on duty, one and one with two guys each? No rescue, no EMS but a contract bus. Mutual aid would get you more stuff but how fast and how organized and disciplined would it be? New Rochelle has a rescue, 3 more guys. FDMV has one (I think), 3 more guys. Call Yonkers and you'll get some real help but its at least 20-25 minutes away if the call was quick. Then what? You can piece together a response but you'll be spending more time figuring out who to call from where then you'll spend being the IC. Look at what NYC sent to the scene (not counting PD that had at least four ESU trucks there or EMS): By my rough count its about 120 firefighters including bosses. What would it take to muster that anywhere in Westchester or the rest of the Hudson Valley? Add to that the expertise and experience that the city guys have. Again not a knock on the guys from Westchester but NYC does more in a month than some jobs do in a year. They had everyone extricated in a hour and I bet most of them transported in that time too. Have you ever been to an airport exercise in Westchester? They can't transport that many people in an hour during an exercise. Imagine reality.

What methods are you referring to? Taxes? Grants? Not every community can afford half a million dollars for an engine and not every community qualifies for a grant so you're just wrong. It is true that some developing nations are worse off but if they're as undeveloped as you say what exactly do they need the apparatus to protect? First we have to defend and support ourselves and then we can consider helping other countries. We have way too many people in need to be exporting our resources.

I sure hope Westchester taxpayers don't read this. I can see the headline now, "Fully equipped fire engine loaded with extra gear donated to Maine FD". If the FD's have plenty of funds for all this new equipment and apparatus, maybe they should lower their taxes. I'll be the first to say front-line apparatus needs to be current and well equipped but if there's so much surplus equipment lying around that can just be given away something is wrong and the department needs tighter management.

We all get your point Cogs. You're single-minded to a fault and honestly believe that everyone fits into these two narrow points of view. Well, I don't fit into your black and white perspective and I've been both volunteer and career. I think properly trained and staffed combination departments can kick a** at a fraction of the cost of a full-time all career department and run sircles around most all-volunteer departments in response time, crew coordination, and most other fireground operations. I'm not from Connecticut but I wish you luck with the legislation.

What's wrong with being a critic? What's wrong with saying hey Chief, did you think about X (when he did Y)? The worst thing we can do in the fire service is stifle a little healthy debate. There's an entire federal website dedicated to sharing experiences and providing info on past incidents but we act like it's all a secret. Is the white helmet so sacrosanct that they can't be questioned? Look at the news, they nit-pick, second guess, criticize and question every action by the President and Governor for hours on every network. I hate to break the news but the fire chief is an elected official too and needs to be able to stand-up to a little criticism or questioning. It's part of the job.

This is disgusting and I can't believe the moderators let this comment stand. If you're sincere about showing your respects, you don your class A's and go to the funeral. You don't make snide comments here about something as sacred as a brother's funeral.

Because they can and if you suggest otherwise you get home rule thrown in your face. Time for a change.

You missed the chief's point. His point is how does a department defend itself from liability in the event that its personnel and apparatus are out of town when a tragedy strikes. Maybe bnechis can tell us what ISO says about maintaining coverage. I imagine mutual aid is fine but not for first due coverage but hey I've been retired for a while and may not be up to date on the latest standards. Nope, nobody is perfect but this is a thread about liability and the chief asked a question about liability. He didn't say parades are bad or that FD shouldn't be in them but when you send half (or more) of your firefighting force and front-line apparatus three counties away for a parade there is a liability question. I think his FD even participates in parades within his city but that's not the point of the thread. People really take these discussions too much to heart and don't think about the issues. They just get emotional and defensive. Try seeing it from someone elses perspective not your own.

Mo, I think you need to re-read your post and make sure you mean what you're saying. Are you realy suggesting that it doesn't matter who shows up for a class and an instructor should pass people who don't deserve to be passed? That's nuts. This isn't just school you may need the training to save your life or my life. You damn well better be paying attention and be proficient. You should not be allowed to attend an intermediate course if you're not competent with basic skills. If the instructor sees that you're not up to the task they absolutely should be able to dismiss you. What good are people with a book full of certificates that can't be backed up with performance? "regardless if they showed up or not" I hope your'e not suggesting that a student should be passed along if they don't show up for the required sessions. What good is that? You may not have been there to judge how they did in the class but the instructor was. If you can't tie a knot should be allowed to call yourself a rope rescue technician? Come on, you're taking this too far now.

There are talented managers out there who are excellent leaders without being an expert in every specialty that they manage. That said, I don't think vollie EMS draws a lot of those people in so being an EMT to serve as line officer is a good idea.