Dinosaur

That should probably be a two person operation and they should let the single plow trucks be single person operations. That's a lotta truck for one guy in poor road conditions.

The best way to use your bailout device is to never be in that situation in the first place. The free flowing fire like this one is not the point where you should use a bailout device, rather, like STAT213 said, a ladder could have placed more efficiently regardless of whether a line was being stretched up or the firefighter was coming down. Thankfully our PPE protects us for a short while so we can gain our bearings, make the urgent radio call, and make a safe egress.

Now....Why did this firefighter take off his gloves while he was INSIDE a burning structure?

Probably because in training he was allowed to take them off to do things that required better dexterity or ease of operating. Train the way you fight, fight the way you train.

Why they were trying to send a lone FF a hose via a window is yet another question. But we could critique this all day.

The better question is... Could this happen to me?

Unfortunately, consolidation or reorganization is a tough thing to talk about (as this has been discussed in several circles over and over again on this site). So, my suggestion is to start small. What if you start with more dual responses for certain types of calls? I have a good example of how we can start small:

In the town of Livonia (Livingston County), there are 3 departments; Livonia, Lakeville, and Hemlock. Livonia has a lot of members and money, Lakeville has few members and a lot of money, and Hemlock has few members and little money. Consolidation was briefly discussed, but ultimately shut down. The solution, however, was a dual response plan for structure fires and MVA's with reported entrapment. The dual response is 24/7, and immediately places 3 engines, 2 tankers, and a ladder on a structure assignment; a MVA with entrapment gets 2 engines with a third on standby (either Lakeville or Hemlock, depending on which side of the town it's on). So, a structure assignment, assuming 3 or 4 firefighters per rig (not counting the tankers) gives you 9-12 firefighters on the initial assignment. This is enough to get a strong attack started upon arrival.

Moral of the story: Consolidation/reorganization doesn't have to be an immediate thing. You can start small and work together with your neighbors to start filling the holes.

Tough to talk about, even tougher to implement, but here we are continuing to spin our wheels.

How about this? http://www.larchmontgazette.com/2009WP/2009graphics/firereport.pdf

Came out 6 1/2 years ago and we are not one step closer to moving toward a collaborative regional approach.

Remember this?

How much progress have we made in the past 6.5 years?

http://www.larchmontgazette.com/2009WP/2009graphics/firereport.pdf

The only realistic solution is some degree of a regional approach. otherwise this will still be a topic for the next 100 years

A coming together of the willing.

Gotta bring the unwilling together as well! Can't approach this in the same way we have approached everything else in emergency services for the past quarter century!

http://auburnpub.com/news/local/article_b6b0189f-6cea-5104-8d73-14adc933089d.html

The call started with six responding departments. It increased to 22, all to have enough water hauled to the scene, and enough manpower.

“You look back and see that, it happens that way,” said Jim Perkins, chairman of the Cayuga County Fire Advisory Board. “We just keep calling more departments until we get enough people. It’s pretty much normal nowadays.”

So, when Brian Dahl, director of Cayuga County Emergency Services, stood up at a Judicial and Public Safety Committee meeting in November to tell legislators that his office was looking into the possibility of a countywide fire department, jaws dropped. It was situations like the fire on Townline Road that motivated Dahl to start a conversation about the future of the fire service.

"I wanted to make sure legislators knew we were looking down an avenue that, you know, this may be coming knocking on our doorstep," Dahl said. "Eleven years I've been here, and I'm slowly watching the fire service dying out."

Should charge a fee per tank car in order to better prepare Fire Departments along the Balkan routes, the fee would not have to excessive per car,as so many of these tank cars are on the move each day, the revenue could be considerable and all sorts of equipment, supplies and training could be given to local Departments and regional response efforts.

Seems the expense is borne by the locals and might not be happening in all states, perhaps a Federal fee distributed to the States then to the locals.

Could be big bucks without hurting the industry. fair is fair they are introducing this significant hazard to vast populated regions, they should be expected to help in the solution.

Aren't the Balkans in Eastern Europe? Would make more sense to tax the rail companies here in NY, no?

Completely wasted space behind the cab, how about some type of enclosure with bench seating to aid in evacuation and why not all wheel drive instead of two wheel so it can go in the snow, speaking of which how about a plow attachment and a winch.

Sounds like they had money for dump trucks not specialized vehicles and this is the best they could do. Another waste of taxpayer money.

That was never a consideration. Didn't you read the article? These are strictly to be used by the Governor when he has to distract people involved in an emergency response by showing up and "taking a tour" (read photo op). Why he would order a trooper to drive into flood water is beyond me and that the trooper did is equally ridiculous. He needs to be less of a responder. It's pathetic.

Lies in an election. What an unusual occurence!

So here is my 2 cents worth,

We have Open Houses, Volunteer Drives, a community holiday Party for the Kids and a Santa's wagon etc. every year.

Most of the communities in Westchester believe they are protected by carreer or paid fire houses.

One of the differences, "the Sirens".

If they hear the siren, The community knows their volunteer fire department is responding to some emergency!

I respectfully disagree. Most people only know that the loud noise means that there's an emergency somewhere. You'd be shocked to learn how many people have no idea (and don't give a damn either) whether or not theirs is a volunteer or paid department.

I know some areas in North Castle are definitely dead spots. And I can actually stand on the Verizon tower at the airport with my phone in hand and have NO service!

So if you're standing on the Verizon tower at the airport you'll miss the call in Armonk.

How many residential/business districts have no cell or radio coverage these days?

It's like North White Plains going to Old Orchard street all the time, or Briarcliff and the Atria.

I don't think the Atria applies to this discussion. They are not a tax exempt property.

I agree. I've seen cases where EMT's have been fired for treating but mostly transporting injured animals. I think a law is needed to give a crew permission, when necessary and available, to transport the animal to definitive care if no other resource/method is available.

It wouldn't require a new law, simply revision of DOH codes/regulations that currently prohibit it.

I don't believe this is oriented to us in the fire service. I think it is EMS where there are health regulations about treating and transporting animals in an ambulance.

This has been squashed, US Rep. Patrick Maloney has been able to secure FEMA funding to keep the guys on the job.

Kicking the can down the road. Another grant buys them a reprieve nothing more.........

Is that a full-time salary or part-time salary plus benefits?

Not saying it's a bad idea but what's the plan? Sounds like a smart way to add 125K to their reserve funds while seeming very proactive. And they probably have 125K in their reserve funds already so they didn't need to do this to have the funds available in 2016 (or 17) or whenever this is going to happen.

I am not at all opposed to the idea, I just think it may ultimately be the death of the volunteer department Somers.

Why become an officer if you can't become chief?
Why go to training if you can't become an officer? (not firematic training but higher level, officer type training)

Why should I volunteer if the chief is getting paid?

Will the first paid chief be one of the commissioners or family member of a commissioner?

See? Lots of unanswered questions.

French officials are now saying 153 have been killed, according to CNN. The gunmen are still at large.

More information: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/world/paris-shooting/

Some of the terrorists still at large. Several killed by suicide belts and/or police.

Isn't LFD obligated to respond as a signatory of the mutual aid plan? If there was a county wide paid or combination department and there was a large 4th alarm going on there would be empty stations throughout the county (hopefully done in a systematic way). I'm not saying consolidation would not be good it would but anyone who thinks a consolidated department would staff all the apparatus or stations that exist at this point to the current levels is fooling themselves.

From the plan:

VII. Participation

Each Fire Agency participating in this Plan (“Participants”) shall make a good faith effort to

respond to each call for assistance received from The Westchester County Emergency Communications Center a/k/a “60 Control” (“60 Control”).

All requests for Mutual Aid must be coordinated through the County’s 60 Control.

Unless there are extenuating circumstances, requests for Mutual Aid should not be made directly from one Fire Agency to another. It is recognized, however, that circumstances may require a Fire Agency to make a Mutual Aid request directly to another Fire Agency. In those situations 60 Control shall be notified as soon as possible of such a request and provide all information to 60 Control required as if it were a request placed with 60 Control for Mutual Aid.

A Fire Agency may decline to respond to a request based on unit unavailability.

A Plan Participant may deem certain apparatus unavailable for Mutual Aid response. In such instances, prior written notification of that restriction must be made to 60 Control when becoming a Plan Participant. (For example, a Fire Agency may have special equipment that is restricted to the jurisdiction, e.g. aerial ladder, heavy rescue equipment or equipment that has highway clearance, weight or distance limitations, etc.)

A Plan Participant providing Mutual Aid to a requesting Fire Agency shall commit its equipment and manpower to the requesting Fire Agency until released by the Incident

Commander.

http://emergencyservices.westchestergov.com/images/stories/pdfs/FireMutualAidPlanAdopted12%2019%202012FINAL.pdf

Does yonkers stand by in other jurisdictions when asked or do they only go mutual aid when responding to the scene?

They will stand by for other jurisdicitions if the jurisdicition is making an effort to recall it's own personnel to backfill. If they don't make an effort to recall off-duty/additional FF, then Yonkers will take up and return to the city after a reasonable amount of time.

Does TMFD assume the liability from LFD when this situation happens?

What liability?

The governed gave their consent by only voting on the referendum and not voting for the commissioners that support their opposition.

IMHO the taxpayers of the YHFD are getting what they deserve. Being screwed out of their own tax $ by the YHFD fire district.

If the taxpayers voted "NO" it shouldn't matter who is in the commissioner's seat, should it?

Just out of curiosity, were there any anti-station 3 candidates for the board of fire commissioners? Makes it hard to do what you suggest when all the candidates are pro- and you're against. It leaves you with no option other than voting down the referendum.

The physical agility will help take care of this but it is indicative of a ridiculous testing metric. With 300 people scoring 100 (or higher), there is definitely something flawed with the test or testing process.

Nobody cares! The residents reelected Davis as mayor despite all the shady dealings in his past and his utter disregard of emergency services. Davis doesn't care about the firefighters because they're not voters in his little fiefdom. He will continue to destroy what was once a vibrant department and then cry to the state or feds for funds to fix it after a tragedy occurs.

He's a scam artist and playing his best game!

Well, to be fair, the "kinder and gentler" society we live in has made it more difficult to adequately guard inmates today. Used to be that you kept lights on so you could see them 24/7 but they deemed that unfair so now they turn lights out at night. Guards used to come by and check on the inmates with flashlights but that doesn't let them sleep and is also unfair. Hence you have this ridiculous environment where this can go on.

Now I'm not saying there isn't blame at Dannemora! But there is also plenty of blame outside the walls!

Here's my biggest beef with all the hub-bub around drones: Drones are just remote control HELICOPTERS! The only difference is that today's RC choppers are quad-rotor and have software pre-built into them to make them stable in flight. Technically, the FAA doesn't have to do anything about them (regulation wise) because drones are just RC aircraft.

However, because they're becoming popular and these RC aircraft are interrupting everything from air traffic and aircraft operations to sports events and emergency incidents, and they need to be regulated. Just a decade ago you would have never seen a quad-copter in the sky. Nowadays you don't have to look far. I see about 3 or 4 every week! Having worked at an airport for some time now, I've seen what happens when a bird hits a plane, especially a an 8lb goose! Imagine what a drone could do!?!

But, to stay on the fire service topic, I'll bring back my point from before. If I'm on the roof and a private drone buzzes my head, it's probably going to scare me, which may end in me losing my footing and falling. There's a place for these RC aircraft, and the fire scene is only one of those places IF everyone knows there is going to be a drone overhead. It's best, IMO, to keep the airspace clear of drones to protect the responders, victims, and the general public. Imagine if a news chopper and drone collided over a major incident....Do you want to be standing underneath that?

p.s. My apathy for private drones is from my years working in aviation. I actually had an RC airplane when I was in high school. Please do no think that my opinion is based on half the information available.

Problem is they're not limited to RC aircraft. "Drones" are an entirely new category of aircraft called UAS and there's a growing industry associated with them that totally eclipses the RC aircraft market.