somebuffyguy

Can anyone explain to me what this fascination is with red lights? Why would someone join any agency, exclusively for red lights?

http://mtkiscony.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/MtKiscoNY_Emergency/index

1 hour ago, fire patrol nyc said:

The mayor refers to the money as "Taxpayer money"...the 2% money is tax money collected from the insurance industry...not the taxpayers of New York State....

And where do you think the insurance companies get that money from, Narnia? The cost is paid by the property owners paying their insurance.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/new-jersey-roosevelt-volunteer-fire-department-bond-vote-badge-417487813.html

Link to the story.

Why should a town of 900 people, and not even 2 square miles have its own FD ? Great merge it with nearby departments and let the members join other departments in the area.

The Westchester Fire Advisory Board is having a quarterly meeting tonight at 4 Dana Road, Valhalla, NY beginning at 7:30 p.m. I expect to see all you Monday Morning Quarterbacks there ready to explain how you'll fix the entire county fire service like you claim you can on here.

The following information comes from the Pace University study of FD consolidation (2009):

There are 4 stations in Mt Vernon. There are 4 engines, 2 trucks,1 rescue and one command vehicle. 16 firefighters and 5 officers are on duty. A reported structure fire gets 2 engines, 1 truck, 1 rescue and the command vehicle, this brings 9 firefighters and 4 officers. 3 of the 7 apparatus have no officer assigned on a given shift.

Those are the only questions I could answer using that information, and some of it may have changed the past 8 years. Here's a copy of the report, it may have more information regarding Mt Vernon you're looking for as well as being an interesting read for anyone interested in the fire service in Westchester and in general. https://edgemontecc.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/firereport.pdf

What % of minorities need to pass like on the last fire exam ?

Not sure about NY but Kings County (Seattle WA) EMS has started making their own Epi kits that only cost $15 wig each does costing an additional $5. They've also begun to sell these kits to other agencies .

http://kuow.org/post/king-countys-incredibly-cheap-answer-epipen

Already have a fire job, not leaving to go to a city who's mayor is more concerned about his political career and would sell out his city to get a chance at the state house. 

My concern is the degradation of standards in the fire service in the interest of diversity. I don't know if you could say the hiring process have gone well if it leads to hiring firefighters who ...

Get arrested for child abuse http://fox61.com/2016/04/19/female-hartford-firefighter-arrested-for-assaulting-her-child-over-2-years/

Assault fellow officers on the fireground http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/troubleshooters/Hartford-Firefighter-Arrested-Confrontation-Lieutenant-Patterson-Dalton-323005331.html

Act recklessly with firearms http://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-hartford-firefighter-arrested-1204-20141203-story.html

Are forced to resign after FOUR DUI arrests http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Hartford-Firefighter-on-Leave-After-Driving-Under-Influence-Arrest--289584071.html

Operate "drug factories" selling coke and ecstasy!!! http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Hartford-Firefighter-Charged-With-Running-Drug-Factory-164923516.html

These are just the first  stories from the past few years that pop up in a quick Google search. Are you seeing this kind of criminal behavior in such numbers in departments like  Greenwich, Norwalk or anywhere in Westchester (besides cities that hire only residents to promote diversity)? No, you're seeing this is Hartford, in Bridgeport, and New Haven. Cities that dumb down tests and give city residents enormous legs up on the test. 

Even if Hartford had no residency preference I wouldn't be taking this test, so that's not what matters to me. What infuriates me about this is seeing the fire service dumbed down to the point that criminals who can barely read or write their own names are being handed jobs, while guys from out of town who actually want the job and would work hard don't get a chance. 

Must be a city resident to apply? I'm sure that's gonna go well .

Their website has a page listing their officers, not sure if it's up to date. http://www.montrosefire.com/fire_officers.php

New list means a new process. When I took the Westchester cpat I was told it was good for one year (in that same list). If there's another academy there will be a CPAT, if you are being looked at for the next academy you will be called to take the CPAT. If you are not being looked at you won't get a call. 

Stop worry about when the next CPAT, academy, or batch of canvassing letters are. If it applies to you, you will be contacted .

I gotta say my favorite is this tribute to "salvage and overhaul". http://www.blackhelmetapparel.com/product.php?id=Salvage and Overhaul Firefighter T-shirt&nosto=pagetemplate-nosto-1

I can't believe people buy this stuff, save some time and just flush your money directly into the toilet and cut out the middle man.

Don't really think this is the right place to spread a rumor about 18 people losing their livelihoods. If you're someone who'd be directly affected by this I'd imagine you'd have a better source than this website. If this post was about my department I sure wouldn't want to hear about it here first. 

I understand the original poster is just looking for info but this isn't the right place. If it's true it'll come out and we'll all hear about it soon enough, if it's false then we're just causing people to worry over nothing. 

3 hours ago, Ladder44 said:

I wouldn't say absurdly high, id say they have a strong union and good working relationship with the town.

That or when the median household income is nearly 200K, there's a little cash lying around to pay firemen. 

I wouldn't put much value into what an internet troll comments on. With a generic name and profile pic that isn't even of a person, my guess is he's just trying to get people riled up. 

This is only for the firefighter/medic position. I'm sure the requirement of being a medic seriously limits the number of applies to. From what I understand FF/PMs ride the emergency unit as opposed to an engine or truck. Maybe someone can fill us in on how it's exactly run.

Here's the contract. http://www.greenwichct.org/upload/medialibrary/a43/Local_1042_IAFF_CBA_2012-2015.pdf

Can't say whether it's a "good department" as I have no first hand knowledge. But if you're testing every department is good. 

20 minutes ago, SageVigiles said:

Why wouldn't a Fire Investigator need to respond with lights and siren?

Has anyone ever died waiting for the Fire investigator to arrive? The FD should still be there for long enough while overhauling to give the investigator plenty of time to arrive. I've personally never been at a fire in Westchester where we had to stand around doing nothing waiting for them. And if you are completely done with operations, release the assignment and leave one crew on scene. I couldn't justify the risk of sending a fire investigator to a scene lights and sirens. 

Couldn't get that link to work, here's the wiki page for it. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_nightclub_fire?wprov=sfla1

Is there any sort of a policy in Westchester that would allow other departments to hire these guys even if they're not on the current list? If they're able to I'd hope other departments do the right thing and pick these guys up. I know Hartsdale picked up a few laid off firemen from Long Island not too long ago .

So what's the big solution? I've seen a lot of complaints but not many answers. I've seen more certifications are needed (but also that they don't qualify one to be an officer), they need more experience(in a department that doesn't see much fire I don't know where they'll get it) and that the public is to blame for not knowing enough(but if we can't figure it out I don't know how they will) . 

Unfortunately it seems this FD simply has to make due with what they have. If they don't have enough qualified candidates do the simply not have a chief? I can understand maybe getting rid of an assistant chief position, but someone ultimately needs to be in charge. This only leads me to two possible answers:

1. Hire a paid chief. It's getting more and more difficult for people to maintain the qualifications and run a department in their spare time.  

2. MERGE. Can anyone please explain to me how we've come to the conclusion that we'll be able to find someone to be qualified to run an FD in every 2 square miles of this county? How do we expect any of these small departments to provide the manpower (either volunteer or career) and find a chief? If Rye wanted to have the staffing to meet NFPA recommendations of 17 at a structure fire, with 4 shifts (and no admin or training staff), that's a 68 man roster. With only 15k living in the city, that would be like Yonkers having 900+ firemen! While the union can throw out all the hashtags they want, wouldn't they be better off suggesting something that could work and not kill the tax base ? Between Rye, rye Brook, port Chester, mamaroneck and larchmont you have a bunch of understaffed departments right on top of each other. With a "Shoreline regional FD" you could afford to properly staff it with career members, have an ample number of volunteers and only need one chief to manage it. Or they could continue to rely on 3 mutual aid departments for every room and contents fire while looking for a new chief every year on every exit of I-95.  

That's what I'd do if my union was in that situation.  Just saying. 

While it certainly sucks for its members, does a .4 sq mile town really need it's own department? It's certainly unlikely that a town with 3,000 people could afford the apparatus or supply the manpower for a self sufficient department. At the end of the day the town needs to give the best fire protection possible and do what's right for th taxpayer. 

20 hours ago, sueg said:

 I remember from the papers Greenwich was very, very busy, and had an arson problem on top of it for the past two years.

According to their website Greenwich FD runs 11.5 calls a day on average. While that would make a busy company, I don't think I'd describe it as a "very very busy department". 

Compared to other departments they seem fairly on par regarding staffing. Norwalk only has 20 more firefighters and a much larger population and call volume, same with Danbury.

Does anyone have an exact breakdown of how many companies are in Greenwich and what the staffing is? I recently spoke to a Greenwich firefighter who told me the engines downtown had 4, the truck had 3 and engines north of the Merritt had 2 each. But I don't know how many companies that is or if I had mistaken what he said so please correct me. 

According to their website Greenwich has 106 firefighters. So if they ran 24 ff at any time (leaving 10 left for administrative positions) they could run 6 fully staffed companies. If they're putting 2 on some rigs with that staffing could it be they're running more engines than they need?

Again, I did my research as best as I could, but if there's any mistakes let me know. I'm just throwing out ideas here. 

Great post, especially for those of us who weren't involved in emergency services at the time and are seeing these calls for the first time. Looking forward to 05, etc.