danb

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Posts posted by danb


  1. Up here in the sticks, I personaly have seen both side ( calling from road and waiting till on scene) of a officer calling it from the road.

    We had a fire about 2 years ago where we were at drill and we got called to a possible job. Now note that we do not have hydrants in our district AT ALL and the town has no plans to so our water supply is comming from tankers. Anyway this fire chief was on the road, and half way there dispatch advised of multiple calls so he tapped the 2nd alarm right away.

    In 2002 we had a fire when the chief was 2 miles away and the fire was fueld by LPG tanks and he could see FIRE from about 2 miles away and right then he hit a 2nd alarm and held all 3rd alarm companies to standby in quarters ( ended up getting moved to the scene). This move proved critical because of the need for a water supply.

    I've also seen it where a neighboring company has a automatic response for any structure calls in a certant area of their district and the automatic response has gotten canceled only for when the chief to get on scene to a working fire then have them paged out to respond!

    Thankfully we have a neighboring company ( our first m/a to the scene with their tanker(s) that is very close to our district and this has proven to be valuable many times because I can atest to the fact, that middle of the day on first due engine with your 2nd engine waiting to get out and your mutual aid comming thankfully from a realitvly close distance getting you more water when you need it inside is a big relief.

    Ive also seen senior officers call a full 2nd alarm assigment becuase he was responding and a junior officer on scene advised him nothing showing, and that its a furnace kickback and the senior officer disregards the junior officer and calls 2 tankers and a engine/tanker to the scene only to realize the junior officer was right!

    My theory and based on my personal experence is that in certant areas with a water supply issue is that its OK for a officer to make calls from the road. Then again I've also herd a company's first due apparatus ask premission to respond to a reported structure fire from their chief on the air so...


  2. Date: Nov 22,2006

    Time: Apx 1750 hrs

    Location: Lakes Road IFO Washington Rd

    Frequency: 460.5125 (123.0), 46.160, 46.40,460.5625 , Various EMS channels

    Units Operating: Lakeside Car 1 & 4 E-533, R-530, Chester Car 1 ,2&3, E-920 R-916, Movac 413D, Various Chester EMS units, Mobile Life, Statflight

    Description Of Incident: Car 4 on scene with 2 car MVA with multiple injuries Requesting 530 & EMS on a rush 1 Female patient transported via Statflight to Westchester Medical.

    Writer: danb


  3. Another thing ive noticed is you get some guys who show up to calls but to be honest dont do a damn thing. Not because they are senior men. Many of them are junior men in the house who are eather good friends with the chief or family of the chief. Ive seen this in my department and i've seen/herd of it in neighboring departments.

    We all know in 99.9% of departments there is "friends and family" and "others" if you are in the "others" catagory because you are not buddy buddy with the chief, family member, etc you will get stuck doing everything at calls. And i think that also contributes to burnout a little and is an issue in the fire service more so than EMS.

    Weather it be at a medical call when EMT/EMS need lift help, or at a car fire) where for some reason the person in question doesnt have their bunkers ( they normaly use the excuse of i have to pass the scene which is a bs excuse from the start!) ) to help rake the hose, the burden of the operations fall largley on a group of 5-10 members.


  4. With winter season comming quickly i pose this question

    i know alot of departments do custom jackets. I was wondering what if your favorite type of jacket im looking into getting jackets for the guys in my firehouse ( with the custom embriordory). I know there is the ever popular "bravest" jacket by game apparel but what are the other popular ones out there?


  5. Great topic. I think this gives us a good idea of how our neighboring departments work and hopefully will provide for smoother operations with them.

    Here is how it works with me. Since we dont have LT's its kind of akward ( personaly i think we should but...)

    Highest ranking officer on scene is command. Next Highest is Fireground Operations. Then idealy if we have cars 3 and 4 ( 4 is basicly same thing as captain i guess) one will go in with the engine and one will go in with the search team. There are some times though where we will have only one of them inside ( weather its with the engine co or search team it depends on the situation) And they respond to Operations officer. One of my junior officers is in a busy Bronx truck company and does it every day. Personaly i think it would be foolish to keep him outside if we dont have to ( he sees fire alot more than we do up here and is a valuable person to have inside with you)

    If we only have 2 officers on scene they are IC and Operations while the person riding officer is acting officer ( weather it be on the line or search depending on their orders)

    Exterior operations is usualy corrodinated with ideally the other junior officer ( 3 or 4), past chief or the rescues chauffer. Since we do not have any hydrants in our distrct we are calling 3-4 tankers for any working fire as a precaution. First mutual aid officer to the scene is generaly water command and he answers to command.

    Its kind of a weird system but once you get used to it's not really that complicated. We are a somewhat small department anyway ( apx 40 members) and lets be honest how many actually show up to calls! So it works out fine most of the time for us.


  6. Nice pictures were they taken down at Excelsior?

    Up here In Orange Co. We dont see many seagraves There are only 8 companies i can think of that have seagraves. it seems like pierce and KME are dominate in Orange County

    Cronomer Valley ( 88 truck)

    Newburgh ( their2 reserves are Seagrave)

    Vails Gate ( the rearmount and 2 engines)

    S. Blooming grove ( 80's truck)

    Kiryas Joel ( 2 engines)

    Slate Hill ( late 70's truck)

    Port Jervis ( engine 5)

    Lakeside ( 2 engines and the tanker)

    Is the manufacturer's of truck in Rockland County pretty diverse or is there one or two companies that have a huge chunk of the market like in orange county?


  7. Cool. I'll have to check it out next time i go to KVI.

    On a side not

    Its a shame not many people know about KVI. Everyone it seems goes to Alfi's in New Windsor. I've been in Alfi's a few times and was met with nothing but an employee who was really dragging his feet on some things. Bill on the other hand at KVI gets everything back quickly, and has alot of products for sale. We get our Leather boots from him, Uniforms and some T Shirts from him also.


  8. This is a very iffy subject.

    In my FD we run medicals and although we permit POV response, its getting better as in the sense of people are comming to the firehouse more!

    Generaly an EMT will respond to the call via POV park out of the way with the keys in the car still in case it has to be moved. I think its important to have an EMT at the scene as soon as possible, but i am a firm believer that everyone else should go to the firehouse ( except for your officers).

    The big problem i see is you get people who respond POV who arent certified and in the end just stand there with their thumbs up you know where.

    I think ( at least in my department) there can be some improvements to the whole EMT POV situation ( its not really bad even) by issuing EMT's radio's. I mean if i live 2 miles from the firehouse, and a mile and a half from the scene and i dont hear an EMT responding to the scene thats closer than me why should i jeporidze the patient by going to get the rescue ( and hopefully then you have a driver also)

    I think if your department thinks it all out, and explains a procedure to all EMT's and forbid non EMT's to go to the scene and there is some way of knowing that you have an EMT on scene, and the others can go get the rescue to assist for prolonged operations ( up here sometimes its tough for VAC to get out ) and FD might be there for a while with the patient


  9. More and more i hear FD going to EDP's.

    More and more i find out that firefighters( even better a Chief) who is/was in law enforcment taking charge of a EDP call and trying to talk the EDP out of it and taking on a role as a law enforcement official. Yeah its all find and dandy that your are also a cop but leave it to those who are getting paid at the time to do it!

    LIABILITY my friends and who is going to sue you if something happens is what it comes down to.