SteveOFD

Excellent reply and shows how things can and should be done. The one question I have and its rhetorical and not really answerable..is what will happen when this is no longer sustainable? I know many departments that start like this...but then society and demographics catches up and the switch occurs and it starts with..well okay they can't make that but what can we do its all we have at this point.
At some point....someone needs to stand up and realize the things that stops progression from something that is critical to the people you serve when some of the things mentioned here happens:
1. Being a firefighter is what you do...it should not be what you are. If that's the case it will make many other areas of your life suffer. Pride is great, be proud of what you do....but get over the pride and personal control issues when personnel and management are on the decline. You may find your department is better with full time management.
2. Its not about control its about service and safety. Regulations and standards are made to keep your people safe and in many ways to give better service with training requirements...again full time management will keep on track with these things and get it done.
3. When a career chief isn't available...or leaves his position and retires..that's it...he retires. If you need ex-chiefs to fill calls...you have issues far beyond administrative. Not to mention your not teaching line officers how to handle calls and get comfortable doing so. If you can't trust them because they're inexperienced...you just show another glaring issues for your department. I see this a lot in combo departments and mentioned often "we don't want them (professional staff) to get control" . Here's a newflash..get over yourself. IF you hate paid staff so much why remain in a combo department?

Being a volunteer chief is almost a full-time job for some. When I left office, I was putting in 30 hours week doing paperwork and meeting with the town officials per week. The saving grace I had, especially during normal working hours was that my A/C was a foreman for the town and could attend meetings during the day for me.
As for training or education to handle the admin side of the job, one of the biggest advantages my department had was that all the officers were involved in the creation of the budget and attended all the budget/board of finance meetings . This way as junior officers we watched and learned what the chief did . He would tell us... you will need to do this some day, keep your mouth shut and listen. The other thing was that somewhere in the past, one chief took it to write down in a steno pad, everything you needed to do as chief with notes and suggestions, timing and a detailed process of writing po's , paying invoices and how to figure out budget increases. Right after the outgoing chief gave you his badge, this was the second thing he handed you.
Connecticut offers a real good fire officer program. We started to take this course in the mid 90's and went over a lot of material on administrative matters from how to handle HR issues to budgeting . Every chief since 97 has taken this class.
For me, the biggest advantage I had was my private employment. I was a manger for a large corporation, so I had already been thru numerous classes on budgeting, negotiating and had a purchasing background. I also had my officers attend Fred Pryor seminars on time management, how to handle difficult employees and other classes once they realized that they were helpful. Cause' once the call is over , running a FD is just like running a business , Oh it is a business, think about it.

Because they don't actually view women as people, other wise they would apply "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" to all people, not just white, Christian, males aged 30 years and over.

To the best of my knowledge, the only TalkGroups on the Fire/EMS side of the System are Fire 10-19, EMS 10-19, Ops 1-10, Tacs 1-10. There are reports of several maintenance TG's (i.e. Training, Admin, Radio Maintenance, etc,) that I have not heard, but I have not heard of these being programmed in the typical Front Line Apparatus.
According to a bulletin that Westchester County put out on the UHF Trunked System in June 2004, the bulletin states "Further, it is not intended to replace any existing Fire Department's or EMS Agency's individual radio communication system". With that said, it is up to each individual agency how they would like to use the Trunked System.
As alsfirefighter stated it is best to contact 60 Control with specific questions.

From the Westchester County DES website, C.A.D. Valid Unit Descriptions indicate that the descriptors are from NFPA 1901 - Fire Apparatus Standard.

From the Westchester County DES website, C.A.D. Valid Unit Descriptions indicate that the descriptors are from NFPA 1901 - Fire Apparatus Standard.

From the Westchester County DES website, C.A.D. Valid Unit Descriptions indicate that the descriptors are from NFPA 1901 - Fire Apparatus Standard.

From the Westchester County DES website, C.A.D. Valid Unit Descriptions indicate that the descriptors are from NFPA 1901 - Fire Apparatus Standard.

I believe that. To be honest, I don't really know ALL that much about some of those county systems. It just seems like a decent model to have a career/volunteer system arranged that way. First condense departments to eliminate redundancy in buildings and apparatus. Allow a larger pool of volunteers to respond to a larger number of runs over a bigger response area. There are plenty of dedicated guys who want to go to more stuff, let'em. Then, place career staffed rigs sporadically throughout, more heavily concentrated in the areas with the highest run volume. Like I said earlier, there is still room in the county for some cities to remain autonomous due to size, ect..

I found this at FireRescue1.com. It is a time lapse of a Fire Station in the U.K.

I never met him, but it sounds like he was a great guy. The world could use more guys like him. RIP.

I never met him, but it sounds like he was a great guy. The world could use more guys like him. RIP.

I found this at FireRescue1.com. It is a time lapse of a Fire Station in the U.K.

Because if you can't argue against or attack the facts of information...attack the person.

DON'T GET SCAMMED!!!!!
Narrowbanding is only required for frequencies in the 150MHz - 174MHz, & 421MHz - 512MHz bands see this FCC Link.
Recently I have seen a couple of local area agencies submitting applications to the FCC to narrowband their Low Band 30MHz - 50MHz licenses. Licenses for Low Band frequencies DO NOT need to be narrowbanded.
Again, DON'T GET SCAMMED!!!!

PEMO3, I know it is probably a typo, but there is no UTAC40 it is UCALL40.

Eh...while advancements in standards and equipment has changed...the old quip you quoted unfortunately is alive and well. "We do it different here." "That's the state way of doing it" are sayings that are still alive and well. Get past that and in some states you still can't advance because of organizations that cry at curriculum hour increases, resistance to regulations and standards and so forth. So no...we're still pretty impeded by tradition, pride and ignorance.

I agree, but that would make a lot of NYS "members of fire departments" nothing more than lawn furniture wearing turn outs. If they do not meet the standards they are not firefighters.

Time exposure photo taken by New City Fire Chief Ken Flynn of the fire as viewed from Iona Island.

I don't think they attacked this one as "vigorously" as they do when structures or other property is threatened. From my perspective, they had limited crews on the mountain and pulled them back when it got dark so nobody would get hurt. They didn't want the fire to get into Camp Smith or beyond the ridgeline it was burning toward so they worked on containing from that direction. Seemed like they definitely did a risk vs. reward assessment.

For some reason, some people put a lot of weight on "In house Training" like drills. As a volunteer fire captain, I dont see how we can. It simply isnt the same as state training lead by a certified state fire instructor.
To me, training is two parts; State Fire Training, than supplement with station drills taught by competent officers and assisted by trained experienced firefighters. Some departments have no clue how a drill should be, Ive seen departments say that a control burn is a drill yet they only stood around and watched it to make sure it didnt spread. Thats not a drill, maybe for the pump operator who had to secure a water source and charge a line but not for interior firefighters. Than there is the departments who sit around the station all night BS'ing and doing nothing but getting away from the home front for a while, than they sign a drill sheet that SAYS they did a drill of some sort for 3 hours...how can a departments drill habbits be properly accounted for?? In the career sector there is no doubt, no questioning because its mandated and properly accounted for annually.
Thats why a lot of people are having a hard time seeing the training of volunteers as beeing sufficient...its not. Im a volunteer and I say its not. And to add to this this department isnt even a ligitimately operating fire department, they are not on anyones radar including OFPC as being listed in NY State as a fire department, so how do they get the insurance for their members?? If one of them gets hurt, are they covered?? They are not even dispatched at all by a 911 dispatch center?? There is too much that screams wrong here to me, they need to be investigated and someone needs to intervene here and put an end to this madness.

Recently I was provided with information from NYS PESH (Public Employee Safety & Health) regarding the required annual training requirements for New York State Firefighters.
The following is a portion of an e-mail I received from a PESH representative. With his permission I am forwarding the full e-mail with only his position, name, and location deleted.
If anyone has any questions beyond what is in the above, PM me and I will provide contact information.

What benefit is gained from an emergency ride to go and hang out at another station? If your reasoning is that, "well we MIGHT get called to the fire on an upgraded alarm, so we need to get their as quickly as possible," is exactly the same as saying "lets drive around town between calls with our lights and sirens going, because at some point, the tones are going to drop for something." I'm surprised that insurance companies even allow this to occur.

That idea was immediatly dismissed because it was NIMS compliant and made too much sense.

What's the difference between God and a Fire Chief?
God does not think he is a Fire Chief.