antiquefirelt

Those who drive can be and have been held liable in accidents where they were travelling lights and sirens to a non life or limb call. There are some compelling arguements to not driving lights and sirens to all calls and few for it. Our SOPs require EMS drivers to drive lights and sirens when it is a life or limb threatening call, and to respond "non-emergency to all calls that do not rise to that level. In 15 years of this I can recall only 1 incident of the 1500-1800 annual EMS runs where we "got bit" by bad info. A reported cut on the hand turned out to be a hand in a snowblower! Given the distance and number of lighted intersections I doubt we'd have gained more than 30 seconds, but the family rightly was upset hat we hadn't taken the call as serious as it was.

Not sure if it's more regulated in NY, but I believe utility workers have an exemption from the typical confined space rules requiring a standby rescue team. We have entries made by the power company and Verizon all the time with no notification and no rescue teams. The same exemption is granted to marine yard workers, of which we have two large ones. They enter boats and barges to perform work with very little in the way of protection and back-up. Thankfully one yard sees the value of our team being familiar and allows our con-space team to train there regularly for "training in representative spaces". In contrast the local DPW, treatment plant and large industrial facility on our waterfront all list us as their rescue team, and pay for off duty personnel to front load the team in case multiple calls or a 2nd alarm fire takes too many personnel to effectively maintain the team.

I'm not sure how some of you folks minimum time would work in a volunteer setting. Ina career job, time in grade also appeases some of the Union by narrowing the field down. The issue I see is that you could have a firefighter who in the vol. setting is a company officer or higher in a career setting join the VFD and be excluded from rank while possessing far more practical fireground experience. The same is possible in a career setting, though less likely. Even in your own FD or mine, how much time is enough? Fires are on the decline, and even then, many years of poor experience is worse than a a short time of quality experience. It may be more difficult but we need to find a way to properly assess one's leadership abilities. In some FD's those who take on extra projects or lead committees or other activities are credited for their ability to lead. Some say this can easily lead to favoritism or "brown-nosing" on projects/activities the admin desires most. I do know that while it's difficult to be a good officer if you were never a good firefighter, it's also true that great firefighters do not always make good officers. I've served with and under guys who were excellent in their positions and terrible at the next one up. Luckily the guy I was working under took himself out of employment with poor personal choices before we suffered a firefighter injury or worse. After promotions, goals and benchmarks must be established and reviewed during a probationary time to ensure the officer can do the job before the berth is made permanent. Our promotions are subject to a one year probationary period at which time they'll be completely assessed for their ability beyond the testing phase. This has worked well in 80% of the cases I'm directly familiar with. The other 20% is what makes the probationary assessment necessary.

That is why positions really should be tested for. When management and Union's work together to establish a system of promotions that has transparency, most of the politics and favoritism is minimized. While it is difficult to assess a measurable result of every requisite trait, the more readily personnel can see how to attain higher rank with the BS, the better the overall FD will be.

Without a doubt few systems are flawless. Often where problem employees exist there are other deeper seated organizational issues that allow said problem people to exist. But a well established base criteria for promotion coupled with a balance of written examination, oral boards will eliminate most of the BS politics and who's the best buddy issues. With elected officers there's very frequently questions of the officer's ability that are difficult to disprove. I've lived both sides of this fence starting out in a vollie FD where I was appointed as company officer and later elected as a chief officer. In both cases, I later learned how fortunate I was not to have allowed anyone to be hurt or killed by my very limited experience. And I was likely one of the firefighters who sought out the most training and had the highest attendance records. Still the election was a result of inner turmoil with old guard vs. new, and had little to do with who was actually the better leader both tactically or on personnel matters. I do believe some VFD's can still minimize the impact of the election of officers by putting forth criteria such as minimum attendance of training and incidents, minimum time in grade and minimum certifications.

No disrespect meant to any individual, but this is what you get when you "elect" your leadership.

Great point. Yet another excellent reason to do research beyond what we typically consider! We've always had a difficult time utilizing ISO to our benefit as it's been difficult to obtain measurable figures and straight answers. Then again, we never considered a quint either. Some mentioned the idea but the concept escapes rationale thought in our departments situation.

There are some downsides to combining apparatus that should be addressed when this is explored. One is that when you combine two apparatus into one, both functionalities rely on the same chassis. One motor issue takes both functions out of service. Cross staffing/training personnel is also an issue that must be addressed. Can one firefighter be trained in both truck functions and engine ops? Of course. Will those personnel who "specialize" by being assigned to the same function for long periods be better? Very often the answer is yes. In a small F this is less likely to be an issue as most personnel must be ready to do any task and being pigeon-holed into one functionality is rare. Ina larger FD, it makes more sense to have crews be more cohesive by "specializing" in their daily routine. Multi function apparatus tend to not carry the full compliment of one or the other functions as space on fire apparatus is very limited. Often those tools used less frequently are left off, and subsequently aren't available when they're the only thing that would work well for the situation. There are also tactical considerations depending on the apparatus. This is very clear with a quint, which when it is used as the primary engine often is misplaced for optimal truck work. Stretching attack lines functionally is like throwing the anchor out on the quint, it's not moving. Typical straight trucks while often placed optimally to start, things change and in places where third, fourth and fifth due ladders are either a long ways out or non-existent, moving the aerial is a tactical reality. If the company must lay in with a quint it makes placement that much more difficult. We recently bought a rescue pumper that combined a small special service squad with a standard engine. With careful design we actually carry more of each functions equipment on this apparatus, but if the piece is on a call of any type, our extrication/specialized rescue capability is severely hampered as everything resides on this unit which is a first due engine as well. This is one reason all the hydraulic rescue equipment runs off stand alone power packs and individual hoses vs. the onboard systems and hose reels. None of these are obstacles that cannot be overcome, but they require more forethought than just, saying, "Let's save some dough by buying a quint."

I'd sooner climb any E-One aluminum aerial than a comparable steel ladder just for the case of wider sections and taller rails. They just feel safer. It has nothing to do with my understanding(or lack of) metallurgy, but from a human perspective. Not to mention the few times I had occasion to ascend an E-One aerial the deflection was completely unnoticeable, compared to many climbs up many steel aerials where it felt like climbing the last few feet of a pine tree!

Not to mention "everyone's favorite" aerial: the Aerialscope is all aluminum after the base section. It appears the tired anti-aluminum argument's are rarely based on any real fact.

Thus far E-One has a perfect record of no catastrophic aerial failures. Very few builders can say the same. As for steel vs/ aluminum, aluminum allows far larger aerials at reduced weight, allowing for wider ladders with taller rails, making them nicer to climb. I'm not a big E-One fan per se, but you have to give hem credit that they seem to know what they're doing when it comes to aerials.

Not to be a downer, but I'd throw out one note of caution. It appears the rear right discharge is adapted up to flow an LDH. Given the height of this discharge, the weight of the water in the elevated hose may either partially clamp off with a kink and/or pull out of the coupling. Lastly, it's hard and somewhat dangerous to release a weighted LDH section that large standing on a narrow bumper and above your chest height. No easy solution, but a pitfall for others to consider on future apparatus.

I agree 100% that everyone should be billed equally. Maybe surrounding towns could adopt an ordinance billing only Westport residents? After all we must assume they travel outside Westport once in a while.

Pretty sure that's now the NFPA requirement. Our issue and many others is that with so many electronic sensors, the rate of failure is too great. We're constantly getting lights and buzzers on our two newest trucks, yet no open doors. This conditions you to start ignoring the alarms! Our Spartan chassis-ed rescue pumper is currently experiencing door alarm issues that cause the alarm to activate while in park with the brake set and no actual doors open. Certainly not convinced of multiplexing yet. And new diagnostics? Yeah right, everything says it's working 100%. A few years back we looked at a new E-One MM tower on it's first day in-service as part of a research trip. My chief was riding in the truck with them and I was following them in my POV, as we found them out painting hydrants. I noticed they had a rear compartment open and called my chief's cell and told him. He replied they were getting the alarms, but due to frequent issues (1st day in service!)they ignored the alarm as they were "sure" it was a false reading!

We had a similar situation with EMS and ALS responses. Being the only 24/7 staffed FD with ambulances we were starting to get beat up pretty good when the vol. EMS services started declining about 6-7 years ago. A few tried to get their towns to pay for per diem staff for daytime hours to little or no avail. We finally had to start billing for EMS mutual aid, as it was in no manner mutual. Basically many people moved out of the "city" to the smaller surrounding towns and pay far less in taxes, but were still getting the same service paid for by the "city" taxpayers. That is no more. Our city attorney asked us if someone didn't pay the bills if we'd continue to respond (we bill the originating jurisdiction for every call). We were surprised our lawyer would suggest anything but taking a hard line. Thankfully after much grumbling and some out and out refusal to call for the appropriate level of care, every request has been fully paid by the agency responsible for coverage where the call originated. On the fire side, no such issues exist and being the county seat and commercial center we have the potential to need fire M/A for extended periods that would pay back the litany of small fires we're called to assist with. I'd think Salem, NH taxpayers would be feeling the pinch. That FD has grown significantly in recent years and has many new decent apparatus and new positions to go along with the communities growth. Lately they are consistently in Lawrence which would seem to diminish their duty strength an a too often basis. Of course the experience being gained is not a bad thing.

Certainly when mutual aid stops being mutual the persons responsible for the budgets must evaluate having their taxpayers subsidize fire protection in the surrounding communities.

While the above is true, the system we live in will not allow Lawrence or any single entity to correct it. The price of goods will not change in Lawrence MA regardless of the taxation system they use as they are far from self-sufficient. What system could be implemented that would change this? A strict income tax system fails to recognize the large sums of money that exchange off the books. Using only residential tax would cause even greater numbers of people to leave the cities for quieter suburban living, while the city residents would be forced to pay a greater tax due to the reduction in taxable residential properties. I'm sure there are far more complex systems that might put us back on the road to recovery, but alas they tend to be too complex for the voting public to grasp. And any complex system is fraught with loop holes and ways for some to not pay their share. In my eyes the only realistic system is a flat taxation system with no other incentives or loop holes, coupled with less subsidization for those without income.

I just don't get how they can hope to accomplish their goals of more minorities without discrimination. If they lower the aptitude required to ace the test, which is pretty much where you have to be to make the list, do they think that more whites won't be able to pass the easier test? Then how do they choose without discrimination? This country is out of hand with these types of issues. For one I see this as the one issue that makes me feel racist in any manner. I can't help but be angered by folks who argue that the tests need to be changed so they can pass them. I'd like to think these were rare individuals but instead, they make it a race issue. It really should cause other member of said minorities to be outraged that they're being "proven" to be less intelligent by their peers and the courts.

I'm gonna take a stab and guess you'[re speaking of a LDH four-way valve to bring a pumper inline during the operation to boost the flow? They're very similar to the Hydrassist valve, in that water can be flowing and you can connect in and re-route the supply though the pump to increase the pressure. Whoops, didn't read far enough. But in any event, these valves are ideal for very long lays.

We have one aerial that has headsets for all positions. The driver's set has an opening for ambient noise on the left side ear muff. Our issues were with the radio/intercom interface. This is a David Clark system that never worked well on the radio side. Subsequently the sets have been removed from the driver and officer's positions in favor of being able to hear the IC or dispatch. On the intercom side they work flawlessly and made for a much nicer ride conversing in a normal tone. The same is true when they use the headsets between the bucket and the turntable position. After the issues we had with the aerial we decided to forgo them on future apparatus until a need arose. None of our trucks are too loud to adequately hear the radio or the officer in the cab. I can tell you I've stood on the "Q" and thought it wasn't working while wearing the headset, much to the consternation of the motorists and residents we passed, as the headsets do eliminate that much noise from outside them. I recall years ago an old debate of driving with the window down or not to hear other motorists, which to my knowledge was never settled.

That's what I thought too, but it looks fairly short leashed for a spotter. I'd rather the spotter not have to be too close to the truck. The ideal distance should far enough that he can see both rear wheels to start without having to move. If your too close, things happen too fast.

That is what we do. All our apparatus have back-up cameras and they are only for use when a spotter is not there (rare). Our spotters use a standard set of hand signals departmentwide which has helped a bit since it's inception two years ago. There are no radios used, it's all visual, if you can't see or tell what the spotter is doing, you STOP.

Our only guidance on TOG/driving says that you shall not wear a helmet while driving (or riding) and must not use the thumb loop/wristlets in the coat while driving as they do not allow a firm grip on the wheel. Every year when we re-certify as drivers (yes every year) we must drive the course in full TOG, as most personnel still wear all their gear. We've yet to have any issue, though I can see allowing personal preference on the coat. I'd like to say our operators could forgo bunkers as well, but our short staffing reality is that they will be very busy at most scenes whether it's a fire, extrication or otherwise. While I rarely drive except in recertification, I find that between the TOG,radio strap and seatbelt my maneuverability as a rider is quite restricted, so I certainly would agree this is an issue to consider. The leather boots made this so much better. I remember getting my hip boots trapped under the front of the seat while driving "back in the day". They even made some "driver's boot" for awhile with lower backs.

There certainly do here, in fact because they are generally public buildings there are more hoops to jump through. It's never good when any governmental body puts itself above the rules and laws of the common folk.

NFPA 1999,Standard on Protective Clothing for Emergency Medical Operations. Curently on the 2008 Edition.