antiquefirelt

I believe NY10570 has made some of the best counterpoints on the gun ban article that I've read. I of course disagree with the premise on many points, but it's nice to see a argument made using ones brain more than the heart. One of my earliest issues is with the firearms typing bans: ie: assault rifles, semi-auto, hand guns, etc. A firearm is a firearm. The capability of a few of my hunting rifles far exceeds most military long guns in range, accuracy and knockdown power. Anyone remember Geraldo's assault weapons show? The devastating effects of the AK47 on a watermelon made the audience gasp and the Brady Bill proponents rally, then came the common hunting rifle, bolt-action, 7mm Mag.. Of course they had no issue with that until the watermelon was turned into mist! I would add that yes, some weapons have little purpose or are designed with criminals in mind (Saturday Night Specials, cheap concealable pistols, TEC 9's, etc) Regulating firearm types, is much like regulating cars. Why should we allow cars that exceed the maximum speed limit? There is no legitimate reason to break the law, we know speed kills and accidents often involve other vehicles. The technology is there... What's the difference? Why do must we impose laws on law abiding citizens? For the record, I am for firearms registration and/or ballistic fingerprinting. I'd gladly prove proficiency to whichever law authority was required it. But, I find the NRA's doomsday scenarios of government troops taking our guns laughable at best, downright insane at worst. Talk about needing a civics lesson.

I used to have a concealed permit but let it lapse. I really rarely carried other that during hunting season, and that was really just out of convenience. I would still like the right o carry in full concealment to be available to me as a law abiding citizen that takes firearm ownership seriously. I think part of the permit allowance should require that you keep readily accessible and that you advise any officer that you're carrying right up front. Sure this might be some cause for alarm to some, but in my eyes the "known" is better than the unknown.

It has always amazed me that people have thought many forms of gun control would stop gun violence. Why would a criminal who intends on committing a felony care whether or not he/she is carrying a legal firearm? The though that taking all firearms off the market and out of civilian hands would take away their availability begs for these people to look at how the "war on drugs" is working for us. No shortage of crack, heroin, pot or coke in my area. In fact it's easier to get anyone of these than a firearm. Firearms are inanimate objects, they have no life, no feelings, are not biased, prejudiced nor do they act on their own. To limit firearms ownership based on their potential in the wrong hands is wrong. Given the logic that some guns are too dangerous for common civilians, most vehicles would be as well. Why should we allow cars that go over the maximum speed limit? Why not require cars measure ETOH to be started? The technology is there, the need is there as well.

This is the reason our City Charter requires all department heads to live in the City. This ensures they share the tax burden with those they serve. While that seems understandable, it seems hard to believe that any department head should/would base their budget on their individual tax situation. Currently, of our 18 Fulltime personnel, only 3 live within City limits. The rest are required to live within 8 miles of the station. Every once in a while a newly elected City Councilor tries to make it so that we all must live "intown", but sooner or later they're convinced this is not realistic. Taxes in the "nicer" town within our radius can be as little as a third of the City's rate, of course you don't get the same services either! Our personnel are very mindful of tax dollars and basically have become the champions of the city departments at stretching the dollar. This is probably one of the reasons we get most of what we request and our budget review is 1 hr. vs. 3 different nights.

Yes, as much as a third of the NFPA publications will be getting their changes as most are on a three year review timetable.

We carry two each K950's and Ventmaster chainsaws on our Tower. One K has a Warthog blade, the other a metal/steel wheel. The Ventmaster's each have Raptor chains. Our lead engine also caries a Stihl chainsaw with a Raptor chain.

I hear what you're saying, but I don't think it's too realistic in practice. Maybe depending on the scenario that has you forcing the door. I have yet to hear of any FD that takes a CGI to the door for FE. Personally I like the framing square or paint roller (another smaller tool) on panic hardware for alarm investigations. Rather than damage the door or wait for an RP we often practice our B&E techniques. Our guys pull hinge pins, shove knives, cut down milk jugs, coat hangers, whatever we can think of. If there is any elevated level of suspicion that there's a true emergency within, we go for conventional methods which end up cost the building owner more money. Next time you're waiting for the RP, let the guys try and get in "sneaky style", my crew usually has a race to see who can gain access fastest with no damage. As ALS noted, look at vententersearch.com they have some great ideas worth trying.

While I agree 100% it's a sport, let's not base it solely on physical training. Plenty of people consider auto racing to a be a sport, or the Olympic string twirling. Now-a-days a Sport is anything competitive people do for the entertainment of others. I eagerly await the Olympic Rap-a-Thon.

I think this depends on your point of view. If you agree with some of the stuff they do, that most of us don't, then you'd be inclined to see them as progressive. If you disagree or are skeptical, than your view is probably different. I would consider Phoenix to be "one of the largest FD's least resistant to change" vs. calling them progressive. Given the fire experience, full time ongoing R+D and trying things before making changes, I'd say Boston FD, FDNY, Chicago and some others are more progressive than PFD they just don't promote it as such. Back a few years we all took the Fireground Command Course based on Brunicini's command book, then we started having officer candidates read his Customer Service book. To say many of us bit hard, would be fairly accurate. But over time as we tried to implement the "Anything for Mrs. Smith" philosophy we seemed to lose sight of some core mission basics. Reality strikes most places harder than Pheonix, AZ. The most powerful lobby in most states (the other 49!) is not the Firefighter's Union. Pheonix has championed that, and certainly we need to pay attention. But given staffing, funding and demographics most of us can not make our little burg's into a Pheonix modeled FD. We can take individual pertinent lessons from PFD as well as FDNY, LA, CFD, YFD or the next town over. Every lesson must be evaluated on it's own merits and how it applies to your FD. On the booster reels, again, is Phoenix progressive? They're still using them when there are far more reasons not to?

We too had booster reels and got rid of them. At first there was some that didn't want to give them up, but now no one really longs for those days. Most of the guys are new enough to never had them. Now we run short trash lines of 1.75" with treated hose that can be rinsed and reloaded, so the cleaning time is much less, but with a more robust "weapon". The booster reels took up a fair amount of space as others have noted. I can fit a 200 ft' donut rolled preconnect in the same or less space as the old booster reel, seems like a no brainer. And as Batt. 2 mentioned, they really didn't make for an easy stretch once you got any distance or a turn or two. A normal line properly loaded can be deployed faster.

Very timely question Moose. Yesterday I attended an LEPC meeting so that our FD could propose the Couny LEPC take over as the lead of our FD run Haz-Mat/WMD Team. My dept. has operated a haz-mat team for over 20 years but in the last 6 years became one of 8 State funded Regional Response Teams. The issues we've faced as a FD team are mostly derived from maintaining adequate numbers of trained personnel. We found it necessary to utilize outside personnel to augment our personnel who are Techs. Frequently we've responded to outside agencies to find they could not provide enough Ops personnel to staff a decon line. As a combination FD trying to run a Haz-mat team that provides both Technicians and Operations level Decon personnel became a huge undertaking while trying to provide fire and EMS services at a high quality level. We decided we needed to lose the Ops level decon portion by farming it out to other FD's. Long story short, the State funding hinges on the Team being one complete team, so a County Team that could them be separated into divisions seems to be the best bet for us. Different demographics of FD's, County government and Sate laws may have a large effect on how this can work in other areas.

I can see the stainless tanks on the "wet side" type tankers, but it seems rare for anyone to use anything but poly tanks for internal water tanks. I believe they're cheaper and hold a lifetime warranty. That would seem to be a winning combination!

I agree the issue is with taking the ISO rating for what it is, not a mark that the FD is perfect. That being said, it would seem the Charleston thing is an anomaly given the time, funding and effort a FD must spend to achieve a Class 1 Rating. There are some top notch Class 1 FD's out there. Of course their are some great FD's with Class 8 or 8 rating too. But this kind of thing makes you question the system, I know there is a movement in the insurance industry to not use ISO, this seems to fuel their arguments.

I have to agree that ISO is not an accurate measure of the Fire Department's ability to extinguish fires. For the puirpose of education here's a little more on ISO: ISO seems to have been developed as such and used by insurance companies to set fire insurance premiums, but this opens up a whole host of questions. The range of ratings is between 1 and 10. A class one is the best and 10 is given for areas with no organized FD. Most of the numbers are "banded" together for the purpose of setting premiums. So often the premiums won't change between a 1 or a 2, 3,4 and 5 or 6, 7 and 8. (This might be different in different parts of the country) The rating is based on apparatus, manpower, training, dispatch systems, and water supply. There are lots of details in each part and some items are different in different areas. I mean no disrespect to the working brothers in Charleston, but the ISO Class 1 Rating there proves you can be quite F***ed and still be rated at the top. Given the rest of the lies and half truths told by the Chief and the Mayor, I'd be surprised if the Class 1 rating was gained by telling the whole truth.

I find it interesting that the reason cited for pulling the volunteers was a lack of accountability on the part of the volunteers. The State would have been much worse off had they allowed them to remain and someone was lost or killed. Here's a scenario: State guy, "Chief how many men do you have up there and what are their assignments?" Volunteer Chief, "Well I'm not completely sure who's up there but I think I have two crews, maybe a third." State Guy, "Get all your people down and lets start from scratch with some accountability." I'd agree with the State if it went down anything like this. I'm many states away, and know nothing about this incident, but I have to say that given the way firefighters die at wildland fires, accountability is paramount.

I see your point, but I do think it's a different situation. First, in our area on M/A calls the crew still operates as a company and the CO maintain direct control over them so they wouldn't be functioning under another FD's company officers. But of course we operate and cooperate fully with whomever the officer is paid, vollie, whatever. But similarly, all of us know what we know and it's easy to have respect and follow orders when things are being done within our comfort zone. As soon as things get outside our comfort zone we tend to question things. This is where you really have to have a lot of faith in someone you don't know. If your given an order to do something you think is not safe for your crew by a M/A officer, you're in a real pickle. Follow through at the risk of your crews safety or find a way to tactfully deny the assignment. You'd better be right either way! There is more to being a company officer than fireground operations. We probably all know guys that are good on the fireground but are terrible at the day to day routine. A company officer should know the in and out of the dept, the daily routine, the rules and regs, the SOGs and the tactics employed on the fireground. It's hard to imagine anyone from outside knowing these things as well as a fireman from within. It's "possible" but unlikely. Like I said before, some FD's do allow these "laterals" but they're usually smaller FD's who need experienced officers due to the personnel's lack of fireground experience.

Spent a few days in Inverness two years ago while on 10 day vacation in Scotland. Nice place, I'd go back in a heartbeat. We stayed mostly in B&B's and found that Scotland (probably all of the UK) really takes fire safety seriously. Didn't have much time to talk to any Scottish firemen as it was my girlfriend's "family heritage" trip. But I noticed all emergency vehicles looked the same all over Scotland and in Dublin IR as well.

A few things to add: One, the UK fire service is nationalized. They all have the same training and work under the same work rules country wide, not the case in the US. Two, while Chicago may be one of the largest FD's in the US and may operate 'similarly' to FDNY they don't operate the same way. The FDNY guys go through extensive training on their operations. A Capt. from Chicago would not have nearly the operational awareness that a 5 year FF in FDNY does, based on how they do things. Ask the CFD Capt. where the second due FDNY ladder OV man is 10 minutes after arriving onscene? He probably has no clue, but everyone in FDNY will be able to tell you based on the building where that FF is supposed to be. The building and operational awareness that FDNY instills in their personnel is amazing and anyone from outside would be hard pressed to even come close. Third, firefighting is a vertical advancement career. Allowing lateral transfers would stifle promotions from within. And anyone from outside would be just that an "outsider". In some smaller FD's I've heard of promotions being opened to outsiders if no qualified candidates from within are testing. This could be "new" FDs or those opening new companies with too few experienced firefighters. Now the above being said, there are those FD's that allow lateral transfers (mostly out west it seems) but then try and match the camaraderie and brotherhood. I think you'll find that starting from probie and moving up forms a much tighter bunch.

You know I really should care, but these things are so freaking nice, I don't. They're still better than what we had 20 years ago so I'm keeping mine! I guess I wouldn't buy them as dept. issue anymore though.

I'm still trying to figure this one out. Why can't the water company test the hydrants and paint the appropriate color on each? The spokesman says because they can't guarantee it? Why not? What is the source? We tried getting our water district to cover or discontinue any hydrant under 500 gpm. I can't imagine wanting anything that low.

I don't believe so, but I'm not certain we'd ever be able to tell whether as the fire itself often damages the liner. We also use snowballs when the weather is cooperative. And we also carry dry chem bombs in ziplock baggies. Another trick we've used with the baggies is to effect a good draft then let it suck the chem up the chimney from the cleanout. Of course we're doing less chimeny fires than ever though with fuel process up and dry wood scarce maybe next year they'll be up. For one I hope not as they are alot of miserable work with no excitement!

Chimney fire tactic: we routinely use a cast iron pot filled with water to put out the chimney fire. They're often found atop wood stoves for humidifying the air, though it works well enough we should get one. You just stick it in the stove on the coals, close up the stove and let the steam do the work. Of course you have to be confident the fire hasn't escaped the chimney.

I'll bet he did mask up inside, you can hear the tools hit the floor just as he gets inside and he looks like he's rolling back on knees to mask up. I'm not concerned given the amount of video provided.

Good point on self-insured, again they have deep pockets so they have to protect them, sadly there are people out their just looking to sue for anything and lawyers ready to take the case. As for Home Depot, ours is only about 6 years old, and actually not busy at all,we don't know how they survive and Lowes is opening next month just two miles away! But they are very good about keeping up their store other than the few errant hand carts parked in front of the hydrant out front.

If any agency regardless of type (VAC, municipal, private) bills Medicare, then they must follow their (MC) rules! They are very strict and if they think you're not living up to their standard can immediately withhold payments and force you to prove your legit. Some Medicare Rules: *You must bill everyone equally. No resident vs. non-resident rates *No balance billing (I'm 98% sure on this one, not quite 100) *You must be a "good corporate partner" meaning you cannot buy anything from members or their family members for the service. *You must ensure none of your employees are on the Federal loan default list. In other words anyone who defaulted on a student loan cannot work for you. * In order to write off old bills rather than use a collection agency you must have a written policy on how, when etc. *You can not bill for goods anymore, just the flat rates and mileage. *You must use their rate maximums for your area, and ares are very different across the country There are tons more MC rules but it's been a while since I took a class or had any reason to dig them out. Once we st up and became compliant we rely on our billing serviced to tell us the upcoming changes for enactment.