antiquefirelt

You do not want the siren hooked up to it (other than maybe to kill it when the emergency master is off). You need to mount it somewhere.

Regarding Liability, let me just say that this is the USA. You can sue almost anyone for almost anything.
You can win with a ridiculous premise (MacDonalds sold me a hot cup of coffee that I spilled in my lap while driving).
You can lose with a perfectly sound argument (FDNY has spent millions to recruit minorities but still can't hire off the list).
It's all up to a jury who could be made up of those loonies that you meet every day on those "strange" calls, or by a judge who has been out of the mainstreamm of society for so long that he doesn't have a clue.
Every lawsuit has three winners: The guy that won...and two lawyers.
That makes "Are you liable" a rhetorical question.

How about citing some relevant corruption? Any benefit a union member takes as part of their contract was in fact agreed to by management. It sounds to me like you're misdirecting your anger on the Union, when in fact you should hold your elected officials accountable for agreeing to contractual obligations you do not support. But since it's easier to sit on the couch than it is to get involved in local politics, I'm betting you're just as happy complaining by computer, and not really interested in helping.

How about citing some relevant corruption? Any benefit a union member takes as part of their contract was in fact agreed to by management. It sounds to me like you're misdirecting your anger on the Union, when in fact you should hold your elected officials accountable for agreeing to contractual obligations you do not support. But since it's easier to sit on the couch than it is to get involved in local politics, I'm betting you're just as happy complaining by computer, and not really interested in helping.

Not to mention every single contract has been agreed upon by both the union and the ELECTED officials of the municipalities!! Elected by whom??? The tax payers that live there perhaps? So every single item that a union has was fairly negotiated by both sides and voted upon by both sides. You act like the unions are not willing to bend in these hard times. This is the farthest from what is happening.

Well, a few things.
I might suggest that your grammar is more ignorant then my opinion, but I’m above that, so I won’t. 
And while discussing ignorance, let's take a look at your "facts".
Every single one of your assertions is wrong. I believe that is ignorant. Your contention that all public employee unions are entitled to all the benefits you list is just absurd. Please let us know the source where you are drawing your "facts" from.

Bare minimum should be highlighted underscored and in italics! The chauffeur drives, hooks up and pumps. The officer takes a dash in to see what's going on and where the line should go, then he's tasked with directing the operation. That leaves 2 poor bastards to stretch hose? YIKES! We're talking about a lot of time and backbreaking work, especially for the back-up guy. How much running back and forth, clearing the hose past corners and getting extra slack, can one guy do?
We're down to 4 firemen in addition to the officer on every engine and it shows! Missing that 5th man on the back-step adds precious minutes to a stretch. It's been proven that the addition of 1 firemen on the line cuts the time needed to put it in operation IN HALF.
Staffing is everything. Training is important, so is equipment. Our commissioner loves to tote every little innovation, project and purchase as something that makes us the "best trained, best equipped fire department". (Believe me, the men get quite a laugh out of that line....) If you don't have staffing, you have nothing. That's the single most important component of firefighting.

I hope someone also educated the chief of the dangers of venting the building before a hoseline is ready to make an attack? The last few years have proven that the fire service can learn new tricks and utilize actual science to assess how specific tactics effect the fireground. Anyone who hasn't had a chance to look at any of the work that Chicago FD, FDNY, UL and NIST (and others) has done should take a look on the UL website for some excellent training on how fire behaves under different conditions. The legend vs. modern home furnishing fires are particularly interesting as they show why many of yesteryears tactics need to be reevaluated or at least properly understood. http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/offerings/industries/buildingmaterials/fire/fireservice/
It sounds like this chief needs to recognize that today's smoldering fires are very often (always?) ventilation regulated and contain large amounts of superheated unburned particles and gases from modern household contents (plastics). While true backdraft is a rare occurrence, rapid fire development due to providing oxygen to these gases and particles should be anticipated.

He was, by both our chief and his at our drill night following the fire.
It was a modular style ranch house with energy efficient windows and doors, and it just snuffed out the fire. When he opened the front door the air slowly started to feed the fire, which was about 40 feet away from the front door but only 6 feet away from the back slider. When we took that the air hit it and it took off. It flashed in the laundry room just off the dining room where we made entry and started to come out into the dining area quick, but we hit it there and stopped it. There was even-char in the dining and kitchen, skylight covers melted in the kitchen but the glass held, and it just smoldered from there.
We were lucky no one got hurt, and our crew got the full critique 2 nights later and we explained it better to them as well. We also told this guy to never cancel our MA or our FAST response again without our approval, we ended up calling the MA BACK to the scene and they were a little upset, and the FAST team asked us what happened as well, but we explained it and they laughed it off.
Lesson Learned, everyone went home, no one hurt (except ego), and we have a better working relationship with our mutual aid dept now as a result of this with regular joint drills being planned.

Nope, its just as stupid to hire a guy on overtime to drive a truck in a parade when their first-due companies are understaffed all year long.
Are there still departments that take a front line piece out of service for a week before the "big parade" to clean, wash, wax, polish, shine it?
Do these "work details" count for LOSAP credit? Why?
Don't try to tell me we dont do stupid stuff like this. Ive lived it.

I don't think anyone with a higher class felony should be allowed in any emergency service under any conditions...period. With action comes consequence...many wouldnt be able to get hired as a professional with their convictions..why should it not be the same standard on the volunteer side?

I tell you what...I was a young republican...and and to be honest a more and more moderate republican as I get older. But its almost bye bye time for me out of that party. I really wish a true middle of the road just right of center candidate would step forward.

Then we don't help drunks, or fat people, or people who don't exercise, or who people drive on bald tires or text or pretty much ANYTHING that happens to a teenager. I guess we just deliver babies.... No wait, they did that to themselves, too.

Our BLS 1st Responders are trained and equipped with Epi pens to help patients in anaphylaxis and albuterol to treat asthma. Anyone suffering from anaphylaxis or asthma generally has little or no control over these medical conditions.
While this may sound a little cold, but at what point do we stop taking responsability for the stupidity of others? You play russian roulet with heroin and you may take a bullet. Why is it our responsibility to protect you from yourself?
I have no problem with ALS units providing this service, but we have limited resources and its getting to the point that if we add something new, we need to take something away.

To me a Volunteer Deputy Chief is just another way of a department saying they don't trust the current line officers to be an IC at a scene therefore putting an ex-chief in charge over a current Captain and Lieutenant. If that is the case that department needs to take a serious look at the line and re-evaluate the current promotional process and the current line officers.

When the numbers are broken down, it really looks terrible. Summed up, the FDNY protects 8x the population with 40% of the equipment. You can't get into a literal comparison, because it's apples and oranges, but those numbers certainly call for some sort of review. Response times don't HAVE to suffer either. You don't have to close down each firehouse, but you could reduce the equipment compliment by consolidation. Perhaps rescue companies could be made up of some sort of task force between multiple agencies. Maybe each dept. doesn't need to have a Rear-mount AND a platform. Two neighboring departments could make use of one each and have dual responses.
There are many ways to reduce an AMAZING redundancy of apparatus without hindering response times or levels of service.
8, 10, 15+ million dollar firehouses are a completely different story. I think a departments quarters should be nice and offer some comforts and maybe a luxury or two to entice guys to spend more time there. Thats fine. However, when I go to work in a 100+ year old firehouse that is LITERALLY crumbling, it makes you scratch your head at some of these palaces being built. Somehow 50 people (11 at a time) manage to work, eat, train and respond to many thousands of alarms each year out of this small and well worn firehouse. Plenty of volunteer organizations do quite well with comfortable and conservative quarters. If your willingness to participate hangs on how nice your firehouse is, you need to reevaluate your priorities.

Another well written article that will fall on the deaf ears of the few. The average citizen, of all races and backgrounds, is not in favor of this ruling. Let merit prevail! I'm so sick of the whining and complaining when things aren't just handed to you in this city. Last week I was sickened watching the NY City Council hearing on the snow storm. Councilmembers wanted to know why Public Housing wasn't adequately plowed and shoveled...uh, to the residents: You get what you (don't)pay for. Other council members wanted to know why people in the "Welfare to Work" program weren't getting paid by sanitation when they showed up to shovel. Uh....'cause you're already getting public assistance and shoveling a little snow for it isn't the worst thing ever. Along the same lines, I love how the FDNY should mirror the population that it serves, like it has some obligation to offer city residents jobs. What? I always thought it was to hire the best from the candidate pool and provide the best possible service. Where would I get a crazy idea like that!?
Guess what!? Life isn't fair. You get an equal shot, a fair written exam. Actually, it's more than fair, it's a veritable bunt! However, someone loses! That's that. In fact, most people lose and you can't please everyone. End of story.
The Judge is still holding onto the final decision, impeding the city's ability to appeal. They will as soon as they have the ability.
***Crack*** There goes my soap box! Thanks for listening, rant over.

I love that "this will not affect service garbage. If thats true than you've been ripping off the taxpayers for years! So either these officials are terrible managers or flat out liars.

I believe St. Louis went to the "Quint" concept years ago in their last "manpower reduction" phase. By eliminating traditional engine companies and ladder companies, they were able to eliminate an officer and I believe 2 firefighter positions per company (and mulitply that by 4 shifts). Correct me if my memory is cloudy but the "Quint" concept was used in a bunch of places as the answer to different cities wanting to "reduce the taxpayer burdern".
I am still waiting to hear a fire chief or a mayor say that "service will be affected by these cuts" instead of the same qoute that "despite laying off 30 firefighters and losing another 24 through attrition, service will not be affected".

You speak the absolute truth. Sadly the public is often mislead or just doesn't care enough to know the difference between mediocrity and good service. In some areas, such as my own, there would be no help coming from a large well staffed and trained career dept with significant resources. Not being prepared isn't an acceptable option. The public expects that when an accident happens all the victims that are viable will extricated and transported in a rapid fashion, but have little frame of reference to judge by. We can all likely agree FDNY sets the standard in many areas, but as you note a large factor at work there is the sheer numbers in manpower, equipment and dollars. The rest of us might need 50 different FD's to staff the number of units FDNY does daily. Imagine trying to coordinate that with different training and policies: not even close to realistic. This is yet another reason where regionalization has an advantage.

I don't mean this as a knock at the FDNY, but look at the reality of the situation. There are many great FD's out there that do strong work, but few have the resources of the FDNY. When it comes to being capable, many FD's have the capability to handle what we'd consider routine calls. We cannot staff and amass resources beyond our typical averages as it would be cost prohibitive. As was noted a few times here, having the resources under one command, using the same SOPs by personnel who have trained the same way, makes the incident far more manageable. Once a FD or EMS service begins to pull in outside resources many variable start to crop up: how do I talk to the units? Who's in charge of the units? What's the training level of the unit? Are my SOP's wildly different than the M/A units so they'll operate in a manner inconsistent than we're used too?
FDNY can make short work of an incident like this because they have the resources. While I have no doubt the actual hands on work was exemplary, it's not beyond what many FD's are capable of, just at what scale they are capable of doing in. If you're FD cannot handle this same incident similarly, you should be planning and training on how you could.
Look at disaster in Japan. If that happened here could we be as efficient as a country like England where the fire service is nationalized? Everyone trained very similarly, using very similar apparatus, using the same guidelines? You think it might make for a better outcome at the "big one"? But, then some are anti-regionalization because everyone wants to be the best, but wants their name on the logo...

It would appear the real question, instead of hammering one FD here, would be could your own FD handle this incident? Likely, few could have done it alone without seriously compromising efficiency, limbs or lives. It's great that FDNY can and does handle incidents of greater magnitude than the rest of on their own, so well.
So, ask yourself: how would my FD handle tis? Who would we call? Can we all speak on common frequencies? What's the command structure going to look like? Will everyone play nice? We can take all the NIMS mandated course they'll throw at us and go to hundreds of one and two car wrecks, but in the end once it's outside your own resources control and coordination becomes much more difficult, those that do it regularly and train will be far ahead of the rest. And BTW, the public expects the same response FDNY gave anywhere that tour bus goes. Can your FD even come close?

To bad the public is unwilling to foot the bill. One reason that FDNY can do what they do is that larger depts cost less per capita than multiple smaller ones. Thus they can focus the funding where it needs to be and still afford the specialized units. Also it is much easier to train and co-ordinate.
Chris is correct, we tried task forces, and set them up so nobody was stripped, but we found that not only does no one want to participate, we still have agencies that refuse to sign the mutual aid agreement. Last years airport drill had the best EMS turnout for the pre drill training I have ever seen in Westchester. We need much more, but there is a major vacume in both EMS and its leadership. To many ajencies can barely cover a single patient event much less an MCI.
Its coming and its not going to be pretty.

I don't mean this as a knock at the FDNY, but look at the reality of the situation. There are many great FD's out there that do strong work, but few have the resources of the FDNY. When it comes to being capable, many FD's have the capability to handle what we'd consider routine calls. We cannot staff and amass resources beyond our typical averages as it would be cost prohibitive. As was noted a few times here, having the resources under one command, using the same SOPs by personnel who have trained the same way, makes the incident far more manageable. Once a FD or EMS service begins to pull in outside resources many variable start to crop up: how do I talk to the units? Who's in charge of the units? What's the training level of the unit? Are my SOP's wildly different than the M/A units so they'll operate in a manner inconsistent than we're used too?
FDNY can make short work of an incident like this because they have the resources. While I have no doubt the actual hands on work was exemplary, it's not beyond what many FD's are capable of, just at what scale they are capable of doing in. If you're FD cannot handle this same incident similarly, you should be planning and training on how you could.
Look at disaster in Japan. If that happened here could we be as efficient as a country like England where the fire service is nationalized? Everyone trained very similarly, using very similar apparatus, using the same guidelines? You think it might make for a better outcome at the "big one"? But, then some are anti-regionalization because everyone wants to be the best, but wants their name on the logo...

I don't mean this as a knock at the FDNY, but look at the reality of the situation. There are many great FD's out there that do strong work, but few have the resources of the FDNY. When it comes to being capable, many FD's have the capability to handle what we'd consider routine calls. We cannot staff and amass resources beyond our typical averages as it would be cost prohibitive. As was noted a few times here, having the resources under one command, using the same SOPs by personnel who have trained the same way, makes the incident far more manageable. Once a FD or EMS service begins to pull in outside resources many variable start to crop up: how do I talk to the units? Who's in charge of the units? What's the training level of the unit? Are my SOP's wildly different than the M/A units so they'll operate in a manner inconsistent than we're used too?
FDNY can make short work of an incident like this because they have the resources. While I have no doubt the actual hands on work was exemplary, it's not beyond what many FD's are capable of, just at what scale they are capable of doing in. If you're FD cannot handle this same incident similarly, you should be planning and training on how you could.
Look at disaster in Japan. If that happened here could we be as efficient as a country like England where the fire service is nationalized? Everyone trained very similarly, using very similar apparatus, using the same guidelines? You think it might make for a better outcome at the "big one"? But, then some are anti-regionalization because everyone wants to be the best, but wants their name on the logo...