antiquefirelt

I'd be surprised if a law such as that proposed would allow a privately owned public access property such as a stadium, deny entry to persons legally carrying. This can be viewed as either allowing persons with guns to enter or not allowing owners to deny entry to a person legally exercising their right to carry. Not that this isn't fraught with troubles, given that there are many people who have yet to break the law that are carrying. But the whole issue can be a matter of prospective: are we allowing them entry or protecting their right to entry?

I have no problem with people carrying firearms in public. It's done in other states and they don't have many reported issues.

The issue in the NY area isn't that departments are having trouble getting out.... The BIG issue is that the power to go next due is placed in the hands of the department that is failing to respond when it should be in the hands of the dispatching agency. Yes all volunteer agencies have issues getting out from time to time. When they do, it shouldn't be up to the department that is failing to render aid to throw in the towel, the dispatcher should be able to alert the next due on a pre determined timeframe.
If the State of NY had any balls they would be actively amending the home rule crap that creates this ego driven situation....
Here is how it should really go:
0100hrs - Tones ...... 60Control to X agency for trouble breathing at fairy land.
0101hrs - No tones .... 60Control repeating that X agency is due for trouble breathing at fairy land
0102 - Same as above
0103 - Same as above
0104 - No tones ... 60Control to X agency awaiting an emt or driver for trouble breathing at fairy land (because one or the other has arrived at the rig and reported such to the dispatching agency)
0105 - Tones .... 60Control to X and Y agency... Y agency is now alerted second due for trouble breathing at fairy land... X agency is first due and awaiting an emt or driver
But instead in Westchester we wait for the people who are already dropping the ball to make the call.
If an agency cannot mount a response in 5 minutes it is time to strike the alarm for next due. NY is one of the only places in America where apparatus is allowed to fail with no empowerment for the dispatcher to remedy the situation.

In case anyone was wondering about this story, the District removed the logo. The Chiefs office has had some very good dialogue with certain members of the community, we were even invited (the FD) to lead the pledge of allegiance during the Black History Month community awards ceremony this month, which we did.
Another Dept. has contacted us, they to have a company known as the "Rebels". After seeing what we went through they are removing anything that could be deemed offensive from their rig/quarters.
So some good has come from this incident.
Some lessons learned...be prepared for anything, think before you speak to the media especially if you are confronted without warning, never use the term "no comment" and have a Public Information Officer ready to release a statement as soon as possible.
Be safe all!

At one time I thought Mayor Bloomberg would be good for New York. Then, shortly after, he started to make me nervous. Now I'm sure he's a lying politician scumbag of the worst kind. This assault on the VSF (Variable Supplement Fund) is a pack of lies and propaganda. Calling it a Christmas Bonus is just a way to get hard-up civilians to rally against us. The VSF is nothing of the sort. It is a dividend, a dividend for money the unions gave the city.
The city of New York was broke. The unions gave the city hundreds of millions of dollars and allowed them to manage it and use it as they deemed necessary. Payments to members of the unions was differed until that member retired, like a bond in a way. When you buy a bond, you give the gov't money and they have 14 years to make use of it, but then they owe you your money back plus 14 years of compounded interest which doubles the amount they owe you.
The VSF is OUR MONEY BACK WITH INTEREST! At some point the city made a deal to keep the amount at a set figure, not market variable. That deal left us receiving $12,000 annually upon a non-disability retirement. Believe me, if the city agreed to pay $12,000, it was because they were doing much better than that! They made untold gains on the original seed money we gave them decades ago, some say billions. Now the market hasn't kept them on top. Now WE'RE the ones making out on this deal they orchestrated and they want to take it away.
When you walk into a Casino, sit at a Blackjack table and place a bet. When you lose, just take your money back! Why not? You can do that right? This is exactly how Mayor Bloomberg is playing the game. The city made a deal and right now it isn't working in their favor, but for years and years it was.

I know my Chief is heading down to DC Tuesday to represent our state's fire/EMS services and lobby for our Senator Snowe's vote.

>> Capt. Nechis a question. As you said above, a firefighter needs HMFRO before responding, ok I got that fine but my question is does a ride along, a junior firefighter, exterior firefighter or EMT only member in a fire department based system need that same HMFRO? <<
Great question and Steve gave the correct answer for the junior firefighter and exterior firefighter. OSHA & PESH (NYS OSHA) have determined that all Firefighters require HMFRO before being allowed to respond, but EMS only members are only required to have hazmat awareness level. The ride along is not an "employee" so no training is required, however the dept is also responsible to ensure his/her safety.
Some have argued that they would not respond to "releases or potential releases of hazardous substances" so they do not need the training. But every call has a releases or potential releases; MVA's, Fire, CO calls, odor's, peds struck (biological), flooded basement, etc.

Fellow members,
It seems like more often then not not, Incident Alerts (IA's) overwhelm the "Recent Topics" section on the main page, thereby drowning out good discussions and diluting other forum content.
So we're going to try this for now. We are going to remove Incident Alerts from the "Recent Topics" box for a little while. I realize that the IA's are important to many members, so in the meantime, visit http://www.emtbravo.com to view the latest IA's broken down by region. Also, you can directly go to the IA sections on this forum, and they will continue to show up on "View New Content Since My Last Visit" lists.
In the meantime, we will be developing stricter guidelines on what is an IA and what is not, to reduce the seeming increase in the amount of IA's "spammed" at one time, and IA's that don't meet IA guidelines. Once this is resolved maybe IA's will return to the Recent Topics list.
Please feel free to give feedback on this thread, which will help to guide me on how to resolve this issue.
Seth

I have to say that the fastest most appropriate and positively progressive way (enough adjectives?) for the Volunteer Fire Service to take the wind out of the IAFF's sails nationwide would be to fight for equal training standards for all volunteers. If you could soundly argue that all volunteers had the same training as most career firefighters and the same standards for promotion, you'd take away the biggest disparity. Then develop a staffing schedule to get staffed apparatus out in under 2 minutes. If you can accomplish those two things, there'd be no fighting. In fact, you'd see more communities fighting to have free or low cost VFD firefighters if the end result was the same. Some of you are consistently bashing the IAFF and locals and career firefighters to a degree, yet are arguing that the IAFF is making it harder on VFD's by prohibiting trained firefighters from volunteering? Why would anyone volunteer in a FD where the membership continually bashes their job? I know there's anti-volunteer sentiment in th e career ranks as well, but we're starting to get like the discrimination-reverse discrimination issue.
VFD's provide a lower cost level of fire protection. In some places the product is poor, in others it's excellent and in most cases is something in between. The level of protection ultimately is determined by the taxpayers who weight the benefits of higher standards of training and better response times against what they're willing to pay. The real rub is that few taxpayers really know the difference between the levels of service. Most have little interaction with the FD and know(or think) in their time of need the red trucks will show up promptly. Beyond that, a fire is so dynamic that it's nearly impossible for the untrained witness to determine a quality response vs a crappy one. Thus many crappy responses go untouched. If the taxpayers were making a truly informed decision, then the IAFF and career firefighters really would have nothing to say, as we all understand the way the taxpayer/municipal services system works.
If your FD has a problem opening the books to the general taxpayers or will not honestly answer questions regarding training and officership standards, response times, numbers of training responders per incident, etc. you are the problem! If your honestly trying to do the best for the community by providing a service for little or nothing, then more power to you, I wish I lived in your town, but I doubt I have a large field of communities to choose from that meet that standard.

My link

In all actuality commercial buildings, in this case a Business Occupancy (State Farm Insurance no less! per Google maps) quite often are allowed to have a single means of egress depending on occupant load, and that number can easily rise significantly with a sprinkler system. This being from NFPA 101, the Life Safety Code. In the case of this building, if the occupant load does not exceed 30 persons and the travel distance to the exit is less than 100 feet, they meet the allowance for a single exit. Or is the building is sprinklered and is a single tenant space with a travel distance of less than 100 ft, they can have an unlimited number of occupants.

In all actuality commercial buildings, in this case a Business Occupancy (State Farm Insurance no less! per Google maps) quite often are allowed to have a single means of egress depending on occupant load, and that number can easily rise significantly with a sprinkler system. This being from NFPA 101, the Life Safety Code. In the case of this building, if the occupant load does not exceed 30 persons and the travel distance to the exit is less than 100 feet, they meet the allowance for a single exit. Or is the building is sprinklered and is a single tenant space with a travel distance of less than 100 ft, they can have an unlimited number of occupants.

I want to d omore to serve the public safety in my community, so I think that becoming a city councilman will give me the ability to improve public safety. THe requirements in my city to run for council are: I must be over 18 y/o and live in the district I'm running for. But wait, I am not allowed to run for office because I am a career firefighter. If I still lived in the district but volunteered as a FF out of town I could run for ofice, but not as a career FF. Dose that not violate my rights? Why am I not allowed to volunteer my time to serve the community I live and pay taxes in?
True its employeers that actually prohibit what I can or can not do. Not the union, since we established that even in a strong labor state I do not have to be a union member, just pay the fee for services they provide.
The States have decided that or lobbying groups have convinced law makers that it was in there best interest to vote on a bill that the volunteers want?
I am sure they are available, you just have to ask. I'm sure CSEA or the Teamsters would have no problem with you volunteering with public works. Funny I thought it was founded by the insurance industry (Ben Franklin) for his own financial interests.

Not for nothing but "Doing the Right Thing" also means doing the right thing for the people we serve not just ourselves. Guys love using DRT, FTM, EGH and such with regard to taking care of each other, they are real cool on t-shirts too, but our purpose or mission is still to serve the public. So if the EMS service in town can't get out fast enough or with enough, step up and be there for the people in need instead of furthering the problem. Then take up the increased volume with the proper officials.
As for my FD, I guess it's a non issue as we provide both fire and EMS, lift assists (assisting the EMS crew) is part of the job. And the "I've fallen and I can't get up calls" are ours too. Once in a while we assist the private transfer trucks when they need help, and while we hate helping them, we always will help our citizens.

Even experience can be wrong. We all have seen FD's getting it wrong over and over only to be unscathed by anyone. Continually getting away with something ends up being the justification for the poor tactics or policies and very often ends poorly for some poor firefighter(s). This guy is the poster boy of what is wrong in volunteer America.

Even experience can be wrong. We all have seen FD's getting it wrong over and over only to be unscathed by anyone. Continually getting away with something ends up being the justification for the poor tactics or policies and very often ends poorly for some poor firefighter(s). This guy is the poster boy of what is wrong in volunteer America.

The fact that you have to distinguish being a dedicated "volunteer" firefighter and not simply a dedicated firefighter shows the hypocrisy of your position. You're as anti-career as the people you allege are anti-volunteer.
I'm no lawyer, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I don't believe that the Declaration of Independence is legally binding like the Constitution. Your argument may be flat out wrong.
Ding, this round to the framers of the Constitution.

The problem with them "wanting to" is that their employer could make them "want to". In fact the real purpose of FLSA is to protect the employee from being coerced or otherwise screwed by the employer. What if an employer only happened to hire firefighters who said they'd also "volunteer" after hours? Or the employer could stop having any overtime for certain work, only to ask the "volunteers" to do it after hours for free? I know one FD locally that hired two fulltimers for the first paid personnel. They hired two of their current POC members and were going to pay them after hours from the POC payroll, until they learned different! One was a Captain after hours and a FT Firefighter by day making for a real Goat &%#@. In the end they were properly compensated and both moved on to larger career FD's and local FD started hiring from abroad as the value in just hiring from their own ranks was severely diminished.
And on the "freedom of choice" subject, these same employees have the right not to be members of the Union. They may have to pay dues but the Union does not have the power to fire them, only drop them from membership. So if you want to volunteer then drop out of the Union. Most organizations have membership rules and you have the freedom of choice to join and abide by the rules or not to join. In the end, most of us would like to have some say and voice in the CB process, thus Union membership provides us an opportunity to be heard on any number of issues.

I don't care who is helping with the lifting. Just get it over with and move on. Next call please! If anything maybe the topic should have been turned around to "How Lift Assist help with Public Relations". The first agency through the door wins the PR. (that is not an excuse for a lights and siren response.)
The other lift assist, i.e. helping EMS agencies out with lifting, are other excellent opportunities for public relations.

Not for nothing but "Doing the Right Thing" also means doing the right thing for the people we serve not just ourselves. Guys love using DRT, FTM, EGH and such with regard to taking care of each other, they are real cool on t-shirts too, but our purpose or mission is still to serve the public. So if the EMS service in town can't get out fast enough or with enough, step up and be there for the people in need instead of furthering the problem. Then take up the increased volume with the proper officials.
As for my FD, I guess it's a non issue as we provide both fire and EMS, lift assists (assisting the EMS crew) is part of the job. And the "I've fallen and I can't get up calls" are ours too. Once in a while we assist the private transfer trucks when they need help, and while we hate helping them, we always will help our citizens.

Ah the lift assist! This run varies for us. The engine is often sent on an EMS assist when the bus is already on scene. This is not an EMS run for the engine, as they are not requesting any EMS services. These seem to run the gamut. Sometimes it is some who is so large that the two EMS workers cannot lift the stretcher from it's lowest position to one that will allow them to get the patient into the bus. Other times it's a person who has been placed in a stair chair, but they project elevators aren't working and they need help carrying this person down 20 flights. I've even responded to assist the M.E. with a 500 lb corpse. You never know.
This run, at least for the FDNY, turns us into simple, reliable grunt labor. Which is fine! EMS has it tough out there sometimes. They carry a lot of heavy equipment and it's often two people left all by their lonesome. 95% of the time, we're happy to help them out. You get the occasional person who hands off the patient and vanishes until you've arrived at the bus, but that's rare.
As for liability....well, if we didn't help do what had to be done to get them out, they'd be in deep trouble. So....

And after massive lobbying efforts the volunteers convinced the state to make that illegal. Now how many volunteers did that generate? 10? 20? If the same effort was put into recruiting the results could have equalled or been even greater.
Lets consider how much impact we might be talking about. In NYS there are approximatly 1,800 fire depts. Approximatly 1,700 are 100% volunteer. The remaining 100 are career or combo and range in size from 4 career to 11,000 career (FDNY). There are approximatly 18,000 career firefighters. Since FDNY does not prevent it and other depts also do not, we are talking about 6,000 fireifghters state wide. My dept. at most about 10% volunteer in other depts. So lets say 20% of career FF's might volunteer if this rule is preventing them. Thats 1,500 firefighters or 0.8 firefighters per dept. If you think that 0.8 additional firefighters per dept will solve the massive volunteer shortage you have bigger issues.
The IAFf has an obligation to ensure it's members welfare and in most cases its not the IAFF but the municipality that does not want its employees to volunteer. Based on the previous numbers. the average volunteer community has fewer than 1 career firefighter as a resident. Its not the IAFF that may be forcing the community to hire firefighters its the other 5,000 - 20,000 residence that are not stepping up to the plate.
If the standards are not the same and the ratings are not the same and the response is not the same we do not do the same job. Inclusion in the IAFF will not solve the fact that volunteer groups like FASNY continue to lobby for reduced training standards and to reduce the requirements for minimum response standards (NFPA 1720).
We would have a unified voice if the volunteer lobbying effort would stop fighting against every standards the career fire service has fought for.

It isn't selective enforcement. Telling a union firefighter not to volunteer in another union FD is not selective. It's simply an effort to avoid conflict and protect the interests of their members. Much the same way a VFD screens its applicants before accepting a prospective member? Isn't that selective hiring?
The IAFF isn't forcing anyone to hire more career FF's. That's a really skewed way of viewing their position. The IAFF has a mandate to protect its membership - all of them. As for volunteering, are there any documented cases of a VFD being forced to hire career FF's because a career FF didn't/wouldn't/couldn't volunteer?
The disparities and separation exist simply because of the nature in which the paid and volunteer sectors provide their services? Sorry, cogs, I've been reading threads here and elsewhere and I hardly think we can all anything simple in the comparison of career and volunteer FDs. antiquefirelt does a great job of highlighting what is probably the biggest bone of contention, the different training standards for career and volunteer (at least in NY it's a pretty big difference).
Do you mean to tell me that the volunteer lobby will increase its minimum training standards to meet the career standard? If that's the case why haven't they done so already? Is the volunteer lobby so organized that it has actually approached the IAFF with a unified voice and asked to be included in their organization? The IAFF represents members who pay for said representation. In your plan for a career and volunteer IAFF do the volunteers pay for their representation?
So, let's see if we can pick out the components here...
RECRUITMENT
TRAINING
STAFFING
RESPONSE TIME
OPERATIONS
BUDGET/FINANCE
ACCOUNTABILITY
Right off the bat, the differences jump out at you. Until these mammoth differences are reduced or eliminated how can you ever expect a single association to represent all the FF?

I have to say that the fastest most appropriate and positively progressive way (enough adjectives?) for the Volunteer Fire Service to take the wind out of the IAFF's sails nationwide would be to fight for equal training standards for all volunteers. If you could soundly argue that all volunteers had the same training as most career firefighters and the same standards for promotion, you'd take away the biggest disparity. Then develop a staffing schedule to get staffed apparatus out in under 2 minutes. If you can accomplish those two things, there'd be no fighting. In fact, you'd see more communities fighting to have free or low cost VFD firefighters if the end result was the same. Some of you are consistently bashing the IAFF and locals and career firefighters to a degree, yet are arguing that the IAFF is making it harder on VFD's by prohibiting trained firefighters from volunteering? Why would anyone volunteer in a FD where the membership continually bashes their job? I know there's anti-volunteer sentiment in th e career ranks as well, but we're starting to get like the discrimination-reverse discrimination issue.
VFD's provide a lower cost level of fire protection. In some places the product is poor, in others it's excellent and in most cases is something in between. The level of protection ultimately is determined by the taxpayers who weight the benefits of higher standards of training and better response times against what they're willing to pay. The real rub is that few taxpayers really know the difference between the levels of service. Most have little interaction with the FD and know(or think) in their time of need the red trucks will show up promptly. Beyond that, a fire is so dynamic that it's nearly impossible for the untrained witness to determine a quality response vs a crappy one. Thus many crappy responses go untouched. If the taxpayers were making a truly informed decision, then the IAFF and career firefighters really would have nothing to say, as we all understand the way the taxpayer/municipal services system works.
If your FD has a problem opening the books to the general taxpayers or will not honestly answer questions regarding training and officership standards, response times, numbers of training responders per incident, etc. you are the problem! If your honestly trying to do the best for the community by providing a service for little or nothing, then more power to you, I wish I lived in your town, but I doubt I have a large field of communities to choose from that meet that standard.

I have to say that the fastest most appropriate and positively progressive way (enough adjectives?) for the Volunteer Fire Service to take the wind out of the IAFF's sails nationwide would be to fight for equal training standards for all volunteers. If you could soundly argue that all volunteers had the same training as most career firefighters and the same standards for promotion, you'd take away the biggest disparity. Then develop a staffing schedule to get staffed apparatus out in under 2 minutes. If you can accomplish those two things, there'd be no fighting. In fact, you'd see more communities fighting to have free or low cost VFD firefighters if the end result was the same. Some of you are consistently bashing the IAFF and locals and career firefighters to a degree, yet are arguing that the IAFF is making it harder on VFD's by prohibiting trained firefighters from volunteering? Why would anyone volunteer in a FD where the membership continually bashes their job? I know there's anti-volunteer sentiment in th e career ranks as well, but we're starting to get like the discrimination-reverse discrimination issue.
VFD's provide a lower cost level of fire protection. In some places the product is poor, in others it's excellent and in most cases is something in between. The level of protection ultimately is determined by the taxpayers who weight the benefits of higher standards of training and better response times against what they're willing to pay. The real rub is that few taxpayers really know the difference between the levels of service. Most have little interaction with the FD and know(or think) in their time of need the red trucks will show up promptly. Beyond that, a fire is so dynamic that it's nearly impossible for the untrained witness to determine a quality response vs a crappy one. Thus many crappy responses go untouched. If the taxpayers were making a truly informed decision, then the IAFF and career firefighters really would have nothing to say, as we all understand the way the taxpayer/municipal services system works.
If your FD has a problem opening the books to the general taxpayers or will not honestly answer questions regarding training and officership standards, response times, numbers of training responders per incident, etc. you are the problem! If your honestly trying to do the best for the community by providing a service for little or nothing, then more power to you, I wish I lived in your town, but I doubt I have a large field of communities to choose from that meet that standard.