antiquefirelt

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

I've been a volunteer and career firefighter too. I often work along side of volunteers. I agree that we should be more united and respectful than we are.
From my experience and perspective, the volunteers oftentimes are more of an obstacle in getting to that place than the career folks. I often hear claims about how we're all doing the same job, have the same training, etc., but the fact is we aren't and we don't. Unfortunately, when you try to discuss this, the only thing too many on the volunteer side seem to take from it is that career guys are great and volunteers suck rather than understanding that career guys can be "better" by virtue of those differences in training and experience, but that doesn't mean that the volunteers are automatically inadequate. It's a lot like comparing pro athletes to college/high school athletes. The pros are typically better, which one would expect, but a lot of the non-pro athletes are pretty darn good, if not just as good in some cases. And in some cases, their best just isn't good enough.
We hear claims about how fires don't care if you're career or volunteer or that the person who's house is on fire doesn't care if you're career or volunteer, but who yells the most about training mandates or being held to any sort of standard? Who thinks it's perfectly ok to give a person a few dozen hours of basic introductory training (or none at all) and then turn that new person loose to respond and actively participate on calls? Who thinks it's appropriate to make a teenager with little actual experience a line officer?
IMO, these are the things that are at the very heart of the animosity between career and volunteer from the career side. Too many in the volunteer ranks want to be viewed as equal to the career guys without putting in the work necessary to truly be equal. Yes, there are places where truly providing services on the same level are not realistic (rural areas for one) and they do the best they can under tough circumstances, but there are others where the departments are just not being honest with themselves or their communities regarding the level of service they can realistically provide as a department or as an individual.
It's also frustrating to see comments about how career guys only care about the paycheck and don't have the pride in the job because we don't work fundraisers to pay the bills or in some cases don't live in the community that we work in. While there are career guys that are like that, the majority aren't and you'll find people like that in any career and you know there are plenty of volunteers that are all about the t-shirts and image rather than the work and service to the community.
Like you said, career and volunteer share a lot in common.
Personally, I try to be respectful of the volunteers in my area, but it's very hard at times to view some of them as peers when they do some of the stuff that they do and that includes burning down buildings that should not have burned to the extent that they did.

Good chance they cannot bill for helping people up from a fall unless they transport, at least not the patient. We have four large elderly care buildings and spend a lot of time doing the same calls. We're looking at billing facilities a nominal fee for the routine help an injured fall. Typically these places have "no list" policy for their staff driven by their workers comp insurer, so they call 911. We've heard of others doing this across the country and now here in our state, so we're investigating this to offset the overuse/abuse of a taxpayer funded emergency service.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

At risk of unintentionally insulting volunteers, I might ask if the FASNY study took into account how much money would be saved in property/insurance losses if a paid staffed FD was there to effect more positive outcomes sooner? Not a knock on the potential quality of work that a VFD can accomplish, but a realistic view of how much different a fire looks at minute 4 vs. minute 12. Take the same firefighters put them in the station when the call comes in nearly every time, and see how that affects the outcomes.

With no other info I would just note that any one of us will pull off our mask when we run out of air. They listed the cause of death, not the circumstance that lead to it.

With no other info I would just note that any one of us will pull off our mask when we run out of air. They listed the cause of death, not the circumstance that lead to it.

With no other info I would just note that any one of us will pull off our mask when we run out of air. They listed the cause of death, not the circumstance that lead to it.

I doubt that you are seeing as many people as you think actually defending "grossly understaffed departments". I think you may be misconstruing explanations of a department's staffing situation as a defense of them in the sense that you assert.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people, if any (actual firefighters), that actually think that sending only an average of 5.58 FFs to a working fire as being acceptable. Very few of us actually have the ability to determine the staffing levels for our departments. As such, far too many of us must make the best of the less than ideal hand that we are each dealt.
NFPA 1710 and 1720 are nice, but unfortunately they're still kind of all bark and no bite on the front end. I can wave a copy of 1710 in front of my Mayor and Council every day, but it's not gonna get my department to 4 per apparatus and 17 on-duty. The money simply isn't there for that level of staffing and we'll be lucky to maintain where we're at now in the next few years. There are a lot of small departments out there just like us and some in worse shape. It's not ideal and it's only "acceptable" in the context that it's our reality and not changing anytime soon.
Oftentimes these discussions seem to focus on the limited on-duty staffing of a particular department, but overlooks the total response to a working incident which can result in a far more acceptable number of FFs on the fireground. My department, for example, averages 6 FFs on-duty. However, a working fire will also get a callback of off-duty personnel plus mutual aid. On average, this doubles our own personnel and the mutual aid units easily push us over 20-25 FFs on the fire ground relatively quickly. Many others do something similar.

"THEY'RE ESSENTIIALLY PAID DRIVERS". You are kidding right! Is that some kind of joke? Besides the fact that calling a career firefighter a " paid driver " is insulting what insight do you have in the Rye Fire Department that allows you to make that statement ?
Rye's career firefighters are quite often the first firefighters on a scene, what do you think they do when they arrive, sit in the truck and wait for someone else to show up ? In case you are wondering the answer is NO. In 2015 Rye had 12 working fires, in everyone of those fires one of the guys working was on the first line in.
In 2015 Rye started the year with 18 interior qualified volunteer firefighters by the end of 2015 that number had dropped to 14. In 2016 Rye's interior firefighter list is starting the year with 13 volunteers on it, those 13 will need to complete some very minimal training in order to remain interior qualified. Only time can tell where we will be at the end of 2016.
The average response in 2016 was 5.58 firefighters per call. Now if you want to drill that down a little. There are approximate 88 days in the year when there will be four firefighters working(due to schedule and vacation). Monday thru Friday the career lieutenant works 9 to 5 and responds to all calls. Additionally anytime there is a incident of any real significance there is a automatic recall of career staff. So that 5.58 is not even real but that is the best number there is to answer your question.
I am not trying to take anything away from the core group of volunteers we do have, they are a good group of guys that have busy lives outside the firehouse. i am not going to attempt to explain the dynamics of the membership, they are there to provide a service to the community and they do it to the best of there ability.
Needless to say when the stuff hits the fan we are severely lacking appropriate manpower. The hope would be that the Mayors group takes that into account and takes whatever action may be needed.

Awaiting more study o the idea. I'm not a fan of using compass bearings in any way. Noting to yourself in which direction you were travelling when you entered then requires you to correlate that direction with the known labelled side, I can see more trouble than good. A more advanced version that let you orient the "compass" to side Alpha or One before entering would then let you proceed in that direction with the labels in the unit being 1-4 or A-D?

I find it pathetic when any municipal or government employee expects preferential treatment. If these are your friends, co-workers or fellow employees why would you expect them to not do their job when you make a mistake? If you get a pass, smile, privately thank the officer and then STFU about it. The more people hear about professional courtesy, the less professional the people involved look. If you get a ticket, smile, thank the officer for doing their job, STFU about it and take your lumps like anyone else.

Huh, here we have a Command SUV that is assigned to the ranking officer (Fire Chief). It has numerous pieces of equipment and information stored in it that could be very useful at most incidents, therefore it is always made available when the ranking officer is not to be available. If your Chief's don't give up the buggy, how do they justify the costs of all the equipment carried? At that point it's just a perk of the "job".

I find it pathetic when any municipal or government employee expects preferential treatment. If these are your friends, co-workers or fellow employees why would you expect them to not do their job when you make a mistake? If you get a pass, smile, privately thank the officer and then STFU about it. The more people hear about professional courtesy, the less professional the people involved look. If you get a ticket, smile, thank the officer for doing their job, STFU about it and take your lumps like anyone else.

I find it pathetic when any municipal or government employee expects preferential treatment. If these are your friends, co-workers or fellow employees why would you expect them to not do their job when you make a mistake? If you get a pass, smile, privately thank the officer and then STFU about it. The more people hear about professional courtesy, the less professional the people involved look. If you get a ticket, smile, thank the officer for doing their job, STFU about it and take your lumps like anyone else.

I find it pathetic when any municipal or government employee expects preferential treatment. If these are your friends, co-workers or fellow employees why would you expect them to not do their job when you make a mistake? If you get a pass, smile, privately thank the officer and then STFU about it. The more people hear about professional courtesy, the less professional the people involved look. If you get a ticket, smile, thank the officer for doing their job, STFU about it and take your lumps like anyone else.