irishfire2491

The Shirt Looks Good, The guy in the picture Not So Much lol jk.

The county requires you have a basic education for this job.

When I was younger I considered it, but after the training films (they were commonly shown on Saturday mornings in the 1960/70's) I did not know if I had the desire to deal with the trouble makers in the parks.

The clincher that it was not the job for me was when the public schools taught us about the 2nd ammendment and the right to arm bears.

AMAZING PHOTOS, Great Work!

AMAZING PHOTOS, Great Work!

Brontosaurus 1 was always fun.
When we were clearing Phelps once with 55B2 when "The Sopranos" was still on, I said "Fifty-Five Bada-Bing Two is in service." Got back to quarters and our Chief was waiting for me. Expecting him to be real pissed, he said, "Hey *******, it's 55B2 not 55BB2."
Well played Chief, well played.

a few years back...
captian-"xx11 to xx13 what is your location?"
me-"Front seat directly behind the steering wheel k"

THANK YOU!!!

No not the "Seceret" Fire District Elections...

If a department is hiring people to drive the apparatus then they're not combo...they're the latter with their Janitors or maintenance personnel. Combo departments have firefighters hired off a civil service list.

Wait! Aren't we suppose to be consolidating the tri-village?

Another engine for Bu-Planck-trose,

Great copy and paste, but a ridiculous point when you say "call the following people". I'm getting really tired of you throwing peoples' names around. Have some respect that you claim to major in apparently. You've made your point about the Mahopac fireman. Obviously some agree, and some don't. DO NOT start throwing around deceased Brothers and Sisters names here. How dare you!

Better yet how about 3 separate house as Peekskill, Mohegan, and Croton respond with and response with the same alarm. Baby Steps. Baby Steps.

Agreed. Problem is that many people wearing officer's shields and chief's shields refuse to think they need to sit in on some classes to better themselves in the interest of the department. It's these people that I wish we could all just kick in the nuts.

I've been giving some thought on some of the comments on not only Yorktown's recent fire, but other incidents and want to share my thoughts.
Ten years ago, many of us were getting along fine, making do with what we had at our disposal in terms of manpower. Most fire departments would handle a single family dwelling fire with little to no Mutual Aid. Was it because we all had an abundance of manpower? I don't think so.
Many people like to get on the "manpower soapbox" all too often to explain their dwindling firehouse numbers, yet it can generally correlate to other contributing factors that many don't admit to, or even recognize.
1. Poor leadership. Many people in the volunteer fire service are giving their time to the FD while balancing their family duties, jobs and other commitments. Most guys and gals join either to be an integral part of their community and/or to become part of a social club. When your leadership is doing it's job (leading when leading is needed, being fair and balanced, treating everyone with respect, making everyone feel safe and accpeted) then the troops feel better about themselves and the department they've joined. I've been in my department since I was an Explorer (1992) and have seen AWESOME LEADERS (Chiefs and Company Officers) and sadly, we've had a few too many crappy ones. If you can lead your troops when they need leading and you can motivate them by making them feel a sense of ownership in their company/department, then they'll give that extra effort.
2. Lack of Training Availability. So many of us strive to be the best departments we can be, and this means a lot of training. We've grown from doing roughly one drill per month to offering 4-5 different training venues every month. Since everyone has crazy schedules, you need to be flexible. Having just one drill night isn't going to cut it. Also, training that we are all required to have isn't always made easily accessible. I don't fault WCDES for the lack of some courses - I lay blame on OFPC (or whatever acronym they use now). Why can't volunteer fire departments have an MTO? In our own department we have a half dozen NYS and/or National Fire Service Instructors and we're being under utilized. We had a good thing going for a couple of years where one of our guys was granted a "supplemental CFI" status and was providing in-house OFPC classes, such as HMFRO, HMFRO Annual Refresher, Confined Space Awareness & Safety, Scene Support Operations and others that you just don't see often enough. Losing this has hurt our training program, and now it costs us more money to outsource and bring instructors in. In a nutshell, the current system sucks.
3. Personal Agendas. I've seen a couple of Chiefs (not just in our FD but around the county) that get elected with an agenda of their own. In order to get what they want, they start cutting funding for certain things, they lie to everyone and worst of all - they let the department's members suffer. For example, if your Chief is up in your commissioners officer / town hall lying to them about what your members need simply to make themselves look good - that will come back to the guys/gals and ruin their ambition to be a part of your department.
I know I may sound like a broken record, but it really does come down to how your department is run, from the top down. If your Chief can't run a scene, the guys lose faith in them. If your Captain can't be bothered with drill night because of his softball games, how are the guys in the trenches expected to show any initiative? And if all the guys walking around with collar brass don't take the time to guide, mentor and lead their men/women - kiss it all goodbye.
These things have major negative impacts on your department's performance call after call. You might get 40 guys in line at a parade, but how many of them can honestly remember the last time they got out of bed at 2am for a CO call?
Leadership makes/breaks fire departments - we can blame it on anything else we want, but this simple truth is what hurts so many of us.
Stay safe & train often.
/thoughts.

Yup...overtime or multiple jobs...sucks.

We will start the pipeline from the Saw mill, bronx river and Hutch river parkway. We get more then enough share of water on the parkways. LMAO

I mistakenly gave this guy a rep point. Can someone please remove it? I was just trying to see who in the world were the 7 members of this site who would agree with this post.

It seems today was the day that everyone waiting for EMS test results got their answers. I would like to send a big congratulations to two good friends of mine who passed their EMT-Bs. I would also like to give a HUGE shout out to an excellent friend of mine and CCVAC member who passed his Paramedic exam and got his card in mail today. We all knew we could do it and look forward to seeing where he takes his new skills.
Congrats to all.

Congrats to all and to your CCVAC friend (and yes I know who he is) listen to your elders and dont stop learning! Way to go everyone! (Got my recert card too and yes< I passed. 3 more years, just 3 more years)

res6cue...To my knowledge, the Verplanck FD Dive Team no longer exists and hasnt in several years. Its a shame because they were a good asset, especially being right on the river.
A few years back there was talk of starting a Tri-Village Dive Team, but it never happened.

Well if we are going to talk about it what rules were violated?

KEYWORD RESPONSIBILITY!!!!
If you dont like the new bill move to Westchester, Where you can't get a Full Carry!

THANK YOU!!!
I was waiting for that. Sheesh.