IzzyEng4

I will not be able to make it but I send my best wishes to all those who attend to support the men and women in Yonkers.

Guys and gals, To simply put it before we get into a whole debate............
CHECK THE EGOS AT THE DOOR AND USE YOUR HEADS!!!!!!!!
Its that simple. A big mistake was made, a gun was jumped, a house was lost. It is not the first time or the last time any department / officer has done this. It will happen again, this time it happened in a town where there is a lot of media coverage going on about an existing problem.
That's all I have to say.

Hopefully you know the history of the METS colors. If not I will help you out!!
The colors are closely associated with the two old National League teams in NY. Blue and white is in remembrance of the Brooklyn Dodgers, while orange and black is in remembrance of the New York Giants. Blue white and orange are also the colors of the NYC flag, being another association. Their NY logo on the caps is also similar to the logo used by the Giants in the final years in NYC. It cannot be confirmed or denied that the pinstripes were in homage to the "Bombers" but many teams wore pinstripes for their home jerseys back in the day too.
Hope it helps you out, just wanted to pass it along!

Hopefully you know the history of the METS colors. If not I will help you out!!
The colors are closely associated with the two old National League teams in NY. Blue and white is in remembrance of the Brooklyn Dodgers, while orange and black is in remembrance of the New York Giants. Blue white and orange are also the colors of the NYC flag, being another association. Their NY logo on the caps is also similar to the logo used by the Giants in the final years in NYC. It cannot be confirmed or denied that the pinstripes were in homage to the "Bombers" but many teams wore pinstripes for their home jerseys back in the day too.
Hope it helps you out, just wanted to pass it along!

This is a good question and I agree that many may choose not to answer because they don't want to offend anyone and / or look in the mirror. I'll jump in though because I think this is an important topic.
In the career fire service a good senior man should have several qualities...calm, confident, lead by example, minimal or no whining, an advocate for the men to the officers and an advocate for the officers to the men. A good senior man praises in public and criticizes in private. A good senior man does not take things personally nor does he make personal attacks.
A good senior man does not need to be the most intelligent, skilled, or physically fit firefighter...he realizes that his years of experience entitle him to respect automatically and this respect will be lost only if he is dishonest, uncaring, a bully,or a loudmouth.
A good senior man rarely, if ever, asks for special privilege due to his senior status. The less he asks, the more it will be given.
Good senior men have many different styles and personalities but I have found the most effective, comforting, senior men to be the type who are more likely to be found quietly observing from a corner of the room than loudly carrying on in the middle of the crowd.
Now, maybe we should talk about what makes a good junior man, because we can have the best Officers and senior men in the world, but if the guy or guys at the bottom and in the middle don't do their job and just want to blame their own bad attitudes and work ethic on those above them, all the best intentions of the bosses and senior men are useless.....

All of us here have attended a re-pass (yes that is what it is called) after a funeral. A lot of the time a place is rented with food and refreshments served. When you are billed it is itemized aka everything is listed that was purchased. So obviously when the city got the bill they said WHOA WAIT A MINUTE! So do you think that the city is wrong for not paying for the alcohol on the bill? I don't, what city pays for alcohol for events?. But then again if the city said hey we are going to foot the bill, they should have said that no alcohol should be served or paid for by the city.
On the other hand yes the contract was violated but the whole thing should have been planned better. The only people that got BUFFALOED are those involved in this "fight" that didn't cross their T's and dot their I's.

You forgot: "You may know where you are, God may know where you are, but if the dispatcher doesn't know where you are, you better be in good terms with God!"

It's either a Velocity or an Impel cab, the new ones that replaced the Lance and Dash cabs last year or the year before. The only reason it looks "weird" in my opinion is the round style headlights, the small style LED waring lights used above them and the painted grill instead of having it chromed out. It does look plain-wrapper like but hey its a fire truck and not a parade piece, function over form the way it should be.
I know we all like a good looking truck but sometimes you can't spend it all on flashy stuff if you need more important equipment on it instead.

BFXFD, my view towards being on a fast team should be with at least five years of firefighting service before you are considered to be assigned to operate on a team. I understand that yes a person may or may not have a lot experience by then (depending on the department or amount of training). But I wasn't saying that you shouldn't be taking the courses before this period, every firefighter should be. It's like the old saying, if you want to learn how to pump an engine, you better know what happens on the nozzle end, same thing with cutting a roof, you better know how to hook a ceiling inside first. Also to the "maturity" of a firefighter five years in is also better too, the person regardless of age might have that "excited" state of mind still for the work but has grown also to think more rationally also. I should have conveyed that better in my thinking, but this is my opinion also as I have trained with a lot of different people for FAST /RIT and also took part in helping teach.
NY10570 the reason I feel that FAST / RIT members should have some medical training such as basic CPR / First Aid or at least 1st responder status is because what happens if you pull a member from a building and is in cardiac arrest? Shouldn't you know how to do perform CPR?? It's an asset in case the team runs into this they are the first ones that are going to be with the rescued member during the "golden hour" so to speak. What about if there is some sort of traumatic injury, we need stabilization right? Granted the team will not be doing this in the hazardous environment, but as soon at the hurt member is out of the building, medical treatment should begin and who better to start than the people that are right there. Each scenario is different but it doesn’t hurt, remember this is RESCUE not firefighting and the FAST / RIT unit's duties don't just end by pulling the injured member out of the hazardous condition. the are the first responder for the firefighter.
My comment about the firefighters for the past 300+ is to remind people that we have been doing this for a long time and now we have a new "specialized tool in the tool box" dedicated towards rescuing our own in these situations. Looking back yes hind-sight is bliss and yes we could have probably saved more firefighter lives with the implimentation of the FAST / RIT concept sooner but that shows how times have changed as well as our overall focus of the fire-ground.
As for going back to buckets, sure, as long as they are only used to keep the beer and soda cold for "rehab"!!
Also another consideration with FAST / RIT, out of every four or six members of this unit after it is activated the "average" is 1 team member will also be hurt while performing a rescue. Something to keep in mind also

Question for you, what are the differences in population size over these areas listed? Is that also a factor? Also waht is the population density per squar mile?

I decided to do a spin off from a lot of the response questions that have been asked about in recent IAs.
Lets start with the question as in the title: When should apparatus and manpower be request to respond?
Every town, city, village, borough, hamlet and district is different from the rest. Some have hydrants every 500 to 1000 feet, while others require a static source with long supply lays or tanker operations to establish a water source. But where does the call originate and begin? AT THE DISPATCH CENTER! If the dispatcher's CAD has everything listed in it (FAST/RIT, to the scene units and cover companies), shouldn't the dispatcher be able to send out the appropriate response depending on the information they receive without waiting for the chief or officer saying "Send me this for this department"? In a perfect world yes, the IC has enough to worry about at the scene and shouldn't be worried about ordering apparatus and manpower but should be concentrating on what is coming as announced by the dispatcher. If there is need for additional equipment, the request should be as simple as "Send me the next alarm" or "Give men an additional engine, truck and Fast team."
Now comes into the problem of where is the apparatus coming from. Could the next due tanker or truck company be coming from a mile away or 10 miles away? Is the request for a certain piece of equipment coming from a staffed or unstaffed station? Will it take time for the proper number of personnel to assemble at that station before getting the rig on the road? There are a lot of considerations when requesting units for another town / district and those need to be considered and in the back of an officer's head while responding and also on the discretion of the dispatcher.
When I was a dispatcher in my former life, my partner had received a call for a working structure fire in a rural section of the town we dispatched. This department has four engines with 1000 gallon water tanks, one 3000 gallon tanker, a truck, two rescues and two mini pumpers out of two stations. Well our CAD was going through an update when this call came in with people still in the structure while on fire (not trapped as updated calls stated everyone was confirmed out). The advantage was my partner and I both knew the area well, knew there was some hydrants in the area but because the CAD was going through an update of information, the closest hydrant wasn't listed. As he dispatched out the call, I continued to check the cad for surrounding hydrants. By the time he was done, we both looked at each other and yelled "TANKERS!", so I took on getting the mutual aid tankers going, ordering one from each of the surrounding towns, placing two more on standby, ordering the RIT / FAST unit and getting the list for cover companies ready. We called out the water holes as one of the line officers stated that the closest hydrant was 3/4 of a mile away (this became our replenishing site). In this instance the operation worked, we had 9000 gallons of water on wheel s coming into the scene and the three M/A tankers were there within 5 to 10 minutes of the initial dispatch. And if we didn't get that water out on on the road well the structure could have been a total loss and only the water on scene was used (good knock down and overhaul).
Where I work, we do operate under a county mutual aid system. When an alarm goes out a department sends their first alarm response as outlined in the dispatch center's CAD (they call this a Box Alarm). When a working fire is declared the response is upgrades to a "Box Plus" bringing in those necessary additional units (FAST, tankers, air supply, extra ambulance, ect.) The upgrade happens depending on either by the first arriving unit or when taking multiple calls or even from another unit outside of the fire department (ie police or EMS). Everything is there and usually there is a one pull system, the FAST team comes from one of two career departments, certain departments have towers, aerials or quints, ect. Its all listed and the county chief meet regularly to update their information and manpower with each other. Some departments can handle a single or two alarms at one fire when others like mine automatically call in mutual aid right off the bat to fill the assignment.
So let's get back to the question at hand, when should a request be made for additional apparatus and manpower? Should it be right off the bat without hesitation doing the old "When in doubt, send it out" or having units "post" at their stations?
Should you consider going to a second alarm upon seeing fire conditions, should you think about calling for the third alarms assignment and put them in staging?
When should have cover companies com in and should they be the next up for the next alarm assignment at the original scene or should you "double up" so you have the right units "in town" so you can call some to the scene while others cover the town / district?
What should you have in your dispatch center's CAD so you as an IC don't have to think where to get a certain piece of equipment upon a working fire or other emergency of great potential?
Isn't better to have your M/A units on the road at the initial dispatch if they are part of the initial assignment?
If you have initial manpower issues, should you consider skipping a district / department or adding a unit from next one over who has a staffed rig and can be there quickly to the initial assignment?
Should you consider the "One Pull" system of apparatus and manpower response to make sure you have proper coverage?
I can go on and list so many more questions but let's make this a progressive discussion and see what we can learn from this.

Well then, I'll be the bucket boy in your corner then! Let's go!
I just can't believe in this day and age politicians want to spend more money on stuff that is not proven to work and not spend half as much to keep a current, up-to-date and proven system that works on line.
Maybe I should run for senate........................