ex-commish

Prayers for a speedy recovery. I hope the perps are caught and tuned like a piano

Best of luck in your retirement.

Prayers for a speedy recovery. I hope the perps are caught and tuned like a piano

Best of luck in your retirement.

Without a doubt

They all suck....including the mail order minister Sharpton

We must have high praise for the two Con Ed workers who witnessed the shooting and pursued the perp , until he threatened them with his gun ,,they then showed responding police where..he went and what he was wearing., Police confronted him on the subway platform where the gunman shot himself. Had the Con Ed guys not taken this action the shooter could have gotten on a subway and been miles away.
GOOD JOB CON EDISON

President Carter and Mayor Dinkins can now rest easy knowing that 2 bigger tools have taken the heat off of them for being the worst leaders in the history of the US and NYC. President Obama and Mayor DeBlasio are top of my tool list!!!

We do in the City and it is strictly enforced. No RLS for odors of gas or alarms ringing for 2nd and 3rd due units. Same holds true for automatic alarms and street pull boxes with no contact.
This used to include Manhole emergencies (excluding fire) and, I believe, water conditions (in a building). However, I believe, they were part of some changes. Water does a lot of damage in a short time and you never REALLY know what troubles a manhole emergency could pose.
There might be some more as far as specifics go, but I'm not sure myself.
All this aside.....regulations are only part of the battle. Being able to temper a response using your own judgement is irreplaceable. If you've been doing this long enough, you know what when you can use the siren and lights, but very judiciously and come to a crawl at an intersection, ect....
....and you should know when it's time to step it up a little. Reports of people trapped above a fire, in the apartment or perhaps smoke visible in the air. Could be reports of an unconscious infant or civilian CPR in progress.
Use your head....

1. To generalize that career and volunteer departments don't get along is not a fact. There are plenty of departments that work perfectly fine with one another regardless of how they are staffed. Sure you have isolated knuckleheads on both sides who flat-out hate one another, but the overall majority of ALL OF US don't fall into this category.
2. Do career firefighters have a hire minimum requirement - yes. Should volunteers, yes - but I STRONGLY feel that all of which is covered in the career academy is not applicable to volunteers - specifically the codes portion. A firefighter, whether paid or not, should have the basic education to respond to and mitigate just about anything we are sent to - and at minimum, we all need awareness level training of those specialized operations we may get sent to - but aren't necessarily trained for, staffed for or equipped for. IE: High-angle rescue, water rescue, confined space rescue, etc. It literally baffles me that awareness training on all of this isn't considered part of our minimum training.
3. No training requirements for career chiefs? Interesting. Although since most come from a lower level rank and usually have experience in that role, I don't think this is as bad as it sounds. Granted we all know how politics comes in to play and the best candidates tend to get bent over from time to time...
4. I wish you all a happy and safe holiday season. I don't care if you are paid or volunteer, I just hope you all make it home safe at the end of your day.

What is B.S.? That someone asked about standards?

let me weigh in on this- I have been quiet too long. NYS OFPC has set the standard--let me explain-- FF1-FF2-survival-FAST-RES tec-Eng Co operations-truck co ops-haz mat the list goes on. add them up and guess what you come up with the career standard or close enough. give or take a few hours. so the career firefighters get all of this at one shot we call it probie school or Career Academy or what ever name you want to give it. On the other side OFPC has divided all the classes into separate training modules. so it is possible and is being done by firefighters all over NYS just in a different manner.
So the Training is out there just in different formats.
Now for the quid pro quo--is spelling and grammar correct??
OFPC has left it to--"AHJ" authority having jurisdiction---gotta love spell check to establish the standards for individual fire departments.
The State legislature has established the Standard for fire departments with more then five personnel. that would be the 229 hour standard we have in NYS.
So the Career department are mandated by State Legislature and the other departments aren't-with the exception of OSHA and haz mat.
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday season and above all be safe out there.

From what I can tell, East Franklin is pretty close to setting the bar for volunteer training. We were fortunate enough to have spent a few hours with the Chief there about a year after Kevin Appuzio's LODD. As I recall they had a very strict schedule for their volunteers with mandatory "duty" time and minimum training done on each duty shift. I'm not sure what the base level training was, but by all appearances they were setting the ongoing training bar very high as compared to most VFD's I've been exposed to, and some career jobs.

What is B.S.? That someone asked about standards?

What is B.S.? That someone asked about standards?

What is B.S.? That someone asked about standards?

What is B.S.? That someone asked about standards?

Ham, roast beef, assorted cheese's etc etc.....

Why? Because there are many such as myself who for health reasons can not wear a mask but can perform most of the other duties that need to be done. I speak for myself when I say the pension program is not my motive for staying. You hands down win the training argument and bring up some very good points. It is what it is. There is clearly a different standard unlike other states but as far as fitness this is a problem both in career and volunteer departments more so in volunteer departments I taught at the training center for many years and have seen guys on both sides of the fence with weight issues. Lets work to fix that.

Why? Because there are many such as myself who for health reasons can not wear a mask but can perform most of the other duties that need to be done. I speak for myself when I say the pension program is not my motive for staying. You hands down win the training argument and bring up some very good points. It is what it is. There is clearly a different standard unlike other states but as far as fitness this is a problem both in career and volunteer departments more so in volunteer departments I taught at the training center for many years and have seen guys on both sides of the fence with weight issues. Lets work to fix that.

Part of this is true, the candidate gets a second try a couple of weeks later. This new standard is for both career and volunteer ff's. What was explained to the chiefs was "this is not to get rid of potential firefighters, it is to have them in-house trained to expect this when they get to class. We (the fire service) do a disservice to volunteer recruits when we hand them all their gear and tell them to show at class night one, and they haven't even worn it yet. Several depts. in Westchester are way ahead of the curve by doing months of in-house training before sending anyone to class. AND IT SHOWS.
I read one comment that stated each dept should be responsible for their own training. I agree. Who gets to over see this? With this new OFPC standard the instructor who trained the recruits is not the same evaluator for final skills.

its called TOAC--task-orientated-air-consumption. it is given in the third session of FF1 a student will be given two chances to pass the TOAC. the second chance will be given later in the course. The TOAC students will have a set of vitals taken before and after the test. medical staffing must be present during the testing.
There is a lot more then just this--there are 16 skills that have to be done and signed off by the home department. New Books-- its the start of a new look for OFPC. this new FF1 class will allow students to take National Certification upon completion. and by the way signing a false skill sheet is considered a misdemeanor and may be punishable.
FYI-- CPAT is considered a entry level test..TOAC is considered skills oriented.

Long overdue

I read the new revisions for the skills test where you have to complete several tasks wearing SCBA and finish the tasks under 30 minutes. Just wondering what the thoughts are.

Fun