firemoose827

Great...do me a favor and dont let my county see this BS.
We FINALY started to have a decent training program in my county with a small group of dedicated and talented instructors, and a new training tower. We have Firefighter 1 offered twice a year so there is no excuse to not have it, and our department is the same way requiring every member to obtain firefighter 1 within 6 months of joining (or as soon as it is offered if longer than 6 month period). Our department also requires you to have fire police training so if you end up directing traffic at an MVA you know what you are supposed to do. We require all drivers to have EVOC and Pump Ops. But I still feel that is not enough.
Now this is happening in Texas?? How soon until it trickles over to NY??
To me, if you want to fight fires and respond to emergencies such as MVA's and Haz-Mat Spills and rescue calls you need to know what you are doing. There are too many wahoos out there that think turnout gear is like Batmans outfit, once you don it your a super hero...
I respect the fire service, I respect the brotherhood and I respect training and those that have training, not having enough training shows disrespect to the fire service and all of the greats that paved the way for us and passed on what they learned the hard way paying blood sweat and tears. I for one will continue to honor those firefighters and continue to train and learn something new everyday.
Just remember...not all of the volunteers are careless, disrespectful, dangerous and unprofessional.
Stay Safe.

Great...do me a favor and dont let my county see this BS.
We FINALY started to have a decent training program in my county with a small group of dedicated and talented instructors, and a new training tower. We have Firefighter 1 offered twice a year so there is no excuse to not have it, and our department is the same way requiring every member to obtain firefighter 1 within 6 months of joining (or as soon as it is offered if longer than 6 month period). Our department also requires you to have fire police training so if you end up directing traffic at an MVA you know what you are supposed to do. We require all drivers to have EVOC and Pump Ops. But I still feel that is not enough.
Now this is happening in Texas?? How soon until it trickles over to NY??
To me, if you want to fight fires and respond to emergencies such as MVA's and Haz-Mat Spills and rescue calls you need to know what you are doing. There are too many wahoos out there that think turnout gear is like Batmans outfit, once you don it your a super hero...
I respect the fire service, I respect the brotherhood and I respect training and those that have training, not having enough training shows disrespect to the fire service and all of the greats that paved the way for us and passed on what they learned the hard way paying blood sweat and tears. I for one will continue to honor those firefighters and continue to train and learn something new everyday.
Just remember...not all of the volunteers are careless, disrespectful, dangerous and unprofessional.
Stay Safe.

Great...do me a favor and dont let my county see this BS.
We FINALY started to have a decent training program in my county with a small group of dedicated and talented instructors, and a new training tower. We have Firefighter 1 offered twice a year so there is no excuse to not have it, and our department is the same way requiring every member to obtain firefighter 1 within 6 months of joining (or as soon as it is offered if longer than 6 month period). Our department also requires you to have fire police training so if you end up directing traffic at an MVA you know what you are supposed to do. We require all drivers to have EVOC and Pump Ops. But I still feel that is not enough.
Now this is happening in Texas?? How soon until it trickles over to NY??
To me, if you want to fight fires and respond to emergencies such as MVA's and Haz-Mat Spills and rescue calls you need to know what you are doing. There are too many wahoos out there that think turnout gear is like Batmans outfit, once you don it your a super hero...
I respect the fire service, I respect the brotherhood and I respect training and those that have training, not having enough training shows disrespect to the fire service and all of the greats that paved the way for us and passed on what they learned the hard way paying blood sweat and tears. I for one will continue to honor those firefighters and continue to train and learn something new everyday.
Just remember...not all of the volunteers are careless, disrespectful, dangerous and unprofessional.
Stay Safe.

Being from Texas myself and a Volunteer for almost 10 years now, I hope this gets shelved. Our Fire dept has done A LOT of work over the past many years to get our training in compliance with SFFMA standards. Not because we had to, but because we wanted to. We constantly promote annual and weekend schools at TEEX or anything held locally. I agree with Seth in regards to it boiling down to who regulates it. Personally I like what SFFMA has set up. We have a great working relationship with SFFMA and they helped greatly back in 2006 when we needed to overhaul our training. I do for one know there are sadly many vollies out here who think they can join a dept and think they are a fire fighter without training. I do believe that volunteers need to meet a certain standard in training. Does it have to be on par with professional? Not really, but a standard regardless. I have my professional certain, I've been around paid and vol. depts for quite a while and I know some vol guys who've never been paid and could run circles around a professional with their experience, but they are the ones who took that time to learn and do it right. We live in a world where not every fire dept can be paid. Volunteers will always have my support. But I'd expect them to have a minimal standard of training.

The backbone of the volunteer fire service rests in training. It must be kept in mind that volunteer fire departments are "professionally staffed by volunteers" and must provide the same services as any career department (in many cases to a higher standard as to disprove the notion that they are "just volunteers"). This is why the volunteer fire department of which I am a member has a mandatory Firefighter 1 requirement within 6 months of becoming a member and a very aggressive weekly in-house training program. Amateurs train until they get something right, professionals train until they can't get it wrong. At 2 am, in the cold and snow, with mutual aid minutes away, duties must be performed perfectly. Firefighters, career or volunteer, must train hard to get to this level.

Fair warning: I'm going on a bit of a rant here.
The sad fact is that many rural communities follow that exact model. The only way they get away with it is because call volume is so low that statistics will very rarely catch up to them.
I personally think this is selfish, there is a standard and it should be upheld. But the general mindset that guides this kind of thing isn't exclusive to volunteers. Many firefighters, career and volunteer, believe that because they're considered the "experts" in the field, that they shouldn't have to respond to the will of their customers (within reason). That's crap. "ITS NOT ABOUT YOU" is the phrase that comes to mind, and maybe it should be painted on the inside of every apparatus bay door in the country. The residents of a community are put at ease believing they have a fire department that is trained to do the job. Maybe its not a career department, because the town hasn't determined it needs/can afford that level of protection, but they expect the personnel that do respond to be adequately trained to complete the tasks they're assigned.
Here's an idea: Lets pass a law saying if your fire department doesn't follow minimum accredited training standards, you're required to call the organization "Bucket Brigade" or "Cellar Savers." Just a little truth in advertising.
You want the title? Earn it. Show that you're proud of what it means and that you're willing to go the extra mile to help your community. Don't take a cop-out route like this. This kind of thing is an insult to those of us who are proud to be volunteer Firefighters.

Sort of.Stat law would alow this to cover all incorporated & unincorporated towns (including villages). But current state law requires Citys to provide fire protection. Now if you have only 1 city in the county, they could legally provide coverage to the district "By contract" which could (if negotiated) include some/all of the existing depts.

It also mean you get more qualified better equipment faster to your house too in the unfortunate event you need them.

Well said Chief. The problem lies with the older guys who dont want to give anything up. I will use my Dept as an example. We do about 1200-1300 fire calls (this includes MVA's) and about 300 ambulance calls. We have village Departments that borders us. One does under 100 calls a year with a square miles of 0.10 and the other about 250 alarms and a square miles of 0.19 with a combined population of about 3000. Both of these departments firehouses are blocks out of our district. If you were a younger F/F that really loved being a firefighter, why in the world would you not want to combine with a larger Dept where you would do 10x the amount of runs?
The future is really up to the younger officers coming up the ranks to see the light and be the guy or gal to make the change. One of these above mentioned departments is very close to a tipping point. Another Village Dept that borders them on the other side of us is actually running dual response with them on all alarms. Rumor has it they only have 3 interior firefighters.

Making a regionalized "County Fire District" is an easy way around those rules, right??? You are still only forming a fire district yet this one would be county wide and easier managed.
I believe that is the only thing that will save our county fire service here. My department has only 9 interior qualified firefighters, 6 of us are officers yet you go 10 minutes south of us and they have over 50 members, 3 engines, tanker, heavy rescue, 95' tower, brush unit, gator rescue atv, 2 ambulances, ALS fly car/captains vehicle and average 500-600 calls a year. We can barely get 3-4 FF's to a call with 2-3 rigs and they can cover two calls at once (have seen them do it). Regionalize our county and half of their members instantly became eligible to respond to our station for calls to get rigs out the door faster with more qualified personnel then before. I see nothing wrong with that! And I am an assistant chief of my department, I could care less if another larger department, more qualified with more trained members and better equipment comes in and takes over my sandbox...I will still be in the box playing, just with more friends and better toys!

Making a regionalized "County Fire District" is an easy way around those rules, right??? You are still only forming a fire district yet this one would be county wide and easier managed.
I believe that is the only thing that will save our county fire service here. My department has only 9 interior qualified firefighters, 6 of us are officers yet you go 10 minutes south of us and they have over 50 members, 3 engines, tanker, heavy rescue, 95' tower, brush unit, gator rescue atv, 2 ambulances, ALS fly car/captains vehicle and average 500-600 calls a year. We can barely get 3-4 FF's to a call with 2-3 rigs and they can cover two calls at once (have seen them do it). Regionalize our county and half of their members instantly became eligible to respond to our station for calls to get rigs out the door faster with more qualified personnel then before. I see nothing wrong with that! And I am an assistant chief of my department, I could care less if another larger department, more qualified with more trained members and better equipment comes in and takes over my sandbox...I will still be in the box playing, just with more friends and better toys!

Making a regionalized "County Fire District" is an easy way around those rules, right??? You are still only forming a fire district yet this one would be county wide and easier managed.
I believe that is the only thing that will save our county fire service here. My department has only 9 interior qualified firefighters, 6 of us are officers yet you go 10 minutes south of us and they have over 50 members, 3 engines, tanker, heavy rescue, 95' tower, brush unit, gator rescue atv, 2 ambulances, ALS fly car/captains vehicle and average 500-600 calls a year. We can barely get 3-4 FF's to a call with 2-3 rigs and they can cover two calls at once (have seen them do it). Regionalize our county and half of their members instantly became eligible to respond to our station for calls to get rigs out the door faster with more qualified personnel then before. I see nothing wrong with that! And I am an assistant chief of my department, I could care less if another larger department, more qualified with more trained members and better equipment comes in and takes over my sandbox...I will still be in the box playing, just with more friends and better toys!

Making a regionalized "County Fire District" is an easy way around those rules, right??? You are still only forming a fire district yet this one would be county wide and easier managed.
I believe that is the only thing that will save our county fire service here. My department has only 9 interior qualified firefighters, 6 of us are officers yet you go 10 minutes south of us and they have over 50 members, 3 engines, tanker, heavy rescue, 95' tower, brush unit, gator rescue atv, 2 ambulances, ALS fly car/captains vehicle and average 500-600 calls a year. We can barely get 3-4 FF's to a call with 2-3 rigs and they can cover two calls at once (have seen them do it). Regionalize our county and half of their members instantly became eligible to respond to our station for calls to get rigs out the door faster with more qualified personnel then before. I see nothing wrong with that! And I am an assistant chief of my department, I could care less if another larger department, more qualified with more trained members and better equipment comes in and takes over my sandbox...I will still be in the box playing, just with more friends and better toys!

Making a regionalized "County Fire District" is an easy way around those rules, right??? You are still only forming a fire district yet this one would be county wide and easier managed.
I believe that is the only thing that will save our county fire service here. My department has only 9 interior qualified firefighters, 6 of us are officers yet you go 10 minutes south of us and they have over 50 members, 3 engines, tanker, heavy rescue, 95' tower, brush unit, gator rescue atv, 2 ambulances, ALS fly car/captains vehicle and average 500-600 calls a year. We can barely get 3-4 FF's to a call with 2-3 rigs and they can cover two calls at once (have seen them do it). Regionalize our county and half of their members instantly became eligible to respond to our station for calls to get rigs out the door faster with more qualified personnel then before. I see nothing wrong with that! And I am an assistant chief of my department, I could care less if another larger department, more qualified with more trained members and better equipment comes in and takes over my sandbox...I will still be in the box playing, just with more friends and better toys!

You'll never hear me argue against consolidating/regionalizing fire services, but a federal agency dedicated to general policing is prohibited by the Constitution, if I'm not mistaken, under the 10th Amendment. I also wouldn't argue for a national fire service because as of late it seems like there's not much the federal government does well, but County/Regional departments are a no-brainer to me.
There's no reason NOT to regionalize fire services, we'd be providing a much more uniform service across a larger service area and population and make better use of the limited resources we have at our disposal. The ironic thing is all the people who want to retain their "turf" don't realize that in most regional fire service models (IE: PG County, Baltimore County, etc) you're MORE likely to get sent to jobs way outside your first due, and your company retains its individual identity and Officers, albiet with some more stringent requirements on training/certification... but alas, here we are.

On April 1st 2013, Scotland's 8 regional Fire & Rescue services were merged into a single national department. The 8 regional police services were also merged into a single national service.
The 8 regions were originally made up of many smaller depts. but during and after world war IIthey were merged.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21938388
Wow, 8 depts are too many for an entire nation so they are merging them into 1. We have 59 in just our county and they all believe that their community would not survive without them. Infact we have whole towns with 8 departments. What was most interesting is their reasoning for the merge, they wanted to save money, but most important they did not want to reduce services. All over America we see depts cutting staffing, cutting companies, cutting houses, cutting salaries and the number of volunteers dropping, but still no one is willing to merge to make sure the services delivered in the field remain strong? So this merger will save enough money to maintain every company, every station and the minimum manning on an engine will remain at 6 (1 officer, 1 driver & 4 firefighters).We really need to rethink how we do this and why we do this.

I respectfully agree and disagree with you here; agree that we all need a vest, disagree on picking and choosing which calls to wear it.
In my career EMS job that I worked for 16 years, if I were issued one i would wear it under my uniform shirt every shift for every call.
Like mentioned so many times in so many ways, you never know ahead of time when you will be in a tough situation, other then those calls dispatched as "Domestic Violence" or "Possible Suicide" or "Police Action Call", you dont know ahead of time when to wear it or not. Many of my routine medical calls such as chest pain and possible strokes unded up being violent scenes with agitated people wanting to hurt someone, i was just lucky enough to live in an area where most of them could not afford to buy food let alone a hand gun or rifle, and just ended up with punches or kicks thrown at me and the scenes turning into WWE matches instead of EMS scenes.

I had the pleasure of meeting RWC130 yesterday in person, and got to see his 1974 Mack Engine (and ride in it, but he wouldnt let me play with the sirens...lol) It was a great truck and a great day. Happy to have met you brother, too bad Tim couldnt come with you, maybe next time.
Is there any events coming up for EMTBravo members to get the chance to meet each other?
Just wanted to share that and tell Rob good luck with the Mack and the refurb project! Look forward to seeing it finished.
Brian "Moose" Jones

But by that logic doesn't that mean Police Officers in rural areas shouldn't be wearing vests that aren't Level III or have III/IV plates?
The point I'm trying to make is that its not unreasonable that an EMT could get into a situation that takes a turn for the worse.

Then why bother getting vest, to keep it for certain calls. Guaranteed to be useless then. The calls where fire/EMS were ambushed were called in as regular everyday calls. Most of the ambush calls, a regular bullet resistant best would have done nothing to protect the crews, either due to the size of the weapon being used, or the close proximity.
At close range a vest may stop a round, but the shooter, if intent to kill people, has a greater chance to hit vital unprotected areas of the body.
A level III best will not stop a rifle round, unless you add additional armor plating to it, which adds weight, retains heat and moisture (sweat). As for the vests that advertise as lighter weight, or more flexible, I and personally more questioning of their claims. There was one vest a few years ago that had to recalled when it was found the fibers were degrading faster than designed, offering less protection

This has been a topic of discussion before the bombing. Don't plan on any politicians footing the bill though (ask Hilary or Barack about procuring vests for troops during OIF). I'm all for it. Your safety before anyone else's and certain vests are great against knives and other weapons.
Now it doesn't mean you have to wear it to every call. But if they are kept at the ems hq and taken on the ambulances as needed they could be helpful.

Everyone is looking at sizeup/preliminary report as an FD structure only report. These reports are useful to incoming units and bosses on all types of calls from a structure fire to an MVA to a Ped Struck to a school evacuation. Putting information out such as number of patients, staging area, best access route, hazards, etc. will aid in units getting a clearer picture of what they are "walking into" while enroute. It can also aid a boss in escalating an assignment prior to arrival based on information at hand. The important thing is to think outside the box and do not pigeon hole a reporting tool as only useful for one type of call.

Depending on health and time, I'm planning on going to the Bedford Hills Parade, the Katonah FD Wetdown, and Fleet Day. I also hope to make some other events.
If anybody is going to these events and wants to meet up, PM or email me. I like putting faces to names as well, and hearing input about the site.

Remember the difference between us and sanitation is their garbage doesn't talk back. :-)

I have read a lot of information from around the country in regards to departments beginning a program to monitor the air quality during interior firefighting operations, especially during overhaul, and requiring their members to keep on air until these quality checks come back negative for CO and other harmful gases. I am interested in beginning this for our department as well being we have nothing set up as far as when you can come off air, and I see members going in to the building with packs on, but mask dangling at their waist's while their is still active fire. Overhaul is a joke...practically no one wears their packs and it concerns me with all of the press regarding firefighters and cancer rates, as well as respiratory illness...its staggering and unbelievable to think that we still refuse to wear our packs during overhaul. Is it the "Macho" thing??
My question is; does anyone have an SOP already in place that I could review, to get some ideas of how we can write one custom for our needs? Does anyone have any additional information you could share as far as statistics, actuall experience's, or case studies involving respiratory illness and cancer being attributed to being exposed to these gases during overhaul stages? Basically, anything I can use as ammunition when I go to our next officers meeting and begin the process of starting some kind of program for our department.
Another question is; should we even write an SOP right away or just use actuall real time experiences to guide the process and judge what we would need as far as the SOP, and just use our new 4-gas meter to assess air quality and not allow anyone to enter without pack?
Any input would be greatly appreciated, I am not afraid to admit when I do not know enough about a topic and ask for help and advice from others who might know more then me.
Thanks in advance and stay safe.