Jason762

I believe the key term here is "on the job". The firefighters that are possibly going to be replaced are truly "on the job". They took a competative written and physical agility test, passed a medical exam, attended a 14 or so week academy and work on engine/truck/rescue companies with a crew and boss. What these future "career" positions are is nothing short of scab positions that are going to be handed out to friends of the right people, some of whom could not pass a third grade spelling test. It is an absolute disgrace to not only Stamford but the fire service as a whole and it certainly screams to me "well I couldn't get on the job anywhere through the front door, so let me just sneek in through the back". Horrible and sickening!!!

I as well do not like Monday morning quareterbacking an incident which I was not a part of BUT, this appears to be a total breakdown of all the things "we" as firefighters train and prepare for. From the command structure (or lack there of), to the actions of the firefighters, everything just looks really, really bad. I actually grew up only about 15 minutes from where this incident occurred and started my fire service career in that area, so I have some knowledge of the departments involved. I agree with most of what has already been posted, but I will reinforce some problems I saw: the FF's on air or wearing their facepieces outside the building is ridiculous, the lack of ground ladders placed before the mayday is a problem, the member operating the line from the outside in the rear (wearing his mask, but no helmet) while other members appear to be making entry from the front, the lack of horizontal ventilation, making entry through a second floor window with a handline, the yelling and screaming by members in reference to placing the ladder for FF rescue yet none of them actually appeared to lend a hand, the ladder was not extended to reach the member in distress, no one ascended the ladder to assist the FF in need, the lack of patient assessment before dragging the downed member.
The list seems to go on and on and I don't even want to start to touch on what the heck the guy who was filming this was doing. He appeared to be aimlessly wandering around the fireground w/o any real purpose. At one ponint he was holding the line in the rear and looked like he was heading towards an area where fire was showing from a window like he was going to operate the line into it until someone redirected him to the ladder. He seemed to be on air and talking to himself and then started yelling "Mayday, Mayday, mayday" after the FF was out of the building and later was yelling "Firefighter down, firefighter down" as the injured member was being dragged to the front of the building. Apparently he was a member of the RIT. After the situation was handled there was more radio traffic about a Mayday, not sure what that was all about. This guy then walked back and forth behind the building about another 6 or so times.
Did anyone else notice the color, volume and velocity of the smoke issuing from around the member in distress as he exited the window? It appeared very light in color and not pushing with any great force or volume. To me this indicates that conditions were not that bad in that immediate area requiring that type of exit. I'm not sure what the bail-out situation was all about (out of air, deteriorating conditions, structural failure, etc.), but it didn't look like he was being chased out rapidly extending fire conditions. I certainly could be wrong though...
To be fair this footage only gives a very narrow view of what was truly happening, but I hope any departments that view this do not repeat the same mistakes in the future.