BFD1054

Interesting scenario.
1st off, I am sure we have a procedure for this, I don't recall seeing it since training when I started 5 years ago though. The calltaker is supposed to prioritize a missing person who is either under the age of 12, or has a mental incapacity of some sort; such as alzheimer's disease or autism. For situations like this we are supposed to send the initial car and a supervisor to the "scene" of where the person is missing from. We also alert the communications supervisor (or are supposed to) and the street lieutenant. Hoping that the calltaker did their due diligence when receiving the call, we transmit a description immediately and send additional cars to canvass for the missing. I have never dispatched the fire department to assist, but this is considering the jurisdiction I am employed in has a significant amount of patrols working. I personally make immediate calls to our ambulance service as they are an "on the street" unit and may come across the missing during their shift, our bus/mass transit service; Liberty Lines whom operates the BeeLine Bus System in southern Westchester (this has yielded results for me twice in the past 2 years!), and call our local emergency rooms because a "good Samaritan" may have picked up the missing and dropped them off at the hospital because maybe they were confused or looked as though they needed medical attention. The car should get photos of the missing for distribution to canvassing units and a copy should be brought to our Youth division which handles all missing person cases. YD provides a flier using picture and description which gets distributed more thoroughly a short time after the incident has originated.
In the case of the "bodies of water" issue, I know that we have utilized the Mt. Pleasant dive team in the past to recover a missing female from the Hudson River. I would recommend them in the future as well. If a K9 is used and tracks to the body of water, then it is imperative to call in experts that are trained in searching in the water. It would not be the first time that a person went missing and ended up in a body of water. Usually these cases end tragically, and considerations should be in place to handle that scenario. It is also important to consider a pool to be a body of water. Small children have been recovered in swimming pools after going missing in the past. While canvassing, some personnel should be deployed on foot to thoroughly canvass the immediate area and be sure to check even covered swimming pools which are even more dangerous than open ones.
As well, if a small child is missing from "home", someone should consult the parents as to where the child likes to hide, I can't count the number of times children are found inside of their home, hiding, thinking it is a game.
As for the persons of deteriorating mental capacity or those with illnesses such as autism, the County of Westchester participates in the "Project Lifesaver" program. If you have anyone in your family or even a neighbor, or a repeatedly missing person that suffers from one of those conditions, you should recommend this program. You can view the following links for more information:
Project Lifesaver homepage
Westchester County Page

The only thing I can see from reading this string of posts is that a regional (perhaps a couple of regional) fire dept's is something that Westchester Co. is SCREAMING FOR! It needed it decades ago. It needed it when I volunteered in Westchester and it needs it now more than ever! There are too many wasted or under utilized resources, too many under utilized people. Certainly there are people in every department who want to and COULD respond more often. Put them to better use and enter a system without so many lines and boundaries such. Some departments do very well with turning out manpower and some REALLY don't. The larger the pool of responders you draw from, the better. No one is expecting a guy to run off the golf course and answer a ringing alarm, actually, I wouldn't expect a guy to run for a working fire if he was putting on the 13th hole, or whatever. People have lives and they're going to be unavailable sometimes. That's the breaks, so expand, regionalize and have a more consistent turn-out.
There's more. There should be standardized responses that are arranged with the dispatch agency and are consistent county wide (larger more self sustaining dept's aside). I see things written in the paper, or on this web-site, that don't seem to have any REAL consistent meaning. What's a 2nd Alarm bring you? How about a 3rd and so on? When the word is given that you have a working fire (10-75 means nothing, according to anything I can find. It's 10-21 and 10-22) what will that bring to your scene? You should be able to transmit that you have a fire and without another word, certain resources should be sent by the dispatcher. You should DEFINITELY have a FAST unit right away. Do you get an extra engine, truck or both? Maybe more? I don't know the specifics, but those at the top should and it should be uniform for the area.

You are so right. It's really difficult to make the transition into a leadership role on the smaller jobs, and I imagine in volunteer departments as well. In the City, they transfer you out of your Battalion, your Division, your Borough in most cases right?
Take a small job with five firehouses and 70 members. Where are you going to go and make the change? Right in your same five houses, with the same 70 members.
Now you go to FLiPs, come back, in my case with two bars on the collar. That went over well at Randall's Island too. There was a guy in Flips from upstate that was a chief. Firefighter to chief. Talk about a leap. I spent half the time I was at the Rock explaining why we didn't have Lieutenants at the time. Now the job has Lts, much better transition for a firefighter to go to company officer then to tour command, than to skip the company officer part. But a lot of us do/did.
Even jobs like FDMV, NRFD; they aren't so huge that you can take a new officer and start over in a whole new environment. You want to practice the book and try to live by it.
But you get back, with all the knowledge you've absorbed from Flips, even though much of the classtime was devoted to FDNY operations, and now your brothers are calling you sir and you have a new level of performance you have to bring to the job every day.
It gets tested, guys have issues, problems arise, how do you handle them, do you help the brothers stay out of trouble, do you become hard nosed, do you want to be loved or feared?
I always took the meaning of my job to protect my guys as just that. Protect them in every possible way I could, so they could go home at the end of their tours to their families. There's a way to ensure bail-out systems get inspected and serviced regularly, and the members get to be trained and retrained. Commanders just have to be enabled with the authority and responsibility to carry it out. Too much micro-management on smaller jobs. Too many times a tour commander will get squeezed between a chief and his squad.
A really good boss will give the tour commander the authority, he'll pass it to company officers and the whole system works like it supposed to.
Good judgement by the commander is neccesary; we can't take our leadership roles to the extremes; laxidical or authoritarian.
In some cases if it isn't going well for a leader, it's because they can't listen and adapt to what is being told to them. A good commander is a good listener, in my opinion.

Chris, thank you for sharing so much info on the Aviation Unit. The pictures you added are incredible!
It seems as though WCPD Aviation is much more active now than when i worked there in 01'-02.' As you said, you guys are now more pro-active than re-active. Having a helo has always been a great advantage, but having a newer helo with all of its technology is even better. Working with you, i know just how passionate you are about Aviation and it shows through and through.
A big thank you to you and your fellow Aviation Unit members for what you guys do! You're our eyes in the sky and a huge benefit for the County.

It has become a very reassuring feeling to hear the noise of the helo coming towards a scene that you are at beside the fact that it is an incredibly valuable resource for the cop on the ground. I have had many jobs with them from foot pursuits to gun runs and it's always good having those guys over head wheather they are looking for a perp or just circling the scene to keep the crowd wondering.
It never gets old when you have a crowd yelling and screaming at the cops and then all of a sudden the helo comes in low, fast and loud and they all look up at the same time and say "oh sh*t"
Thanks again guys and keep up the great work

According to the census info, 11 residents have left this "City." My guess is they lived here, met the fire department and decided to move.
What kills me is that this seems like a simple operation. They could of advanced that line in the front door, had someone take that window, and knocked it down. I personally wouldn't of wasted time / manpower venting the roof, horizontal ventilation would have been sufficient. Also, did anyone check if the door was unlocked?
I've seen similar actions at almost every fire I have ever gone to. People get to the door without their tools, forget pieces of their gear, and basically turn into PPE covered jello molds. Why? Any incident should be treated as an unscheduled drill. We all spend so much time focusing on doing stuff the right way at drills, yet at calls there's always a few hammer-heads that forget what was covered at that last drill. (Of course, many think they're above basic drills and usually manage to muck up something at a call).
When ALS emailed this video to me, a bunch of us watched it together at the firehouse. Needless to say, we cracked up. I made a point to remind the guys that this could very well be us, as the availability of cell phone cameras, flip video cameras, etc. have grown faster then anything else out there.
Be smart, train often, and keep your calm.

Sad, sad, sad. So much for that thread about the words "professional" on a vollie rig. This is at least a combination department (can't tell for sure from their website). Chief is at least a career position, and he's laying on the lawn. There are "professionals" and "un-professionals" in both career and vollie ranks. No one has an exclusive on either.

Link to Lohud/Journal News Article:
http://www.lohud.com/article/20103310366
The Incident Alert:
Date: 03-30-10
Time: 1115hrs (tow)
Location: Rt. 202 & Lake Rd.
Frequency: 46.18 (dispatch)/Frequency-3 (op's)
Units Operating: Tallman FD (Dept. 20)
Weather Conditions: Rain, wind
Description Of Incident: MVA w/Extrication
Reporters:
Writer: BFD1054
44-Control advising Tallman FD units that as per an officer on scene, confirmed extrication, dump truck vs. car.
May these young gentlemen rest in peace. Condolences to their families, friends and team mates.

Link to Lohud/Journal News Article:
http://www.lohud.com/article/20103310366
The Incident Alert:
Date: 03-30-10
Time: 1115hrs (tow)
Location: Rt. 202 & Lake Rd.
Frequency: 46.18 (dispatch)/Frequency-3 (op's)
Units Operating: Tallman FD (Dept. 20)
Weather Conditions: Rain, wind
Description Of Incident: MVA w/Extrication
Reporters:
Writer: BFD1054
44-Control advising Tallman FD units that as per an officer on scene, confirmed extrication, dump truck vs. car.
May these young gentlemen rest in peace. Condolences to their families, friends and team mates.

Date: 03-30-10
Time: 1115hrs (tow)
Location: Rt. 202 & Lake Rd.
Frequency: 46.18 (dispatch)/Frequency-3 (op's)
Units Operating: Tallman FD (Dept. 20)
Weather Conditions: Rain, wind
Description Of Incident: MVA w/Extrication
Reporters:
Writer: BFD1054
44-Control advising Tallman FD units that as per an officer on scene, confirmed extrication, dump truck vs. car.

Bobby is a personal friend of mine and former member of the West Harrison Fire Dept. He was a proud and dedicated member before joining the NYPD. Knowing him, he can't wait to get back to work. Thanks for the thoughts and well wishes. Also, my best to those other officers with him, and to all Police officers, I thank you for what you do each day.

Date: 03-22-10
Time: 1230hrs
Location: 3073 Park Ave
Description Of Incident: Officer shot 3X to the abdomen and vest by an EDP. PO transported to Lincoln Hospital and EDP located DOA in an apartment. FPTF
Reporters/Writer: Truck4
News reporting that the Officer shot is from West Harrison. Just wanted to say best wishes for a speedy recovery for this young Officer. Very scary incident that could have been much, much worse.

Date: 03-22-10
Time: 1230hrs
Location: 3073 Park Ave
Description Of Incident: Officer shot 3X to the abdomen and vest by an EDP. PO transported to Lincoln Hospital and EDP located DOA in an apartment. FPTF
Reporters/Writer: Truck4
News reporting that the Officer shot is from West Harrison. Just wanted to say best wishes for a speedy recovery for this young Officer. Very scary incident that could have been much, much worse.

I saw on Snews-12 that 3 firefighters were injured at the Spring Valley job the other day. However, i was unable to find anything on here.
Anybody have any word on how those members are doing?

The fact that this fire happened at 3pm and a victim had to be pulled from it should be a reminder to all of us that house fires don't just have occupants at 3AM.
Out of curiosity, where in the home was this victim located?
Thanks, and good work New Hamburg FD!

I agree 66FFMJK. However this is not at all limited to the fire service ... I have encountered 'unprofessional' police officers, sanitation workers, EMT's, postal carriers, etc.. In other words there are some bad apples in every walk of life. Overall, throughout my fire service career I encountered very few unprofessional firefighters and those who showed such attributes were shunned by their peers and such behaviour was not tolerated by the department.

Wow, thats crazy how long it took for the MAYDAY to be answered, totally unacceptable.
Also crazy that a City such as Cincinnati uses the same frequency for dispatch and fireground op's.

Date: 03-17-10
Time: 1550hrs (approx)
Location: Garrison Train Station
Frequency: 46.38/NYSP
Units Operating: PCSO, NYSP, Garrison VAC, Putnam-Medic
Weather Conditions: Clear/Warm
Description Of Incident: Large Fight w/Injuries
Reporters:
Writer: BFD1054
1550hrs-TMC dispatching SP units to above location for a reported dispute.
1559hrs-Putnam 911 dispatching Garrison VAC & Putnam Medic-? to above location; reported large active fight in progress w/injuries, EMS to stage away until scene is secure.
1600hrs-NYSP units on scene, more units still en-route.
1643hrs-Garrison VAC units in service, RMA's secured.

Why do you think that YOU are paying for the new truck? The fire department has nothing to do with the contracts of village workers either. Buchanan Engine Company #1, Inc. is an independant fire company, not a fire district. It has an annual contract with the village to provide fire protection. The department buys and owns the apparatus, and owns the property and building which we operate from. The new truck is being paid for by Buchanan Engine Company, not the Village of Buchanan or it's residents.

Here are some quick snaps I got today on my camera phone...

Thanks Chris. Exellent points. Just for clarification our additional alarms are normally 2 Engines and 1 Truck so that would be only 12 people total (all companies are staffed by 1 Officer and 3 Firefighters). The remaining Battalion Chief with his Aide (there are two on duty at all times) and the on call Deputy (no aide) come with the second alarm so the second alarm would actually have 15 members and all additional alarms would have 12 members.
We call mutual aide once we go below 3 Engines and 2 Ladders in the City and we do try to get them back to their municipality as soon as possible by freeing up in service companies as well as recalling off duty members to man spare apparatus which are normally equipped and ready to go. We also call in an off duty Battalion Chief with Aide to man a spare Battalion car and cover the city once we go to a third alarm. One thing we are lacking which we have been fighting for years for is 24 / 7 Fire Department supervision of the civilain Fire Dispatchers which would really help in situations like last night. There was a lot of scrambling behind the scenes to keep the city adequately covered, as well as get our off duty members in and out the door on the spares, send the mutual aid back, rotate fresh crews to the fire scene, transport injured or exhausted members etc. while at the same time maintaining accountability of everyone and everything....thanks to the mutual aid departments who came in as well as cooperation from union leaders, off duty members, etc. this was all handled pretty well last night.
Although you point out the benefits of certain aspects of our manning and organization, I would state that we are actually at a bare minimum right now and I couldn't imagine what would happen if we were forced to operate with less companies, less manning on the companies, or less staffing on the administrative side.

OK it looks like story time.
Once upon a time there was a very large strip shopping center whose parking lot straddled two jurisdictions. Quite a few people beat a few arrests because the "jurisdiction that they were arrested in" was wrong. The PD's agreed to paint the city line across the parking lot (3 or 4 city blocks long) so it would very clear where the arrest was made.
Then, one day, an engine Co. from one of the jurisdictions was spotted by a politico, shopping at a market 300 ft out ot their city. (That particular Eng. Co. has no supermarkets in its company area) The poop hit the air circulator,(despite all the logic explained by the guilty Eng. Co.) and City A's FD was banned from shopping out of town for any reason.
Along comes the Eng. Co. from city B. The supermarket lies in city B.
Always willing to help a brother, the City B engine agrees to meet the City A engine at 10:00am every morning at the shopping center, both on the proper side of the city line. The shopping list was passed over the city line, along with the money and you know the rest.
It didn't last too long. Logic prevailled, and logic will probably prevail in Boston, too.
Footnote: I kinda liked the painted line, myself. You don't have to fill out the full NFIRS if your guys can push the car fire over the line before WP (oops... I meant to say City A) gets there.

If we wanted free food we shoulda been cops

Here's the scenario:
Odor of gasoline in a 2 story garden apartment with garages underneath on Side C. Source traced to a garage which was the Super's maintensnce garage. The fuel line of a snowblower broke and leaked fuel on the floor. What we saw was a fuel-soaked pile of kitty litter or oilsorb under the snowblower.
Here's the conversation:
Me; Ya know, it's OK to soak up the fuel, but you gotta bag up the kitty litter and get it out of the building.
Super: That's not kitty litter
Me: OK oil sorb,whatever
Supt: No, it's that stuff you put on the grass
Me:Fertilizer?
Supt: Yeah
Me: WTF
OK you EOD guys, what was that, ANFO's Redneck Cousin?