Bnechis

While that's the MINIMUM legal requirement in NYS for career, for the last 28 years we have exceeded that by 2 1/2 times and now 3 times

1) than 90% of all police, fire and EMS calls should not have RLS. 2) Because you can't even get them to respond for a real call, much less a stand-by. Paging any available driver for the 36th time for the mutual aid call. 3) in most cases, because we have not been to a fire in like forever and going mutual aid to cover gets us so much closer to a working fire..... Or in the busy departments we understand the likely hood of being moved up (to the scene because we are needed) before we even get to the standby. When we go stand-by in Yonkers, we have 18 rigs (engines, ladders, rescues) committed and 4 or 5 rigs covering the whole city. We have been redirected many times before we even get to the city to respond directly to other life threatening calls.

1) When I worked in NYC going to a call from Manhattan to Queens or the Bronx was closer than Many of our Westchester Relocates . 2) The incident in question was going to Pelham. That means GFD would not be going "to the next district" but driving through Scarsdale, Eastchester, Mt Vernon to get to Pelham. It also means that Pelham has a Job and already committed PFD, PMFD, NRFD, EFD and MVFD. Also means that they will be covering both PFD & PMFD. 3) That's the reason the ISO standard is that you have spare apparatus. Unfortunately with 58 departments we duplicate so much, but still most depts. have no spares. and can not justify them. When it comes to the ISO 9 (non-hydrant) departments/areas of the county most have more engines than needed and none have enough tankers.

Agreed. My point was they are not replacing it, because of the accident

Lohud is trying to make everyone think their is a leak. The rig is being replaced because its due to be replaced. The accident is a separate unrelated issue.

Their is a science to fleet management and many departments have no idea about this. What is the best time to replace a rig? Much depends on its condition, wear and tear etc. A small department that runs 300 calls a year vs. a busy one doing 10,000. etc. But their are a number of factors to consider: 1) NFPA standards list 25 years max life, but only if the vehicle has a safety upgrade at 15 years. How many safety updates has the industry seen in the last 25 years? seatbelts, antilock breaks, automatic traction control, tilt testing, etc.? What is the liability on keeping rigs longer than this? 2) Resale value. At 10 years and 1 day the resale value of apparatus dramatically drops. Their are some large depts. that have a very progressive program to remove all rigs from primary service at 8 years and place them into the spare fleet. They are sold before their 10th year. The maintenance costs avoided, plus the resale value mean these departments actually spend less (over a 30-40 comparison) than those depts. that keep the rig until its only value is for scrap metal. 3) Maintenance Costs. Most apparatus components are covered under warranties, almost all run out by 8-10 years. The cost of maintaining older apparatus is dramatic compared to new (particularly when many costs are covered by warranties). Experience shows that in a fleet of 20 vehicles, the 2 oldest may take up to 80% of the maintenance budget. And it is not uncommon for depts. to spend 5-10%/yr. of the cost of a replacement on older apparatus. This does not take into account the down time which is hard to measure financially. As many major manufacturers have gone out of business these costs and time goes up. 4) Budget Cycle - Most depts. never set a long term replacement cycle. This creates major financial stress and causes delays in purchasing which will increase costs (particularly interest costs for bonding). If you have 100 apparatus in your fleet and you determine that the average life you want is 10 years, then every year you need to buy 10 new rigs. If you have 4 rigs and you want 20 years than every 5 years you need to buy a rig. This pattern must continue forever. If the rig ages get to close together, your costs get piled on in a very short period. If you have a steady pattern it is easier to budget and maybe even save for. Replacement cost (average): 2 engines $500,000 each 1 ladder $1,000,000 1 Rescue $250,000 Your average is $562,500. If you buy one new rig each year you need to budget $112,500 every year (plus inflation) and you will maintain your fleet at no rig over 20. and a new rig every 5 years.

Because without the training, they do not even know what they do not know.

Because they have only one standard

I stand corrected. Good catch, even if it took 7.5 months to catch

This appears to be from last year and in use during this year. Note the 91 hour program.

If memory serves, Newark FD Rescue was less responsible for extrication and spent their efforts on Hazmat instead

Agreed they should be and this has been the law in NYS for over 30 years, but very few departments simply believe its OFPC & the counties responsibly

1) And that is big part of the problem. Their are depts. that no longer have any interior volunteers (or none some of the time), but they have plenty of exterior. Most will deny this, but if you fail to tell the community, its the #1 problem, because you are no longer a fire department. Do you know that the exterior members need the same couple hundred hours per year of training for ISO. If they have less, it hurts your rating and costs your property owners more money. This includes your 85 year old "members" who no longer respond, but if your rules classify them as "firefighters" ISO deducts points for all the training hours they do not get each year? All those exterior members with $3,000 tax funded turnouts, has the public been told that's where their $$$ goes? I am not saying their is not a role for exterior members, but their needs to be a measured response and you need 3 or 4 (or more) interior for every exterior member. 2) I am having chest pain, quick call me a health care worker....anyone, as they are all equal. 3) Not writing off exterior. You cant fix the problem till you admit their is a problem. We hear everyday departments toning out multiple times for available members, but they have no problem? We hear of room and content fires that require 5, 6, 7 departments for mutual aid just to get a dozen interior members. We also know of departments that still claim to have hundreds of members, but that's not what responds. We need to stop thinking that we need to maintain 58 individual fire departments, when 95% can not handle a simple fire without mutual aid. And finally we need ALL firefighters to support MORE training. As long as groups fight to prevent this we will never move forward.

You are correct they don't know or care, because they believe that the FD has the trained personnel that can do the job. But their are a lot of depts. that are having major issues doing that. And the law did that many years ago (some of the material has been law since 1990) to bad that OFPC just ignored clearly defined classifications

On another thread "Rye City Manager - Staffed for Failure". At one point a Rye City Council women asks Why is adding firefighters so important "We have like 200 volunteers" The chief answered, well not exactly...they are members but we only have 40 that are active and of those only 17-20 are interior, which means the others are helpers. And of those interior like 19 are not available daytime because of work or school. So does it matter? The City thinks they have 200 and daytime they have 1.

You are correct. Lets go back even further. in 1987 the career standard in Westchester was 480 hours plus EMT (120-140 hours). Since then they have added TIC training, FAST, Survival, collapse, confined space, hazmat tech, WMD, etc. And those of us who did not have it as part of our initial training got it as part of ongoing and in-service training. Yes its evolving and the training standards evolve with it. Funny it only is a career/volley issue in places that have 2 (or 3 if you consider exterior only) standards for the same title "Firefighter".

All field positions including driving must be 100% interior qualified since our 4th due engine is FAST (including the driver) so any engine can be FAST. Also drivers not pumping are expected to operate inside, particularly at high-rise jobs. Fire Prevention is done by field personnel assigned to FP on days off. Fire Inspections are done by engine and ladder companies. We have 2 inspectors (1 fire fighter, 1 captain) out of 156 active duty members that in theory could not be required to wear SCBA, but both are required to pass annual physicals and fit testing , because they can be transferred back to field units as needed (and their replacements in staff need to be certified as code enforcement officers). We do have a few firefighters who can't wear SCBA's because of medical conditions, they are classified under GML 207A and are awaiting NYS Disability Pension Retirement.

If you can no longer wear a mask you get to retire

This is very far from being a single standard. So 20+ hours has been added. The Westchester career fire academy is now 17 weeks (680 hours) plus most have to become EMT after that (160 hours). Plus the state annual requirements for career is 12x more.

It was a legal requirement that everyone chose to ignore. Now since OFPC is in agreement FD's must comply. While their is a job for everyone, 90% of what is needed is interior and most depts. are lucky if they have 50%.

That could never happen here.............Paging for any available driver.....paging for additional manpower for the automatic alarm....

Interesting that its viewed as additions. When FF1 was first introduced, it was pointed out on multiple occasions, by a number of people that it was less training and skills than most other states consider as the minimum for FF1. Of greater importance it was pointed out that someone who passed FF1 did not meet the minimum legal requirements to respond to or operate at a fire based on NYS Labor Law. But FASNY and other groups convinced OFPC that that did not matter, the real issue was we do not want to much training. OFPC finally realizes that what was the "minimum" was below legal levels and that leaves everyone in danger.

1) While building codes are more stringent, 80% of the buildings in lower Westchester were built before these codes came into being. 2) Only those with sprinklers are more fire resistant. light weight construction is clearly not equal to traditional construction. 3) I wonder if he actually said this on the oil? My experience with quotes in the media is they rarely are what the person actually said. and sometimes they are completely made up.

This will actually eliminate some of the candidates that should not even be accepted into the departments. Some departments are so desperate that they will accept anyone with a pulse and that does not help with the mission.

Long overdue