Bnechis

So anyone can be a chief in NY?

On the career side their are civil service requirements, that on a local level may include training &/or education.

But their is no state requirements to be a fire chief (beyond 1st line supervisor for career officers)

What are your Fire Departments training standards for Interior Status, Officers, and Chiefs?

In Long Island there are only two Career Departments, this had me wondering, do Volunteer Companies and Career Departments ever operate at incidents or train together?

Career depts. do not have an "interior status" all firefighters are "interior".

All career officers by law must attend 160 hours of 1st line supervisors training (after competitive testing for the promotion).

Their is no requirement in NYS for Chiefs

http://www.dhses.ny.gov/ofpc/documents/standards/part426lawbook.pdf

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) Websters defines an emergency as immediate threat to life and limb.

2) A big chunk of real estate that happens not to have any available fire engines in it, but also has no call pending, in my tiny brain is not an emergency. Pretty much everyday (if not all day) in this (Westcheste) County a town or large city may have ALL of its EMS resources out on calls or otherwise unavailable. The likelyhood of another call coming in is high, and the chance of it being serious is also high, yet the thought of moving another ambulance in from out of town to cover would NEVER happen, and when it does it is NEVER RLS.

3) Yet when a Town's fire resources are all commited, it is like, Holy Crap, we gotta get crews and trucks over there ASAP, even though there is amost no chance of another call coming in, and the chance of it being serious is tiny. In the above situation, Pelham gets less than a call a day and less then a fire per year, I believe.

Can anyone tell me why we fear burning to death so much more than dieing of dieing by or sudden illness, even though the latter is like 1000X more likely?

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) Comparing NYC to Westchester is like apples to oranges. In NYC, companies can move from one borough to another. In Westchester, it's usually a neighboring department moving over - sometimes only a mile or two.

2) Here in Westchester, the majority of relocates usually move over to another district, where they generally don't go anywhere else or on any runs in that district they're covering, with some exceptions. Sometimes, resources get relocated that aren't even usually in that district... but I'll digress. And sometimes units that are relocated aren't even moved up to the scene of a working fire, while others are called from several towns away and PASS THE ONES COVERING! Again, I won't elaborate.

3) When you send an apparatus out for repair, do you always have an apparatus to cover that unit? For example, if your department has only one Tanker, do you have a Mutual Aid Tanker come sit in your fire station until it returns? Do you drive back from the repair shop lights and siren because there might be a fire it needs to go to? I doubt it.

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

I'm confused. There was only $4,000 in damages and that's the basis for replacing the truck? I think some detail is missing here, no?

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.

Finally is an interesting way to put replacing a 2001 ladder truck. Look around New England, a 13 or 14 year old truck ain't old. Ours is a 1995 with NO plans of replacement.

Sometimes I wonder about how some people on this board miss reality a bit. They seem to think that money for equipment grows on trees and how we deserve certain kinds of equipment. I deserve a safe working environment. It's up to the taxpayers and the elected officials to decide what to provide me as far as equipment goes. It's the leaderships job to educate them as to how to best spend their money.

As far as saying a dept is finally replacing something that many other departments would be thrilled to have...doesn't quite jive for me with most jurisdiction's financial realities.

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.

There is not one civil service paid firefighter in Rockland county. So, the volunteer standard is all they have,

Fact is, you go to a majority of the other states in the union, and all volunteers must be trained to the same level as career firefighters before they are allowed to ride on calls. Why is this? Because it makes sense. How can anyone possibly agree and promote less training for anyone who is responsible for the lives of others? Why should volunteers be allowed to respond with this minimal amount of training, but career personnel have an exorbitant amount?

Simple example would be exploring a train accident on the MTA lines. How many volunteer departments who have MTA Lines run through them, require their firefighters to undergo MTA train safety if there is an accident on the tracks? How many departments require their firefighters to undergo mass casualty incident training, or mass hazmat decon training if another 9-11 happens and biochem or nuclear weapons are utilized and released into the general population in the city and commuters start to take the trains home prior to any transit ban placed into effect? Fact is, all career departments who sent their members to the academy, have received this training. I just found out the other day that FF1 no longer teaches how to operate a saw, or cut a roof. That's reserve for truck company class.

Forget about the population and what level of service they are receiving. The real questions are why, should you as a firefighter, choose to be unknowingly exposed to risks that you cannot even comprehend until you go through training? And paralleling that, as someone who is responding to those types of incidents, you should be demanding that you get trained in how to respond to those emergencies so you know and understand the risks and what to do CORRECTLY during those incidents. What kind of message does that send when we except apathy from our ranks in regards to training? People should be striving to learn all they can about the fire service, not actively attempting to hamper others safety.

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

how come in rockland county they dont have these problems ?bickering and resentment divisiveness? why only in westchester ?

Because they have only one standard

Those doors were painted by firefighters in 1976 to comemerate the 200th nniversary of our country. The rescue was located at 151 South Fulton Avenue, Truck 1 at 23 South Sixth Avenue and Barry, it is 211 South Fourth Avenue.

chiefhac

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

I'm not in Erie County, but this is the best description of the changes to FF 1 I have seen so far and why. I don't know when this was published, nor if this is the basis for the "new" FF1 classes in 2015.

http://www2.erie.gov/fire/sites/www2.erie.gov.fire/files/MEMO-2014%20FF1%20DELIVERY%20RE-DESIGN-140129_0.pdf

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}

I read one comment that stated each dept should be responsible for their own training. I agree.

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) Just remember there are probably more exterior/support personnel are and were regular firefighters before they had to hang up there scba the way some make it sound they are not firefighters.

2) It was added about hospitals you're right not everyone is called a Dr but they are all health care workers. Just like not everyone in the fire service is an interior or wildland or whatever but we are all firefighters!

3) So get off you're high horse find real solutions for all of the fire service and the community's better requirements for every position in the fire service don't just write off the exterior like I said before a lot of them can't be interior anymore.

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.

here is something to help you understand my point. The average citizen doesnt know or care who is called what as long as their local FD is doing their job. Departments should not be sending exterior guys to do an interior job. To me it should be less about what we call them and more about clearly defining what those classifications are.

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

So all this back and forth is about a title ? Really ? Come on guys is this what it has come to ? What should we call those who do not go interior so we can move on from this lunacy ?

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.

Listen you can spin it how you want to spin it but not every FF and PO trained in say 1998 received the same training as a FF or PO trained today. The job is always evolving and so are training standards. This has turned into Career FF vs. Volunteer FF 9.0 as is usually the case on this site. Are there some Volunteers that act the part of 'the jolly volly"? Sure. But not every career FF is professional and the notion that they are is ludicrous. Enough already.

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".

You get to or you have to. Aren't there duties that can be preformed such as fire inspections, fire prevention, driving,etc?

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.

I agree with incoming members but not those allready in who have put thier time in, perhaps can no longer wear a mask but can drive and run a pump or aerial ladder and do other stuff on the fireground that does not require wearing the mask. What happens to career firefighters who have some time on and fall into the same category?

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

As for a single standard, that is good in theory but has some problems in practice. The ability of someone in a career department to spend more time training is a reality that we have to face. The ability of a department to order someone to attend an academy on a full time basis is simply not there in a volunteer department or even some smaller career departments. a 14 week academy is over 500 hours, when I took FF1 is was about 120, the same for FF2 which together equal about half of that time. So how long would it take to run that full time standard on a part time basis?

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 is an addition if it was not required and now is. AAgain not fighting the need I am simply saying that 1 cylindar to do all that in succession itome seems a bit much. And to the memberwho said we need 1 standard for all firefighters in lieu of interior and exterior thats nuts. Every FD and PD has people on full time desk duty. There is a job for everyone in this service.

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%.

It took 8 minutes for the FD to gather enough people to get there. Yikes!

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

That said I believe in training as well as conditioning but feel like that addition to the curriculum is over the top.

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.

Republican Councilman Richard Mecca, who has been a volunteer firefighter in Rye since 1987 and who works as a building inspector in White Plains said, "people, especially in Rye, pay money to ensure that codes are followed to protect the value of their homes, and the codes have become more stringent over the last 30 to 40 years in terms of fire protection." He went on to say, “So buildings tend to be more fire resistant, thirty years ago, if oil in a pan caught fire and the fire department didn’t get there right away, the room was likely to catch fire. The same type of incident today is likely to be nothing more than a smoky incident.”

It's sad to see that a guy who is paid to do code enforcement and who apparently has been a volunteer firefighter since 1987, would actually make a misleading (flat out wrong) statement such as this. Does he really know little or nothing about fire spread, life safety for human beings who may be inside a home when a fire occurs as well as firefighter safety when arriving at such an incident severely understaffed? Or is he simply against hiring the number of firefighters necessary to keep the public and the firefighters safe?

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.