Bnechis

I have read on a number of sites the backlash, almost all based on the board being unpatriotic or trying to be PC.
 
Beyond, what the board reported as being a safety issue, no one knows what the motivation is. 
 
But, I have witnessed, flags getting larger and larger on the back of rigs, to the point that we are disrespectful of the flag.
 
On engines, I have witnessed hose being laid over a flag that's so large that without wind or driving it hung below the level of the bed.
 
On ladders, I have witnessed grease and tattered ends on the flag where it whips against the turntable gear. I have also seen where it rubs on ground ladders as they are moved in and out of the ladder tunnel.
 
On all rigs, I have seen filthy flags, because the dirt that swirls around the rear of the rigs.
 
On the safety side, I have seen them hiding flashing safety lights, turn signals and break lights. Saw one get burned by high intensity flood lights and have seen firefighters grabbing the flag to help them climb the rig.
 
This is not patriotic, nor is it how the flag should be respected! I am not saying they should be removed, but consider how we are displaying them.

I have read on a number of sites the backlash, almost all based on the board being unpatriotic or trying to be PC.
 
Beyond, what the board reported as being a safety issue, no one knows what the motivation is. 
 
But, I have witnessed, flags getting larger and larger on the back of rigs, to the point that we are disrespectful of the flag.
 
On engines, I have witnessed hose being laid over a flag that's so large that without wind or driving it hung below the level of the bed.
 
On ladders, I have witnessed grease and tattered ends on the flag where it whips against the turntable gear. I have also seen where it rubs on ground ladders as they are moved in and out of the ladder tunnel.
 
On all rigs, I have seen filthy flags, because the dirt that swirls around the rear of the rigs.
 
On the safety side, I have seen them hiding flashing safety lights, turn signals and break lights. Saw one get burned by high intensity flood lights and have seen firefighters grabbing the flag to help them climb the rig.
 
This is not patriotic, nor is it how the flag should be respected! I am not saying they should be removed, but consider how we are displaying them.

I have read on a number of sites the backlash, almost all based on the board being unpatriotic or trying to be PC.
 
Beyond, what the board reported as being a safety issue, no one knows what the motivation is. 
 
But, I have witnessed, flags getting larger and larger on the back of rigs, to the point that we are disrespectful of the flag.
 
On engines, I have witnessed hose being laid over a flag that's so large that without wind or driving it hung below the level of the bed.
 
On ladders, I have witnessed grease and tattered ends on the flag where it whips against the turntable gear. I have also seen where it rubs on ground ladders as they are moved in and out of the ladder tunnel.
 
On all rigs, I have seen filthy flags, because the dirt that swirls around the rear of the rigs.
 
On the safety side, I have seen them hiding flashing safety lights, turn signals and break lights. Saw one get burned by high intensity flood lights and have seen firefighters grabbing the flag to help them climb the rig.
 
This is not patriotic, nor is it how the flag should be respected! I am not saying they should be removed, but consider how we are displaying them.

I have read on a number of sites the backlash, almost all based on the board being unpatriotic or trying to be PC.
 
Beyond, what the board reported as being a safety issue, no one knows what the motivation is. 
 
But, I have witnessed, flags getting larger and larger on the back of rigs, to the point that we are disrespectful of the flag.
 
On engines, I have witnessed hose being laid over a flag that's so large that without wind or driving it hung below the level of the bed.
 
On ladders, I have witnessed grease and tattered ends on the flag where it whips against the turntable gear. I have also seen where it rubs on ground ladders as they are moved in and out of the ladder tunnel.
 
On all rigs, I have seen filthy flags, because the dirt that swirls around the rear of the rigs.
 
On the safety side, I have seen them hiding flashing safety lights, turn signals and break lights. Saw one get burned by high intensity flood lights and have seen firefighters grabbing the flag to help them climb the rig.
 
This is not patriotic, nor is it how the flag should be respected! I am not saying they should be removed, but consider how we are displaying them.

 
Excellent work Riley, congratulations!
 
"Riley DeJong was unique among the passengers in the front car of the 5:44 Metro North train from Grand Central Terminal, Feb. 3, 2015.
DeJong, now 21 years old, was an emergency medical technician, with skills that served her well when the train struck an SUV on the tracks in Valhalla and burst into flames."
 
Link to the Journal News;
 
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/bedford/2016/08/13/bedford-21-year-old-honored-after-valhalla-train-crash/88674356/

To your last point here, you'll get no argument from me, but those members that are left often have the mentality that "their" VFD is done for if career FFs are hired. The fact that the membership has dwindled and newer members are becoming harder and harder to come by has little to do with this reaction.
 
On your first point, absolutely. Many VFDs stretch the truth to the breaking point and beyond to show adequate personnel and thus give the residents a false sense of security. Some of this I suspect goes to the "us" vs "them" mentality as discussed earlier, while a good deal more has to do with wanting to maintain the status quo and perks (material and otherwise) that come with it. 
 
In the end what we all should be striving for is a balance. Adequate personnel to respond effectively 24/7 while keeping costs in check, standardized training and certification requirements to help ensure at least a minimum standard of competency and an environment where ALL firefighters can flourish if they are so inclined regardless of pay status so that those served are served well. 

Yes the community must decide, but they must also be given information that is truthful. We just witnessed in Portchester the mayor and chief swear they had 150 interior volunteers, when the records show less than 60. They said, don't worry, the dept. didn't need career personnel, but in two months time their are now mounting complaints that the response times are noticeably worst. If the dept. lies to itself and the public, how can the public make a proper judgement?
 
you are correct that this attitude exists, but in far to many VFD the real threat to the members is, declining membership, failing to respond in a timely manner and lack of training.

Yes the community must decide, but they must also be given information that is truthful. We just witnessed in Portchester the mayor and chief swear they had 150 interior volunteers, when the records show less than 60. They said, don't worry, the dept. didn't need career personnel, but in two months time their are now mounting complaints that the response times are noticeably worst. If the dept. lies to itself and the public, how can the public make a proper judgement?
 
you are correct that this attitude exists, but in far to many VFD the real threat to the members is, declining membership, failing to respond in a timely manner and lack of training.

So what are the costs vs savings when we include insurance?
 
in my city the average taxpayer is paying less than $275/yr for a career fire department. If we eliminated the FD and gave back everyone's $ the cost of insurance on those average homes would increase by about $1,200/yr.
 
If we were to switch to a volunteer dept. to main the same rating as we have now, it would require a minimum of 48 volunteers responding on every fire call.
 
so the big question is how many communities can manage that?

Exactly. 
 
In my area, one of the local TV stations did a multi-part story about fire response in the metro area (multi-county) last year.  There's only a handful or so of fully paid departments, a number of combination (mostly volunteer) departments and the vast majority are all volunteer.  The story covered things like response times, scratching calls, lack of manpower, mutual aid choices, mandatory training, funding and a number of other things.
 
Overall, the stories were met with very vocal disapproval from the volunteer side who were very defensive and labeled it as bashing them.  IMO, there were some flaws in the story, some things needed more explanation to better understand the information and there was a little of the typical sensationalism mixed in, but overall it was a fair report.  However, each topic that they covered IS an actual problem in our area and the volunteers didn't help themselves out by refusing to comment on incidents that they were directly involved in or tried to not answer some questions.
 
The response from the volunteers, aside from calling for a boycott of and protest at the news station before the first segment actually aired, was pretty much, the reporter doesn't know what he's talking about, there is no problem and people shouldn't comment unless they join their local VFD.
 
Ironically, in the middle of this, there was a working fire in a mid-rise apartment building (6-7 stories) in a community served by 3 independent VFDs, early evening on a weekend if I'm not mistaken.  All 3 companies were due on the call along with a Tower from a neighboring community and possibly 1 other mutual aid company.  The Tower is the 2nd due truck to this location and the most distant unit from the scene (about 10 minutes depending on traffic).  The Tower arrived as the first unit on scene by several minutes, in part because they have live-ins and other members at the station almost all of the time.  This is not an unusual thing to occur.  The Tower's Fire Chief took command of the incident as no one else was there yet and stayed the IC thru pretty much the whole incident.  The first due company (no more than a mile away, if that) arrived late enough that they were parked out by other apparatus.  They had to park on the main road running past the building rather than being in front or in the rear of the building since other apparatus were already there.
 
Of course, there was a lot of patting each other on the back online after the incident about how great a job they all did, but no realization that they failed to live up to the expectations of their community.
 
Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity presented to them, acknowledging that the things covered are in deed problems and going to their community and leaders and saying this is what we need to better serve the community, whether it be direct financial support or admin help, recruiting help, career staff, etc.  Instead of using the news stories and the media in general to get their message out there so people know they need help, they chose to "punish" the reporter and station by snubbing them.  Instead of using the situation to try to shift more of the funding burden off constant fundraising by the volunteers themselves and onto the citizens they serve via a fire tax or increasing an existing one, they squandered it.  We're a year plus past the stories and the only thing we have to really show for it is occasional snide comments on internet making reference to that news station and how they hate volunteers.

Unfortunately, most citizens don't worry about their fire coverage...until they need it. 
As many of you have stated, most civilians are clueless as to what or who is protecting them.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard "I live in New Windsor, why are you (Vails Gate) here?" Well, because you live in the Vails Gate fire district, within the Town of New Windsor. 
I am currently purchasing a home in another fire district. Some of my first questions were "what is the water system" and "what emergency services am I getting?" That is because I know enough to ask.
Many people will say you can't justify a career dept in XYZ town. Well, it would be justified the first fire where a life or property were saved, no?
A good start toward this would be (do I dare say it), consolidation.

Yes the community must decide, but they must also be given information that is truthful. We just witnessed in Portchester the mayor and chief swear they had 150 interior volunteers, when the records show less than 60. They said, don't worry, the dept. didn't need career personnel, but in two months time their are now mounting complaints that the response times are noticeably worst. If the dept. lies to itself and the public, how can the public make a proper judgement?
 
you are correct that this attitude exists, but in far to many VFD the real threat to the members is, declining membership, failing to respond in a timely manner and lack of training.

So what are the costs vs savings when we include insurance?
 
in my city the average taxpayer is paying less than $275/yr for a career fire department. If we eliminated the FD and gave back everyone's $ the cost of insurance on those average homes would increase by about $1,200/yr.
 
If we were to switch to a volunteer dept. to main the same rating as we have now, it would require a minimum of 48 volunteers responding on every fire call.
 
so the big question is how many communities can manage that?

Yes the community must decide, but they must also be given information that is truthful. We just witnessed in Portchester the mayor and chief swear they had 150 interior volunteers, when the records show less than 60. They said, don't worry, the dept. didn't need career personnel, but in two months time their are now mounting complaints that the response times are noticeably worst. If the dept. lies to itself and the public, how can the public make a proper judgement?
 
you are correct that this attitude exists, but in far to many VFD the real threat to the members is, declining membership, failing to respond in a timely manner and lack of training.

In the last five years we have seen at least a dozen middle to high end homes with catastrophic fires, that are insured and still sit burnout. The families can't afford to repair them even with the insurance.
 
about six years ago my free standing two car garage was distroyed in a storm and it took me over two years of fighting with the insurance company to pay. Even then they did not pay everything I was entitled to. The biggest fight I had was with getting replacement value, which they refused to pay until it was made very clear that my policy covered replacement value. Even then they didn't want to pay.

In my recent past I was injuried in a working fire brought to the hospital via an ambulance workmen comp denied paying all the bills which to this day I'm still fighting over and being brought to collections over.  I will loose my s*** if workmencomp sees these types of  videos and pays a claim after watching this type of foolmanship. Any career guy on here will tell you what a pain in the ass comp claims are.  How do manufactures even warranty a paint job after these wet downs. Our new rigs come with specific instructions on how to clean and care for the new paint job. Tower ladder streams weren't covered I assure you.

 
But do they have enough in coverage to cover their losses ? Is the insurance company going to pay in a timely factor ? 
 
I recently spoke to an old friend of mine whose is a career ff in one municipality while being a fire commissioner and and volunteer in the town he resides in. Told me his vfd has trouble just getting a rig out the door. I suggested it may be time to hire. His response was his taxes were close to 20k a year, how much more can the citizens afford. I told him whre I worked (combo dept w/ 3 around the clock} the average homeowner paid about three hundred dollars a year in fire taxes. Of course the people with the mansions paid lots more, but they were happy to pay, they wanted service. Conversation ended. 
 
Again, when ISO comes into the equation, things change. BNechis could elaborate better than I ever can about the fire ins. premium vs fire tax story

Too bad it was economically flaud study.
 
my favorite part is the claim that volunteers have increased statewide by 30,000 - 40,000. 

At what point is it fun and what point is it a problem?
 
a brand new $1.4 million truck That belongs to the taxpayers?
 
A rule that only fog streams would be used... Until someone using a hand line switched to straight stream, to hit one of the crews in a bucket? How about when the ladder pipes were switched to straight stream and were turned on other platforms? Members operating in those platforms could have been seriously injured...but it's all in the name of fun.
 
 

We have been told not to use brushes to wash the truck as it can harm the finish. What is the possibility that a master stream will damage the paint?

A similar study was done in PA several years ago with a similarly "large savings" attributed to the volunteers.  Unfortunately, the study had some significant flaws, but it is still mentioned from time to time.
 
As I recall, some of those were.......
 
A large part of the "savings" was in salary costs, but the way they determined and sold it was flawed.  It was described as the cost to replace all of the volunteers with career personnel, but it didn't fully take into account some important factors.  They essentially took the number of people on the rosters of the volunteer departments and multiplied it by a per-capita cost.  So, to replace X number of volunteers with X number of career firefighters would cost Y.
 
Anyone who knows much about the volunteer fire service in PA should be able to see the problem with that.  For those unfamiliar, many VFD/VFCs over report their membership numbers.  Rosters can include life members (retired volunteers), social members, associcate members and so on and not accurately reflect the true number of active members who are trained and routinely responding to calls.  I've seen ones where they have 100 on the roster, but only 20-25% actually respond to calls to some extent.
 
Additionally, we have a number of areas which have way more individual fire stations/VFCs than are necessary.  For example, my department covers a small city of just over 5 sq mi with 2 stations (down from 4 in its prime) operating 4 large apparatus and 3 support type vehicles.  A nearby group of 3 communities that comprise a school district collectively comes in at just under 5 sq mi.  Until a year or so ago, they operated from 7 stations (6 now) with at least 14 large apparatus and 7 support vehicles.  Collectively, they run less total incidents per year than we do, a percentage of which are automatic mutual aid responses outside their area.  We do very little mutual aid (not by our choice).  We run far more working fires in our city than they do in their collective 1st due.
 
The study didn't really look at "right sizing" the delivery of fire services.  County wide, we average 1 fire station for every 3+ sq miles.  For comparison, PG MD and Fairfax VA average 10+ sq miles for every fire station.  The study didn't really take into account the fact that a more regionalized approach to delivery would reduce the total number of stations & apparatus needed and also result in not needing to replace volunteers on a one for one basis.
 
It didn't really account for other economic factors like you mentioned, insurance ratings and property loss and how they are impacted by volunteer and career delivery models.
 
So while there clearly are savings realized with the volunteers, they aren't necessarily as large as claimed by the study for the above reasons and others.

Too bad it was economically flaud study.
 
my favorite part is the claim that volunteers have increased statewide by 30,000 - 40,000. 

As I read that letter I could only shake my head in disbelief. I guess all I can say to these chiefs is, you're pissing in the wind boys, the contract's been signed. You had your chance and because of your own arrogance, egos and pettiness you blew it...repeatedly. I really hate to say I told you so, but....if the shoe fits wear it.
 
It is truly sad to watch 108 years of service by volunteers wither and die when all of it could have been prevented with just a little forethought, humility and support. Some of us tried, and tried like Hell, only to be rebuffed by each of you at every turn...well now you Chiefs can enjoy the fruits of your self serving labors. You have no one to blame here but yourselves boys...but know this, in the process you screwed not only yourselves, but your memberships and most important of all, the people you were supposed to serve.
 
 

1) Cost Effective? Really? While the pre-manufactured Butler style garage and living quarters is a cheap way to house firefighters, they are a stones throw from multi bay volunteer stations that refuse to allow the staffed units to be stationed with them and at the same time fail to get their fleet staffed during calls. so now you have multiple stations blocks apart covering each other. Total waste of $$$.
2) Thank god they don't. While I am all for regionalization. If one of the 59 local FD in Westchester can not provide an immediate response, they have a few options: 1. Work on internal issues to increase manpower, including shifts. 2. Merge with 1 or more other depts. 3. hire staff, 4. all of the above.
If a VFD in Westchester is unable to staff its calls it has options. Staffing career regional rigs is a Band-Aid they puts the financial burden on the county taxpayers and not on the local ones. Since my local taxes grantee a response to my house why should my county taxes go up to cover other locals who are unwilling to pay?

We have been told not to use brushes to wash the truck as it can harm the finish. What is the possibility that a master stream will damage the paint?