CHIEFPHIL

Being a volunteer chief is almost a full-time job for some. When I left office, I was putting in 30 hours week doing paperwork and meeting with the town officials per week. The saving grace I had, especially during normal working hours was that my A/C was a foreman for the town and could attend meetings during the day for me.
As for training or education to handle the admin side of the job, one of the biggest advantages my department had was that all the officers were involved in the creation of the budget and attended all the budget/board of finance meetings . This way as junior officers we watched and learned what the chief did . He would tell us... you will need to do this some day, keep your mouth shut and listen. The other thing was that somewhere in the past, one chief took it to write down in a steno pad, everything you needed to do as chief with notes and suggestions, timing and a detailed process of writing po's , paying invoices and how to figure out budget increases. Right after the outgoing chief gave you his badge, this was the second thing he handed you.
Connecticut offers a real good fire officer program. We started to take this course in the mid 90's and went over a lot of material on administrative matters from how to handle HR issues to budgeting . Every chief since 97 has taken this class.
For me, the biggest advantage I had was my private employment. I was a manger for a large corporation, so I had already been thru numerous classes on budgeting, negotiating and had a purchasing background. I also had my officers attend Fred Pryor seminars on time management, how to handle difficult employees and other classes once they realized that they were helpful. Cause' once the call is over , running a FD is just like running a business , Oh it is a business, think about it.

Being a volunteer chief is almost a full-time job for some. When I left office, I was putting in 30 hours week doing paperwork and meeting with the town officials per week. The saving grace I had, especially during normal working hours was that my A/C was a foreman for the town and could attend meetings during the day for me.
As for training or education to handle the admin side of the job, one of the biggest advantages my department had was that all the officers were involved in the creation of the budget and attended all the budget/board of finance meetings . This way as junior officers we watched and learned what the chief did . He would tell us... you will need to do this some day, keep your mouth shut and listen. The other thing was that somewhere in the past, one chief took it to write down in a steno pad, everything you needed to do as chief with notes and suggestions, timing and a detailed process of writing po's , paying invoices and how to figure out budget increases. Right after the outgoing chief gave you his badge, this was the second thing he handed you.
Connecticut offers a real good fire officer program. We started to take this course in the mid 90's and went over a lot of material on administrative matters from how to handle HR issues to budgeting . Every chief since 97 has taken this class.
For me, the biggest advantage I had was my private employment. I was a manger for a large corporation, so I had already been thru numerous classes on budgeting, negotiating and had a purchasing background. I also had my officers attend Fred Pryor seminars on time management, how to handle difficult employees and other classes once they realized that they were helpful. Cause' once the call is over , running a FD is just like running a business , Oh it is a business, think about it.

Being a volunteer chief is almost a full-time job for some. When I left office, I was putting in 30 hours week doing paperwork and meeting with the town officials per week. The saving grace I had, especially during normal working hours was that my A/C was a foreman for the town and could attend meetings during the day for me.
As for training or education to handle the admin side of the job, one of the biggest advantages my department had was that all the officers were involved in the creation of the budget and attended all the budget/board of finance meetings . This way as junior officers we watched and learned what the chief did . He would tell us... you will need to do this some day, keep your mouth shut and listen. The other thing was that somewhere in the past, one chief took it to write down in a steno pad, everything you needed to do as chief with notes and suggestions, timing and a detailed process of writing po's , paying invoices and how to figure out budget increases. Right after the outgoing chief gave you his badge, this was the second thing he handed you.
Connecticut offers a real good fire officer program. We started to take this course in the mid 90's and went over a lot of material on administrative matters from how to handle HR issues to budgeting . Every chief since 97 has taken this class.
For me, the biggest advantage I had was my private employment. I was a manger for a large corporation, so I had already been thru numerous classes on budgeting, negotiating and had a purchasing background. I also had my officers attend Fred Pryor seminars on time management, how to handle difficult employees and other classes once they realized that they were helpful. Cause' once the call is over , running a FD is just like running a business , Oh it is a business, think about it.

Being a volunteer chief is almost a full-time job for some. When I left office, I was putting in 30 hours week doing paperwork and meeting with the town officials per week. The saving grace I had, especially during normal working hours was that my A/C was a foreman for the town and could attend meetings during the day for me.
As for training or education to handle the admin side of the job, one of the biggest advantages my department had was that all the officers were involved in the creation of the budget and attended all the budget/board of finance meetings . This way as junior officers we watched and learned what the chief did . He would tell us... you will need to do this some day, keep your mouth shut and listen. The other thing was that somewhere in the past, one chief took it to write down in a steno pad, everything you needed to do as chief with notes and suggestions, timing and a detailed process of writing po's , paying invoices and how to figure out budget increases. Right after the outgoing chief gave you his badge, this was the second thing he handed you.
Connecticut offers a real good fire officer program. We started to take this course in the mid 90's and went over a lot of material on administrative matters from how to handle HR issues to budgeting . Every chief since 97 has taken this class.
For me, the biggest advantage I had was my private employment. I was a manger for a large corporation, so I had already been thru numerous classes on budgeting, negotiating and had a purchasing background. I also had my officers attend Fred Pryor seminars on time management, how to handle difficult employees and other classes once they realized that they were helpful. Cause' once the call is over , running a FD is just like running a business , Oh it is a business, think about it.

We have an ordinance that states any new construction of a sub-division in a non hydrant district will have a a 15000 gallon inground tank. There will be a tank for every 6 houses and no house can be more then 1000 feet from any tank.
Each tank has a 2.5" inlet for filling and a kocheck 6" female with 6"x5" female connection, so either a 1000 or 1250+ can draft (both separate pipes). Each tank is on private land and the town has a right-away to each tank. The tanks are filled by the FD during a drill, utilizing all our mutual aid companies that would respond to that area so that they are aware of the locations.
The Fd inspects each tank once a year to insure they are full. Part of out driver training/MPO training includes knowledge of each tank and this is where they usually learn how to draft.

Let me add a little insite to this topic that was NOT in the papers.
Local 801 has been in contract talks for about a year now. The topic of the safer grant and the employees being hired did not come on the table until the very end of negociations. The city accepted the SAFER grant a few months ago without saying anything about the new hires being under a new contract. A month before the new hires were to start the academy they all recieved letters in the mail that said their appointment was conditional on the union accepting the contract. This was never said, discussed,or even brought up to Local 801 until the very end.
The negociating committie was forced to bring a less then attractive TA back to the membership to vote on. The membership voted no. Shocker the next day the city stated they were turning down the grant. Let me give you some insight on the Pension for Danbury firefighters. They put in 5% towards their pension. O/T,Holiday pay,steipns,Uniform pay, etc is not included. They do not get time and a half for O/T just straight time. They do not get the best of anything just top step. At 27 years they can go out with 50% and full medical with no copay. THey can go out with 20 years at age 55 with 40% and full medical. Every year after 27 is 2% a year with a max of 68% I think. They can get an extra 5% Non Service releated disability. Pretty conservitive if you ask me. For an on the job career ending injury it would be 66 2/3 tax free with full medical.
The TA wanted this for new hires. 30 year retirement,6% towards their pension,35% cost sharing for medical upon retirement,an added pay step that had them starting at 71/2% less than they were told.Taking away the escalator which means when rank and file get a raise,retiree's get one. A sliding scale that states if they are injured on duty and are forced to retire they have to pay as much as 50% of their health care preminum. Around 10,000 for anyone with 0-9 years on. If they have to go before 25 years their pension is penalized a certain percent for every year before 25.
The current rank and file and also affecting new hires. 6% into our pension, Removel of the 5% non service related disability. Sliding scale for on the job injuries by having to pay a certain percent into health care. Being penalized for going before 25 years. Best of the last three years, this means if you retire and they gave a 7% raise your last year you wouldn't get it. No 24/72 hour shifts. 0% the 1st year and 7% spread out over the next three years for rasies.
The union presented the city with a HSA for health insurance that was going to save them roughly 80,000 a year. They are planning to put civilians in Dispatch which will move them to the PD and most likely eliminate 8 dispatcher postions which get top step LT pay. The new hires would have over manned evey shift which would have elimanated most of the overtime. The firefighters have the lowest amount of sick time in the entire city. The biggest problem was not protecting the members who were hurt on the job. With all these savings and the city having the lowest rate of unemployment in CT,The safest city,you can't excpect me to belive that they couldn't afford to leave the injury language alone and at least give the new guys their escalator. Tough times ahead.

That Video Is Horrible Not awesome. No Agressive Primary Search, Taken Forever To Get Packed Up, One The worst Hose stretch on Youtube. Maybe If He didnt worry so much about his helmet cam more would have got done.

The 1980 XFDNY Amercain Lafrance From the closed down Aviation [2009?] was giving to the Catskill Fire Cats. We have it in the warehouse and show it at events. it was reparied after the 9/11 event and was left outside after that. the 2001[new] Luverne that was donaited by a wall street company was sold to Beech Island South Carolina for profit and the E-ONE[used] that was donated to Aviation by Franconia VFD in Va was also sold for profit to Brindlee Fire Appartus witch sold it to Banid IL Fire Dept. All of this was post 9/11 and they took advantage of a lot of good people and companys that wanted to help New York City and there people. What a disgrace !

In my 40 years here never heard the word Warden !

The night Senior Lumber burned, the dispatcher sent an Engine on a still alarm to check out the brush fire.. next door to the FD. On arrival the place was going good.
Engine 5 to base blow the f@#$%^& siren
I'm blowing the F@#$%^& siren
then a few years later - same dispatcher... tones go off at 3 a.m. then silence for a minute... then
KCC 957.... just dusting, go back to sleep

First, how often do members honestly question their own depts (I dont mean here, I mean in general)? We have all seen departments with 1 man rigs or "paging for any available driver & crew" ....no response, but no one in the dept has an issue with that, its ok because "we know whats best in our community"?
Second,how different are communities? Are there specific needs that different? Great Britain has 1 design for an engine. It is used in 4 different countries (England, No.Ireland, Scotland & Wales). They make it work from busy London to isolated islands. Is this best or would it be better to have a dozzen different designs....maybe. In the US we have 30,000 (or more) different designs because every community is unique.
In Germany they have about 10 different designs you can chose from, (more seating, bigger tank, bigger pump, etc.) But again they realize that very few communities are that different.
The level of standardization in GB is to the point that the same equipment is in the same compartment on every pump (engine). When there are special local needs they get a rescue to cover that. I got to watch the 1st day of field exersises at Morton-in-Marsh (the National Fire Service College). 6 brand new LT's from 4 countries pulled up (in an engine) to a fire in a burn building. they had never worked together before and they put almost every drill here I've ever seen to shame. They knew without even inspecting the rig where everything was and since they had all used the same SOP's they were able to gain entry, search and extingush the fire like they had been assigned to the same crew for years. We have companies in the same station that cant do that.
This is exactly why Westchester has more engines than NYC (and all our extra engines have no or substandard staffing). The leadership of every square mile here apparently knows more than the rest of the fire service in the nation.
We have 3 ladder companies (4 ladder trucks) and are surrounded by 6 departments that collectivly own 9 ladder trucks. Why cant we just use them? Maybe its because they do not have ladder companies? 5 of them run with only 1 firefighter, 2 run with only 2 firefighters and 2 are spares.
4 of those ladders are towers and every manufacturer, requires 3 firefighters to safely operate them (2 in the bucket, 1 at the turntable). Even state law says when that bucket is in smoke (IDLH) they need 2 FF's (in the bucket)but may only have 1. Its clear to me that the leaderships educated decisions are unacceptable. Why isnt everyone questioning this practice?
We have seen depts in this county that perchased vehicles to "improve" its insurance rating and the rating went up, because they do not understand what the rating standard is. We have seen depts buy trucks that do not fit into the fire station or are to heavy for the station or the bridges in town. We have seen depts buy tower ladders because every town in the parade has one and we dont (oh we also need to buy a smaller ladder because our members cant drive the big one). We have a lack of standardization that is so bad, that 1/2 the county is Rated a 9 by the insurance industry (on a 1-10 scale) That means on an open book test they scored below 10%.
I always liked the line: "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". You come to a descusion board, but you do not want anyones opiniton. No wonder you are disapointed. Everyday we see and hear all of the problems in emergency services in Westchester and the problems have been getting worst for the last 30 years and anyone who dares to suggest change gets us all upset.
Even when negative discusions occure, information exchange occures and that can make for possitive outcomes. I often see great post from many on this board that will take the negative and refute it. There are many here who are either new to emergency services or has been isolated in there own system and have no idea what goes on in other places. Hopefully, even the negative will open there eyes just a little.
And so we are clear, I do have an agenda. Its to make sure that apparatus respond in a timely manor, with sufficient personnel & equipment and the proper training to reduce the number of injuries and deaths to our brothers and the community. One thing I have found in 30+ years, there are a lot of individuals who do not want that and will do what ever it takes to prevent it.

No life hazard. Clear the area, let it burn , extinguish remaining fire on the ground once the pole no longer has a falling debris issue. Call in the utility who owns it to do any elevated stabilization and or final extinguishment.

No life hazard. Clear the area, let it burn , extinguish remaining fire on the ground once the pole no longer has a falling debris issue. Call in the utility who owns it to do any elevated stabilization and or final extinguishment.

No life hazard. Clear the area, let it burn , extinguish remaining fire on the ground once the pole no longer has a falling debris issue. Call in the utility who owns it to do any elevated stabilization and or final extinguishment.

No life hazard. Clear the area, let it burn , extinguish remaining fire on the ground once the pole no longer has a falling debris issue. Call in the utility who owns it to do any elevated stabilization and or final extinguishment.

No life hazard. Clear the area, let it burn , extinguish remaining fire on the ground once the pole no longer has a falling debris issue. Call in the utility who owns it to do any elevated stabilization and or final extinguishment.

We just changed the by-laws and one of the biggest task I had (chairman) was to reduce/streamline the officers and put into place officer requirements. We made some very drastic changes and they passed.
To be an officer you need to be certified at the FF1 level for a minimum of 2 years, attend all mandatory training, pass a medical evaluation (physical) be certified as an interior firefighter.
We reduced the number of Lieutenants from 9 fire to 4 fire, 2 ems to 1 ems and added 1 fire police. The fire police must be a sworn/certified fire police and is appointed by the chief and has no position in the chain of command other then overseeing FP duties. We reduce the Chief officers from 4 to 3 as well.
The idea behind that was that we would limit the number of people running for office and hopefully get the best candidate to win.
As how I personally vote, I always voted for who I thought would do the best job for the position he or she was running for.

I recently came across another "fine" video on another site of a training session gone bad (for lack of better terms I really want to use). Unfortunately it is of a department that is in the coverage area of this site.
Just like the title says, what were you thinking?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
As a certified instructor you all should be givin' a swift kick on the backside, this was not funny, this could have been even potentially worse outcome. And why even post it?????
I don't care if I get reprimanded or suspended from the site for posting this. Everyone involved should be suspended by their officer / chief. Morons!!!!!
Obviously no one believes in safety anymore.

(Seth and mods, if you take this down, please me know by a PM. Thank you.)

I saw that too and was speechless, obviously you pulled together some hidden pair of stones because this short film is going to explode on here.
It looks like a member is using their bailout system to impress their friends, all I have to say is that hopefully this member was dealt with along with any other members caught participating in this brainless antic.
Even though this only ended with a several foot fall, this member was using a piece of his own personal life-safety equipment to impress his friends, he is lucky he did not actually need it in real life.
Unfortunately all departments have members like this, but not all of them are dumb enough to do this and then post it on youtube. Where is the leadership?

thank you;
My father Pete, my brother Bill, Uncle Roger, Cousins Danny and Bobby.
Especially thank full for dedication and sacrifice of my brother Bethel Fire Fighters serving today... hopefully coming home soon, we miss you.
Todd, Ray, Adam, Ben, Andy, Julian and Rich

thank you;
My father Pete, my brother Bill, Uncle Roger, Cousins Danny and Bobby.
Especially thank full for dedication and sacrifice of my brother Bethel Fire Fighters serving today... hopefully coming home soon, we miss you.
Todd, Ray, Adam, Ben, Andy, Julian and Rich

For those of you that didn't know Hal he was a member of Fire Patrol & Rescue Co #1. Port Chester New York Fire Dept He was the man that changed our company from a Fire Police to a true Heavy Rescue company . In my Volunteer days we fought side by side in some of the biggest fires that hit our dept, riots of the 70's 3 story cold water flats burning on both side's of the street at the same time. He worked in the Media in the city and gave all his spare time to the company. He could not be tied down and because of this he got a job offer from Newsday to be a Politcal Journalist in Washinton D C . He also servied while in DC for the Chevy/Chase Maryland Rescue, He was one of the first on location at the Pentigon 9/11 driving that big Kenworth Rescue they had. When he retired the President of United States made him chairmen of the Fallen Firefighters Foundation because of his background in the fire servrce. He servied his Village, his Fire company, his job, and his Country ! His last trip to Port Chester he had a meeting in the city to give out monies to the NYC children and widows fund and took a Senator [?] with him to ride Rescue 40 [PCFD] for the day. My son[rescue40] had the privlege of taking them on a few runs that day and it was good to see him back in the saddle where he belonged . R.I.P. to a good Friend, and a great Firefighter. The Fire service lost a great one . Angelo

No one who is not on scene should overrule some one who is on-scene. That person is there, knows what is going on , both good and bad. I have had my dispatcher ask me if it was ok when one of the Lt's or Capt requested additional equipment ... my response was always, so and so is on scene, I'm not. he is in charge.
The only time a chief can and should [lets make that the senior fire officer responding] make decisions en route to a scene is when they are getting information from dispatch and no FD personnel is on scene. Size up begins when the tone/bell/whistle whatever hits. You need to know your response area, think time, occupancy, water etc. Think quickly about other resources needed - if needed at all.
When I started we had a chief who micro-managed from his bed. The tone go off at 3 a.m. for a fire in his district and the first thing he would do is cancel the 3rd due engine and tower. 15 minutes later he'd be screaming for those rigs, plus more. Needless to say, he has a few parking lots named after him.

No one who is not on scene should overrule some one who is on-scene. That person is there, knows what is going on , both good and bad. I have had my dispatcher ask me if it was ok when one of the Lt's or Capt requested additional equipment ... my response was always, so and so is on scene, I'm not. he is in charge.
The only time a chief can and should [lets make that the senior fire officer responding] make decisions en route to a scene is when they are getting information from dispatch and no FD personnel is on scene. Size up begins when the tone/bell/whistle whatever hits. You need to know your response area, think time, occupancy, water etc. Think quickly about other resources needed - if needed at all.
When I started we had a chief who micro-managed from his bed. The tone go off at 3 a.m. for a fire in his district and the first thing he would do is cancel the 3rd due engine and tower. 15 minutes later he'd be screaming for those rigs, plus more. Needless to say, he has a few parking lots named after him.

No one who is not on scene should overrule some one who is on-scene. That person is there, knows what is going on , both good and bad. I have had my dispatcher ask me if it was ok when one of the Lt's or Capt requested additional equipment ... my response was always, so and so is on scene, I'm not. he is in charge.
The only time a chief can and should [lets make that the senior fire officer responding] make decisions en route to a scene is when they are getting information from dispatch and no FD personnel is on scene. Size up begins when the tone/bell/whistle whatever hits. You need to know your response area, think time, occupancy, water etc. Think quickly about other resources needed - if needed at all.
When I started we had a chief who micro-managed from his bed. The tone go off at 3 a.m. for a fire in his district and the first thing he would do is cancel the 3rd due engine and tower. 15 minutes later he'd be screaming for those rigs, plus more. Needless to say, he has a few parking lots named after him.