AFS1970

FDNY has this homebuilt simulator at their training facility on Randalls Island. Anyone know what type of connections are to the left of the standpipe simulator?

Bridgewater CT County Fair FIremens Parade 8/15/14

Bingo, DiBlasio does not want perps caught, because they are his biggest supporters

A great update on this story:


FULL ARTICLE: http://desplainesvalleynews.com/bedford-park-snorkel-saved-from-scrap-yard-p1273-90.htm

if you knew me you would in mind thatnow that statement to be false. Making sweeping generalizations helps no one. Being narrow minded about all volunteers is your right so go right ahead but keep in mind that thereis always someone who has seen more and done more then you. Snicker at the Cold Spring guys and get your yucks in. That doesnt make you orofessional. It makes you pathetic

I disagree. Insulting the individual who stated how hot the fire was helps no one. Maybe it was really hot who knows I was not there and neither was Res24cue. Not every Volunteer agency is a group of jolly vollies. Assuming that is like assuming that every career FD &PD agency is professional and we all know yhat is not true. Focus on the good and you shall find good. Focus on crap and you shall find crap.

I for one do NOT wish he "would just go away". Mr. Res24cue has just as much right as anyone else here to post his opinions, even if they may not be the most popular, and frankly I enjoy reading them, they offer a wonderful insight. Beyond that his views offers us a perfect picture of what I described earlier in this thread about the cancer of the "us against them" mentality, which if we let it is a disease which will slowly erode the true meaning of service. Better to have those views expressed out in public so they can be dealt with than to leave them lingering in the darkness behind closed doors where they are far more insidious and damaging.

One thing you failed to mention in your post (unless I missed it) is that you can be the most highly trained, competent firefighter in the business, yet if you cannot work with others, your completely useless to the fire service.

Is that not what the vast majority of people in any organization do? Career, volunteer it doesn't matter, it's the same on that front. Most people want to coast along, not ruffling feathers, so they turn a blind eye. Worse though is the constant din of whining and complaining without action. How many guys show up to work at their firehouse and b**** and moan all day long about this, that or the other thing but do absolutely nothing but flap their gums about it? Same in Vollywood, members come out of the woodwork to cry and whine at the monthly meeting but are nowhere to be found when it comes time to do the work of fixing their gripes. So it was, so it is and so it shall be.
Complaining, bitching, whining, finger-pointing, that's the easy part, which is why so many people are so good at it. Although the specifics may be different, all of us who strive to be better tomorrow than we are today face that same endless chorus from the choir of the loud, the ignorant and the blind within our departments..and we all have them, in fact at times we ourselves will play a part in the symphony too. Those who are true to themselves, to their departments and most importantly to those they serve will rise above that din and take the harder road And while they may complain the loudest they are also the ones who lead the charge in tackling the problems. Sometimes they make a difference, sometimes not but they do not give up, they do not run away and they do not denigrate the actions of others without first walking in their shoes.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but like most I too notice an abundance of generally negative comments about volunteers here. Now there are times when maybe these views have merit and times when maybe they don't but the point is everyone here has the right to express them. What is important is what we do with those views. As I see it, and again I'm speaking only for myself, I often use them as a tool. I will read something inflammatory or derogatory or negative and instead of getting angry or offended I will ask myself "is that me? Is that my department? If so, what can be done about it? This site and others like it and everything that's posted on them offer a wealth of information and knowledge, but it is up to us to take advantage of that opportunity...for even the most negative of comments or opinions can offer us a means to better ourselves.
Stay safe all and take the high road, the low one is too full of complainers, whiners and malcontents already.

Had this article been titled Two Recent Fires Highlight Career Firefighter Role, the only replies here would have been a chorus of "Nice Job Brothers". If by chance someone did try to critique the fire they would have been blasted for armchair quarterbacking.
The residents might have escaped the fire, all that really means is they were not rescued. They could have walked out the front door or jumped from a bedroom window. As with most recent new articles the style is more dramatic than it should be with adjectives selected that call the reporting into question. However this article does seem to be about a fire where nothing much went wrong.
There is a big pot of something brown and stinky and people here need to stop stirring it up so much.

There is another aspect to this which has nothing to do with the candidate's military service. He is related to a town official. Lately many municipalities have enacted very strict anti-nepotism laws. Those that have not done so yet, will soon feel the pressure to. I can see board members, although I would not agree with it, passing over a candidate who while qualified was related to an official simply to appear that they do not support nepotism. This is almost the same thing as the politically correct crowd, who will go to great pains to appear to not do something that they really were never doing in the first place.

Another point, to show how ridiculous this decision is, why were the cops who normally patrol these areas not told to drive around with their lights on?
Is it that only the "overtime' lights will make a difference?

Why doesn't City Hall leave the decision making to people who have a clue about policing and let the members of the NYPD do their jobs and then stand behind them an support them? I know that's just an insane notion though, right?

He never flaunted his veteran status to get his job. As for the "self gratification", it's because of people like him during the entire course of our history in this country that we have the freedoms we do. We should be obliged to make sure our soldiers are well taken care of. Plus, the Police Chief, Mayor, and many taxpayers want him to serve in Sleepy Hollow.
As for being a "mail clerk in Germany, he is a decorated veteran. He worked on Wall Street to earn income, and waited for an opening in Sleepy Hollow while on the Civil Service list. He was canvassed by many departments, but went through the entire process with Sleepy Hollow and the final stamp they needed was from the village trustees, who never have taken this kind of action before.
Let's also not forget, although he is 35 he spent several years committed to the military, so during that time served he wasn't able to take the Civil Service test nor accept any officers due to his commitment.

Guys, I agree that veterans are special and they have already made sacrifices for this country but he did receive veterans credit on the test and that helped him be ranked number 1 for Sleepy Hollow. Had it not been for those points, he may not have been in the top 3 and this would all be moot.
Like it or not, politics, personalities, and other subjective factors play into the hiring process. It is not merely an exam score. He's number 11 countywide which probably means he's received several canvas letters or will receive them before the next academy class.
There are no legal grounds for anything here. The law is pretty clear - hire one of the top 3 candidates - and it has been tested on numerous occasions so his attempt to sue would just be a waste of his money.

Is the color an FAA requirement? I have seen a lo of Airport rigs this color but I was [retty sure that not all of them were.

I am all for giving jobs to veterans. All things being equal that would normally be my choice. However all things are not always equal and even with the veterans points that are often given on tests it is possible for a veteran to not come in #1. Then you add in the various political factors that we all know exist and I can see how this could happen. Now unless there is some legal issue with the hiring, I am not a big fan of people contesting when they did not get a job. Most such protests are not based on the merritt system but on some perceived wrong that may not even exist.

I have been told that it was to give a better view of the situation you were approaching to aid in size up. However I only barely remember our open cab and when I was there it usually had this ugly after market vinyl top on it. So I can not verify that theory.
I think it may just be that cabs on the horse drawn rigs were open, that continued to the first motorized rigs and then onto some of the first "modern" rigs. A neighboring department did not use doors on their cabs until the 1970's. Roofs have been available on some models since at least the 1940's but open cabs were being made into the mid 1960's at least.

Sadly I can't find the video on line I was looking for that clearly shows the interference angle. Interestingly enough I can still find some news coverage of the incident where the chief praises his guys for doing everything right even though they eventually tassed the guy 3 times. The news media only showed small clips that were designed to make the police look like they were ignoring calls by the girlfriend to get their supervisor. Later on in footage not shown on the news the supervisor shows up and ultimately arrests the girlfriend taking the video.
And this morning on the news it seems that this fine gentleman's wife was just arrested for fighting with another woman. But of course these arrests were only to harass them because they video taped the police.....yeah right!

Somebody filming a police interaction could in some cases aid the police against somebody else's edited video. I know if i had video footage that disputed a edited video that made the cops look bad I would give it to them. Thats one of the reasons dash cam video camaras were placed in many patrol cars.

I am just guessing here, but if I ran a department that provided both Fire and EMS services, and I had some kind of grant money for firefighter training but not for EMS training, I would certainly look for certified EMT's that I could train as firefighters and not the other way around. This would seem to me to be the most cost effective way to accomplish the goal of having cross trained personnel. Now if two applicants came in at the same time and were essentially equal except that one was an EMT and the other was not, then I would expect the one who is not to have to wait until there were enough students to make hiring an instructor cost effective. This would mean that the EMT would advance within the department faster and most likely end up responding on calls before the other recruit. The recruit who is not an EMT would have the option of seeking out a class elsewhere, but as it was not department sponsored and not covered under the grant it would be at his own expense. No real problem with that as long as it is understood up front. If the non EMT recruit were already certified as a firefighter, it might seem that he was not being treated equally but in fact that would only be perception based on the limitations of the grant. Things will never be fully equal in any department because life isn't fair.

Wow, you guys have run short staffed for so long you have not got a clue what proper staffing is. And I am not talking about this latest crisis. 75 firefighters lets see how short you really are........
To staff 4 engines (you mentioned 3, but don't you run 4), 2 ladders and a command unit to meet the minimum standards to respond to a 2,000 sq ft. single family house without a basement requires a minimum of 26 firefighters per shift. That 12 more than you currently run.
That gives you 3 firefighters and 1 officer on EVERY RIG.
To maintain 26 per shift you need 104 firefighters plus the additional members who are assigned to staff (training, codes, chief, etc.) you also need to cover contractual overtime which means each member would work an additional 20% or you need to go to 5.2 FTE's to staff your rigs, which would bring the total dept size to 135 (plus staff).
You are fighting for table scraps when you really need a steak diner. And you seem willing to accept the scraps.
And while you think you can handle a room & content fire under the "normal" staffing, you are cutting way too many corners and putting yourselves and the citizens at risk.
Now I can guarantee you will never see the numbers you should have. In fact I predicted 6 years ago that most of the career depts. were going to see staffing reductions and that we could either consolidate or each dept would suffer. I figured that we were spending the same amount of money to staff rigs with one or two as a consolidated dept would spend with 4 on a rig.
22 firefighters & officers on a response was what I proposed, and the response from almost everyone is we do not want that.
Now every one of the depts. is either fighting to survive (and I'm sorry but those that run with less than OSHA requires are not surviving) or has already faced the reductions (and more are coming).
Go read the NIST study's on staffing. They proved that fewer better staffed rigs do a better job than lots of understaffed ones do. They actually proved that 2 + 2 = 3
when 2 firefighter engines team up with another 2 firefighter engine, they are only as effective as a 3 firefighter engine and the standard says 4 minimum.

What if? What if? What if?
You can "what if" things to death and the bottom line always seems to be we respond to the call we have. We don't decline to respond so we can remain available for the call that we MAY get.
What if Engines 131 and 134 are on another FIRE call when your hypothetical structure fire comes in across town? Does it matter that the call is EMS or FIRE? It shouldn't. It's still our customer calling for help.

How about put your f****** phone away and go to work if you even have a Job. Most of these people are skells and usually have a criminal record themselves. They just be after the Po Po!

Freelancing, pulmonary tests, and other things being discussed have no relevance to the situation in Eastchester. The Commissioner's are allowing browning out a very much needed company on a regular basis. When it is in service, it's staffed with only 2 guys most of the time. To top it off, Ladder 17 is always breaking down or having issues with the aerial. The amount of money being put in for repairs is ridiculous, and is enough where it would be cheaper to buy a new truck.
There are many ladder companies that can come in on mutual aid. That doesn't matter though, since Eastchester residents are paying for a fire department and not getting one. The question that no one can get an answer to is where is all the money going to, since it's surely not being spent on staffing or equipment repair and replacement.