SageVigiles

Tell your friend to keep writing. So far he only covered about the first half hour he spent after walking in the firehouse door. Even if he was lucky enough to grab a cup of coffee before walking to his (and the other BC's) office, it got cold sitting on his desk while he straightened out the manning problems.
Next paragraph should be what the offgoing BC is going to tell him. It will wreck all the plans he had for the day for training, etc. Now the phone rings and Engine 2 was to be at the city garage a half hour ago. Where are they? Oh, wait... we got a run...6-Story ordinary...multiple calls...smoke on 4, 5, and 6.
Thank God, a fire...I needed the break.

You guys on the Jersey Shore have to watch for grenades in the back seat of the "situation's" car !!
Landmine is the skinny version of a Gernade !!

I'm a volunteer in Wallingford, and I gotta say it works REALLY well there between career and volunteer. Obviously each volunteer house is a bit different, but I'm very happy where I am.
The difference I've noticed between Wallingford and other combination departments that I've been a part of and/or observed. Yeah, the volunteer officers can be in command, but that's not what makes it work, and I feel like this article focuses a little too much on that aspect.
The reason the volunteers in Wallingford can be in command, and the reason that everyone gets treated equally there is because of training. Volunteers are held to a specific training standard. If you don't meet that standard, you don't get on the rig. Period. We also had a voluntary OSHA assessment to identify gaps in what we do and what we train in. Basically the way it works now is there is a database run through HQ with everyone's names. If you don't make your mandatory trainings within 1 year of the last one (365 days exactly) you go offline until you make it up. We have quarterly live burns, I believe you have to make 1 per year. Officers are required (according to what OSHA told us) to receive additional training above the Firefighters, so we do that too. Since everyone is held to a standard and that standard is non-negotiable, the Shift Commander and the rest of the career department knows that the guys stepping off the truck have a reasonable idea of what they are doing and can be trusted to make intelligent decisions. Not only that, but we train WITH the career department. That way we know what they expect from us and they know what our capabilities, equipment and limitations are. There are certain things we take active roles in, and certain things we take support roles in (some of the special ops stuff, specifically) simply because we lack the equipment and training to do proficiently. So we maintain our training in how to best support the career staff on such a scene (IE: proper sizeup of a tech rescue incident, setting up an initial system, etc)
But in all honesty, we don't make a big deal out of the "who is in command" business, we don't really care as long as the person knows what the hell they are doing. Which is the way it SHOULD be everywhere.
Just for informational purposes, Wallingford runs the following:
Headquarters (Career)
Car 4 (Shift Commander - Captain)
Truck 1
Engine 2
Medic 1
Numerous Special Ops and spare vehicles
Station 1 (Career)
Engine 1
Rescue 3 (ALS pickup, runs from 9-6 on weekdays I believe)
Station 4 (Volunteer - Cook Hill Company)
Engine 4
I believe the HAZMAT pickup/trailer is stored here as well.
NOTE: Station 4 only runs from 6PM-9AM, staffed by volunteers from Company 5, due to a lack of volunteers at that company.
Station 5 (Volunteer - Yalesville Company)
Engine 5
Squad 5 ("Medium" sized engine, used for EMS, rescue, brush, service calls, etc)
Station 7 (Volunteer - North Farms Company)
Engine 7
Rescue 7 (Heavy Rescue)
Tanker 7
Station 8 (Volunteer - East Wallingford Company)
Engine 8
Squad 8
Light/Generator Tower

As a HAM I am totally offended that you posted a picture of my well equipped Mobile Radio Emergency Field Communications Vehicle (Callsign "Car Lightning-Rod"). I've been featured on HAMSEXY.COM but this picture is before I added the all important CERT, ARES and SKYWARN reflective id signs on my vehicle..............
OH GOD I CAN'T CONTINUE!!!! Laughing too hard when trying to type this out.
But goes to show yah when a good thing goes totally bad!!!!!

Sorry guys...I promise it will look better once I get the reflective stripes and chevrons on it.
I also have a deal pending with Seth to logo it up as an official EMTBravo Incident Alert fly car.

While I want to see as many PD's, FD's and schools ensure proper staffing, as I said, federal funding really isn't the way to go. As a short term solution it will accomplish strengthening those positions, but at the taxpayers expense. The same taxpayers who can't afford to have proper staffing at their local FD, will be paying for it from their other pocket, and those who will see no specific hires in their locality will pay more to strengthen other places, yet furthering their local financial burden. We don't have a national fire service or fund our local police through federal monies, so we shouldn't look to the rest of the country to solve our local issues.
I can tell you none of this comes from FOX or CNN just common sense really. Every time a they spend a dollar in DC, it cost the taxpayers $1.25 to implement (not real figures) as it takes bureaucratic offices to process taxes, grant applications, follow-up, etc. The shorter the line between the taxpayers wallet and the project being funded, the less implementation costs, the less earmarks, the less lobbyists.
As for government infrastructure projects (roads/bridges)? Hell yes they need to be done, but to call that a Jobs Bill? Who do you think pays for those projects? So we're creating jobs, at the expense of taxpayers, of course it is a smarter solution than welfare as we get something in return and those projects need to be done. But let's not call it a Jobs Bill, how about calling it the federal government spending on federally mandated projects?
I also am not convinced tax breaks for corporations or the wealthy will work, as they already get them ad look where we are. But we need to find a way to stimulate private businesses into hiring employees that we don't fund out of our taxes.

I am all for stimulus spending, but I don't believe that this will work. As others have pointed out, once the cash dries up we're back to square one. Spending money on infrastructure and public works is the way to go. It creates jobs immediately and gets manufacturers and other private industry involved. More jobs and more manufacturing will feed cash into the local governments where they can continue to misappropriate it at their leisure. I'm not buying into right wing trickle down bullshit. Giving cash to corporate entities only serves to strengthen their financials. They hire when they have more product to produce and need more people.

I have no problem telling them that kicking the can down the road will not solve the problem. Look what happened the last time Obama did this. The second the federal money was spent the same police officers firefighters and teachers were laid off.

They just did this in the form of the last stimulus programs- It doesn't work- money goes from the Feds to the local gov'ts who hire people into these jobs- after the fed money is dried up the local taxpayer is left holding the bag for the salaries and benefits- just kicks the can down the road.

Spending our way to prosperity. Wish I could do that. Instead, I have to live with what I make.

I am against the federal government bailing out local governments. Especially when the federal government is borrowing money to do so. The local governments need to learn how to balance a budget. Everyone who works for the government knows where there is a waste of resources. The economy will force the government to get rid of the waste (which includes duplication of services) and save the tax payers some money.

Seems like it's a part that they can't lose over, after all who'd argue against rehire, teachers, police and firefighters. Just more pawns in this political game.
The whole jobs bills irks me some as all the proposed jobs are taxpayer funded. In the end, more people will be working, and those of us working will pay more taxes to fund those jobs, another win-no win situation. We need something to get private employers to rehire workers or fund new jobs, not ones we'll pay for directly.
Police, fire, EMS and teachers are local employees that should be funded at the lowest level. It makes little sense for me to pay toward firemen's salaries in CA, while CA residents pay for salaries in NY, and you pay for salaries up my way. In the meantime, we have to pay taxes to fund these federal dollars, and when we do, they skim some off the top in the name of program implementation then redirect the rest to the jobs.

John,
It's great that you want to be a firefighter. It's a job like no other. But, I would say, definitely stay in school. It may seem like a pain, and I know some guys will regret it and say how it didn't really help them, etc. But, the more education you can get, the better you will be as a firefighter and as a person. Getting a good college education should be a number one priority. Four years in college will make you, as has been said, more well-rounded to deal with the day-in, day-out life as a firefighter. Also, I agree with perhaps learning another trade. A fire science degree may or may not help you in both getting hired and or in your career. Learning a trade/getting a degree however, can help you make a little more money, especially on the days off.
Also, it make take a while to get hired by a paid department, so having another job during that waiting period helps pay the bills. Additionally, it's getting harder and harder to get a job on a career department, as there's a lot of competition, especially in today's economy. The FDNY was just hiring and had over 60,000 applicants, so to get hired there, for example, you really have to be the best of the best. However, keep in mind, that having a college education, being a volunteer, on top of any other degrees and certifications you may have(such as EMS training), will help make you stand out above other applicants who may not have what you have.
Going to college, getting out on your own, and getting a job is an exciting time in your life, especially for a prospective firefighter. It may seem frustrating for now, but don't worry, you'll get there. And once you do, like has also been said before, you can be on the job for over twenty years. For the time being, however, go to school, get your feet wet in a volunteer setting, get as knowledgeable as you can about firefighting in order to really get a feel of what the job's about, and ask yourself if this is really something you want to do for a good portion of your life. But most of all, enjoy being a teenager and a young adult and have fun. Time flies by, and you'll get there soon enough.
Good luck, and stay safe!

I'm glad the jury was able to see past the defenses' sickening attempts at justification.
These 2 are savages who don't deserve to walk amongst the living anymore or breathe the same air we do.
Although savage 1 has already been sentenced to death and I'm pretty sure savage 2 will also be sentenced to death, I don't think the state of Connecticut will ever get a chance to execute them.
If there ever was a death penalty case this is it but i think politics will get in the way of the executions

If we observe and for the sake of this discussion only we assume the following to have been the complete and timely reporting of a structure fire for the VMFD, this is a great example to look at in more depth:
At 05:41 hours there is something burning in this basement which results in 4 engines, a truck and three commanders responding to and taking action toward @05:47 hours confirmed smoke from the basement. Two minutes later a commander transmits a 10-75 and requests TMFD FAST.
@05:58 hours we see a Rescue responding "w/FAST." A minute later a commander transmits for the FAST unit to locate at the scene, and finally @06:03 the designated FAST unit is on scene.
From 05:41 hours with an IDLH occurring at the location in the basement, twenty-two minutes later the FAST in on scene. In those 22 minutes, this fire was confirmed and obviously attacked because we have a command request at 05:55 hours for Con Ed for an electrical fire.
What I see missing from this real fire scenario, (and congratulations to the VMFD for obviously a successful stop) is a continuous, designated company from the home department that assumed and performed the necessary functions of a FAST Team. So my question would be, why is the FAST unit from the Town, 22 minutes later? What good would that have done in those critical initial attack moments when FAST is supposed to be appropriately in place as required by the OSHA Standard 1910.134 or the NFPA 1720 (volunteer standard) or NFPA 1710 (career standard applying because the TMFD is combo)?
The designated FAST company could have been engine 38, 39, 40, 41 or truck 20, and this assignment would have been continuous would it not? There should be no need for a "replacement FAST unit" 22 minutes later. I'm missing what that accomplishes regarding compliance with the Statute, but more importantly the immediate and continuous protection that should have been afforded the initial attack members who proceeded down into this burning basement.
Regardless if a commander from this job is going to possibly come back now and answer that there was a designated home company performing FAST until the arrival of the Town's Rescue, it doesn't make sense to transfer the function. Whatever home company was the initial FAST, they were the eyes from the beginning. They were locating secondary means of egress and assuring that was made available to interior units. They threw the ground ladders, stretched the FAST hoseline.
I hope the members of the VMFD will not take offense to the observations I have made here, and once again this was a real situation, but I'm not attempting to say the I.A. information is totally accurate; it's only for the sake of this discussion that I would conclude there to have been either an unnecessary delay in implementing the FAST, or an unnecessary transfer of function.
Again, I obviously wasn't there, don't know the intensity of the fire the Village faced at this job, it just so happens to be perfect timing to fit into the hypothetical for this discussion. Most sincerely am not trying to step on anyone's toes or MMQB their fire.

Okay BIG BONE to pick. Eli, freakin' awesome camera, and great shots. BUT, fellas, he gets THREE REPS for TWO Toyota Prius's, one with a dent in the door? What is this site coming too? LOL
Kidding aside, I know you travel far to get these shots, and most of us appreciate them very much, so thank you Eli.

Absolutely valid point INIT, no I certainly don't think it's EVERY muslim who believes in Radical Jihad. ut of that 1.5-1.7 billion Muslims, how many percentage wise do you think actually DO believe in violent jihad? if we go conservative and say 5% that's how many? 10% would be 160,000,000 people. So 5% would be 80,000,000 people. I find 5% of their overall population to be a reasonable, acceptable number. What do you say? Is 80 million bent on holy war an accetable estimate?

I can answer who was in the Philippines around the same time; his name is Ramzi Yousef. He built and detonated the 1993 bomb at The World Trade Center. Speaking of coincidences, guess who his uncle is; Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Yes that KSM currently being held in Guantanamo; the "brains" behind the 9/11 attacks. Yousef is doing a life without parole gig in a Federal Prison.
Radical Islamists are here to stay in this world. Don't be a dhimi, a multiculturalist, who thinks these Radicals want to assimilate with us "infidels." Their goal is an Islamic Caliphate, the elimination of the ONLY democracy in the middle east; Israel. They want a Caliphate that extends around the world. And according to their holy book, it is just fine to lie and be deceitful toward the "enemy" to achieve their goals.
I'm really surprised by some of you. A mere ten years later, and you guys sound like a bunch of naive liberal college kids...."everything can be worked out, just accept these people...they have no grand plans at world domination."
I have a great place for you to start if you truly give a cr@p and want to LEARN: "1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE" (International Terrorism and The FBI), BY Peter Lance, ReganBooks.
Do some reading, then get back to those of us, who not only remember 9/11 like it was yesterday, but have educated ourselves about the ENEMY ever since.

Might as well make designer fire gear as well... include interchangeable boots for the homes where the homeowners ask you to take your boots off before you come inside and check out the smoke condition...

As per the ops guide we need to carry our APR's with us at all times, even in the crew compartment. The reasoning is that if we respond to any sort of explosion ( bus, train, building, etc) we would have our APRS in our reach prior to having to get out and breathe what potentially could be a CBRN attack. While you may think our turnout gear is " ridiculous " or " self serving" remember that NYC is the number one terrorist target in the WORLD, and every borough is different then another. I have had glass from a fire fall on me from 3 blocks away before, and I was happy I was wearing my gear at the time.

Maybe "all of a sudden" they realized its required under NYS Dept. of Labor Law CFR 1910.132
I would think that if the reason was just for this, it would have been better to add a compartment like the haz tech units.

So are you saying that a protocol that requires FDNY EMS personnel to have their protective gear readily accessible and to wear it in hazardous situations is "self-serving"?I'm pretty sure that you'd be wrong. I have a hard time believing that FDNY EMS would move to 4-door chassis if their current ambulance module design could adequately accommodate their gear. Do you realize that their previous "regular" ambulance spec uses what is pretty much the smallest module that Horton makes (Model 403 which is a 137" x 96" body).
Something else to bear in mind. While the 4-door chassis will obviously turn worse than the 2-door chassis, FDNY Ladders and Tower Ladders are much bigger than these ambulances and they seem to be able to make their way to their calls.
It may remind you, but it's not the same thing.

By the way the articles were written and what I heard on the tactical channel, I would guess she had to be 100 feet from the ground level base. The LT was coming from the ground level up and he fell approx 60 to 70 feet, he was on the way up to her but never reached her. One firefighter that was also hurt saw shielding the LT from the falling rocks after he feel and the 3rd FF was transported for other medical reasons. I'm only going off what I have read so far and the CTNOW.com interview.
Good job by all involved and both climbers (the one who was stuck and the other one) have been charged with reckless endangerment and a also for violating the ordinance prohibiting climbing East Rock. Go figure both are Yale students (seems like the NHFD boys and girls are always taking them off that rock face).

I've been giving some thought on some of the comments on not only Yorktown's recent fire, but other incidents and want to share my thoughts.
Ten years ago, many of us were getting along fine, making do with what we had at our disposal in terms of manpower. Most fire departments would handle a single family dwelling fire with little to no Mutual Aid. Was it because we all had an abundance of manpower? I don't think so.
Many people like to get on the "manpower soapbox" all too often to explain their dwindling firehouse numbers, yet it can generally correlate to other contributing factors that many don't admit to, or even recognize.
1. Poor leadership. Many people in the volunteer fire service are giving their time to the FD while balancing their family duties, jobs and other commitments. Most guys and gals join either to be an integral part of their community and/or to become part of a social club. When your leadership is doing it's job (leading when leading is needed, being fair and balanced, treating everyone with respect, making everyone feel safe and accpeted) then the troops feel better about themselves and the department they've joined. I've been in my department since I was an Explorer (1992) and have seen AWESOME LEADERS (Chiefs and Company Officers) and sadly, we've had a few too many crappy ones. If you can lead your troops when they need leading and you can motivate them by making them feel a sense of ownership in their company/department, then they'll give that extra effort.
2. Lack of Training Availability. So many of us strive to be the best departments we can be, and this means a lot of training. We've grown from doing roughly one drill per month to offering 4-5 different training venues every month. Since everyone has crazy schedules, you need to be flexible. Having just one drill night isn't going to cut it. Also, training that we are all required to have isn't always made easily accessible. I don't fault WCDES for the lack of some courses - I lay blame on OFPC (or whatever acronym they use now). Why can't volunteer fire departments have an MTO? In our own department we have a half dozen NYS and/or National Fire Service Instructors and we're being under utilized. We had a good thing going for a couple of years where one of our guys was granted a "supplemental CFI" status and was providing in-house OFPC classes, such as HMFRO, HMFRO Annual Refresher, Confined Space Awareness & Safety, Scene Support Operations and others that you just don't see often enough. Losing this has hurt our training program, and now it costs us more money to outsource and bring instructors in. In a nutshell, the current system sucks.
3. Personal Agendas. I've seen a couple of Chiefs (not just in our FD but around the county) that get elected with an agenda of their own. In order to get what they want, they start cutting funding for certain things, they lie to everyone and worst of all - they let the department's members suffer. For example, if your Chief is up in your commissioners officer / town hall lying to them about what your members need simply to make themselves look good - that will come back to the guys/gals and ruin their ambition to be a part of your department.
I know I may sound like a broken record, but it really does come down to how your department is run, from the top down. If your Chief can't run a scene, the guys lose faith in them. If your Captain can't be bothered with drill night because of his softball games, how are the guys in the trenches expected to show any initiative? And if all the guys walking around with collar brass don't take the time to guide, mentor and lead their men/women - kiss it all goodbye.
These things have major negative impacts on your department's performance call after call. You might get 40 guys in line at a parade, but how many of them can honestly remember the last time they got out of bed at 2am for a CO call?
Leadership makes/breaks fire departments - we can blame it on anything else we want, but this simple truth is what hurts so many of us.
Stay safe & train often.
/thoughts.

Got my test on Friday in North White Plains. Anyone else taking it? Does anyone currently in communications have any advice? This will be my first dispatcher exam.