M' Ave

There is only one issue that politicians will care about with regards to combined services. Money. It has to be cheaper. We all may think about the service benefits and what not, but the fact of the matter is, it has to be cheaper for elected officials to care. The point? That HAS to mean fewer firemen on the payroll and that's something that we never want to talk about. If you combined Eastchester, New Rochelle, the Pelhams and Mount Vernon that would come up as an issue. Lets say (I'm guessing on the real number) **I DO NOT KNOW THE ACTUAL NUMBERS, THIS IS JUST FOR EXAMPLES SAKE*** New Rochelle has, all included, 35 on duty at a time. Pelham has 3 Pelham Manor has 3 Eastchester has 12 Mount Vernon has 20 That's a total of 73 guys working. Combined they'd want fewer on duty than they have when separate. If this was one large F.D. then you'd have to be more economical with the staffing or this doesn't make sense on paper. No one there wants to cut the number of positions for firemen, because we know we always need more people, that's another big sticking point. The ratio of firemen on duty to civilians in the municipality always rises with the size of the city. Look at NYC and Yonkers. YFD, about 80 on duty: Ratio to the public is, 1:2475 FDNY, about 2200 on duty: Ratio to the public is, 1:3818 In White Plains, the ratio is something like 1:2100, so again, with a smaller city there are fewer civilians for each fireman. That is no measure of the quality of the fire protection at all. It's simply a look at how efficient the department appears to those who look at nothing but the bottom line. On paper, financially, New York City is getting more for their money because there are more civilians for every fireman. If services are combined, then the public officials are going to look for the larger organization to be more economically efficient. Cost savings cannot be gained from ISO and insurance related rebates alone.

This question is geared more toward a career dept. or a vollie dept. where guys don't drive themselves to the address. What positions do your companies have and hwat do they do? How is each position assigned? Who makes these decisions. (ie, seniority ect. ect.)

....where nothing is on the level! Always liked that one

Combining services is DEFINITELY the answer to a great deal of the finance vs. services problems that a lot of communities face. However, that said, Yonkers doesn't really apply and some of the others have been a part of a proposal to consolidate. This is a good start, but I think that there are many depts in this county that need consolidation on just as serious a level, if not more so. Take the Town of Mamaroneck, which encompasses the Village of Larchmont, the Village of Mamaroneck and the unincorporated areas of the Town of Mamaroneck. It's 16sq. miles and has a population of approx. 30,000 residents. Between the three depts, they have: -11 Engines -4 Ladders -3 Rescues -9 Chiefs vehicles -Assorted other vehicles. In comparison, Yonkers covers 25sq miles and 200,000 people with the same # of Engines, 6 Ladders and 1 Rescue. There are plenty of examples, this is just the one I'm using. Why not have one Town wide F.D. You could use fewer fire houses, FAR fewer # of apparatus and I'm sure that the combined, larger manpower pool could handle the total number of alarms. The volunteer base would be very large.

I think guys are taking this questions the wrong way. It makes no difference if you sit up front, facing backwards or whatever. You can ride surfing the bedded aerial, it really doesn't matter. What "positions" you take indicates what job you do in your company when you go to work. Example, an engine: Officer Chauf. Nozzle Backup Door Control What are the positions, what do they do and who decides who does what?

Why would you have an officer drive? It seems to go against the very nature of what an officer is supposed to do. He can't command a house line or a search from the panel. What is the thought process behind this?

Assignments, we also call them riding positions

Cap, this is certainly a valid point. However, I'd think that the LCC would be busy getting the aerial in place to make the pick or a ground ladder. Is there no one else in gear who can actually get that person while the guy driving is getting the rig ready or grabbing tools? I'm just suggesting that there are plenty of things for the LCC to do, all essential to his position and gear has no bearing. I think this gets into riding positions and individual dept. SOP's. This sparks a question........new topic time......

I don't believe ECC needs to be wearing gear. His job is to stay at the panel after hooking up to a hydrant. He can do without gear. His gear is certainly on the rig, should the co. be assigned and the rig not needed. This holds true for the LCC as well. The LCC can drive, put up the aerial and throw ground ladders with gloves and a helmet on. You can work longer and harder without the extra thirty pounds. Full PPE is a great thing, but I think that we sometimes forget that it has a multitude of drawbacks as well. Did the burn rate go down? Sure. However, heat and exhaustion related injuries went up. When you're on the fire floor or the floor above, it's a no brainer, SUIT UP TIGHT! However, I hear much debate about whether a member on the roof, or working the outside needs the same degree of encapsulation, this holds true most especially, in hot weather. Driving with gear on in the cab of our rigs would be tough, it's really tight and the new rigs coming in are even tighter.

Here are a few companies that shoulda been closed before the 4 mentioned: BITS EEO Recruitment Well, thank god the Command Tactical Unit is back in service. We'll have really great fire movies........

If it's a good quality replication, this is a fair price. A single locomotive from a quality manufacturer can EASILY top $1,000, depending on material and features.

We don't respond to anything without warning devices activated, if that's what you mean by "hot", although I don't care for that term. If they send us, it's an emergency. Those in my battalion have had two good examples of why NOT to get complacent about an activated alarm this month. A 10-75 and a 2nd alarm that came in as class 3 alarms (activated alarms) As Chief Flynn stated, the streets are very tight in that area, you don't get a look down a cross street until you are practically in the intersection. Accidents happen, lets not crucify the poor guy driving. I assure you that the ECC and LCC are extremely well trained, but once in a while the planets align and accidents happen. Look, there is an alarm somewhere in the 5 boroughs just about every 45 seconds, I'd say the accident ratio is pretty low.

I'm sure, as with fire apparatus in general, you don't need a CDL. However, I assume whoever drives that thing has some experiance, 'cause it's huge.

Note on the final disp. we see: Too bad we don't get to hear "Tree Tree Oh" anymore. 'da Beef, classic.

Funeral will be held this Tuesday, 11/18 at Bethel Gospel Assembly 2-26 E. 120th St. (Between Fifth and Madison Aves.) Funeral will begin at 11a.m. and all members should assemble along 120th St. west of the church for the procession. Please turn out! THIS IS A LINE OF DUTY FUNERAL!

R.I.P. and many condolences to those he has left behind.

Well, I can assure you that it has to do with money. The union negotiated some additional compensation for members working in an engine. If a guy from a truck works in the engine he gets that rate. Keeping company responsibilities clear helps with all operations. Both Co's have their "non-fire" runs to deal with. For the engine is CFR runs, for the truck it's stuck elevators and water leaks. At a car accident the engine tends to the patient and perhaps stretches a precautionary line while the truck handles the extrication and other issues with the vehicle itself. It seems to work just fine and the EMS load for the F.D.N.Y. can be handled by the engine without the need for both companies in the house to response.

No new word as of this evening. Very scary stuff, something so unexpected. Best wishes and hope for a speedy recovery.

Really? Come on....... The only thing he's gonna do is enforce the assault weapons ban. Good! Should you be able to have guns to hunt and sport shoot? Sure. Should you have the right to keep a gun for protection in your home? Sure (Even though most people just kill a family member by mistake). Do you need a .50 Cal sniper rifle or some sort of automatic rifle? NO, YOU DON'T. Stop with the 2nd amendment stuff. It was written when we needed citizen militia to defend the counrty......200 years ago! I'm all for guns, guns in reality and with HUGE safeguards and background checks.

I gotta say. The training at the rock has been great lately. I've been thhrough a ton of FF removal scenarios and subway work. HOWEVER, this should not be at the expense of the first due area. I guess first due isn't as important in N.O.C.

I doubt Hunts Point is on the block. They've got a busy, low income residential area that makes up a considerable amount of their first due.

No stations buddy, only fire "houses" Listen, the talk so far is very preliminary. This idea is only being kicked around, at this time. The idea is to add 25 men to the man power, thus cutting overtime. This is kinda stupid since the city is SURPLUS at least 50 men on every tour. This means that every engine that currently has 4 FF and an Off. gets the 5th man back. About 150 of the 208 engines are short the 5th man. This is a real ploy by politicians to try to save a couple of bucks yet not upset community boards by closing a firehouse. They're suggesting that only firehouses with a truck will loose the engine overnight. Since most of the public doesn't differentiate between an engine and a truck, they'l think they still have fire protection. Also, the city has made a big deal about response times and they've, somewhat, backed themselves into a corner because of this. HOWEVER, since the first unit on scene stops the clock, this plan won't effect response times as the truck will arrive at the same time that the engine would have. This is HUGELY misleading to the public. The areas that stand to loose an engine at night are speculated to be those with a very low residential make-up and a close second due engine. (The city has stated areas that are predominantly commercial) There is loss on another level here as well. I think this would be a huge destruction of company pride of the engine shuttered at night. The men working will never work a night tour together. They'll be sent out around the city. Permanent night time details. This is a loss that's is intangible to an outsider and certainly not one that the city will ever take into account when making budget cuts.

**Option #4 (For us career guys only) STRIKE or at least threaten until the taylor law is thrown as us. This is what our union does. They make threats and demands AND SUE! This is how we better our situation. Why is this different than the volunteers? Look, right or wrong. It's free-bee labor and you can't do whatever you want with them and expect them to just stick around. Hopefully the intentions of a volunteer fire dept. are what's best for the town or wherever (sometimes they are not) and this comes through. Some part of volunteerism should be selfless and without personal demands, however, it's also not slavery.

And now one sees the obvious here? Uh......Ghostbusters? Haha