FDNY 10-75

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

A friend of mine (RIP) did a comparison study of a career county fire department in Maryland that is a twin to Nassau County and found the career county department operated with a budget half the size of the amount it costs to operate all of the Nassau County's VFD's. The FDNY operates FIVE rescue companies in a city of 8000000 people, Suffolk County with 1,200,000 people has OVER ONE HUNDRED rescue trucks and no career fire departments. FDNY has an average of 10,000 rescue responses annually. I don't believe that Nassau and Suffolk County have anywhere near that amount. 

 
Article: http://m.timesunion.com/local/article/One-town-35-chiefs-1370649.php

West Harrison Fire Department
Engine 267
2016 Seagrave Marauder II
Waterous 1500 GPM / 750 Gal
Cummins 450HP/Allison Automatic
*Not fully outfitted with equipment yet*
Seagrave Serial Number 78H83
 
Special thanks to all those involved in helping me get the photos!
 

 

 

 

 
 

 


 

 
If you have lights "all over your personal vehicle"  you have already broken the law.

West Harrison F.D. took deliver of our new seagrave Engine 267. Big thanks to Hudson Valley fire equipment.  

West Athens-LimeStreet Fire District in Greene County,NY will be taking delivery of a 2016 KME Predator Panther Engine Tanker sometime next week. It will be assigned as ETA 27-4 and will replace a 1995 International/Luverne Pumper. Will post pictures of its delivery next week.
 
Production Pictures: https://m.facebook.com/ColumbiaGreeneFireRescueIncidents/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1116704388371508&mt_nav=1

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/rye-brook-port-chester/2016/06/18/state-cites-port-chester-fire-department-violations/86079360/
 
 

 
Maybe that career should have never been started in the first place. 
 
As the saying goes; "You can fool some of the people some of the time BUT you can't fool all of the people all of the time". 
 
Those career firefighters need to get their jobs back, and I hope they go after everything they are entitled to get. 
 
Let the citizens understand exactly who is to blame for this.

Pete does that system you mention involve a Career Firefighter being given orders to by a Volunteer Lt ? If so, just by the nature of the accountability issue, there might be a problem trying to implement that. For that career firefighter, he comes under a semi military form of discipline, with plenty to loose if he disobeys an order.
 
Now lets reverse it. A career Capt gives that Volunteer Lt an order. That Vol Lt doesn't follow the order. "What type of disciplinary action can be applied to him ?
 
Yes, that volunteer Lt took and passed the same test as those career Lts., but it will never really be equal.
 
Just as I mentioned the story earlier of the topless lady photos taken in a firehouse. There were two totally different standards applied. Those career firefighters faced some serious charges if they had done it. While the volunteer firefighters, who actually committed the incident, had no action taken against them. The reality is, "nothing could be done against them".
 
Just by virtue of passing the same test, does not make things equal.
 
Here's an example. As a new officer, I was once called into the chiefs office for a personal issue. One of the firefighters got in a little trouble. I wasn't even there when it happened. As I headed to the office both the Union President and Vice President met me in the hallway. I was surprised to see them, so I asked what was going on ? The union president then said to me; "Willy do you want us to go in there with you" ? I asked "for what". They then told me the charges of what I was accused of and said, "he wants you suspended for 30 days". I couldn't believe that. Of course as it turned out, I was completely innocent and after serving four days of my 30 day suspension, I got my job back and also the four days back pay I lost.
 
 First of all, sometimes it's no fun being an officer. In the career dept you are held accountable for everything that goes on. But my real point here is the kind of standards that career officers are held too.
 
  Here's another example which happened within the last year or two. A career Lt is inside a building fighting a fire on the line with his members. Outside, the pump operator was NOT wearing his helmet. I believe he had been told to do so earlier on. The pump operator got suspended and the Lt was written up for not disciplining his men. He had no idea this guy wasn't wearing his helmet.  
 
 Both true stories. Now can a Volunteer Lt be held to such standards ?
 
 

In the city I have been referring to in my earlier post, there had been serious talks of eliminating 16 firefighter positions from a 60 man dept. This was sparked by one or two city council members who were endorsed by some members of the five local volunteer fire departments. All within the same town of that one career department. Also strongly endorsing this cutback was a full time career union firefighter from another nearby city.
 
The final budget meeting was held last Monday evening June 6th. During the meeting the Mayor spoke ; "this is ONE City, not two and should not be divided". Apparently referring to the One Career Fire Department, separated by the Five Volunteer Depts within the same town.
 
A council member agreed that the city is "horribly divided over this fire tax issue". She said; "If we continue down this road we are going to destroy ourselves". You may remember I had mentioned earlier how the local Volunteer Fire Departments refused to call for that career dept and instead called other volunteer departments farther away and even outside this city's limits.
 
 In addition, many of the residents who reside in this area protected by those career firefighters, spoke clearly against a divided city when it comes to its fire protection.
 
The plan to eliminate those 16 career firefighter positions by some council members was to eliminate one battalion chiefs position, a fourth firefighters position for an engine company in a more congested area, and the closing of an additional engine company. The 16 positions broke down as follows. Four positions that needed to be filled, plus the closing of a three man engine company. I must give credit to the Chief of that career department. He sure did a GREAT Job presenting his facts at that earlier budget hearing. Thankfully, he was very well prepared with details to present his case and defend his budget. He was recruited from outside the state to become Chief of Department about 10 years ago. Over the last ten years he has worked very hard to try and improve the relations between the career and volunteer departments. After seeing little improvements made, I met with this career chief as a retired firefighter and resident regarding the very serious incidents that had occurred. I told him it was time to do something about it and I was going to the newspaper with my documented stories. Stories that put civilians, as well as firefighters, (both career and volunteer) at risk. In addition, in some of these cases perhaps more damage resulted as well due to much longer response times.
 
Today I am happy to report that NO career firefighters will loose their jobs. Thankfully to a Chief of Department who prepared himself very well. But no thanks to a few city politicians looking to advance their own political future and a group of frustrated volunteer firefighters who would rather see these guys loose their jobs. Thankfully, these volunteer firefighters do NOT represent ALL volunteer firefighters.
 
 The one outside career firefighter who was pushing for the elimination of those firefighters, is also a volunteer firefighter in one of those local five volunteer departments. The only person he really hurt was himself by putting himself in the middle. Now he has lost the trust of TWO departments. The one where he works and the one he tried to push for the elimination of those 16 firefighters. No doubt, his behavior will live with him for a very long time.

We have a similar situation where I'm at.  We're the only game in our (small) city, but we are completely surrounded by VFDs.  Upwards of a dozen or so independent stations in the various municipalities we share a border with in some fashion.  We utilize a few of them somewhat routinely for working fires (primarily as RIT initially) and then for additional alarms.  Occasionally we work together on border calls. 
 
For the most part, we're not on their initial alarms and they rarely call us for incidents.  We're physically closer than most of the other companies that do get called.  Their apparatus responds thru our city at times, sometimes past one of our staffed stations.  We frequently listen to incidents where they're slow to respond or have working incidents were we could potentially make a difference (despite our limited staffing) because we could get there quick with experienced guys, but aren't called.
 
Some of the reasons I've heard thrown around were stuff like our city would bill them for the response (not true), the union would file a grievance over the response (also not true as the union was 200% in favor of responding to the calls, never mind that it wouldn't be grievable anyway) and some other odd reasons despite the fact that on two occasions we've gone to a full recall of off-duty personnel in order to send an on-duty unit and supplemental personnel to a mutual aid fire and cover our stations.
 
Now some of our previous chiefs have done things that have helped contribute to them not calling us, but ultimately I think that it comes down to two things, 1) we'll beat most of them to their calls and 2) we'll make them "look bad" because on average, we're more trained, more experienced and not too shabby at putting out fires.
 
We're slowly seeing some progress though.  So, we'll see where that goes.
 
 
 
 

If your going to seriously compare numbers, most of the American population lives in urban areas and larger towns served by career or combo departments. Also, I would be willing to bet my next 5 pay checks on it that there are significantly more career firefighters than volunteer. Let me explain that one. You cannot say that a volunteer department in a small town that has 200 members in it, has 200 fire fighters. Stop the interior/exterior nonsense. No career department has an "exterior" FF. If you take the number of volunteer interior FFs and compare it to career, I think you'd be surprised. These towns should come out with the real number of people in their department who can pull you out of your house when it's on fire instead of saying they have hundreds of members "serving" their community . 
I have been an active volunteer FF for a couple of hours now, and a career firefighter for a few minutes. The biggest thing I have noticed is the hate of the volunteer FFs (who work somewhere else like say, FDNY) by Volunteer FFs. That's more of an issue than Union staff VS volunteers. Most likely, sorry but gonna say it, fuled by some level of jealousy . They can be their own worst enemy. 
 
Enjoy your day.
TYFYS

When those soldiers who are standing fast are called to service they will be capable of shooting the enemy because they're all fully trained and qualified.  When these so called "fully trained exterior firefighters are called to push into a dwelling fire, he or she cannot.

So then let's call it what it really is...
 
you ou have Firefighters and you have Firefighter Helpers.
 
i see too many departments that claim how many members they have, but they won't admit to themselves or the public they are sworn to protect when they do not have enough interior "firefighters" to actually do a search or make a real attack.

"We have 31 fully qualified, completely trained and certified firefighters, 22 of which are also interior qualified,” said past assistant chief and 53-year member Bob Harford. "
 
I know there's differences from state to state regarding training and certification, but how can a department claim a member to be a "fully qualified, completely trained and certified" firefighter when that person is not "interior qualified"?
 
When did being "interior qualified" as a firefighter become a bonus skill set rather than the standard? 

 
 
 As I read this story, ONCE AGAIN, the innocent people suffer through no fault of their own. Poor fire department leadership is again demonstrated as the cause.
 
Unless the fire service picks leaders who are not involved in protecting their own self image, and care more about the people they are assigned to protect, this kind of story will be repeated over again.
 
Question now is;  "who will be next" ?

Learn the facts, the chiefs had a great deal in what happened. It wasn't the so called board. The chiefs of this dept. Are career firefighter haters.when a village board suggests that they are gonna cut the firefighter jobs, and the fire chiefs do not go out against eliminating the 1st due guaranted engine of their dept. , come on just think about it, It Stinks.... They all had a hand in this travesty.. But the only thing I can say is the career firefighters turned in  4300 signatures to the village to force a referendum , let the citizens decide and the board and the chiefs can shove it where the sun doesn't shine.....

Yes the majority of departments are volunteer.
 
5 are career or if they have volunteers, they no longer respond to calls.
9 are combination with the majority of responders being career ( in some cases the volunteers are exterior only and only have a handful left)
4 are combination with the majority of responders being volunteer.
and Port Chester.
 
So their are more volunteer departments. But what do they protect?
 
the population of Westchester County is 972,634
 
434,622 people live in communities with the 5 career depts. (approximately 45%).
 
177,397 people live in communities with the combination depts. with mostly career response (approximately 18%).
 
Thats 612,019 people (63%)
 
The communities with the majority being volunteer are hard to calculate as they include fire districts that do not have census data, but it is totaled at no more than 360,615. (37%).
 
 
 

Actually, the majority of the population is served by career or mostly career departments.   The majority of the country (land wise) is served by volunteer or mostly volunteer departments.  Volunteerism is declining and many all volunteer departments are now combination and many more probably should be.  
 
Love for the community is not exclusive to the volunteers, which for some reason is something people like you are unable to grasp.
 
What's your stance on volunteer grandstanding? 

 
"FD7807", I think you missed some of the questions.
 
  1) How would eliminating career firefighters NOT have an affect on public safety ?
 
  2) How does a group of union firefighters make this sound so risky and I assume you feel it shouldn't be ?
 
 Your latest response however is exactly the kind of response I would expect. A little self gratification by telling us you work 60 hours a week. Do you get paid for that time ? I would just guess that 20 of those hours are rated at time and a half.  I would hope you have enough to buy yourself that fresh new blue light. Yet you still make 100 FD calls and 100 training hours. I'm guessing again, that is in one year. Did you ever wonder how many FD calls the average career firefighter makes in one year ? Or did you ever think of the number of training hours those career firefighters spend in one year ? The same kind of career firefighters that you believe has no impact on the publics safety if taken away.
 
  "FD7807", I'm not talking about watching Chicago Fire on demand or Belly Bumps. What I am talking about is the reality of todays fire service. The one that so many of us tend to depend on.
 
 One more question from one of those "Keyboard Firefighters" if I may. Is it safe for us to assume that you NEVER took any exam for a career firefighter ? You never had any interest in doing that job at all. You are very happy as it is, working your 60 hours a week and doing your 100 FD calls and 100 training hours. Only you would know the real answer to that.
 
  But I bet you didn't know this. That as a little hobby of mine I spent time helping young volunteer firefighters that wanted to become career firefighters. And I wasn't the only career firefighter doing it. There was an entire group of us all from career departments in Connecticut. We helped them with the written, the oral etc. and because those young guys really pushed themselves and worked hard, most got on a career fire dept somewhere. Today they thank us. But "THEY" were the ones that really did it. And I must say that I think those career depts. got the best of the best.
 
Sorry for getting off track here, but I just thought it was a pretty good story to tell. And by the way, they were ALL UNION FIREFIGHTERS and they did it all for FREE. No charge at all.

FD7807 - I don't have to claim anything......your hero (I mean zero) Fire Chief was the stooge that stood before his personnel and went on a tirade encouraging vandalism and other types of obscene conduct against a Union member. 
 
Care to comment on why a Fire Chief would behave so irrationally or irresponsibly?
 
Is his behavior acceptable to you? Do you find this normal? 
 
Rather than rant about Unions and demonstrate your personal animus or jealousy for career that you could next have, try and build a case to defend the actions of this Chief and his cohorts.
 
This discussion will work far better if you actually stay on the issues that are tangible.
 
Save the Ben Franklin and taxpayer mantra for your next XXXL T-shirt printing or belly-bumping amongst your pals in the beer garden. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
I had to read this a few times. Thought it may be an April Fool's joke, but I realized that was what, eight weeks ago ?
 
Regarding soap boxes, you see an adversary, I see an individual exercising the right to free speech.
 
Taxpayers do have rights, most importantly the right to hear the truth about any manner. Tax savings ? A double edged sword. When was the last time (especially) in Westchester you saw a piece of fire apparatus that wasn't considered a "parade wagon," with all the bells and whistles, often duplicating what already exists in their own dept.
 
Back to the facts. Depts with career staff on duty 24/7/365 have a faster response time than those that don't.  In no way is this the fault of an all volunteer dept., Its just the way it is.
 
I got a job (now retired) and had and still have a life, one beyond my wildest drams, all because of my career as a firefighter. A career I attained by taking a written test with 4,000 to 5,000 other people, then scoring high enough to be in the roughly top 125 who were actually hired. The career academy. which wasn't a "show up and you pass" type of deal. Then 22 years putting up with, for the most part, know it all chiefs, AKA better known as the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. 
 
The situation in Port Chester has nothing to do with tax savings. Nothing. The facts truly spell that out. It's all about jealousy, ego, and, pure lunacy, all on the part of the chiefs of that dept. 

I like how some here will continue to try and sugar-coat what this story is about (very predictable).
 
It is also cute how one clown had such a "strong" defense of his fellow volunteers that he blurted out the "get a life, get a job" rebuttal (that kind of response could get you on the fast track for a Chief's position in Port Chester). 
 
Sorry folks...."it is what it is"..... and that is a poorly orchestrated plan to retaliate against Union firefighters for blowing the whistle about actual problems within someone's little kingdom. 
 
I know that many volunteers have traditionally cherished the "victim role" in the endless career vs. volunteer saga, but this piece of history should not be looked upon for anything more that exactly what it is = textbook anti-union animus . 
 
This story will not have a happy ending for those who had a hand in the release of these firefighters.
 
 

As a starting point.....Change the name of the thread to VOLUNTEER VS. CAREER. 
 
This entire issue was manufactured by a small group of completely incompetent volunteer fools wearing Fire Chief costumes from the Port Chester FD.
 
Sorry if the truth may hurt for some of the pro-volunteer carrot snappers on this board, but this story is going to sting for awhile (as it should).
 
Contrary to the claim of one "dinosaur" here......This has everything to do with career and volunteer relationships and the absolute jealousy that a few complete losers from PCFD attempted to enact upon 8 unionized firefighters who did not conform to their failing regime. 
 
Speaking out earned them being thrown out.
 
Except, the labor world is a bit harder to con than the archaic volunteer fiefdoms that these pieces of trash have matriculated through.
 
Open check book PCFD.
 
Elections have consequences.