BIGRED1

If anyone from the State of NJ deserves to have the flag flown at half staff today, tomorrow or in the coming days...........are the children of the NJ State Trooper who were killed yesterday when their school bus was struck by a garbage truck. I know this might not fall under the rules for our flag, but I am stating this to prove a point!

People need to learn the difference between "icons" & "Heroes"

I think that we should use this lowering as a positive. When you see a lowered flag, then you know that is a place that is not deserving of your hard earned money. Or if you see one lowered go in and let someone know they made a mistake and that it was suppose to be at full staff and to correct the mistake. I did that once after 9/11. A store had a flag at full staff when we as a nation were flying them at half. Needless to say they corrected it right then and there.

Spoken like a true Firemen. This is not a game. I am sure the dances and dinners and pancake breakfasts are great but we are here to protect the community. I wish you good luck and keep on learning.

That was the most disturbing thing I have have ever seen in my life.( and we are all firemen/EMT/Police on this site so we have seen some things) Needs to be on at every commercial break during the Super Bowl. Screw those other dumb a** commercials, this is the "Real" world. Show it to high school kids. or is it too "Harsh" for their fragile little minds How about some responsibility folks. I mean it is just brutal in your face reality. Not Jersey shore crap, not some dumb bachelorette crap. I mean I am still kinda being effected by it and its been off my screen for about 5 mins.

Stop bothering with this crap. Focus on making it legal. You still get to arrest people for driving under the influence, you still get to have your rehab clinics. Its just like alcohol(sorta). As someone who has no real use for weed, synthetic or real, i think we have bigger fish to fry these days. People will always find some other way to get high. Anyone know why whipped cream in a bottle is not illegal yet? I mean any 10 yo can buy that stuff.

Truth hurts!
I doubt the Budweiser folks would allow this one on.

God forbid the American public see such realities in the media.

While responding to a border call which we share with another department.
"60 Control to Eng** Would you like (other departments name here) to respond as well"
"They can come if they want too"
Had me laughing at 2AM

No idea what you're referring to... best one ever was the foot injury in the HVHC parking lot at like 3am...
You: "39M1 to 60 Control."
Me: "60 Control is on."
You: "John, are you serious?"
Me: "Yup, she is standing in the ER entrance awaiting your arrival."

###1: ###1 to 60-control
60 Control: 60 control is on
###1: Fire K/D, Overhauling at this time
60 Control: 60 recieved, Fire Knocked Down, Overhauling at this time
UNKNOWN: UH CHIEF, WE'VE GOT HEAVY FIRE VENTING OUT OF THE BC SIDE OF THE HOUSE
###1: ###1 TO 60 CONTROL, DISREGARD MY LAST UPDATE, IVE GOT HEAVY FIRE VENTING OUT OF THE BC SIDE OF THE HOUSE

Out of all of them I've worn over the past years I prefer Morning Pride 1st and GX Extreme like barely 2nd..and the Morning Pride wins only because to me it fits the best for comfort

Bnechis asks
"Do you handle the 1st rig or 2 different than once you have established a "full" command structure?"
Of course, Barry. Why? Because we work in companies and 1 or 2 things is easy to keep track of.
It's the "Stop and Shop Theory."
If I say to my wife "I'm going to the hardware store, do you need anything while I'm out?"
She says "Get milk and bread." I don't have to write it down...it's only 2 things. I'll remember that.
If she adds one more thing..."Oh and get salad dressing." I instinctively start a list...I'm moving toward that magic number 5 in my span of control. When they say ICS can be used for everything, take it to heart. By the time I get out of the house there will be ten items on that list, but I was prepared because of ICS.
Next week's lesson will be:
Sunday afternoon Rehab Training. See how the NFL, a Bud Lite, and a recliner fit into ICS.

I know but lets not forget the type of Profession we're talking about. Many times quick rational decisions have to be made to protect or save one's life or property and why not have those who are most competent regardless of their residency, After all we're not talking about hiring people to work at a new Department Store opening up in our Community. We're in a very hazardous Job where seconds count. I've seen guys who lived and those who still live in the municipality they work in and can't tell you the street name behind the Station they've been workin in for the past 20 yrs so does it really matter in the long run?

What could happen, the fish get a fourth eye?

Did anyone get any photos from the fire? I saw a lot of guys with cameras there. Checked NYCfire.net, but it was not him. Great job done by everyone. All the departments worked well together and got a very stubborn fire to go out. It's amazing no one was hurt.
As a side note:
Kinda funny how this call didn't get a Incident Alert but people post MVA's .

What could happen, the fish get a fourth eye?

I hope that none of the runoff went into the eastchester creek and hurt any fish! I'm sure the runoff was a concern and if you have ever been near or in the creek you will know that I was goofin about the fish, good job to all.

I have many models including most of the Diamond Plate's. I hade a feeling things were not right when they did not release a new Diamond plate in over two years. I agree that a Towel Ladder and a Rescue as welll would have been cool in the Diamond Plate series. I thought that they should have contunued with the firehouses as well! Also when they had massive problems with the second Philly SQURT you got an idea that things were not well in Code 3 land. I agree that all the FDNY rigs were becoming very repiticious though they had some wicked cool rigs like the Super Pumper system. Not looking forward to the jacked prices pepole will sell Code 3 on E-bay.

2 points. 1 serious...1 funny....
OK. I'm going to give in and ask a question and I swear its not a dig to anyone on the site. I thought there were rules of conduct that prohibited the "bashing" or bad mouthing of agencies? If they were an agency in the Hudson Valley posts would be deleted or the thread closed or deleted entirely. As I said I'm not trying to cause a rift..but most of you know I'm pretty fair and am up front and speak my mind. Now with that said..I really don't care nor am offended by anything said. I'm a realist and don't eat cake while wearing rose colored glasses while sharing my space with pink elephants.
Point #2. I love the pic with Paul Blart in it. Classic.

As one of the HPN firefighters, I can definitely agree that our disaster drills are, well, disasters. But on the other hand without recurrent training holding these exercises we wouldn't be able to do the job when the time comes. Throughout this thread I've seen a lot of department bashing and extreme opinions. Yes, kudos to the FDNY and the awesome job they did. And, Yes, I'm sure many agencies are thoroughly ready enough to be able to handle at least an initial response to such a disaster. But let's face reality: No one is perfect, and no emergency service is perfect. For the people who boast how "awesome" their departments are, I have two words...KEEP TRAINING! It's the only way you'll ever be ready.

You speak the absolute truth. Sadly the public is often mislead or just doesn't care enough to know the difference between mediocrity and good service. In some areas, such as my own, there would be no help coming from a large well staffed and trained career dept with significant resources. Not being prepared isn't an acceptable option. The public expects that when an accident happens all the victims that are viable will extricated and transported in a rapid fashion, but have little frame of reference to judge by. We can all likely agree FDNY sets the standard in many areas, but as you note a large factor at work there is the sheer numbers in manpower, equipment and dollars. The rest of us might need 50 different FD's to staff the number of units FDNY does daily. Imagine trying to coordinate that with different training and policies: not even close to realistic. This is yet another reason where regionalization has an advantage.

I don't mean this as a knock at the FDNY, but look at the reality of the situation. There are many great FD's out there that do strong work, but few have the resources of the FDNY. When it comes to being capable, many FD's have the capability to handle what we'd consider routine calls. We cannot staff and amass resources beyond our typical averages as it would be cost prohibitive. As was noted a few times here, having the resources under one command, using the same SOPs by personnel who have trained the same way, makes the incident far more manageable. Once a FD or EMS service begins to pull in outside resources many variable start to crop up: how do I talk to the units? Who's in charge of the units? What's the training level of the unit? Are my SOP's wildly different than the M/A units so they'll operate in a manner inconsistent than we're used too?
FDNY can make short work of an incident like this because they have the resources. While I have no doubt the actual hands on work was exemplary, it's not beyond what many FD's are capable of, just at what scale they are capable of doing in. If you're FD cannot handle this same incident similarly, you should be planning and training on how you could.
Look at disaster in Japan. If that happened here could we be as efficient as a country like England where the fire service is nationalized? Everyone trained very similarly, using very similar apparatus, using the same guidelines? You think it might make for a better outcome at the "big one"? But, then some are anti-regionalization because everyone wants to be the best, but wants their name on the logo...

It would appear the real question, instead of hammering one FD here, would be could your own FD handle this incident? Likely, few could have done it alone without seriously compromising efficiency, limbs or lives. It's great that FDNY can and does handle incidents of greater magnitude than the rest of on their own, so well.
So, ask yourself: how would my FD handle tis? Who would we call? Can we all speak on common frequencies? What's the command structure going to look like? Will everyone play nice? We can take all the NIMS mandated course they'll throw at us and go to hundreds of one and two car wrecks, but in the end once it's outside your own resources control and coordination becomes much more difficult, those that do it regularly and train will be far ahead of the rest. And BTW, the public expects the same response FDNY gave anywhere that tour bus goes. Can your FD even come close?