Mutual Aid Response(neighbors working together)

[HFD23 37]

i don't know about all of you, but i think us neighboring departments need to drill even more then we already do together. also i think we need to be wiser in our mutual aid calls. Why shouldn't we call our immediat neighbor and get the help to the scence faster. i think all these disputes and issues need to be thrown away. i know we in Hartsdale as reciently as thus past june when 300 South Central went up skiped over ardsley who was reayd in 1/4's with a full crew to call dobbs ferry, what the reason is i don't know mabe it was becuase Ardsley has skiped us as well in the past, not saying either is right, but i think all this needs to be put aside and us neighboring departments need to work together for the good of our own brothers, who knows one day we may save each others lives thanks to the decreased responce time in calling an immediat neighbor.. any opinions or comments?

[BFD1054 1,552]

HFD211, I must say that i totally agree with everything you have said. There has been silly little fights over stupid stuff in the past that has lead to bad feelings between departments, and that is definatelty a bad thing. I am a member of Buchanan FD, and we too have had these problems in the past, but for whatever reason, things have gotten much better, thank god! As you may be aware, we work together with both Montrose and Verplanck FD's as part of the tri-village response plan. This plan is set up so that if any of the 3 depts. get a poss. 10-75 or confirmed, or any structural related fire, the other 2 depts. automatically are put on s/b. The plan has worked great since it was put in place, and maybe one of the reasons that the 3 depts. are getting along better. When the plan was first officially put into place, we trained together more often; we would try and do a tri-village drill like once a month, which was great, then that slowed and eventually stopped. But within this past year, the tri-village plan had been used many times due to 10-75's and other alarms such as haz-mat calls. So recently, we have been trying the tri-village drills again and it seems to be working. I think it is a great idea for any neighboring depts. to get together and train, wheather you have a plan similar to ours or not. You never know when you're going to need one-another, and for the vollie depts., we all know how hard it can be to get out for alarms, especially day-time runs. Therefore, its always a good idea to keep a good working and firendly relationaship with your neighboring depts. Training is definately a big part of it, so that you all know what equipment the other depts. have, in case you need to call upon them. Training together is also a good way for guys to get to know one-another in the different depts. Hopefully, we keep up the tri-village drills to ensure a good relationship and know we can rely on each other. Sometimes i wish we could do trainings with Croton as well because they are our FASTeam and it would be nice to get to know all those guys and maybe they could help us train and teach us some FASTeam techniques. But anyway, i definately agree with you and feel that neighboring depts. should always keep a good relationship and trin together more often. Just my feelings/opions BFD1054

[HFD23 37]

i am glad you agree, i think beyond our tri District training we need to drill more with other neighbors, lets face it there are fires that will require more the hartsdale Greenville and Fairview, towns like ardsley and elmsford will be needed and we should work with them in training, mabe not weekly, mabe monthly, but anything is better then nothing at this point, one step at a time....

[Oswegowind 17]

No offense to the Greenburgh Fire Companies but I think it is overkill when they dispatch you guys and all the Yonkers Emerg. Svs. to the highway accidents. Lately it seems as though it is getting to be a trend...let's just hope that no one gets hurt.

[HFD23 37]

.....

[chris498 31]

I am all for neighbors working together for a common good. I have said this before about my own department, we have BHFD run dual response to our commercial districts and other target areas with their tower ladder TL57, this arraingement has been very effective, and we have done several drills with BHFD in prepairation for these responses to help with truck possitioning, and needs. Additionally we have been known in the north to call mutual aid tankers for non-hydranted areas. we have tanker drills from time to time as well to prepair for tanker shuttle responses. This working together is very vital to our providing adequate protection to the communities we protect.

[Remember585 815]

If any of our neighboring Departments ever want to get together and train with Croton, whether its for FAST, Tanker ops, etc., feel free to reach out to me. E-mail me @ jmm221@engine119croton.org. I'd be more then happy to work with all of you.

[dc2t 80]

No offense to the Greenburgh Fire Companies but I think it is overkill when they dispatch you guys and all the Yonkers Emerg. Svs. to the highway accidents.  Lately it seems as though it is getting to be a trend...let's just hope that no one gets hurt.

Due to the oddity of running on the Sprain it is practical to

run north and south due to heavy traffic. And the crazy types of

emergenicies we encounter the manpower is needed. You cannot

believe the situations that have been seen by the Sprain Brook

Express Depts. FFD & GFD

[CG206 29]

I totally agree with running both northbound and southbound on the parkway. In Mohegan, 2 engines and 2 ambulances are sent to the Taconic State Parkway for MVA's while only the 2 engines will respond for car fires. Eng. 252 out of the Jefferson Valley Station will run Southbound from Rt 6 along with a Mohegan ambulance. Engine 254 from the Furnace Woods Station along with an ambulance from Yorktown VAC will respond Northbound from Rt. 202.

[HFD209 4]

I agree storngly with hfd211, that it is overkill half the time, but dc2t also has a strong point. In fact that they do send both deprtments on parkways, I think it is necessary to notify mutual aid departmnenst that they are on standby for those departments, i mean face it, that would mean on a park way run, you would lose both of your first responding second alarm vehicles if there was a fire in hartsdale. your now talking about a delay in a mutual aid response, or non at all.

[Remember585 815]

Speaking from experiences from the dispatcher side and the responder side, highway incidents are harldy ever where we're told they are!

Those Departments who handle the Sprain, Bronx River and the NYS Thruways have it the worst. People are not in the normal state of mind when reporting an accident or other emergency. Therefore, they probably won't give you the right location, but the one they most recently PASSED! Think about this - how often have you been driving along and suddenly said "Wow, I'm at exit 67, I swear we just passed 45!" Driving along a highway, people lose their grasp of where they are. Sending units from both ends to limited-access highways is a great idea.

Luckily, our Chief instituted a two-engine response on all our highway incidents recently, one engine responds from the north end of the district, the other from the south. Now, if only our PD remembered to follow this.... #-o

[dc2t 80]

We can come up with a 1000 what ifs. You handle the incident you are responding to, not what might happen.

[BFD1054 1,552]

Amen Remember585....when i dispatched for County PD, that was the most frustrating thing. People never knew where the hell they were, some people reported incidents on the wrong parkways and some people were even in the wrong state!!! So, although many people feel that the whole Greenville, Fairview, Yonkers and whoever else thing for reponses on the Sprain and other roadways is a bit over-board, i feel its a good idea. Think about it this way, if you or one of your loved ones was in an accident, wouldn't you want Fire/EMS/PD to get there as quick as possible??? You'd be kinda upset if the accident was Northbound and the pretty red firetrucks were going Southbound, right? So, having apparatus respond both North and Southbound from different ramps isn't such a bad idea, it cuts down response time and in the end helps the victims. Unfortunately, many good samaritans who actually care enough to stop and help and call 911, have no clue where they are.

John, glad to hear Croton jumped on the band-wagon, excellent idea to run 1 ENG NB and 1 ENG SB for Route 9. I'm guessing E-119 runs north or south from Senasqua? Whos the 2nd ENG, 118 or 120? Anyway, nice points made!!!

BFD1054

[HFD209 4]

I would just like to make sure that it is understood that i was expressing an opinion. I was not try to change s.o.p. or bash any department for thier s.o.p.'s. Even if i totally disagreed with a department order or S.O.P. of mine or another department, it is opinion, and i understand that things are done the way they are done for a reason. Thank you.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

It's better to have and not need, then need and not have.

Here is a bigger waste of resources, FD 1 is dispatched to a MVC with injuries, FD1 arrives with a rescue engine, and the EMS agency responsible arrives and all can handle with what they have. FD1 advises that the accident is actually in FD2's district and to please advise them, dispatch asks if they should dispatch FD2, FD1 says yes, FD2 still responds some 5 to 10 mins into the call. Why does this occur? Why would you want to put another engine, and/or rescue on the road, including chief vehicles and another 10-20 or more cars if its a volunteer department. What exactly is the reasoning behind that sort of incident management (or mismanagement)? If I'm the IC and I get paged and find out the incident is being handled, adios FD 1 takes care of it and I say thanks. At most send a officer or whatever to confer with them and as a failsafe being they are in your district, but even that is covered because they were dispatched as their own.

[chris498 31]

I disagree with alsfirefighter here on this one.... I have no problem with another department being first due on my scene esspecially if they are looking for an MVA.... great, get started.... but why not send the FD who's department it is in as well? If it's a bad accident..... more hands are usually welcome. If it's minor, great we'll go ten-20. Secondly, are there issues legal issues if it happens in my district and I say," You know what, they are there, I don't need to go....." and then something goes wrong..... somebody gets hurt? Additionally, not all Volunteer firefighters drive to the scene.... in fact in many communities this practice is discouraged. As long as something is happening in my fire district and my crew is not tied up somewhere else.... I want them there...... then we can work together!

[Guest Lieutenant6474]

Chris498 and ALS FF have good points. If the wrong dept is dispatched and operating on ANY call then they should stay on that scene. The correct dept should be dispatched if the call is major. If it's a minor alarm at 3am... The chief should get a courtesy page and he/she can make the call to either strike a general alarm, or have 60 control send his thanks to the other department and let them finish the job. It all comes down to common sense of the department that arrives on the scene of a call in the wrong district AND the dispatcher. Minor MVA no injuries with a tow OR alarm bells sounding in error... Courtesy call to the chief...... Structure fire, MVA with entrapment... Dispatch the correct dept allow other dept to keep working.... Then both dept.s work together to finish the job.

[1075thebox 1]

ALSFirefighter - you're 100% right! The problem is nobody wants to give up a call in their own district, especially if they are a slower agency. Sad but true, its the way our county is.

[mfc2257 464]

It's all about ego in Westchester... I spent 4 years as a FF in Gettysburg, PA. (gettysburgfd.com). Adam's County PA has 26 departments and is 2 times the size of Westchester. G-Burg had the only aerial device in the county and EVEN ran as the first due truck across state lines to the National Fire Acadamy in MD. Automatic mutual aid is required through their box dispatch format. No one cared about who arrived first at the fire. A typical job had 1 or more rigs from 3-5 departments dispatched on the first alarm. Part of the rivalry/friendship/etc between these departments was trying to be good enough to smoke someone into their own box AND not getting bent out of shape when someone else made it to your job first.

Westchester needs to grow up. We play like 1st graders.

[chris498 31]

Maybe I'm missing the point.... I thought the point of this discussion was Mutual Aid - Working Together.... who cares who gets there first?????? Fire Departments around the county have mutual aid agreements with their neighbors.... other companies arrive on scene before the first due all of the time.... it happens, big deal. The point is WORKING TOGETHER..... right???? Suggesting that we are all a bunch of first graders is denagrating to the fire service and the work that we all do. I don't care if some else arrives first in my district, I have no problem with mutual aid, thank god for mutual aid. I agree that there are areas in W.C Fire Service that could be worked on/improved but still I think we all do a good job. So lets stop throwing stones and whining, lets Work Together for a common good and not against each other!

[mfc2257 464]

Sorry.. Didn't want the point to come across as whining... And yes we do a good job... It appears that we aggree that it doesn't matter who arrives first. But I am a realist about the macro situation. Our mutual aid system is very antiquated. The days of cheif's having to spell out the details of their mutual aid request over the radio while enroute to a call should be long gone. They should just have to ask for their second alarm assignment etc. We called for tankers 10 & 14 the other day and Tanker 10 was out of service. Instead of going directly to Tanker 11, 6 or 16, the dispatcher called the chief to ask his preference. Who cares just put the next due available rig on the job. We should be over the garbage like... "we don't call xyz dept for mutual aid ever... Our chief's have never gotten along" but we're not over it. Same with "well that's just the way it's always been"... I really don't like hearing that stuff. Fact of the matter is that our departments are doing a great job on their own (Millwood/Briarcliff and Katonah/Bedford Hills etc) but I don't think that there is a ton of continuity county wide. I don't think that the administration at 60control has helped us to grow and improve our dispach process and mutual aid. In fact the politics down there have done nothing but hurt us.

[chris498 31]

You are right about requesting mutual aid.... like Bedford Village, they get a call for a possible structure fire they automatically get tankers from Pound Ridge and Banksville. That is the way it should be, getting the closest available help on it's way when it is needed. But you are right, we could do more with auto-response and pre-determined mutual aid, though I think 60 has run cards for every department that includes preferences for mutual aid. I don't want to see the county ram these decisions down our throats though either. We as departments should be coming to these decissions and moving in that direction on our own.

[mfc2257 464]

Absolutely... In a forum like say... The Mt. Pleasant Chiefs Assn. meetings, departments should band together and tell the county what we want. After all we are the ones who's lives are on the line... Not the county emergency policy makers.

[x635 4,066]

http://emtbravo.just5buckshosting.com/phpB...php?p=2293#2293

[chris498 31]

I hope people don't think we were suggesting the dispatchers were not doing their jobs...... that was not the point I think that we were trying to convey here, rather that when it comes to mutual-aid, there are probably more effective means for the fire departments to coordinate with 60 pre-incident to make sure that the closest mutual aid is being sent, more along the lines of pre-existing automatic mutual aid agreements among departments. I hope that makes sense. I know you all down there work very diligently and your work should be applauded.

[x635 4,066]

Not at all, just cross-refrenced it because it sorta had to do with mutual aid.........because I know from experience when it comes to mutual aid incidents, when something goes wrong with mutual aid they (the requesters) tend to blame the dispatchers, and when something goes right they take the credit. Alot of times when mutual aid decisions are made in a communications center, the field personel cannot see the whole picture, i.e. the appartus requested/preferred may be out of service or on another call, etc. The dispatcher or dispatch supervisor is not given enough by the chiefs in some cases to use his/her best discretion as to who to dispatch, and some are afraid to dispatch the next line, as it may infuriate that particular chief, even though it may be the next line.......which leads to the question "Who do you want Chief?"...and that all comes back to my first statement, when something goes wrong, who gets blamed. It's hard for one mind to keep track of so many different factors that determine mutual aid in this county.

Line/running cards are a decent alternative, but politics,geography, staffing and the unique setups in Westchester come into play with these too. I personally think with mutual aid,and in some cases, first response, it should be closest avaialble unit, determined by AVL, which the CAD has the capability to do. It's just the politics that will make that just a dream.

[x635 4,066]

Another little thing:

When requesting a mutual aid rig......you should be able to expect to get a rig that is appropriately staffed with trained (and competent) personel. That should be a standard. Any department countywide should be reasonably interoperable with each other despite personalities.

For example, if you request a truck, you should get a rig with 4 interior structural firefighters (not 3 or not 15) and ONE officer, all trained, proficient, and in shape to do truckwork. Same thing if you request an engine, tanker, etc. Ideally, IMO, all should arrive on the same vehicle, at the same time for accountability purposes as well.

[mfc2257 464]

This is going to sound crazy, but until we have an efficient CAD in place, we don't need to stop the process of becoming more streamlined in our mutual aid process. Break each territory up into Boxes. Create an excel spreadsheet with the box numbers and types of alarms MVA, Structure, Collapse, Hazmat etc.... Then include 1st, 2nd etc alarm assignments and the chief's choice of apparatus. These cards are laminated and kept in a rolling hanging file drawer at each dispatcher's side. A call comes in and they reach into the department's file, and for that address, dispatch the proper box assignment. Until this can be computerized this is a perfect and unbeliveably simple solution that works (I've seen it)... And also provides a backup in the case of computer or data failure. The chief of each dept. should be required to submit changes to box assignments 2 times a year to keep them current. If a chief has Engine xyz on a box, and they aren't getting out fast enough then he has the opportunity to change that assignment on the box card 2 times a year. If XYZ engine is out of service, all the dispatcher has to do is look to the second alarm assignment for that box and dispatch the next engine that the chief has listed. This is also a way to make sure that a chief gets what he wants. If he for example lists E146 from Chappaqua as his 1st due mutual aid engine because of its 5in capacity and it's not available, any other engine from Chappaqua might not due. An engine from Chappaqua can come in three different flavors... E145 with the 3in hose reel, E-144 with 3in and 5in and E146 with enough 5in to lay from here to Manhattan. Thus his next choice may be from another department from the oppisite direction not just one of Chappaqua's other engines. This can all be layed out on a very simple card. If anyone would like examples of box cards please email me at mfc2257@yahoo.com

[Guest DG795]

couldnt agree more with mfc2257, this is a great solution that could be implemented as soon as everyone puts some time and effort in (- it doesnt have to wait for CAD upgrades, a new radio system, etc). I believe that the "box area" portion or this system is brewing, however I dont know if it is at the county level or individual dept's taking this on themselves. either way, if anyone has any additional info on this, i would be curious to know if this a nothing but a rumor, or if this is a possibility.

[x635 4,066]

Just a little further insight regarding the run card system:

I do like the concept. It's not without it's own issues though.

There once was a system named Filepro. It was the old 60 Control "CAD" that is basically the system you are describing. The CAD system before this, it was the backup CAD. There was also hard-copy sheets of (standard, not street specific) deparment run cards placed in binders.

Both these systems were taken out of service recently. The problem is, the county does not or cannot fund for more people to staff the CAD office of 60 Control.There's only one Lt. that currently staffs that office full time, and it is a difficult, time consuming, complicated, and laborous job for one person to maintain the primary CAD system, amongst other duties, which is neccasary to keep times, etc. Take into mind,as well, the extremly complicated setup of Westchester systems, and the never ending flow of changes, error reports, street modifications etc etc that the CAD person has to deal with. Also, from a dispatchers perspective, it's also easier and saves time to keep things streamlined in one system. The CAD is also much more than mutual aid as well, it is a legal record of operations, EMD system, etc.

The CAD is efficent and can knock off many of the task mentioned here with ease. The problem is, the county needs to pay for an appropriate amount of staff to support the CAD "behind the scenes" operations. That staff should also be available to train the dispatchers when an upgrade is made, so they can make the most out of the CAD. On the flip side, Dispatchers and related should have more input into MA assignments, since they deal with it on a daily basis, but thats a whole 'nother issue.

Also, legislators are reactive. If this system was implemented, and let's say worked, that'll just justify spending even less on the current CAD system and operations.

IMO, You're never going to have a decent mutual aid system or mutual aid dispatch system until people adopt the same or similar ways of doing things