No Night Closures for FDNY

[grumpyff 1,159]

So now you're saying that the NATIONAL STANDARD of 8 minutes for full response to an alarm is pathetically long? If I had the full first alarm assignment at my house within 8 minutes with another fire going on in my district, I'd be jumping for joy.

In NYC, yes 8 minutes is a long time. Thanks to things like Bloomburgs pedestrian malls that have closed streets permanently,garbage trucks making pickups and delivery trucks blocking road, its not totally empty. When I was still assigned to NYPD Transit District 1, we had an officer call a 10-85 (officer needs assistance) at Times Square (West 42 street/ 7 Avenue) at 2320 hours, shortly after Bloomburg closed Broadway . I was assigned to the sector car that night, and since it was at the end of tour we were at our command at W 59 Street/Columbus Circle (closer to 60 Street) about to give the midnights the car. We responded immediately, as we were already in the car. With traffic, street closures, and traffic lights every block it took almost 5 minutes to drive lights and sirens those 17 -18 blocks. Thanks to not being able to take the direct route of Broadway, we had to go one block over to 7 avenue, down to 42 street. We arrived just about a minute after precinct units that were closer, but on different radio frequencies. All while this one officer was fighting a drunken Mexican. No imagine your house is burning, and your in it. How fast will that fire grow in intensity in those 5 minutes?

Granted in a maybe a little slower at night, but not by much. In Manhattan you have tons of clubs, restaurants, theaters, etc that are open late every night of the week. The outer boroughs are mostly residential, which at night have greater occupancy levels, as most residents are home sleeping. Not all these residential buildings have things like smoke detectors and sprinklers installed or working. In the case of a fire, you may be looking at a delayed notification to FD, plus a greater need for manpower to search these buildings and effect any rescues. Your response times maybe a little quicker do to lower traffic volume, but the number of intersections, and traffic control devices (stop signs, traffic lights) is the same. You can not blow through intersections in NYC like in suburban areas, there are people out all hours of the day, and most have no regard for emergency vehicles responding with lights and sirens.

[velcroMedic1987 330]

So you're saying that with one full box out that your company is the second due to areas that are 10 minutes away? That sounds pretty good to me.

Pretty good on what planet? You may think a 10 minute response time is good but I don't. Not unlike most taxpayers I expect you there right after I hang up the phone (sarcasm). 10 minutes is not a good response time.

Seriously? At least you can come up with a better argument. I guess we should just build an engine and truck company onto every house that is built.

Relevance = 0.

If there's a firehouse that is closed because the city thinks it can play russian roulette with my life and my neighbors lives you're damn right that's a good argument. The FD isn't arguing to put a firehouse on every corner, they're just saying keep the ones they've got and keep them properly staffed.

Thanks for the intelligent reply. It's much better to see that some actually can think rather than put out the old argument of "what if your family lives next to a fire house that's closed?"

You are right that "call volume" isn't the best way to allocate staffing. However, I'm fairly certain that the FDNY would track things such as personnel used and manhours per incident. That, along with response time and a few other factors can lead to a better analysis of the system's needs. As far as knowing "when and where" your calls are going to be, you obviously cannot plan the exact time and location but you can very easily model trends, especially in an area with as high a volume as NYC. That's the principle behind system status management, generally predicting the area of the next call and positioning resources to handle that call.

One of the previous posters said that his company is second due for a structure fire that is 10 minutes away if a first structure fire is already going. My next question to that would be how often does this happen. If it happens once a year, then it may not pay to add resources. If it happens once a week, then staffing might have to be increased. This is all learned through proper analysis of the system, something which nobody appears willing to do. The government just wants to cut; the Union just wants to save jobs ... neither is a productive view.

FDNY routinely has to relocate companies from one COUNTY to another COUNTY (boroughs). They also have to reduce the response for some alarms because of the reduce availability. This all translates into greater exposure and in a business model exposure = liablity = a bad idea. Yet the city continues to gamble with our lives.

Relevance = 0.

Thank you for the intelligent response. NOT.

I wasn't equating "like a business" to "profitable". What I meant by more like a business is that they need to constantly analyze needs and to correlate expenditures to those needs. It makes no sense to keep a firehouse open at night because its needed during the day. It does make sense to keep that firehouse open at night if there is a proven need for it. I find it extremely hard to believe that FDNY needs the same amount of resources at 0300 than it does at 1500.

Just an educated guess, the population shifts from the outerboroughs to Manhattan during the day and the opposite at night. Others have already told you about the bars, clubs, theaters, service industry, restaurants, etc. that keep a very high population even at night. While the location of the population density may shift a little bit, 8 million is still a stupid-high number of people.

I find it hard to believe that you're arguing about this issue.

I don't know what website you got that from. We don't do EMS.

Relevance = 0

I think we did just over 200 (no EMS).

Wow, where do you find the time to post here with that kind of work? You must be exhausted. One call every other day and you're telling guys that do 68 fires a day how they should be staffed? Come on now.

So now you're saying that the NATIONAL STANDARD of 8 minutes for full response to an alarm is pathetically long? If I had the full first alarm assignment at my house within 8 minutes with another fire going on in my district, I'd be jumping for joy.

Eight minutes is a very long time, especially if your house is on fire. Yes it may be the national standard but nothing says you shouldn't strive for better. FDNY has a remarkable response time given the city demographics and they shouldn't be screwing with it before cutting the number of times ball fields get mowed or tennis courts get built. Life safety is expensive and you shouldn't screw with it.

I've agreed with you on many points in the past but I think you're way off base in this thread. Time to move on.

[babhits16 28]

Relevance = 0.

Being that your department does 200 calls a year and your not even from the metro area, your relevance seems to be 0...

[JohnnyOV 2]

Seriously? At least you can come up with a better argument. I guess we should just build an engine and truck company onto every house that is built.

Heres the deal, a working fire in a single/two story residential home with a great distance between the next exposure is a lot different then a fire in a multiple story, high rise, or a row house fire. Your department might be able to work with limited crews because of the lack of exposure problem and you might not need 6 guys on a truck because you don't need 6 guys on a truck. When you're dealing with the extreme hazards that the FDNY deals with in fire spread, property loss, and life loss, an abundance of firemen is what you need in a short period of time... not 10 minutes from now. Your department might have to deal with help coming from 10 minutes away when you have a fire, with limited manpower, because well lets face it, its volunteer. Its what you have to work with. You don't have the staffing, or even know who is going to show up when unless you have duty crews running. Its not a knock on you or your department, but its just the facts, if you could wish for 1 thing at a fire, what would it be? 9 times out of 10 for a volunteer department, and I would bet a lot of money on it, would be more man power in the initial stages of the attack.

In order to successfully attack, and stop the progression of the fire, you need to do so in a highly effective, organized swarm. By removing a body from each company you effectively start to increase the time it takes to accomplish certain tasks. Venting, searching, stretching hose up multiple floors, the more people or entire company you remove from the equation, the harder it will be to accomplish your goals in a timely fashion before additional resources need to be called in... then when you call for additional resources, you're now stripping other areas of their first due companies, and backfilling which means a larger coverage area for the back filled companies to protect, which means you're now stretching your resources even thinner, over a broader area.

Your argument of having a engine and truck company is a little absurd, and you know that already, but lets be honest, with the population density that NYC has, the number or working fire / call volume alone that they run, the thought that anyone would want to place the lives of the citizens they elected into a game of chance is beyond me. I don't know much about FDNY's operating procedures, but they look like a well oiled machine every time they go to work. It is that well oiled machine, coupled with the the fact the swarm and overtake the fire like ants on honey, makes them very efficient at what they do.

[JBE 328]

I do have to say I'm happy to see nobody getting shut down at night. What may have gotten mentioned, but swept under the rug is how many companies are taken out of service citywide during the day. I would say an average of 15-25 per day. That includes companies out for all day training, partial day training classes like extrication, or rope training, or Medical exams while the rig is being sent in for routine maintenance. That's a gamble we take every day, and in a few cases I can think of in my experience, have led to fatal consequences.

Never mind when E-70, L-53, E-52, L-52, or one of the Midtown companies goes out, and they have to be filled. Anyone here from 92 Engine can relate to what I'm saying. 92 to 52 for the afternoon, and 92 misses a first due job that ended up going to a 3rd alarm. First due engine coming from a distance because 92 is up in Riverdale. Robbing one to pay the other.

NWFD, 8 minutes is a very long time. In my opinion, the city needs a few more firehouses built and opened, not less. Every time a company is taken out of service, regardless of time of day, a gamble is taken by the city. I could go on about other factors affecting response times, like companies being way out of their first due area doing Building Inspections. Fallback is where we modify responses to reported fires and emergencies because we're trying to conserve units. With the amount of fire duty the city has had over the past few months, we have gone to Fallback more times than I care to count, and, at least once or twice, we went to fallback citywide. Nighttime, statistically is when most fatal fires occur. I would rather have all my "toys in the toybox" ready to go at 0200, than be missing a first or second due company because they are out of service for the night. In places like Queens and Staten Island, where the companies are spread a little further apart, waiting for that second due company can be like an eternity because the run for them is sometimes 8 minutes, sometimes longer.

[ny10570 745]

FDNY minus a few very isolated examples does need the same coverage at 0300 as they need at 1500. While in the overnight you have fewer workers and less traffic you have more sleeping residents and more delayed notification. Day time you're boxed in by traffic and more units are used chasing greater call volume. No neighborhood demonstrates extreme daily swings in population better than the financial district, but even here there is a substantial residential population and a bigger than I ever imagined workforce going on in the overnights.

[gamewell45 258]

Woeith...the sounds of a man digging a deeper hole....the scratching of the shovel against the frozen hard tundra.....

Sounds like Shakespeare to me.

[Bnechis 3,961]

So you're saying that with one full box out that your company is the second due to areas that are 10 minutes away? That sounds pretty good to me.

I get it, what can possably happen in that extra 2 minutes....hmmmm since fire growth doubles every minute, lets take a 1,000 sq/ft apt. with an 10 x 12 bedroom fully involved at the 8 minute mark (thats 120 sq/ft or 12%). at 9 minutes its 240 square feet and at 10 minutes its 480 Square feet. So in 2 extra minutes it went from 12% to 48%. Want to give it a few more minutes, whats the harm? Boy I hope they closed the door on the way out or lots of other tenants will be in extreme danger.

And what "business model" do you suggest? I certainly don't disagree that analyzing your operation to see if changes are warranted is appropriate. However, an inherent problem with the "run it like a business" line of thinking is that FD deployment and working conditions are not like most business operations.

There is a business model for the fire service, it was developed in 1910 by the National Board of Fire Underwriters. They base insurance premiums on fire coverage. Since most properties require insurance (for a morgage), and the FD is a fire insurance policy, a good dept reduces the price insurance companies charge for property insurance.

A large factor in FD deployment is response time. NFPA 1710's standard for the response of the first company is 4 minutes travel time and the full alarm in 8 minutes.

NFPA 1710 clearly states that this minimum standard is based on a 2,000 sq/ft single family dwelling without a basement (and minimal exposures). This does not discribe many properties in NYC.

That's the principle behind system status management, generally predicting the area of the next call and positioning resources to handle that call.

This is refered to as doing more with less. Interesting that many medics call SSM (system status management) system sacrificing medics, because very few of those systems manage to retain personnel the way most municipal services do.

If the FD were run like a business they would be out of business they are not cash positive, they are life positive. Think of the FD as a "loss leader" for a business. You might not make money on it, but you need it to survive.

Actually FD's are an economic engine. Based on insurance cost reductions that range from 8 to 12 to 1. That means for every dollar of one persons taxes spent , $8 - $12 is reduced on there property insurance.

I haven't once said that there need to be cuts but it amazes me how quickly people shoot down the idea of trying to do things better versus doing things traditionally when it comes to the fire department.

You never suggested doing things better, you suggested doing more with less.

So now you're saying that the NATIONAL STANDARD of 8 minutes for full response to an alarm is pathetically long? If I had the full first alarm assignment at my house within 8 minutes with another fire going on in my district, I'd be jumping for joy.

If you think thats such a great response then you are use to a service level that is so poor, you do not know a good service from a poor one.

[antiquefirelt 994]

So now you're saying that the NATIONAL STANDARD of 8 minutes for full response to an alarm is pathetically long? If I had the full first alarm assignment at my house within 8 minutes with another fire going on in my district, I'd be jumping for joy.

The "National Standard" was designed to be an attainable goal for the whole country, not the gold star level of service that fits every hamlet and metro city specifically. The other thing to remember is that all NFPA standards are minimum standards, not optimal, but minimal standards meant to be achieved and built upon. I'm betting most of us have apparatus that far exceed the basic documented requirements in NFPA 1901, right? And we need the extra equipment to properly function, correct? You don't think that in a 10,000 plus firefighter sized FD, that maybe there are a few smart people looking at how best to deliver top-notched public safety with less money?