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What if there was one single, united fire department for the nation?
This has always been known as the fire service. In my mind its refered to in the same way as the military. Were both paid for by taxes, so why not? Take away ego and geography and this could work. having a standard for training that you can't fake, and spreading the wealth around so that areas that are volunteer wouldn't need to be. But I beleive if this is going to happen it has to be at the national level. A single organized entity that doesn't have district lines.
FF Fuselier
FF Fuselier
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Daniel,
You really are dreaming, aren't you. For starters, who would be the Chief?
It couldn't be anyone with a big ego or a control-freak nature - the size of the project is simply too large for any one person to control, or especially for one person to micromanage.
The competition for chief would be interesting.
Good luck with the dreams - you don't make big improvements by thinking small.
There are plenty of people in this world that insist on thinking small.
Good luck,
Ben
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Permalink Reply by Just Plain Craig Moyer on
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Two things would happen, the current level of service would go down and the cost would go up.
I can only (well will only)speak for New Castle County, Delaware We have 21 companies and 31 stations. Each station has at least 2 engines. 31 rescues with 20 being heavy, maybe 13 ladders. We've talked of what would happen if the county went paid. Instead of 31 stations there might be 15. All with one engine each. Maybe 5 ladders and 3 heavy rescues. Thats a big reduction.
But look at the non residential area's. There was a FF on here who talked about a 30 minutes response time. How must worst would it be if the goverment had to pay for a firehouse that only got 50-100-150 runs a year?
There will always be a need for volunteers in one form or another.
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Permalink Reply by Daniel on
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Well if by cheif you mean a single person to run the entire nation, I agree with you is impossible. There would be a head of the service. then from there finace people etc. but it would lead down to the person who take the tradtional role as cheif. The Cheif has someone to answer to. That person to the area, then state level, the region and up. I can't give you specifics because I ain't a politician. And there would be no need to talk to one to get what you need. In theory.
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Permalink Reply by Jenny Holderby on
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The Chief would have to be a cabinet possition & of course that involves politics. Then what? Where do you go from there? Do you tier down state by state or by region? How will you choose where to put the funding. Funding is always a problem. There will be metropolitian areas absorbing huge chunks of the available money & complaining that their tax dollars are providing fire service for people who don't work hard enough to pay for their own.
I'm not saying it couldn't work. I am just saying that there is a lot of things to work out before that can happen. DHS is supposed to be working toward a similar end as it is.
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I'm side stepping that like a landmine. I'm just saying if money wasn't a problem, would you have to change or rather down grade?
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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After a very devastating fire in the 1930s, I believe it was (Lutan can correct me I know) Australia started the groundwork for just such a system. It exists today, and from the little I know about it, it works very well. Standardized equipment, apparatus, and training are what I am impressed with. From what I understand, you can walk into a career or volunteer station and be hard pressed to tell the difference.
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Permalink Reply by A.J. on
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thats pretty sweet joe. i think it would be a good idea cause then everyone would have the same training and equipment and for our "customers" it would be a great thing. but with the way ego's and politics play a role already it would be tough to get started but a great idea regardless.
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Permalink Reply by Joey "BigShow" De Piano on
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As far as Chiefs go it would run like a district with a one elected head chief and each states assist chief and break it down from there like ICS taught us, the bigger issue will fall with the all mighty politics and that meaning tax dollars, no one will want to pay Dept. A who might run 800 calls a year the same rate and all for Dept. B doing 100, pretty much what we have now ..lol.. the heavy run Depts get the grants over the less busy ones at least out here.
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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Joe, the description you give sounds very like what happened here in Victoria, Australia. But we still run everything State by State, no national system.
1939. 1.6 million hectares (3.9 million acres) of the State burned - this was about 1/10 of the State. After this the State government promised to do something about bringing cohesion to fire fighting efforts throughout the State. Nothing really happened. So then after another one million plus hectares burned in 1944, it finally went through and the Country Fire Authority came into being in 1945.
This still doesn’t leave us with one FRS for the State! We have one for the state capitol CBD and about 45% of its suburbs (career), then my FRS which covers the rest of those suburbs plus all of the remaining parts of the State except public owned forest (60,000 vols and 600 career), and finally the forests people (career and seasonal). Not one service, but it all works, and works pretty well. Much better than the around 1000 individual brigades of the old days.
Each State does things its own way, with different funding methods. But all are government controlled. All States have career staff, all have volunteer, and some have retained (paid on call). The vehicles used are similar, but not identical, the training is also similar but not identical. One Fire Service for the whole country? Maybe. Some countries do it. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen here.
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Permalink Reply by Bob Shelly on
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England or "the United Kingdom" (Wales and Scotland)is and always has been a single fire department. Thats because when they got their start it was "His Majasty's Fire Service". They seem to have been able to make it work for a couple of hundred years. Another thing I thought was interesting is the fact that EVERY piece of apparatus has a thermal imager on it, and has for about 20 years. I'm not sure we could do this, because people in this country can't hang their egos on the hook when they come in the firehouse. If we could, think of the political power we would have!
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Never happen. Too many egos, politics, and know-it-alls to form one group undivided in the US.
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