Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Don Catenacci on July 10, 2012 at 1:03am

If this is the standard you find acceptable Bobby, they don't have much in the way of fire protection NOW.

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Permalink Reply by Moose on July 10, 2012 at 7:55am

Bob,

I would rather have a few well trained and equipped fire departments than a bunch of wahoos running around getting killed.  Just because you get voted in and get handed the crisp new turnout gear does not necessarily mean you are a firefighter, and these types of "members" seen in the videos above need to be made an example...one that we DO NOT follow.

Im tired of the same old excuses some of my fellow volunteers use..."We have no money";  Whos fault is that?  Its the departments fault for not thinking about the future and going for grants, and lobbying with the local government for more money in the budget, and showing them the gear you currently are forced to use and the OSHA laws governing the life span of turnouts...start there.

"We are a small, close-knit community just trying to help each other so we do what we have to with what we have"; Again, whos fault is that?  I am in a close-knit community as well and we look out for each other just like the next town BUT; we get money to buy the equipment we need to safely do our jobs.

 

Maybe if we increased the training requirements for volunteers to the same level of the career departments, we could loose some of the dead weight members who do nothing but complain, and get more members who appreciate the importance of training and operating safely and actually provide a decent level of protection to these "close-knit" communities?  Will it happen over night?  No.  But in the end, we will have quality trained, experienced firefighters doing the job and not some group of wanna-be firefighters wearing Tshirts and plastering their vehicles with decals and bar lights looking for the glory.  Im here to help people, so I train to make sure when I am called I can help them, or at the very least know who to call in to help them and support them.

Im sorry, but maybe thats what we need to change things for the better?

Stay Safe.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Callahan on July 10, 2012 at 8:44am

Granted, they probably don't, but at least they have something to keep the neighboring buildings from burning.

You may not find it acceptable, but like it or not, in many if not most of these cases, the community is just fine with it.

 

Fire protection isn't about what you as an outsider finds acceptable, it is about what the community finds acceptable.

 

If I lived in that community, I likely would not find it acceptable either, but I don't, so it;'s simoply none of my business None of us are the "Volunteer Fire Department Police". What we think firefighters and a fire department should be is irrelvant. That is a local call made by the local community, and if they see this video, and want to makes changes, that is up to them, but it is nothing that we have the right to label as acceptable or unacceptable fire protection. 

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Permalink Reply by Bob Callahan on July 10, 2012 at 8:53am

Yes, it could get rid of some of what you refer to as dead-weight, but in many of these departments, it's the dead weight that allows the few fully trained physically capable members to go inside.

 

I know you are passionate about a "profeessional" volunteer fire service, but in many places in this country it simply isn't going to happen no matter how much you want it.

 

Forcing mandatory standards down the throats of many rural VFDs isn't going to motivate them to go out and take a FFI class. All it's going to do is drive out what you view as the deadwood, which in many of these communities, as I said above, represent a pretty healhty chunk of the department and may reduce the number of members responding to a point where they may not be effective.

 

This isn't about what you want, or I want, or anybody else wants, except for the citizens of that community. If they want to increase the level of fire protection, that's their business. They are the ones that will have to provide increased funding through their taxes. They are the ones that will have to provide increased volunteers. Fire protection is local and sorry, but I see implementing training standards as taking our ideas and expectations of what a firefighter and fire department should be and forcing them on communities that may not be able to meet our expectations for a variety of very legtimate reasons.

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Permalink Reply by Moose on July 10, 2012 at 10:33am

I know you are passionate about a "profeessional" volunteer fire service, but in many places in this country it simply isn't going to happen no matter how much you want it.

Just to continue this friendly discussion, maybe, just maybe, its because of the attitude that you just made evident in your last post?

Maybe, just maybe, if more volunteers like you and I strived to be better at what we do, to provide a higher level of service to the tax paying people that do not know any better?

I was a little confused when you said the people are the ones that need to change the level of service in a volunteer dept.

 If they want to increase the level of fire protection, that's their business. They are the ones that will have to provide increased funding through their taxes. They are the ones that will have to provide increased volunteers.

The everyday average ordinary citizen does not know what is required to provide a high degree of service.  The only thing they know is if they dial 911, the shiny fire engines will arrive (eventually) and take care of the situation...thats the bottom line.  They do not want to hear us complain that we dont have the training, or the equipment to help them in their time of need, they just want it to happen when they call.  Thats why its up to us brother, to change the way we think and train, and stop with all of the excuses and become proactive in our thinking and make changes.  The fire service is a constantly dynamic thing, and we need to change with the times.  Different methods of construction, different types of construction materials that will kill us, updated codes and regulations, improved safety equipment and turnouts that allow us to enter atmospheres that we wouldnt have been able to a few years ago which puts us in a bad situation...if we are not properly trained to handle the situation.

If today, you take joe-average-ordinary-citezen who walks into the station and says "I want to be a firefighter" and you pat him/her on the back and give them gear that is 15-20 years old and say "Put the wet stuff on the red stuff" like we used to...tragedy will occur.  Its obvious that is what happened in these videos, they just stopped farming, and grabbed a hose line and did just that; put the wet stuff on the red stuff, but they just forgot to put on their 20 year old turnouts.

Everyone that enters any IDLH atmosphere needs to be properly trained, and most of the fire service agree that the 80 hour FF I Course being offered just isnt enough, I am one of them.  I have over 250 hours of training in my stack of certificates on my desk yet I continue to actively persue more, because that is what is expected of us by the people we serve, to be trained to handle the situation without excuse or complaint.

I guess we have different opinions of what the volunteer fire service can and should be, which is fine.  I just hope we can all eventually come to a happy medium somewhere down the road and make it consistent across the board with all firefighters, paid or volunteer, on the level of training we receive.

Stay Safe out there brother.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Callahan on July 10, 2012 at 11:00am

I fully agree with most of what you say.

 

I would love to see every VFD well funded and well trained with an adequate number of volunteers.

 

While I do not support FFI, I support all volunteers being fully trained as dictated by local needs and apparatus for thier assignments. Interior personnel need to be trained for that job and based on your post, we disagree about what is required in a rural community

.

Exterior personnel, who in my mind are extremly valuable,  need to be trained to operate as such. And support members need to be trained to do thier jobs. 

 

Training needs to happen. We disagree on the extent.

 

My point is that I fully understand that there are places, and departments, that have a different view than i do. Do I agree with that? No.  Would I like that not to be the case? Yes. But it's not my place to impose my expectations and them in regards to how they operate and train.

 

If they come to me, will I give them my opinion? Yes. And I will be honest. If they come to me and ask for my help, will I give it to them? Hell yes, as I have many times with departments smaller than mine. But it's not my place to walk into their station and tell them that they are wrong.

 

As far as the community, every VFD should be perfectly clear with the citizens about what they need and how much it will cost to provide quality interior firefighting within the limits of the number of volunteers available. And if the citizens give them a budget figure lower than that to work with, they have the responsibility to be upfront and tell the citizens exactly what level of fire protection that figure will buy.

 

And the end of the day, the department works for the locals, and if the locals determine that $X is all they want to pay, and have been informed by the FD about what $X will buy, there is nothing the department can do but do what the funding and manpower will permit, and if that means buildings burn, so be it..

 

I do disagree that most residents of small towns have no clue what the department is capable of. I would be willing to bet that msot folks have abetter idea than you would think. We respond and people talk about what they see. Things get around a small town pretty fast. Folks know if the local VFD does the job, or is a bunch of clowns. 

 

Wwe are not that far apart. I'm just not going to sit here and critize a bunch of folks doing what they can with likely very little.

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Permalink Reply by Don Catenacci on July 10, 2012 at 12:55pm

Yet you continue to pounce on career FDs for every stupid little thing you can find.  You constantly post crap over at FH.com about some stupid little infraction a career guy made.  Dude, hypocrisy, it is ugly, and it makes you look stupid.

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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on July 10, 2012 at 1:46pm

I don't believe that most people, in most communities really know or understand the level of fire protection they have available.

Anecdotally, over the years as I've met people, when it came up that I was a fireman, I would eventually ask them what they had for a fire department: volunteer, combination or paid.  Those that lived in metropolitan areas (NYC, Chicago, London, Sydney)  knew they had a paid department, typically because of press about contracts, wages and taxes.  Of course (with one exception) they always said (to my face anyway) they have no problem supporting their city firefighters.

But outside of the big cities, into smaller cities and suburban towns, the answers are surprising. While many know exactly how well their educational system is (and how it ranks statewide and nationally), they usually had no idea what they had for fire service.

For many people they don't have a clue what a combination department is; some assume that they are all paid, some assume it's all volunteer (probably as a result of where they came from).  Most haven't clue how many stations their town has, how many FFs (paid or volley), what the ISO rating is (or what an ISO rating is).

In other words, people are clueless about things that don't readily or frequently concern them.  Ask ANY member of a local government how many complaints they get about trash removal (they came too early, too late, the wrong day, they prefer Monday and not Wednesday, etc), why?  Because people deal with that on a regular basis and have expectations.  They WANT their trash removed regularly and  frequently and predictably.

To pontificate that all communities know and accept their level of fire protection is absurd and is nothing more than painting with a broad brush based on very limited knowledge.

I'm not saying all, or even most people are clueless about their community's level of fire protection, but based on comments I pointed out above, it suggests many people (from widely ranging geographical areas) really don't know if they have a volunteer, combination or paid department.

So maybe in a rural town, village or unincorporated area the residents really do know they have a volunteer fire department, but do they really know the level at which that department functions?  Do they understand that they could have a better fire department?

And yes, IF a fire department goes to the community and explains what they need to operate at a certain level and the community turns them down, then one can assume they are happy with the level they get. But how many VFDs actually go to their community and spell it out for them?

I suspect that with most VFDs, that started (as most did) by a group of concerned citizens who wanted to provide *some* level of fire protection, over the years and with little support from the community, those departments 'evolved' into self-sustaining, fiercely independent VFDs, encoded into their DNA a refusal to give up any control to a community who has never been much help.  They will continue to provide fire protection, at a level that they can offer and the community is left with no option but to accept it or do business elsewhere (combination or going to paid).

I think many VFDs are content to operate at whatever level they are at rather than give up any control to local government.  So while they may or may not be 'social clubs', they are private corporations that operate as they see fit.  And any attempt to pry control from them (NFPA, FFI, consolidation, etc) will be met with contempt, derision and stubbornness. But as it is with others, it's only my opinion.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Callahan on July 10, 2012 at 1:57pm

I stated the same thing about the same thing about all 3 incidents.

 

" If they were on my departments they would get a earful because we have policies regarding PPE."

 

Funny thing I have career and volunteer personnel on my departments.

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Permalink Reply by Don Catenacci on July 10, 2012 at 2:19pm

Bobby,

Define effective...because you seem to be saying, not sure whether it was here of at FH.com, that only having the original building burn down and not allowing it to spread to nearby buildings is an effective fire department.  I disagree whole heartedly with that if that is ALL they can do every time.

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Permalink Reply by Moose on July 10, 2012 at 3:41pm

Jack, after spending an hour with a dictionary looking up definitions for half your post...I can FINALY say I agree!! LOL

I strongly feel that people honestly do not know what level of protection they have.  Most OFFICERS dont even know what level of training most of their members have around me, so I find it hard to believe that the people would know.  I feel that we, as volunteers, need to do a few things to make a difference;

1. Bring all of the information to the town/village/city officials and educate them on how today's fire service has to be maintained, trained and equipped as well as all of the mandates, rules and regulations we have to follow, and dabble in ISO ratings to put the icing on the cake.
2. Use their support (Hopefully we have gained their support after all of that) to lobby the government for stricter, more consistent training standards for ALL firefighters across the country.
3. Train all firefighters to the same level and get them operating as such, whether you want to be interior or exterior (for volunteers) so that everyone on the fireground knows the same thing.

Just a few ideas, if others have additional steps to add feel free, maybe this is where we start to affect change that is needed?

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Permalink Reply by Bob Callahan on July 10, 2012 at 3:43pm

The defination of effective will vary from person to person.

Yes, to me a VFD with limited manpower and resources, or with large districts with extended response times, is effective if they generally limit the fire to the structure of origin.

A highly effective VFD will consistantly be able to perform interior operations.

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