personal vehicles to incidents.

my question to my fellow dingers, min.men( and women) metalheads and vollies. what does your RURAL department have for guidelines reguarding personal vehicles responding to incidents . im asking this to collect data, not to ridicule or critisize. thanks

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Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on February 15, 2009 at 3:40pm

At my station we require all members to respond to the station to fill the trucks. The only reason to have a personal vehicle on scene is if the incident is on the responders way to station. If they disobey this guideline on a regular basis they then will lose there blue light privilege. Also Jr. firefighters are not allowed to respond direct by virtue of state law in Pennsylvania.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara Nelson on February 15, 2009 at 5:38pm

In our district we have to respond to the station get, on the rigs, and then go to the scene. The only exception is if you would pass it on your way to the station. I have butted heads with the fact that I don't think that people should respond to the scene POV. 1 - several firefighters have died responding to fast to a call. 2 - How do you track crew acountability? 3 - The expence to replace stolen turnouts, and are they protected from direct sunlight? 4 - When you tell dispatch we are enroute with a crew of (put your number in 4 or 6) your IC has a head count that could give him or her a heads-up of if he needs to call for mutual aid sooner. I don't know maybe it is just me but that is how I feel. You can go to firefighter near miss reports and search POV nearmisses and last years LODD there were about 7 POV LODD.

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Permalink Reply by Brett Johnson on February 15, 2009 at 8:06pm

Fire calls, we are required to respond to the station, UNLESS we are driving by it on the way to the station and we have a radio to contact the station and have them bring your bunker gear out with one of the trucks or to give them an idea of what kind of structure they have or if there is smoke showing, even then we have to park a good distance from the scene. accident calls... same basic principal, typically tho only EMT's and First Responders are to go to the scene, and again ONLY if we have to drive by it on the way to the station, vehicles have to be parked in such a way that they dont interfere with incoming emergency vehicles, although if it is on a busy highway AND we have lights in our vehicles, we can use the vehicle to "shut down" the road, if it is necessary. ambulance calls... ONLY incoming EMT's can respond to the scene, if you have to drive by it anyway, or if the ambulance TELLS you that they are leaving the station with 1 EMT on board and would like any other incoming EMT's to respond to the scene. but we also have to remember that POV's are NOT emergency vehicles and we still have to obey the laws. also, if your vehicle is hit in a case where you are "shutting down" a roadway is is also your problem... thats y we say you should have blue lights and be highly visible.