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What Are "Fire Police"
As a curious Aussie, what on earth are "Fire Police"?
What do they do?
What powers to they have?
Our emergency services are so different over here!!!
What do they do?
What powers to they have?
Our emergency services are so different over here!!!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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Fire Police here are basically in a nutshell traffic control. They mitigate who is allowed into the scene, and who must be turned away. They provide a critical perimeter to the firefighters to assist in the safe operations by minimizing traffic to the scene. They also can prevent onlookers from getting too close to the fire scene's. With the ever present dangers of the smoke, and fire (even building collapse) they can really give the f.d. a boost in operating safely by containing and limiting access to the call.
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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No problems.
Do they have any powers similar to Police? Does every area have them? What about a uniform, vehicles, etc?
Sorry, lots of questions- I'm really intrigued!!!
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Permalink Reply by Spanner 122 on
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We don't have them in Canada either.
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Permalink Reply by Marc Hansen on
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I can only say what goes on in my little neck of the woods, but here goes. Our fire police respond on every call we go on. 1 or 2 of them normally go to the station and assist with traffic control getting trucks out of station(our station has a 4 lane divided state hi-way on one side and a busy 2 lane state route on the other side). The rest normally go to the area of the scene. They use their own vehicles for this but we have bought them flourescent safety gear, traffic wands, cones and flares. They also have radios with them(provided by the department) and are able to give us a report on what we have before we get there. Our fire police do a great job of shutting down whatever area we need controlled wether its one lane on the highway or a block around a house fire. They know what mutual aid we have coming in and provide positive intersection control for those units also. Our county also has a county wide fire police unit which is available to any department in the county for any size incident or even a parade.
They all have uniforms and are covered under the departments insurance and life insurance policy. The state of PA does have state certified fire police and advanced fire police classes that deal with the powers that they do have. Not sure what the exact powers under law are but do know that if you disobey an order from them in the eyes of the law you disobeyed an order from a police officer.
One of our chiefs teaches the fire police courses, I'll try to get a better answer from him and post it here for you
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Interesting....
Are they trained FF's as well? Or only trained to do the Fire police role? (What happens if they're first on scene- can they be of assistance in other areas other than their normal duty?)
In my State (Victoria, Australia), no emergency service other than Police is allowed to direct traffic. If we need to shut down a road, you simply park the truck in such a way and walk away from it.
Not ideal, but that's the law unfortunately.
It really gets messay in busy areas where the Police are often under staffed and over worked so it's not uncommon to be waiting very long periods for them to arrive to direct and assist with traffic.
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Currently we have 1 lady that has joined to be fire police only(her husband is a firefighter/engineer). The other guys all are former firefighters that can no longer do the dirty work but are able/capable of doing all outside work. We have used them for their extensive knowledge of the area(believe they all have over 35 years in the fire department), to help engineer and what ever else we need done.
PA law is a lot more lenient as far as the fire service goes and grants the fire chief or incident commander broad leeways towards closing roads, evacuating buildings/communities. The way current law is written once the fire chief orders a closure the only one that can countermand that order is a state trooper. Not that we use that often due to the close relationship we have with our local police.
Our police routinely asks for our fire police for road closures so that they go on other calls(normally happens during seasonal storms when there are multiple calls at the same time)
Again this is just from my departments procedure, not all departments in my county have or use fire police and I have no idea about the rest of the state
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The Powers they have depend on the municipality they live in. Some towns give them arresting ability. (although I don't personally agree with this) They generally for a call will wear their street clothes with their fourescent green or orange vests and wands. They generally have cones and flares to assist in diverting/blocking traffic. For a dress uniform they use the F.D. dress uniform with a differant badge
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Permalink Reply by T.J. on
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yes thats how they are in my city too, crossed trained and its not working well for them right now, the city's fighting out that your either a firefighter or cop, but not both.
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Permalink Reply by Scott Walker on
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Hi Fire Police here is they are trained as Fire Fighters but don,t do (BA) Breathing Aperatis courses. They can attend on the appliance at MVAs scrubbies etc, they do traffic control scene control, But They don,t go into anywhere that BA is worn. They have the same gear as a FF but they are distinguished by a Blue helmet.
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Permalink Reply by anne potter on
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Most of our firepolice are older members who become to old to fight fire and they still want to be active and help in a manner,, so road patrol it is.. Still can be part of it all
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Permalink Reply by Kimberly A Bownas on
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Our Fire Police are members that don't want to fight fires but are willing to do traffic. they do a great job and if there is a problem they let command know and command lets the police at the scene know. Our fire police do a great job. They have vests that are florescent green and they also have the wands and flares and radios. They also take a fire police class which helps them understand more of what their role is and the hazards that are out there. Being fire police I think can be more hazardous than being an interior firefighter sometimes....
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