Ok Bros and Sisters...here is the grand scheme ..lol..naaa just a what do you think...a few months back i made a post about a trend starting where the riggs are being held back while chief responds to a call..as i figured everyone thought it was bull..now the new thing is..when we get hit for a CO alarm the dispatchers are told to only hit all line officer pagers and not the Dept. they are to respond via radio and actual that they will (one of them..yeah right)..to the call...if they find something..we are hit out now..we all know how fubars arise so whats the view here ?.. we all know that at some point the oics will forget a radio..or 2 will be near by..whats going to be the sop or for that matter the result when the dept. tones go in..and here is the thin red line of this..we are a district and 2 companies are an auto respond meaning tones go and my company and sister comp. go this means between the 2 companies we could have as many as 4 oics at a co..and other 5 coming to the house to get crew out...on one hand i can agree with it..cause if all are out no threat and all is well why get riggs out..but flip side..what if the co turns to be a co that really is a fire..or smoke..that takes us back to us being left back while the lone ranger cruises a call..not liking it to much oh and if an oic doesn't call in within ..lol..5 mins then we all get hit out..anyway
Permalink Reply by John on January 29, 2009 at 10:29pm
Co alarms I feel should have an engine or ladder respond regardless, and respond with gas monitors, that way just in case its the real deal your ready for action. We dispatch 2 apparatus usually what I stated above (engine and ladder) that way if one monitor is off or malfunctioning then the second apparatus will have one to. as well if we do have to vent the house the ladder has more equipment for that.
I don't really like that idea either. But our Chief has taken the engine by himself just cause he was at the station when the tones dropped. Didn't give anyone a chance to get to the station. Luckily it wasn't anything. Came in as a brush fire close to a barn. When he arrived it was far enough away from the barn that there was no danger. But what if???? But the probie got on the radio and asked him if he wanted anymore apparatus as he was arriving on scene and he said standby on station. I guess it lessens the chance for accidents but there's always that what if....
I'll take the simple way. I think your chief is an idiot. He thinks his rank is now spelt "GOD". Let's hope it doesn't take somebody dying before he is made to realise that he is wrong.
Just to clarify one thing..our in house chief is not making this call to respond this way in fact he hates the idea as well it is the District Chief who yes feels he is God as District chief he has control over us and 4 other companies and is the commisioners right hand pretty much
I feel as you should respond with a full complement "just in case"...But...if this is their policy what should you get bothered about....unless you are one of the officers.....LOLLet them have their fun....you know who gets burned if something goes wrong.....??? THE CHIEF....sit back and relax...after a few calls the policy will change.....Stay safe and always Keep the Faith....Paul
Permalink Reply by FETC on January 30, 2009 at 10:06am
CO call without any report of an associated illness is NOT an emergency in my department. It is a service call, toned out with a flow of traffic response (no lights or sirens) with an engine and the CO meter. We do this to reduce the chance of having an accident or causing an accident while responding lights and sirens.
Now if your Chief feels that he is reducing the chance of suffering a traffic accident by holding the engine, then he has some merit in his thinking as most CO investigations do not produce a true emergency.
But with an "Officer Only" response in his or her POV can be dangerous if they are investigating a potential incident, without affording them an SCBA, and/or no meters to quantify the air that they are investigating.
What are they using..... their noses???
TWA= 35ppm over 8 hours.
STEL=400ppm with 15 minute exposure.
The STEL will bite you quick if you are complacent on a true CO emergency. I have seen many good firefighters who were un-necessarily exposed to lethal doses of CO.
FETC, great post. that is the smartest way of approaching this situation. It takes into account both perspectives, the true need for a real response v. the mentality that its not a serious matter.
Because of the overwhelming amount of false alarms, running lights and sirens to every co alarm is not a wise decision. But to go with out proper PPE and no monitor devices is an even worse choice.
well i agree with the PPE and scott only the chief will have a sniffer and scott and ppe in vehicle the rest of the line officers are POV and just have radios unless they swing by station for meters in which case defeats purpose to respond directly..thats the maddening of it
I was thinking this over a bit more today and I am thinking that maybe the "District chief" who kinda forced this on all the company chiefs is going with the idea that a paid dept. does that being fire company has emt/medics on board type situation cause then when we are summoned he has best of both worlds..only issue is though my company has several emts we are not paid and therefore wouldn't be summoned in that capacity , our paid "police EMS units" would , which if you think about should be called anyway traffic response till updated on illness or not..it seems like he is looking to reduce units on air and on street but at same time if the calls going bad he will have these same said units being halted coming in all at once creating more havoc then needed...just a thought
Are we talking strictly CO alarms, or all alarms in general?
For CO alarms, as FETC said, if there is no immediate life endangerment, it is given to the gas company. We have not had to deal with this yes, but, I'm guessing that if there were unconscious persons involved, then we may be required to respond (quiet) BA up and enter for patient extracation.
As for general fire alarms, if there is no smoke or fire and alarm only, our dispatch will radio to the Chief(s) give them run-down of the situation, and it is their discretion if we then get paged out, or if they just go check on it. It seems to have worked for us so far. Years ago they used to respond to the alarms, but it starts to get a little more costly when you have 30 some odd responding, as opposed to 10-15 members responding.