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Permalink Reply by FF86 on July 16, 2009 at 8:40am

Hey,

Thank you guys for all the replies, I really appreciate them. I'm going to see if we can get some training going next time my crew is on-duty. It should atleast help the time pass a bit faster as well as benefiting us. I really liked that prop roof idea, maybe we'll be able to make that happen.

First off, I am a volunteer, not career. To answer the big question about being required to be at the station, we are required by the chiefs and the SOP's to be at the station. Any time we can't be there for a shift we have to find someone with the same certifications to cover for us. Any member who consistently misses shifts is let go from the department. Though depending on how well you know the chief, this number can be anywhere from missing two or three shifts to not showing up or contacting anyone for 7 months (that one actually happened).

The reason we do this is because in the past when people would respond from home, there were a lot of people that just didn't respond. Our Assistant Chief is also very strict about response times, he is not a happy man when more than 2 or so minute pass between the tones dropping and the first truck rolling out of the station. I don't think he would do well with hearing the tones drop and just waiting to see who responds.

I would respond from home to calls, but I live about 30 minutes from the station, and upwards of 60 minutes from parts of our first due. We also have an unwritten rule that pretty much only chiefs and the on-duty crew can respond to calls, with the exception of working fires, but we haven't had one of those since November. I guess this is to reduce the number of POV's on scene and to make accountability easier.

It definitely is true that we feel bad waiting for calls, since that means someone else is probably having one of the worst days of their life. I guess this is a dilemma we all face as our firefighters personalities waiting for a call clash with our sympathetic personalities where we don't want to see bad things happen to people.

Thanks again for all the help and advice!

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Permalink Reply by FETC on July 16, 2009 at 10:00am

Your Chief's need to come to reality that volunteer's should be required to "volunteer their time" when work is required of them, I.e: when training, details and tones are dropped. The town has chosen to fund a volunteer department not a paid one. Therefore as bad as it sounds, they are not demanding a 2 minute time response.

Your chief's are basically running a fulltime department off the backs of their volunteers without offering them any financial restitution. Seems ironic that your complaints are based on many things that point back to their requirements. I can't imagine how you can be married, have a family, and be required to work not volunteer for free. I would bet the turn-over on your organization is quite high.

Lack of calls - set crew is only allowed to respond. Therefore while you spend hundreds of hours in the fire station, but your annual personal response might be as low as 20 per year? How can you possibly be efficient for running all of the equipment, when they are restricting you from coming in on calls. I can only imagine when you require the entire department come in for a big emergency, that you might have only worked together as a large group once or twice a year?

Time in between calls - Your running just over one call a day, the other 23 hours you should be working a real job, spending time with your family, or enjoying life.

Their is only so much training you can do when you are waiting for the one call per day, and we all know that sometimes it is 3 a day and wait for 4-5 without any?

NFPA1720 set the target response for volunteer fire departments at 8 minutes. Your Assistant Chief's requirement for 2 minutes is unheard of even in a paid environment.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on July 16, 2009 at 11:23am

If this keeps up, it's likely that the membership will "vote with their feet" and quit the department.
It isn't reasonable to demand that volunteers staff the station and have the same turnout times as if it were a paid job.

It also doesn't make sense to deny the experience of the few calls per year to every volunteer firefighter, either. It sounds as if this department isn't going to survive for very long in the current configuration.

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Permalink Reply by CHRIS PUYLARA on July 16, 2009 at 1:20pm

AH YES THE BATTINESS OF NO CALLS.....WE MIGHT GET TO 150-160, RIGHT NOW WE STAND AT I THINK 77-78, HAD 6 THE WEEKEND BEFORE THE 4TH--2 AT ONCE !!! LOL, BOY THAT WAS A MAD DASH ACROSS TOWN. I REMEMBER THE FIRST 6 MONTHS AFTER I WAS ISSUED MY GEAR- WE DID I THINK 130- AT LEAST 25 OF THEM WERE FIRES. I ABSOLUTELY WENT BONKERS !!!! LOVED THE CALL VOLUME---THEN IT GOT SLOWWWWW. IF YOU ARE REQUIRED TO BE THERE, SOME OF THE GUYS HAD SOME GOOD SUGGESTIONS- FOR TRAINING ETC. WE RESPOND FROM HOME OR WHATEVER, SOMETIMES IF WE ARE HANGING OUT AT ONE OF THE STATIONS AND GET LUCKY THEN THATS GREAT. THE POLITIC THING---GETS UGLY, I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT-WE HAVE ONES IN OUR DEPARTMENT THAT HAVE RULED FOR ALONG TIME--IT AINT WORTH IT. SOMEONE SAID IT HERE--NO CALLS MEANS EVERYBODY IS HAVING A GOOD DAY-ONE OF MY FAVORITE SAYINGS IS- " THE BEST LOOKING FIRE TRUCK IS THE ONE SLEEPING AT THE STATION- OR THE ONE IN A PARADE." DONT GIVE UP BRO, YOUR COMMUNITY COUNTS ON YOU AND WE COUNT ON YOU TO KEEP THE BROTHERHOOD STRONG......STAY SAFE

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Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on July 16, 2009 at 4:10pm

I'm kinda surprised to hear so many people have never heard of the "dedicated shifts" that FF86 works on. I lived in Indianapolis for a short time and did some searching for volunteer dept's. Most everywhere down there is career but the volunteer stations that are there all require there members to serve shifts. They must also be FF 1 and 2 and EMT-B certified. All this and they still dont get paid a dime.

Although all the firefighters I spoke to down there were all confused (and kind of jealous) when they saw my bluelights and asked what they were for. I had to explain to them that I would respond from home and that the station wasnt manned 24/7.

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Permalink Reply by Norman E. Flanders on July 16, 2009 at 5:01pm

You what???????

Have to stay at the station to insure a 2 min response.......for what?

I have to agree with FETC and Ben Waller with their responses.

We average around 70 - 80 calls a year here in Clarendon, VT. That's sometimes large for us.

If I asked my vollies to stay at the stations (we have two) I be told in some not so nice words where I could stick my station coverage and the FD as a whole. Heck, I'd end up as the only one at the station.

How do you ever keep an active membership without a lot of turn over?

You're volunteering, giving of ones self to help his/her community your not employed as a full time FF. This is just crazy and really asking to much of the people to give that much and keep up with training. If you have a wife/significant other and a family this can't help with the home life.

Do your off duty members have pagers and do they respond from home?

About the low call volume......

Be thankful your not responding to an incident, enjoy the down time, because when your toned someones life has just been raised hell with......be it a fire, MVA, etc. someones day has gone bad.
If you're bored while on duty do some in house training, go over your equipment, or do table top exercise/drills to test yourself and others on your equipment and community. ( I have some drafted table top exercise and drills that you can adapt to your community, if you'd like some, e-mail me at nrs5f@comcast.net and I'll send you some).

Take your equipment out in to the community and draft from a hydrant, pond, lake or river. Contact local businesses for familiarization tours, tour your local schools and while there do bus familiarization, there is a lot you can do while on duty to keep busy and be seen in the public eye.

Again, be thankful for the down time. Your down time ensures someone is not having a bad day. I know it can be tough but you will learn to adapt and learn to do things to pass the time with a positive outcome.

Good luck. Stay safe, train often and share knowledge.

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Permalink Reply by Shaun Hansen on July 16, 2009 at 5:30pm

If you are a small Department at 400 call per year. Then ours must be microscopic. We only get about 30 on a good year and half are false alarm calls. We cope by hanging out, BBQ's, other department events, and pretty much we try to stay as FAR away from the small town politics. I know its hard when you got two members of council that live next to you, like I do. We train hard twice a month at our meeting nights.

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Permalink Reply by Chief Dino on July 16, 2009 at 6:10pm

We have about 70 calls a year, but we all respond from home. Our area is fairly large, about 125 sq mi, but it's mostly loblolly pine and oil wells, we average about 10 mins response from tone to on scene. We meet weekly for training, some bs sessions and business. Having never been a volunteer anywhere but my current dept, I can't give any advice beyond what others have already mentioned. Hang in there.

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Permalink Reply by Smoke Eater on July 16, 2009 at 9:46pm

Hey Dustin another thing you have to look at in the areas around Indy is the run loads these other depts. have. Of course it makes more sense to have them on station 24/7. As far as this guy goes, I think his higher ups need a reality check.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Gillis on July 16, 2009 at 10:55pm

My department in upstate nyran 135 last year. we are at 73 right now but that is becuase we are on a daytime ama monday thru friday 6 am to 6 pm becuase of our limited manpower. our last call was a MA MVA w/ entrapment about 1/2 south of our disrict border and that was on july 5th. i work 2 days a week and i have been waiting for a call and when im aviible we dont even get an ama or ems related call. in my department we responded to the station insted of having duty crews on. every tuesday we do drill and thursday we have bingo not to mention we have a rental hall and a full kitchen for extra income.i spend prolly 6 hours a week at my department. if im bored ill go and get takeout for lunch and hang out there and watch tv or somthing. unless its weather related we usally have no more than 1 call a day. the day we had that bad icestorm up here that got national attention in december of 2008 we had 24 calls in one day and the next day ran 5 and a fully involved fire which put me for awhile after that.

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Permalink Reply by TabergFireFighter4 on July 19, 2009 at 4:10pm

I consider my fire dept small and have a small area of coverge. However have a call volume of a consistant 300-400 calls a year. As of the january of 2009 new start, we are currently at 158 calls. Most of our calls are EMS but MVA's and structure fires are brought into the number count also. I used to want a call all the time, but then figured out that when those tones go off someone needs the fire dept's help. I mean granted every interior firefighter wants and structure fire including myself once and a while.

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Permalink Reply by Tammy K. on July 20, 2009 at 9:47pm

We had over 55 calls in 48 hrs during that ice storm, including a structure fire out of district. To say the least we were busy. And to top it off, 95% of us had no power, so it was brother helping brother to buy and hook up generators. We have about 60 FF in out department and average about 18 members on scene, per call. We average about 300-400 calls per year. Although I think this will be increasing with the new AMD factory coming to town.

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