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A member posted on another thread that the firehouses and rigs in Long Beach are not in the best of shape. Someone replied and inferred it's due to the costs incurred by having paid guys, while someone else claims that has nothing to do with it -- that the problem cuts across all Long Beach city services.
Can any Long Beach FD members (either paid or volunteer) add some insight to the real situation?
I posted the reply on the other board because it was relevant to the discussion. I am from Long Beach and have been there for quite some time.
Citywide problems do exist. The Fire and Police departments get the worst end of it usually, but problems do exist in every public service department within the city.
Lack of funding.... lack of spending.... who knows? I don't, but we still get the job done even without the fancy options on the fire trucks and multi million dollar firehouses. Would we like better? Sure. But realistically it just isn't happening for us in the forseeable future.
I posted the reply on the other board because it was relevant to the discussion. I am from Long Beach and have been there for quite some time.
Citywide problems do exist. The Fire and Police departments get the worst end of it usually, but problems do exist in every public service department within the city.
Lack of funding.... lack of spending.... who knows? I don't, but we still get the job done even without the fancy options on the fire trucks and multi million dollar firehouses. Would we like better? Sure. But realistically it just isn't happening for us in the forseeable future.
Thanks...I've never heard anything but good things about the work done by the Long Beach FD, just never knew about those other challenges you guys were up against.
Fortunately, for the most part the companies here have learned to do a great job with what we have. Don't get me wrong, we don't have crap equipment, rigs, etc. We just don't have all of the bells and whistles of some other departments.
We have all of the tools that we need to get the job done. Sometimes a little money pops up and we're able to get some more. Not too long ago, we received a grant which we were able to use to purchase a small training center which is now located in the city hall parking lot. It's not much, but it's a big step up from what we had before.
We get what we need.... we use what we get... and we train hard to learn how to use it right. That's all that really matters.
grumpy couldnt have said it better, LB does alot with 50%less then most fire district depts do and have much less work.. It has nothing to do with them having a paid crew who have to do with the same lack of items ot items that need to be replaced. It is One dept that share and average 5000 calls a year. I started my career there in 3/4 boots and an old long coat while classmates at FSA had spanking new bunkergear with their names on it and only a few months in... But like many others before me you do with what you have.... I say the following with out any disrespect to the many fine depts on LI but to me LBFD is the only place I would return to if I was to ever come Back to LI..
Was overall distribution of funds ever an issue in Long Beach? A few years back it seemed that both station one and station two had nicer and much more adequate 'hang-out' facilities than those at fire headquarters. Did the members in these houses do this work themselves? I recall a friend showing me the 'headquarters' lounge, a rec room for the firefighters assigned to rescue and engine four. Then there was the office space and quarters for the paid guys. Not too long after that the members of ladder six-two acquired a room and converted it into their own room -- something to be very proud of, something the members should always appreciate, even more so because they did it themselves. Was space an issue in not giving the headquarters firemen the same accomodations as the firefighters in the East and West ends? I say space because from my understanding the fire headquarters is on the first floor of the city hall. Additionally, and please correct me if I'm wrong, yes Long Beach is the busiest. Just like Hempstead sees the most work. But is it fair to use numbers that encompass runs calculated from responses of both paid and volunteer firefighters seperately? Don't paid firefighters respond on all first signal nines and a majority of the still alarms? Alarms that a volunteer firefighter wouldn't even be aware of?
Space is an issue. As you stated, Rescue and Engine 4 still share a room on the second floor and Ladder 2 is up on the sixth floor of city hall (pretty cool view). There is just no room in the building to put us anywhere else. Stations 1 and 2 do have fairly nice firehouses, but those are also owned by the city, not the fire department.
As for call volume. The average total volume is approximately 4500 alarms per year combined fire and ems. The volunteers respond to somwhere around 1500 of that total number.
When I was on Engine 4 (2344) 31 years ago ...We, Rescue, Fire Police and the Floodlight had just gotten a room to use in Headquarters on the 2nd floor . ...sounds like not much has changed in the accommadations.
NO disrespect intended.
Those were the days when I rolled as driver and no crew on 2344....learned a hell of a lot there in the year with H&L 1 2361 (no longer around I see....learned to drive stick on that 1941(?) ALF 100 ft Midmount ..thanks to Capt. Fred Fass) and 2 years with Engine 4 (Capt Izzy Arroyo had a bit part as a FDNY fire fighter in Woody Allens movie "BANANAS", as did the old 1968(?) 2344 MACK Automatic Trans., 1250 GPM, 500 gal. booster tank and 2 Booster reels.
Haven,t been there in a loooong time. Still listen in though.
To answer your question westendtrkng.. Long beach's mutual aid plan rotates each month. Every month it rotates between the 3 volly engines and 2 volly ladders.. ie.this month is E44 and TL72. Next month it is established who it will be. and on all mutual aids for a bus,the volly bus 2321 and/or 2322 goes. the UFA stays within the city of long beach...hope that sums it all up for u ..and yes..the guys in long beach do great work with what they have..not to mention they get along pretty well... also got good leadership down there 2 in the chiefs and commissioners offices..
Do the Paids FFs still act as chauffer/operater of L62?
Since they rotate M/A response btw the 2 Ladders (L62 at HQ(?) &TL72 at the West End FH(?)), and the UFA stays within the City limits, I assume that the Vollies assigned to L62 can/do drive and operate L62 without the Paid Chauffer/operater.
There are occasions in all fire departments where either personalities clash, orders are disobeyed or someone just acts like a total ---hole. This happens in both my firehouse in Brooklyn and in the one that I volunteer in out here in Nassau. For the most part, things are almost always handled by the men when it comes to my firehouse at work. The men run the company, the men handle the conduct of themselves and each other and keep as many things out of the officer's hands as possible. We have arguments, diasgreements, fights, etc. We've been able to handle all that's come our way so far. The same politics, fights, bitching and nonsense plagues my firehouse out here on the Island as well. However out here, people are more quick to put pen to paper and prefer charges against the member they are having a problem with, or more quickly rat someone out for something before looking into other options on how to handle it. Regardless, my question to the members on this board from both Long Beach and Garden City; is what happens when a paid firefighter prefers charges against a volunteer? Can he? And what happens when a volunteer prefers charges against a paid fireman? I understand that on Long Beach has their firemen do EMS, not Garden City, so the scenario that I have doesn't necessarily apply to Garden City. But what if you have a situation where a paid fireman/EMT and a volunteer EMT are on a scene and there is a disagreement over patient care and a dispute occurs. Ultimately the patient is properly cared for and the call runs its course, however there is now a beaf between these two individuals. So maybe the paid guy showed up the volunteer. So now the volley is all bent out of shape and he's gunning for the paid guy, just waiting for him to mess something up. I don't know what he might mess up, maybe he fills the booster from a hydrant in the winter and doens't notify the water district. Who know's? It'll be something minor that the volley is looking for to jump all over and write the paid guy up on. Which by the way, all though this is hypothetical and a little far fetched, could be the origin for a fight in any of our firehouses. So now the volley writes up the paid guy on charges. Can he actually do that? So now what happens to the paid guy? Does he lose a days pay? Does he get suspended from his JOB? When a volunteer gets supsended he gets a little vacation from the firehouse, not his job. When a career firefighter is suspended he is without pay and without benefits for the duration of his suspension. Could this happen? Could a volunteer member take food out of the mouths of a piad firefighter's family, simply because he's pissed off at him?
The conditions in Long Beach
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