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First off, let me say, this is NOT meant to be a shit-stirring post, merely an informational exchange.
This post pertains to zone/district/etc calls. NO particular dept.
With manpower levels from 7am to 7pm at their lowest levels county-wide, why aren’t we setting off EVERYONE’S pager in the dept during those times for alarms?
Example - Car fire at 123 Any Street. Car Fire gets Engines 9 & 10 & Ladder 4 as its “in zone 22”. Meanwhile, 2 miles across town, the boys from Engine 8 are all in the firehouse for lunch. Full crew, same 500 gallons of water in the tank. Same dept.
Engine 9 & 10 both report no MPO & limited manpower to the OIC. OIC requests 2nd alert. By this time said car is “down to the frame rails” while a full crew Engine from the SAME DEPT sits idle.
I understand no one wants 4 Engines at a car fire, but isn’t alerting everyone the “heads up” move? If you don’t need em, send em home.
“Pooling” manpower in this day & age is not only right, its essential!
Again, its an SOP/operational thing with many depts, and I come from a smaller shop where “everyone goes” to everything. 24/7, 365, your pager goes off for anything the dept goes to.
Feedback, comments, beratements, all valid opinions welcomed… fire away!
As with most things, I guess it depends on the department.
A general alarm for us would alert 7 engines, 2 trucks, 2 heavy rescues, and 3 ambulances...obviously overkill for almost every alarm.
You also have to consider the distances involved. Our district is probably four miles from end to end, not counting the parkway going down to the beach. Do you really want an engine responding that kind of distance for a minor alarm even if they are in house?
This is def a department specific discussion. What works for one may not work for the other. What about the safety of the members. If you blow out every car, dumpster, rubbish etc. fire as a general in the day time you increase the percentages that a unit/pov will be involved in a MVA. There is no reason to send multiple engines to a car fire. What is the life threat (assuming the occupant is out.) If the car is burning for 5 minutes or 8 minutes. its pretty safe to say it's totaled. However, the chiefs should know the tendencies of their department. If daytime responce is that bad, then by all means. But there are still plenty of depts. out there where it is just not neccesary to blow everything out as a general.
Well in Roslyn we don't do Zone Calls or anything of that nature. Both Rescue & Highlands, from all stations, roll to every fire call at all times of the day.
Here in Albertson there are only two houses under same company. All probies and members eastside of Willis Ave go to HQ, Westside of Willis goes to dewey. With manpower issues everyone has, people can use other's(if they don't show up) gear at dewey if their gear isn't there yet or is just hanging out there.
Here's an alternative idea. Tone out the whole department, but still have the zone units take it in. Available manpower just responds to the responding firehouses. If it's Engine 2 and 3's call and you are in Engine 4, you go to one of those houses instead of yours. Better to roll 2 engines with 5-6 guys than have 4 sitting around with 2 guys waiting on a driver.
My department unofficially works this way (although we don't have zone calls or company tones to start with). One of the houses has the bulk of the daytime people. The couple guys from the other house will usually just go there during the day to fill out the crew.
my department responds all rigs to general alarms and car fires are two engines 24 hrs 7 days. the day response can turn out light crews on our four engines and two ladders, we should alter our response to maximize manpower during day but wouldnt due to company pride/six separate firehouses.
i'm with MFD on this...my dept is small and ALL calls FIRE and EMS are general alarms...all members get the page...
i know several large depts dont need that but I have seen depts struggling to get a piece of apparatus on the road and then see another one of their houses with manpower hanging out but they are not assigned to the call...now I know each dept has different policies on this for various reasons but imagine what someone with out a background knowledge of the fire service would think if they saw this...and from a fire service viewpoint is this the best use of our resources?
yeah um if you can get 7 engines 2 truck 3 buses ect.... on the road around 1 in the afternoon then completely disreguard this thread....the risk is always there for an a mos/mva i think more so if you have to come from towns away cause you know in the back of your head no one else is getting out but you,,,but if you alert everyone the guys closer to home get the rig out and you dont have to rush.... its a great ideas to do from 7 to 7 M-F all generals youlll maybe have over kill at 1 alarm at best during the week......the simple solution is what was posted above send all man power to company xyz instead of sending them all over but this will never happen because we dont like to play nice with the others
We are one of the larger departments in the County. We respond as six companies out of 6 houses. 6am until 6pm 7 days a week all phone alarms/automatic alarms are general alarms and all houses are alerted. In the evening the same calls are for truck, rescue, and 2 of the 4 engine companies for houses and generals for commercial. This makes sense because weekday daytime is when everyone gets less manpower. Personally, we could probably go to unit responses on weekends as everyone is pretty good responding then. For example, there is no reason for a general on a Sunday morning when for an automatic alarm you gave 2 trucks, 2 ambulances and a rescue truck, seven engines and support vehicles on the road in 2 minutes. For other calls, response is dictated by zone 24 hours a day. Auto accidents, CO alarms, special calls are usually truck, rescue, and one engine all the time and car fires, etc are 2 engine companies. Perhaps maybe m-f we could tone out all engines on a car fire? The new pagers can handle additional tones so it could be possible to have one tone set up that hits all 4 engines at once (we have a single tone now that alerts the chiefs, truck, and rescue at the same time). The department is lucky right now in that a lot of the active guys are shift workers and are around during the day, but that can always change with promotions or transfers. Some days truck and three engines can be on the road in minutes sometimes not. Another option that may come up in the future is to consolidate response during the day to one or two houses (similar to what Port Washington does). We could move an ambulance and engine to HQ with the truck and maybe an ambulance to another house and have people respond to 2 houses instead of 6. It will be interesting to see how things go in the next 5 years.
Zone/Dist/Area Response Policy
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