An Amazing Few Minutes .. Well for Us Anyway

[LaFireEducator]

1537 Dispatched to a Cardiac Call
R2 (light rescue) w/1, Brush truck (from mobile service) w/1, Command 1 w/Deputy Chief and Medic 3 responds.

1540 Brush Fire w/Possible Structural Involvement in northern end of district.
Engine 1 & Rescue 1 (from Central) w/ 1 each. Engine 5 and Engine 4 (from 2 closest vollie stations) w/ 1 each and Brush 1 (from cardiac scene responds).
R2 stays at cardiac scene. Chief roll from cardiac Scene 2 minutes later.
E5 reports small shed and 1/4 acre of brush. Has E4, B1 and R1 continue. Chief continues.
Cancels E1.

1546 E1 back in house.

1547 Gas leak 1/2 mile from station.
E1 arrives. 1" gas line severed by a state mowing crew. 100' off road.

1549 Reported overdose, pt. not breathing.
R2 w/ 1 EMT released from cardiac scene. R1 w/ paramedic released from fire 5 miles away. E1 turns gas leak over to sheriff department.

1550 2-car MVA I-20.
Vollie paramedic radios he is in the area. R2 continues to OD. R1 redirected to I-20. E1 redirected to I-20.
I arrive in E1 to find a heavily damaged car which ran into a truck at speed. Helicopter called for. Nearest medic unti 10 minutes out. EMS supervisor arrives 2 minutes later. It's him and me for 9 minutes until E3 (vollie house) arrives w/ 2 and begins extrication. Driver crashing fast, Chopper goes to wrong location on interstate. R1 arrives.

Driver ended up coding in the chopper.

Was a very unusual 20 minutes for us.

[FyredUp]

1537 Dispatched to a Cardiac Call
R2 (light rescue) w/1, Brush truck (from mobile service) w/1, Command 1 w/Deputy Chief and Medic 3 responds.

4 vehicles on the road for a cardiac call? To get what? 4 guys? Ridiculous and increases your risk of an accident with 4 vehicles responding emergency.

1540 Brush Fire w/Possible Structural Involvement in northern end of district.
Engine 1 & Rescue 1 (from Central) w/ 1 each. Engine 5 and Engine 4 (from 2 closest vollie stations) w/ 1 each and Brush 1 (from cardiac scene responds).
R2 stays at cardiac scene. Chief roll from cardiac Scene 2 minutes later.
E5 reports small shed and 1/4 acre of brush. Has E4, B1 and R1 continue. Chief continues.
Cancels E1.

6 vehicles responding to get you 6 people? For the love of god man...how stupid is that? you would be better off with 2 rigs with 3 a piece. At least you would companies ready to go to work. Instead of 6 vehicles running emergency to get only 6 people on scene.



1546 E1 back in house.

1547 Gas leak 1/2 mile from station.
E1 arrives. 1" gas line severed by a state mowing crew. 100' off road.

Again with 1 person.

1549 Reported overdose, pt. not breathing.
R2 w/ 1 EMT released from cardiac scene. R1 w/ paramedic released from fire 5 miles away. E1 turns gas leak over to sheriff department.

2 vehicles 2 get 2 people for an ems call. Genius.

1550 2-car MVA I-20.
Vollie paramedic radios he is in the area. R2 continues to OD. R1 redirected to I-20. E1 redirected to I-20.
I arrive in E1 to find a heavily damaged car which ran into a truck at speed. Helicopter called for. Nearest medic unti 10 minutes out. EMS supervisor arrives 2 minutes later. It's him and me for 9 minutes until E3 (vollie house) arrives w/ 2 and begins extrication. Driver crashing fast, Chopper goes to wrong location on interstate. R1 arrives.

5 vehicles to get 6 people on scene...BRILLIANT.

Driver ended up coding in the chopper.

Was a very unusual 20 minutes for us.

Ridiculous is more like it. All those vehicles to get one person each to most of your scenes. The more vehicles you put on the road the more likely your chance of a mishap. You would think YOU would know that.

[Dickey]

Maybe they just wanted to get all the trucks to the scene??

But there is the issue of having enough manpower to run all that equipment.



Doesn't make sense to me either but again, lots of what they do don't make sense.

[LaFireEducator]

FFyred ...

You have to remember that the primary purpose of our paid staff is not incident response. Our volunteers are primarily responsible for response. It is maintenance. The brush truck was at the outlying stations spraying weedkiller with one line firefighter and the light rescue was painting hydrants with the other.

In fact. it's quite common for us to handle minor incidents with a vollie-only response so we can keep the full-time guys on task.

I was in the office handling admin and the Chief was out in the district. It's unusual that we are both there at the same time.

It is very uncommon that they stay together as a "company" during the day as we simply have too many maintenance tasks to keep them together.

Generally, we'll have several volunteers around the station and if possible, we'll send folks out in 2 man teams to handle these jobs, so we essentially do operate with 2-man companies, but yesterday all the vollies had taken off before hell broke loose.

In fact, they were at their stations and they got the 3 vollie-house engines up.

Our vollies go to the scene POV, unless they are drivers due to the size of the district.

As a rule, engines from the vollie houses go driver-only.

[FWDbuff]

Doesn't make sense to me either but again, lots of what they do don't make sense.

I make a motion, that from now on, we refer to Bossier Parish as...


BIZARRO PARRISH!

[Bones42]

...You have to remember that the primary purpose of our paid staff is not incident response. ...

Interesting. First time I have ever seen that the primary purpose of a paid FF is NOT incident responses.

[NewHampshireFF]

Interesting. First time I have ever seen that the primary purpose of a paid FF is NOT incident responses.

Actually, that's quite common. A lot of the smaller "combo" departments in my area are really volunteer fire departments with paid maintenance staff/drivers.

[LaFireEducator]

Bones ...

Though we have paid personnel, thier primary role is to support the volunteer operation.

During the day it's not uncommon to have 3-6 volunteers riding out at the station plus another 4-5 available in the district. We will often send the volunteers on a routine medical run with the medic unit. If it's cardiac, likley significant trauma or respitory in nature, where it's likely a 3rd paramedic (2 of our 3 shift firefighters are paramedics) will be required, we will send the on-duty firefighter/paramedic. If one of the volunteers at the station is a paramedic (not uncommon), he will go instead of the on-duty firefighter.

We beleive that using our volunteers as much as possible on runs is one of the reasons why we keep so many. They are very involved in the operation rather than supplementing the operation. They know that we trust them just as much to mhandle emergencies as the paid members. They know that if they hang out at the station they will go on runs and be an intergral part of what we do.

Truck, equipment and station maintainence, hydrant testing/maintainence, hose testing, data entry and other such tasks are the primary functions of both the 24 hour shift firefighter and the part-time day firefighters.

The primary purpose of the paid personnel is to handle the maintainence and administrative tasks required by the rating folks.

I rarely run on calls, unless it's a fire or serious MVA. My job is primarily the development, management and delivery of the public education program and a large chunk of the training program, in addition to preplanning, recruiting/retention and some other duties.

[jakesdad]

Be thankful the use of a portable ground ladder wasn't required.

[Bones42]

I rarely run on calls, unless it's a fire or serious MVA. My job is primarily the development, management and delivery of the public education program and a large chunk of the training program, in addition to preplanning, recruiting/retention and some other duties.

No offense intended...but I have a hard time with getting my training developed by people that don't run calls. Pub Ed, recruiting, preplanning...that's fine.

[LaFireEducator]

No offense intended...but I have a hard time with getting my training developed by people that don't run calls

What about fulltime instructors at fire academies?

The instructors at our neighboring two-fulltime academies don't run calls.

I don't need to run on the minor stuff as we have plenty of volunteers. I spend that time in the office dealing with the admin, paperwork and development side of training. I do have to run on structure and brush fires, at depending on manpower, vehicle fires. Also on what sounds like serious MVAs, and periodically serious EMS calls if we are shorthanded that day.

[jakesdad]

I don't need to run on the minor stuff as we have plenty of volunteers. I spend that time in the office dealing with the admin, paperwork and development side of training. I do have to run on structure and brush fires, at depending on manpower, vehicle fires. Also on what sounds like serious MVAs, and periodically serious EMS calls if we are shorthanded that day.

Which is precisely how you have a fire department that considers raising a portable ground ladder an advanced skill.

It seems as though you also spend quite a bit of your work day on the internet.

As someone who works in what YOU described as an "EMS service that goes to fires every now and then", and someone who doesn't even go on runs, exactly what experience and credibility are you bringing to the table when you attempt to "teach"?

[hwoods]

Guys, Regardless of our personal likes and dislikes, this department is providing service in the best manner that it can, CONSIDERING THEIR SITUATION. Is there a better way? Sure, there always is. BUT, what is that district's residents willing to pay for, in order to get that "better way"?.

Reading the many and varied posts from Bossier Parish that have found their way onto this forum over the last few years, I get a picture of an area that has little in the way of resources. A Shotgun house isn't appraised as worth much, and that's a lot of their dwellings down that way. Lack of high paying (usually Union) jobs means not a lot of income Tax, and consumer spending is relegated to essentials.

My Point? I'm not being hard on the way they operate, since funding a better way just isn't in the cards..........

[jakesdad]

Guys, Regardless of our personal likes and dislikes, this department is providing service in the best manner that it can, CONSIDERING THEIR SITUATION. Is there a better way? Sure, there always is. BUT, what is that district's residents willing to pay for, in order to get that "better way"?.

Reading the many and varied posts from Bossier Parish that have found their way onto this forum over the last few years, I get a picture of an area that has little in the way of resources. A Shotgun house isn't appraised as worth much, and that's a lot of their dwellings down that way. Lack of high paying (usually Union) jobs means not a lot of income Tax, and consumer spending is relegated to essentials.

My Point? I'm not being hard on the way they operate, since funding a better way just isn't in the cards..........

I think many people on here truly understand the disadvantages of a small, rural fire department when it comes to apparatus, staffing and manpower.

But I believe that many people on here also believe that your geography should not come into play with regards to your professionalism or your desire to help others. Nor should that dictate whether or not civilian lives are valuable or not. Or who is worth searching for and who isn't.

One's geogpraphy should not be considered a catch-all excuse to not understand basic firefighting concepts, especially when that individual repeatedly uses their location as an excuse not to know or do something yet is highly critical of those that perform this job the way their geography DEMANDS.

I think that is the striking difference, as there are many, many firefighters that come from similar demographic and geogpraphic conditions that DO NOT use it as an excuse to not understand basics.

[NewHampshireFF]

I think many people on here truly understand the disadvantages of a small, rural fire department when it comes to apparatus, staffing and manpower.

But I believe that many people on here also believe that your geography should not come into play with regards to your professionalism or your desire to help others. Nor should that dictate whether or not civilian lives are valuable or not. Or who is worth searching for and who isn't.

One's geogpraphy should not be considered a catch-all excuse to not understand basic firefighting concepts, especially when that individual repeatedly uses their location as an excuse not to know or do something yet is highly critical of those that perform this job the way their geography DEMANDS.

I think that is the striking difference, as there are many, many firefighters that come from similar demographic and geogpraphic conditions that DO NOT use it as an excuse to not understand basics.

Everything you say is true. And not relevent to the thread.

Just because LA has posted some objectionable things in other threads is no reason to drag them into this thread.

Just because he's wrong about most things doesn't mean he is wrong about everything.

[jakesdad]

Everything you say is true. And not relevent to the thread.

Just because LA has posted some objectionable things in other threads is no reason to drag them into this thread.

Just because he's wrong about most things doesn't mean he is wrong about everything.

But YOUR post IS relavant to the thread?

I am pointing out why so many on here object to what a particular poster has to say, both in THIS thread as well as others and explaining why what he says is met with such skepticism.

What is it that you are doing exactly?

[NewHampshireFF]

But YOUR post IS relavant to the thread?

I am pointing out why so many on here object to what a particular poster has to say, both in THIS thread as well as others and explaining why what he says is met with such skepticism.

What is it that you are doing exactly?

I think it's pretty clear. I'm pointing out that you are being an *****. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn't realize it.

Why do we need to bring past disagreements with the guy into an innocuous thread about a busy day?

[LaFireEducator]

It's just jakes being ..... well, jakes.

But I believe that many people on here also believe that your geography should not come into play with regards to your professionalism or your desire to help others. Nor should that dictate whether or not civilian lives are valuable or not. Or who is worth searching for and who isn't.

Not going to get into this again. And where exactly did I say that some lives were not "worth" searching for?

Jakes, you really need to get rid off your hang up about this search crap.

[SPFDRum]

If that's the way Lafires district choses to respond, I'm fine with it. Agree or disagree, well that's a mute point. Could it be a little more efficient, on face value, that's how it appears. But I'm not there. Thank God.

[LaFireEducator]

As I said, most of the time we send personnel out in pairs in the 2 door trucks to accomplish maintainence tasks such as hydrant testing/painting and vollie station and apparatus maintainence.

Yesterday, we were shorthanded volunteers at the station and had maintainece that had to be done to stay on schedule for the week.

And usually, there are more than 2 folks around the station, however, when these runs came in both the rescue and engine needed to respond to the fire, so they each went driver-only.