Public Safety Officer

My neighboring department is going to PSO. They have only 3 or 4 firefighters on duty per day. The city will no longer hire only firefighters, they have to be crossed trained as police and firefighters.
How do I count these PSO's? The way I see it, they have a total of 12 full time firefighters with what ever PSO officers to suppliment them. These PSO I believe should be counted as a part time or volenteer not as a full time firefighter. This is because, even with these PSO working their police shift, they are not always available to respond to a fire call. They could be held up on some kind of police matter.
I have not seen anything in the guadiance about this newer type of department.
I have received mixed responces from AFG.
What are your thoughts?

If you use the definition in the SAFER application, any active firefighter is defined as "An individual having the legal authority and responsibility to engage in fire suppression; being employed by a fire department of a municipality, county, or fire district; being engaged in the prevention, control, and extinguishing of fires; and/or responding to emergency situations in which life, property, or the environment is at risk. This individual must be trained in fire suppression, but may also be trained in emergency medical care, hazardous materials awareness, rescue techniques, and any other related duties provided by the fire department."

Using your consideration that the firefighters may not be available to respond, it's no different than a volunteer who may not be able to respond at the time of an alarm; still have them on the roster.

Would run that past Helpdesk either way, but have to agree with Sly they get counted but which category is the fun part. POC/Reserve could be since they aren't scheduled to be on the truck but on the clock when they are responding to FD calls. Technically they are career since they're paid to be available, and like any other FD, there are always other calls that prevent anyone on shift from responding to a specific one. There are others already in that situation so I'm sure they'll have something already defined.

This is my whole problem, I have gotten different answers from different people in AFG. I know that they still count as firefighters, but the question is what category do I put them in. When they work, they are out in the patrol cars and may not be avaliable due to a police matter (car pulled over, holdup alarm, eating doughnuts, ect) or just not make themselves available. I have seen this in other PSO departments.
This department relies greatly on mutial aid from my department and another.
As I said I feel that they should be counted as part time or poc.
I'll still take any help that I can get. I just want to be able to put down an accurate and correct number for AFG.

I think the only major issue you'd have is for a SAFER application; for AFG every firefighter on the roster would count.

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Originally Posted by SLY4420

I think the only major issue you'd have is for a SAFER application; for AFG every firefighter on the roster would count.

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They still ask how many "full time Firefighters" and POC/Volunteer firefighters you have on the regionals. I feel that I can not put them as full time because they are not at the station readily available.

The number of FFs on the roster shouldn't drastically affect your scoring, but remember that turnout gear and such is limited to the amount of FFs on the roster.

On a Regional application the only questions I'm aware of are:

How many active members are trained to Firefighter I?
How many active members are trained to Firefighter II?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SLY4420

The number of FFs on the roster shouldn't drastically affect your scoring, but remember that turnout gear and such is limited to the amount of FFs on the roster.

On a Regional application the only questions I'm aware of are:

How many active members are trained to Firefighter I?
How many active members are trained to Firefighter II?

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Had to look at last years app, it does ask % of members that are career firefighters and total membership of region.
Then it went into Firefighter I and FF II, ALS, Bls and so on.

Ron call Cathy Patterson or Kevin Piatt in DC and ask them; get it from the horse's mouth.