Emergency vs. Rescue?

[fishrdan]

Re: Emergency vs. Rescue?

If you call EMS, they send a full blown fire engine (six guys) plus the EMS team (at least two), on another truck. By the way, the EMS folks are almost ALWAYS about 100% overweight.

What's with that?

Same thing here, talk about wasteful...

 

[eastont]

Re: Emergency vs. Rescue?

I was on a business trip in Montreal Canada a few years ago and noticed their fire trucks driving up and down city streets at night, no lights on and in no hurry. A local said that they do that rather than just sit in the station and wait for a fire. They go out looking for one.

This was prior to $3 a gallon diesel though, I wonder if that's still policy?

Diesel fuel is well over $4 a gallon theses days.
They might have been out and about because of the rash of fire bombings of Italian Cafes and bakeries that's been going on lately. I guess the thought is that if the bombers see them around they might as well not try because the damage would be minor if it's caught early......
The police don't know if it's the Mafia or street gangs.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Emergency vs. Rescue?

Guys there is another side to this sad story of the person who's house burned down, in fact you see it all over the midwest rural areas. The fact of the matter is that Fire department Levy's or Property tax fees are decided by the residents themselves, if they want better service all they have to do is vote to increase the tax or levy and blamo if they chose no then blamo blamo. We have an entire county here in Colorado that is contemplating going belly up because the residents (as well as corrupt commissioners) cannot seem to realize that the reason why there sheriff/fire services are horrible is because of the reason they moved there in the first place EXTREMELY LOW TAXES. The County is not a farming hot spot its simply a place where suburbanites want to escape the city and the taxes and lose sight of the fact that taxes pay for certain services they take for granted. Fire and police services are incredibly expensive, check insurance rates for volunteer versus full time paid firefighters, maybe you should sit down as well. I am in no way trying to say that volunteer firefighters suck because they don't but they rarely man the firestations, normally they get a page to report, drive from their home to the fire station jump in a truck and then respond, typically response time is double a full time stations response time of 4-5 minutes, if your attempting to stop a house fire thats more then enough to lose the house. I understand the ideology of living in rural america however if you want police and fire services then you have to pay for it, if they say they need the money to effectively respond its a no brainer.

I had also heard that the insurance company denied this mans claim for the loss of his house due to the fact that he did not pay for his fire service.

 

[aspeck]

Re: Emergency vs. Rescue?

Responding to the fire that the fire fighters were not allowed to put out ...

As a volunteer in the Fire Service, I understand how hard that would be for the responding fire fighters. We are trained (and look forward) to put out fires. It goes against everything that is in us to sit back and watch. I understand the gov response ... if he gets fire protection and hasn't paid, then what is the incentive to pay ... but it all just seems so wrong.

Responding to DJ about sending out everything ...

That is a difference between rural and "less rural". Here in rural areas, each department has to have an ambulance, and if not, then at least a "Quick Response" unit to stablize a patient till an ambulance arrives. So if my neighbor get's sick, we have a Quick Response Truck (Ford F-350 with a box on back for supplies) that will arrive first. Our job is to get info and stabilze the patient till the ambulance can arrive.

In cities, there are ambulance services all around. But you never know the availability till they are called. So the fire service sends out a truck that is equipped with paramedic, or at least EMT and medical supplies for stabilization. This is a paid service, so the crew always stays with the rig. Could they handle the call with a driver and medic? Yes, but what happens when they are returning and they get called to a structure fire? Do you want them to return to the station to pick up the rest of the crew?

It is not so much for the present call, but to be ready for the NEXT call, whenever it may be. Our small fire company gets about 350 calls per year. Over the course of a year there are at least 3 - 5 calls that come as we are returning from another call. Doesn't sound like much, but if you are one of those 3 - 5 calls, you want us to be ready, not have to go back to the station and get a different piece of apparatus and additional crew members. You want us to be able to respond from our present position.

A fire doubles in size every minute, so each minute of response time is crutial. We are a volunteer service with no on station staff and we average about a 4 minute response time, something we are proud of. A recent call we commented we were on scene 3 1/2 minutes after dispatch ... not bad for a group of guys and gals that had to leave homes and jobs to get to the station. That was a 4 person crew, btw.

Firefighters are proud of what they do, and they do it because they believe they are doing something to help others. This is why I have a hard time with watching the trailer burn ... I just don't know if I could do that!

 

[Fly Rod]

Re: Emergency vs. Rescue?

He is a dead beat. He paid the 75 bucks before and decided he was not going to pay anymore. Well, he got caught. News media gets a hold of story and wants to make a big deal of the situation.

It happens all over the country where you have small townships, it happened in Maine one year while hunting there.Drove by a house that had burnt to the ground during the night, asked my friend who is a volunteer and he said that the owners did not pay their share. I couldn't believe that they would just let it burn, but they did.

Can you imagine as your house burns fireman says, "Can I see your receipt that you paid for fire protection?"