Special Call Meeting

There will be a special call meeting tonight Thursday, January 26th @ 7:00 to discuss our current issues.

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Support Keith Andes

I know its extremely short notice for those who didn't receive Presdient Andes email last night but he will be speaking to the safety committee today @ 5:00pm at the police training building located at 1202 West Graham Road, Richmond, VA. If you can please be there to show your support.

Standing Room Only

Thanks to the 46 Union Members that came out the the meeting! Also welcome the new members we gained! Great showing! Keep up with the support!

Sorry for the downtime

Sorry for the unscheduled down time. We had some coding errors that took some time to be restored. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Union Meeting Tonight

Just a reminder there will be a Union meeting tonight @ 7:00 at the Union Hall. There will also be someone from Fitch and Associates there to answer any more questions you might have. Please attend to voice your opinions. 

Union Hall is located at:

   2302 West Main St. Richmond VA 23233

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Chief Thomas Pay Differential

We have recently heard that Chief Thomas is receiving a 10% pay differential now that she has become the executive officer. We are wondering how when no one city wide has gotten a pay raise she is entitled to a pay differential. The city defines it as

Differentials – Additional compensation for specific duties, which have specifically been provided for by the City’s Pay Ordinance.

She was hired as the ESU chief and has since been replaced. Therefore we cannot see how Chief Thomas is preforming additional duties which would grant her additional compensation.

Anyone have any answer to how this is justified?

Report Audits

We are really glad we are starting to receive a lot of email from our followers. Here is another issue sent to us. Maybe someone will listen to these firefighters, they seem to make some sense.

Some of you may not be aware of the fact that our fire fighters are being taxed with the task of auditing fire and EMS reports that our officer's cannot complete correctly. We are sending the fire fighters, not the officer's, to training on how to correctly fill out reports. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't our administration promote the most highly qualified individuals to lead our department? Why can't they correctly complete a report? How are they training their fire fighters to be an acting officer? There is nothing better to hear everyday from the battalion chief than "Have my reports been audited yet?" Not to mention that many of the auditors are at some of the busiest stations. So, between running calls, training, doing centrelearn, and RAPIDS it may be 7:00 at night before there is a chance to even look at the reports. I know you folks down at 201 are at home enjoying time with your families at this time, so this may be difficult for you to understand. To the operations and training staff. Why have our highly qualified leaders not been sent to training on proper reporting. Why are we taxing our fire fighters with this responsibility? If anyone has the facts, please enlighten us.  

A "Giant" Problem

We received this email a few days ago, thanks for the tips fellas.

"To 411,

Recently we took a trip to the radio shop and while we were there had a chance to see two of the new trucks. We were able to take the grand tour and if you take into account that they are quints, the concept, the extremely high price tag and the constraints placed on the individuals spec’ing them, they came out good.  No wasted space and very user friendly.  I can honestly say that the individuals took their time and it shows.  One item that was par for our recent course and not a decision of the committee was found in the rear compartment of the 105’ quint.  A Little Giant Ladder now occupies the space of the stokes basket.  This ladder has absolutely no place on a fire ground and was described as being purchased for smoke detector installations.  If you remember these ladders were first purchased for the RFD midi pumpers because after we purchased them we remembered that ladders are an integral part of our job, but normal firefighting ladders were too big for the newly purchased “pick-up” engines.  The space on the quints is limited and the purchase of a ladder made famous by infomercials, is just another example of the complete separation between the Fire Chief and operations.  This open space could have housed another 24 ft. NFPA approved ladder for fire ground operations.  A 3 ft. Lowe's step ladder purchased for $39 would have sufficed for smoke detectors and taken up a lot less space.  I know this may sound like a small issue but it is just one more example of the bigger problem.  We need more focus placed on firefighting operations and less on gizmos and gadgets.  Also on the 75’ they took up an entire compartment until the  apparatus committee (people in operations) caught it and tucked it under the aerial in some unused space.  No more “industry pioneering” gadgets please.  Take the new ladders and store them next to the Segway’s that never get used and replace them with a 24 ft. ladder that may save someone’s life one day. Just a comment I thought you might be interested in.  Thank you for keeping this site professional and giving firefighters a way to be heard. "

The road less traveled

One major complaint we have been hearing about the Quints are their size. The Quints in many districts are too long to make turns down the narrow city streets. Richmond Fire has know this since the first ones were purchased, but the newly ordered Quints are the same size. Some of these issues have been addressed by updating the computer aided dispatch to inform companies of "Quint restricted addresses", many of which are in the Windsor Farms area. But doesn't that change the total quint concept? Are some citizens getting a different level of service? The fire chief has refused to listen to us on this issue, so people here is your chance. Tell us what streets in your district your Quint can't assess. 

By the numbers

Below you will find the maintenance cost for the current fleet over the past 12 years. In comparison all the engines and FRVs cost the taxpayers $2,071,335. On the other hand the Quints, which are 10 years* newer than the engines cost $5,840,698.

Newer is a very relative term. Our oldest engine that is still in service was purchased in 1989 and is used by the fire training academy. The newest front line engine still responding to calls is Engine 25 which was purchased in 1992.

The oldest quint was purchased in 1996, and is Quint 14. Quint 14 is completely different than all other Quints. Quint 14 was an experimental project before the city bought all  Pierce Quints, and decided to go with the complete Quint concept in 1998. During this purchase the fire department bought 18 new Quints.

So trucks that were purchased 4 years prior to buying the Quints are still responding to emergencies to our citizens and are also relied on as replacement apparatus or when a Quint goes out on repair. These are costing the taxpayers $3,769,363 less to maintain. How much more are the new Quints going to cost in maintenance cost over new engines?

The rescue engine experiment

We've had the Quint concept. Now we are working with a rescue engine experiment. RFD is buying a rescue engine with no real plan on where its going or what it is going to do. It seems if its going to be a bandaid for whatever rescue piece is out of service or provide 24 with another piece to jump on based on the call.In other words spending $750,000 on something we don't have any plan for? Whats your thoughts?

Union Meeting

Local 995 Union Meeting

January 19th 2012

7:00pm

Please attended as we have a lot to discuss for this new year.

Urgent! Close Call in Richmond

This story is still in very early stages but we wanted to get it posted so we can see what we can gather. We seemed to have a close call regarding the dive team which was operating near Dock St. for a car that had gone into the river. It appears that while operating at the scene the underwater communication system either malfunctioned or wasn't working properly. During the search operation one diver to become entangled and had no way to alert the other members that he was in trouble. After several minutes a second diver was sent in and found the entangled diver and assisted him on getting out of the water.



If you have full details of this please email us @ 804v201@gmail.com

Wasteful Spending

Wasteful spending is a very common term in the media. However we would consider the new mattress covers pretty wasteful spending.  Several months after we got our new mattresses, we got these mattress covers  from Bed Bath and Beyond for about 6 dollars a pop. No explanation, no reasoning. Just one day Utility 5 shows up with these.

$6 dollars and ~150 beds equals = $900

900 dollars for something that will not be used! Why on earth did we buy these? Anyone got any info? Couldn't we have gotten some more T-shirts with this? Maybe done something a little more useful with this money? Maybe something pertaining to firefighting?

Just what is a Quint anyway?

We have received a lot of emails from people outside the fire department confused about what exactly a Quint is or does.  


Lets define fire apparatus...


Fire engine- A fire engine is a piece of equipment that serves the purpose of providing water and hose lines. The main job of the engine company is to extinguish the fire.

Fire truck - A fire truck is a piece of equipment that serves the purpose of ventilating a fire, forcing entry to the property for the engine company and searching for victims of a fire.

Notice: No hose or pump. The truck company is a specialized job which requires years to master.

Rescue truck - In a traditional department, the rescue is a speciality piece which provides specialty operations, including vehicle extrication, dive/swift water rescue, high angle/trench rescue and hazmat operations.

In Richmond we currently run a Quint concept. A Quint is called a Quint because it can do five things

• Deploy a 75 to 105 Foot Aerial Ladder
• Pump water
• Carry hoses
• Carry a booster tank
• Carry ground ladders

The Quint concept was designed for the city as a cost saving measure by merging a traditional fire engine and fire truck as one piece. In theory you would always have the same piece of equipment responding to you for whatever emergency you have.

Notice the ladder on top with pump and hose.

In Richmond if there is a structure fire reported you will get: 5 Quints, 1 Rescue and 2 Battalion Chiefs.

In a traditional department if there is a structure fire reported you will get: 4 or 5 Engines, 1 or 2 Trucks and 1 or 2 Battalion Chiefs. (Response models vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.)

Some draw backs to this concept are:

• Quints are expensive, costing $200,000- $300,000 dollars more than other apparatus. 
• Quints are large. In order for one piece to do two jobs, the piece needs to be much longer than a regular fire engine to hold the pump, water tank and ladders.
• Quint have a large repair cost to them. Simply to more stuff on a piece the more than can break and go wrong.
• Quints are heavy and are city streets are terrible. Station 5 in the city is the busiest with about 3,800 calls for service annually. This a tremendous amount of wear and tear to place on such a large unit.
• Quints make you a jack of all trade and a master of none. Firefighters usually move to a truck company after several years of service studying and mastering the job a truck company does. In Richmond you just become the truck company based on what order you are dispatched to a call.

The topic of the Quint concept is a tremendously large and heavily debated topic and is impossible to cover in one post. Hopefully this gave you a decent understanding on what a Quint is. If you have any questions please post them and we are sure you will be helped.

Hey we have these!

Looks like we aren't the only ones having problems. Quick recovery and prayers go out to our brother FF. O'Neal.

TULSA, Oklahoma - The Tulsa Fire Department is investigating how a firefighter was injured fighting a New Year's Eve fire that was intentionally set.
The department is looking into whether his breathing apparatus malfunctioned.

01/01/2012 Related Story: Tulsa Firefighter Injured, Brought Back To Life In Arson

James O'Neal was nearly killed but brought back to life at the scene of that fire and he'll be in the hospital for several more days.

O'Neal was the one who kicked down the door of a burning house in North Tulsa. He began search and rescue, when suddenly he needed those very things from his fellow firefighters.

Moments after that call for help, firefighters found the 35-year-old without a pulse and not breathing. Life support crews were able to revive the veteran firefighter.

O'Neal was breathing smoke - instead of air - and the Tulsa fire department is trying to figure out why.

"This is our SCBA unit, which stands for Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus," said Tulsa Firefighter Stan May, who demonstrated the device that gives you thirty minutes of breathable air.

"The mask is designed to withstand about 1200 or 1300 degrees," Stan May said.

A tube that locks into place on the mask is the focus of TFD's investigation.

"We're trying to see if maybe one of the locks broke or why it came loose or if that's even the piece that came loose," Stan May said.

O'Neals' mask was losing air and sounded like this when firefighters found him.

"Of course he could have caught in on something and pulled it off, then had to put it back on while he was in there, which was enough time to breathe in enough smoke that knocked him out," May said.

The department plans to tear apart O'Neal's mask to piece together what happened.

O'Neal was still in intensive care as of Tuesday night, but he's off a ventilator and has been able to talk with his family.

If you know who set the fire, call 918-596-2776. Your tip could earn you a $3,500 cash reward.

The line has been crossed!

A decision has been made that is a blatant disregard for your safety as well as the safety of our citizens.  New thermal imaging cameras scheduled to be delivered with the 7 new pieces of equipment have been cancelled.  A critical tool being used industry wide to assist in locating civilians as well as firefighters trapped and or lost within a building fire.  Currently a company without a thermal imager is left to crawling around in complete darkness assisted only by their sense of touch and sound.  For those of you not familiar with this, turn your lights off one night and see how long it takes you to get around your own bedroom.  Now imagine a room you have never entered, seen the layout of, know the dimensions of and add temperatures reaching 1200 degrees or more.
Advances in technology have placed thermal imaging cameras in the hands of fire fighters around the world.  These cameras allow a fire fighter to view a clear picture of a room allowing for a faster, smoother search pattern and in some cases an exact location of a downed civilian or firefighter.  At current the City of Richmond does have some companies equipped with these cameras.  However for years we have been asking the Chief to equip all apparatus, but have been met with excuses of budgetary constraints.  Well now that we were taking a step towards providing all of our fire fighters with this invaluable piece of equipment to life safety, it has been dropped from the equipment list due to budgetary reasons.  As you will see this money was needed elsewhere in the apparatus purchase.
 Now, what do you think directly affects our safety and survival more, a thermal imager or a Zoll Road safety system used to track driving behaviors?  Yes, after the cameras were dropped the Chief approved the allocation of funds for the Zoll system.  Reason being there will now be a way to track driving habits to assist in reducing wear and tear, modify current driving behaviors and assist in providing statistics for a disciplinary system as it relates to driving.  What has greater value…Brake Pads or human life?

Coming Soon!

Wish we knew how much these cost or how we are going to be disciplined for our driving infractions. But here is a nice coming attraction to the Zoll system.

Cost v. Effectiveness

Here are some interesting numbers: 

Pierce 105’ Quint aerial - $961,438.74 fully equipped 

Pierce 75’ Quint aerial - $881,893.20 fully equipped 

Pierce Engine - $606,514.33 fully equipped (This includes approx. $40,000+ for CAFS +18” more wheelbase on the engine) 

105' Quint costs $354,924.41 more than the engine.

75’ Quint costs $275,378.87 more than the engine.

The interesting thing is the department's stance is to keep working with the Quint concept and the dual fleet. At this point the department is planning on buying both 20 quints and 20 engines.

Assuming today’s prices this means the total cost of replacement:

(4) 105’ Quints: $3,845,754.96

(14) 75’ Quints: $12,346,504.80

(20) Engines: $12,130,286.60

Total for a dual fleet over several years: $28,322,546.36 * ** ***

(*Prices do not include Quint 5 or Quint 13 because they are platforms and we have no data on what will occur with those trucks. However if they are replaced with two more towers, add another two to three million dollars to this estimate.)

(**Prices do not include three heavy rescue trucks)

(*** Prices do not include the rescue pumper experiment…man, this is getting expensive)

The reasons for the dual fleet system has been numerous. First the remaining old engines were to be used as reserves for the new quints which were purchased. Second we were supposed to take them on EMS calls to help reduce the wear and tear of the Quints from all the runs those heavy trucks were responding to. But anyway you look at it, you have a 500,000 dollar to 1,000,000 dollar piece of equipment with no one to staff it when the main truck is on a call.

Let’s look at Henrico for a comparison of traditional system response versus a total quint concept. Henrico is running 20 engines, 5 trucks and 3 specialty rescues. They do this in a county that is 238 square miles versus the 60 square miles of Richmond.

If we apply the traditional model to Richmond, and even assume we kept 5 truck companies as Quints, we would see this:

(5) 105’ Quints: $4,807,193.70

(20) Engines: $12,130,286.60

Total: $16,937,479.70

A savings of $11,385,066.66

As a tax paying citizen of Richmond I would like to ask “is this is a good decision especially in these tough economic times?”

Happy New Year

I for one welcome our new zoll overlords