Vivi Posted January 17, 2014 Posted January 17, 2014 Yo - Does anyone knows any other firefighter "reality show" like Fire 000? Unfortunately only a few episodes were made of that, and i am wondering if there is any other series i dont know about. For those who dont know it, its basically like Cops but with firefighters (obviously ). Not talking about stuff like Rescue Me and Chicago Fire. Any idea is appreciated
AKM Posted January 17, 2014 Posted January 17, 2014 I'm going to go out on a limb here. As a firefighter, I call tell you first hand, the reality beats watching some show on TV. Best solution? Join your local volunteer FD. It's an awsome experience, for the most part. Sorry, can't help you with the show(s) name(s). Too busy doing it!
Vivi Posted January 19, 2014 Author Posted January 19, 2014 I'd trust me, if it weren't for the conditions in my country :/ nearly every firefighter here must get a secondary job, otherwise he (oh yeah women cant be firefighters here) simply doesn't earn enough for a living, especially if he has a family. Which is ridiculous, since they are risking their lives like every day for gods sake. They get no gear, no respect and they are bossed around by an organization called "catastrophe protection", which is controlled by ppl who (as far as i know) never been firefighters and basically don't know shit about it. Oh and the best is that they changed the law not long ago and now there is not possible for them to retire after 25 years of service (i heard after 25 years of action your body is pretty much destroyed, but now they keeping them in service because not many wants to be FF due to all of this...). I wanted to join the volunteers as a workaround but unfortunately my town doesn't have its own fire dept which means no volunteer option here... which sucks :/
AKM Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 Wow. That does stink. The fire service here certainly doesn't get the respect it used to. "Big truck with flashing lights and noise? What? Duhhhh....." Also the businesses no longer let volunteer people leave for fires. No community support in that way, for sure. Hence why ours has been talking with the town for several years about the question of when (not if) they'll have to supplement the volunteers with a few professionals. (A model that's becoming more frequent across the country, volunteerism in general is in decline.) They're lucky though, in that we have a really close working relationship with the closest town's FD. We regularly respond to each other's fires and hence rarely have a manpower shortage when we really need it. You're right about it being rough on the body. Fortunately, in this country, there are some really good deals if you go professional. (Wish I'd stayed the course with that. Oh well.) Examples would be 12 and 24 hour shifts in some places. Three sets of 24 on/off and then 72 off isn't uncommon. Makes it really easy to get a second job to "supplement" a not unsubstantial income (most places start out around $30,000 a year and go up fairly quickly). The best part is that some (note, I said "some") places don't require that you live in the city you work for. Makes it great for taking your money elsewhere where it has more buying power. (With 24s, you can even justify a 2-3 hour drive to live in a place you want to live, too.) I've heard of professionals that push $80-100,000 a year with their second job. Not a bad living if you can make it work.
Vivi Posted January 22, 2014 Author Posted January 22, 2014 Not sure about the shifts here, i think its similar to what you mentioned (i guess its like that everywhere), thats how they can take on multiple jobs. The wages here, well hard to compare due to different countries and conditions etc, the starter FF wage is around $400-450 per month (i am serious, thats what they take home). So yeah, it does stink >.< its a real shame that it has come to this Oh well, at least rainbows are cool
AKM Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 $400-450 per month? That can't possibly be a livable wage! And for all the recurrent training and risk involved? Good Lord. They do make nice rainbows, though. Hope they didn't charge the guys out of pocket for it. I am a bit surprised to see such a nice truck. Maybe they spend all the money on the apparatus and don't leave any for the crews? I've read some pretty stunning reports about that sort of thing. Basically it's (paraphrase) "Fire is an event that is going to happen, regardless. The community management know this. How much they are willing to put into manpower (and equipment), is a direct link to exactly how much they value their community". That came from an article about the trend toward, I forget what they call it, but it's essentially "multi-responders". People who are cross trained as police/fire/EMS. The idea is that by having one person do all three jobs, you eliminate two jobs and the costs that come with them. Sounds great in theory from a community manager (not leader) standpoint, but the reality is ugly. Basically what happens is that you have your paid person(s) show up at a fire in an understaffed vehicle and hope that a few volunteers show up to pick up the slack. As the article stated (paraphrase) "You know what needs to be done. (Long list of what needs doing at a fire scene). If you're the only one there, you can do most of those tasks. What you can't do, is expect to do any of them in a timely manner. Fact is, by the time you get water to your handline(s) to go in (which you're not going to do all by yourself, are you?), there won't be enough building left to save, and it'll be time to shut that down and go to the deck gun to drown it from the outside. [This is the U.S., where interior firefighting is a given, unlike what I've read about Europe. I can tell by the helmet design, and the truck that the picture is from Europe. Different designs for different applications.] By going with the one man band approach, the managers are accepting the fact that they'll not be actively suppressing a fire, and the best they can hope for is to prevent it from taking more than one building. " If you have a major disaster, it's even worse. Who's providing police and medical help while Mr. One Man Band is containing the fire to one building? Unfortunately, like the management in my county, all they see is the dollar signs. They ignore the fact that increased population is going to need increased infrastructure. We've recently had talks about crosswalks on a major highway. They won't spend the money on elevated walk bridges, either, and refuse to listen to the experts about the fact that crosswalks mean diddly squat (this is the U.S., not Germany), and lowering the speed limit (that people ignore now) won't mean any more than that. In fact, it will result in more pedestrian deaths, not less.
Vivi Posted January 23, 2014 Author Posted January 23, 2014 Ouch, well ignoring the experts seems to be pretty common nowadays. Lets buy some expensive Renault firetruck (instead of asking some veteran firefighter) which is actually a piece of shit and spends more time at the service station getting repaired than in actualy service, but hey, we bought them a truck so now they cant say we are not supporting them. Thats "catastrophe protection" for you (or "defense against catastrophe", not sure how to translate that exactly, but doesnt matter, you get the point). We got a very good writer here, he is famous about his report books. He wrote 2 books on firefigthers. He spent a lot of time at different stations across the country, speaking with firefighters, chiefs, went on missions with them etc. Read both his books, they are great, love the style of that guy. Basically thats how i know whats going on behind the scenes here. The story above with the Renault truck(s) is a true story, and those expensive trucks really spend more time getting repairs than taking out fires. (If i can recall the books, they keep buying them because of a friend of a friend gets an actual % of its price or something, you know, just the usual, as you said, they only see the dollar sign...). Obviously, if it breaks down in the middle of action, the firefighters gets the blame for it (as i said, just the usual). Anyways, we are mostly using the Mercedes Rosenbauer truck(s), the base frame and engine is Mercedes and the gear itself manufactured by Rosenbauer. There are 2 versions with different water tank capacity (2000 & 4000). Its not very modern, but as far as i know, its a damned good truck. Yeah we got average size trucks here, but I love those huge fire engines in the US, they look awesome but they could never move around here without going Carmageddon style hehe.
AKM Posted January 24, 2014 Posted January 24, 2014 Is that 2,000 and 4,000 what? UK gallons, Liters? Ummm, doesn't mean a whole lot without a qualifier! Love the brush guards. That's something ours lack, except the purpose built brush truck, of course. Even then the lightbar is unprotected. We've ended up with several different makes in our department. There's an argument for getting the same manufacturer, and that is that if every truck of the same type is the same, and then it's easy to set them all up the same. Know the layout on one, know them on all. Believe me, even putting tools back on the trucks of our neighboring department gets interesting. I've enough keeping track of what's where on ours, never mind theirs. Go to someone else's district on a big alarm and your best bet is to just find the truck the tool goes on and hand it to one of their FFs. "Here, you know where this goes; I haven't a clue!" We've at least two trucks that are specifically shorter to get around the tight spaces downtown. That kickback issue is not surprising. Our government works the same way. Maybe not at the local level, but certainly to a certain extent at state and national. At the same time, there are things that are not understood by those who aren't in the business. Case in point, the hoopla some time ago about the $600 toilet seat. Some nobody caught wind of the fact that the military had spent $600 on a toilet, raised a stink, and the powers that be responded to the stink - without doing any (or at least enough) research. It's what we call a knee-jerk-reaction. "Quick, make the stink go away, never mind the reality! Just fix the stink!" So what actually happened? What I've read is that it wasn't a seat, but a toilet system in an old military aircraft that was being redesigned for another purpose. Due to the redesign, and the fact that it was old, they had to redesign and replace the toilets that fit in a particular nook and cranny on this airplane. They changed the shape of the nook in redesign, so they had to redesign the toilet. This is an aircraft toilet, not your run of the mill housing toilet. Big difference. Simple. But Mr. Average Joe Information Collector for News Agencies didn't do his research and thus gave a flawed report to a quick to judge public. The public, at large, isn't the brightest. The result of all this is that now, for fear of just that sort of kickback, defense contractors are not allowed to talk to the end users; the front line guys who will be using their products, and thus have to guess at what is needed, instead of being told what is needed. As an aside, I've noticed an increasing number of Mercedes trucks of the "big box on the back" type, on the road here in the states. Got my attention due to the obvious European design and the grandiose Mercedes symbol on the grille. Well, that and the general dirtiness of them. Obviously, they're work trucks.
Vivi Posted January 30, 2014 Author Posted January 30, 2014 Yep thats Liters sorry. Lol all that mess for a toilet, i mean wtf I wonder if those trucks are these 2 part deisgn as well, but probably yes, unless Merc started manufacturing FF "cases". I want to live in a world where we have Scania trucks tho
AKM Posted February 2, 2014 Posted February 2, 2014 Just got out my converter. Looks like those trucks carry about what our "around town" trucks do. 500 to 1000 gallons. (Our tanker, which stays in boonieville (lack of hydrants), carries 2,500 gallons. It's a good sized truck!) 500 to 1000 gal isn't a whole heck of a lot, for a one truck response (which rarely happens, anyway). It's about enough to keep the pump going until the hydrant guy/gal can hook up and the pump operator switch over to intake feed. Hope you have a good hydrants or several trucks. I don't know how it is in your country, but here, the philosophy is "Get it on the road now. If we don't need it, we can always turn it around. If we do, we want it on the road already, not sitting at the station waiting for the "go" signal." Lots of arguments from (again) the un(der)informed about the waste of it all. Actually had one of our new FFs make just that statement, and so I told about the whys and wherefores. I think he saw the light pretty quickly. Smart guy. Of course, the turning around aspect has its own issues. My department has three fire houses, mine being the one "in the boonies" of the district. As a result, unless the fire is in the boonies, another station is almost always first on scene. Even then, because our guys have so far to go just to get to the station (the closer to town guys practically all live right next to the station), sometimes we only beat them to the scene by a minute or two. The result is that we, the boonies crew, get turned around on a regular basis. That gets old. Yes, it might be a waste, but my personal philosophy has become "The trucks are on the road. If the situation is well in hand, reduce rate (turn off lights/sirens and proceed at normal pace), but keep those on the road coming in. You never know when a situation you thought was under control will become not, so until you're sure, don't throw away valuable extra assets and their response times." Extra assets, by the way, very often means warm bodies. The community tends to get a little miffed when they see multiple departments at an apartment complex or motel. What they don't understand is just how physically exacting firefighting can be. That's a lot of weight for the gear and tools, and climbing stairs and pulling hose, and, and, and. The average air bottle on a pack will last about 10 minutes. I've never been inside at a big fire, but my guess is that after ten minutes, those who've been inside actively working with a hose are about finished for a bit. That's where all the extra trucks come in. It's not the trucks that are needed so much as the manpower. If it's a weekend, it can be worse. People have been drinking, are out of town, busy with family, whatever. Your in-house manpower pool goes through the floor on weekends sometimes. Of course, sometimes it's the weekday that's worst. Everyone's working, and as I've stated before, no business owner these days is going to let a volunteer leave for a fire call. All that mess? It's the American taxpayer. They hate to feel that their tax money is being wasted. So they'll raise a stink if it's blatantly "obvious" that money is being spent that doesn't have to be. That from a people who as stated in general are not able to grasp the fact that some things aren't as they first appear to the uninformed. (And where do they learn of it? The news media. It's negative, it makes a good story. Report it!) On the same vein, from a people who have let their government make well intentioned (aren't they all) but idiotic rules about "Well, if you in X department didn't spend all of your allotment of money this year, then obviously you didn't need it, by extension won't need it in the future, so we're going to reduce your budget for next year". That creates a whole lot of waste, as government agencies make sure to spend every dollar they are allotted, and thus spend what they don't have to on what they don't need. This idea is so prevalent in this country, that it's what I've seen as the accepted reason for the creation of the $600 toilet seat. Not to say that corruption of that nature isn't going on, but I have a fair idea that at least that particular story isn't what it seems. If that one isn't, how many others aren't? I would guess that they are modular. (I think that's a universal term.) They certainly look it. Standardized sections, bolt on what you want and drive away.
Vivi Posted February 4, 2014 Author Posted February 4, 2014 Most water tenders here carry around 1500 gallons but they lack water cannons, except for this guy with 5000ish gallons, i think this is our biggest one tho. Ah i see so you guys basically patrolling around waiting for an alert? Thats pretty good idea, but i doubt they would be "allowed" to do this here, probably they would get flamed for the wasted gas and deduct it from their already huge ammount of wage... >.> (i can seriously imagine this, for example, our parliament got their own FF crew in the basement, and they had their cooking stove taken away because some "politican" smelled a faint food scent coming from the basement... but hey, they could keep their microwave...). Got any crest on your trucks? I doubt ours have any :/
AKM Posted February 5, 2014 Posted February 5, 2014 Nope. Don't know where you got that idea. No, the vehicles stay at the station most of the time. But if there is an event, everything that can get out, will get out, until told otherwise. We had a crawlspace fire in a house in town some time ago. Had both fire departments there (us and our friendly neighbor). Turned out not to be needed but had that house caught (which it could very well have if the first due hadn't gotten their hand line in and gotten a crew on the fire as quickly as they did), it would've gone up in a hurry and we would have needed every resource there. Both for fighting the fire, and for protecting the houses nearby. As the situation was, it could be viewed as a waste. As it could have been? I'd rather have it all there and not need it than need it and watch the place burn to the ground and get places nearby started for lack of resources. Not surprised about the cooking stove incident. Politicians. Unfortunate that we can't run the world without them! What the heck is "crest"? Do you mean foam? AFFF? Yes, we do have foam, though I've never had the opportunity to use it (very messy). This is the same make/model (well, very similar) as our tanker truck. 1995ish Grumman on a Spartan chassis. It's got foam and pump capability (and ladders, and axes, and ceiling hooks, and a combi-tool and, and, and). Pumper/tanker. Not strictly a tanker.
Vivi Posted February 6, 2014 Author Posted February 6, 2014 Sorry thats a language fail there totally misread that >.< i shouldnt try to English this early. I see what you mean now By crest i meant like those girl paintings on bomber planes, but i hardly see any on trucks, thats why i was wondering if its a real thing. Seems mostly they only have the city logo/crest. Thats an awesome looking truck. I always wondered if fire truck and fire engine were just two names for the same thing, or is there an actual difference?
AKM Posted February 6, 2014 Posted February 6, 2014 "like those girl paintings on bomber planes" Oh, good God, no! Haha! Not in today's politically correct world! Heaven forbid that we, especially as a quasi-government organization (our FD, along with many volunteer FDs in the US, is actually a "private" organization. It is not owned by the city.), even possibly offend someone! Wow. (That and the fact that we have women who are active duty firefighters. Nope. Those days are long gone.) Oh. Crest! That kind. No. We tend not to do that sort of thing here. Well. Actually, yes. Sort of. The closest you'll get is the fire department or town symbol on the door. Just like the symbol on the front door, and the name on the back, of the one above. Ours is Godawful and illegible unless you know what you're looking at, and for, unlike our neighbor's whose symbol very closely matches that of the town they service, and looks very professional. Meh, it's just a symbol. Doesn't mean squat. With regards to fire, truck and engine are definitely not the same to those who know the terminology, though they are regularly used interchangeably by the un(der) informed public. Short and sweet: A truck has tools (for rescue and overhaul). An engine has a pump for pumping water, hoses for getting it to the fire, and often at least a little water on board to run the pump while the hoses are getting hooked up to a hydrant. The problem with strict use of the terms anymore, is that most fire engines (pumpers) tend to have tools on board in addition to pump and hose and often water. This, in effect, makes them trucks as well as engines, and they can perform the duties of a truck company almost as well as they can their original role of engine company. The range of operations that fire departments and companies find themselves performing as they respond to an increasing variety of situations dictates that more and more engines are equipped to handle just about everything they're likely to be called out on, and are thus equipped for the truck company role as well. Also, why a strict truck without water or pump is increasingly unlikely to be found. Hence why our tanker has 2,500 gallons of water, a 110 gallon foam tank (typically for flammable liquid fires, also cars), pump, hose, deck gun (water cannon), ladders, axes, hooks, hydraulic combi-tool (can both cut and spread, but not as effectively as the dedicated tools), chain saws, rotary saws (look up "K12 saw"), fans, tarps, medical bag, medical gloves, even cribbing, which is the wood blocks (in our case) used to stabilize a wreaked vehicle prior to entry. Oh, and one of the most essential tools at vehicle crashes: the brooms. Gotta get all the debris off the road and guess who gets to do it? Can't forget another important tool: the fire extinguisher. Different types for different fires. You're not going to put water on a flammable(ing) liquid spill. Sometimes a fire extinguisher is all that's needed and getting all that hose off the engine is unnecessary. Especially if you can do it with the extinguisher and avoid putting the foam line in operation. As I said, foam's messy. Although most of our hose is soft hose, we do carry a few sections of hard hose and a drafting tip (I'm sure that's not the official term) for straining the worst of the junk out of what's going to the pump should we need to draft from a local water source like a pond for some reason. Note that despite my statement above that a strict fire truck is becoming less likely, it still pays to be focused in what, exactly, you do. Thus, fire trucks, and rescue trucks are certainly still made. We have a rescue truck in our company. Having everything on one truck is nice, but you're just not able to get the whole of the FD on a single vehicle. So, if you're going to a car crash, where you're most likely to need to cut someone out, the Rescue, with all the heavy, dedicated rescue equipment, will be the first out, an engine, with water, foam, and extra tools second. There are dedicated truck companies, just as there are dedicated engine companies. They are very, very good at the particular role that they fill, at the expense of not having quite the expertise at other roles. It's a trade off, but why would you have a bunch of jacks of all trades when you have enough people to have experts in each sector? With volunteerism in general, and in the fire service in particular down, most volunteer fire organizations simply have to have their members be jacks of all trades, though, of course, individuals do tend to drift toward becoming most proficient in whatever interests them most. Here's a more in depth description from ask.com: ***WARNING: (Another) WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!*** Generically, a "truck" could be almost any vehicle used by the fire department, but the term has become specialized over the years. Originally, "engine" referred exclusively to "pump", the important tool for getting water to a fire. Today, "fire engines" are those vehicles of the fire department that pump water. The term "truck" is reserved for other types of vehicles, usually having one or more ladders. Since Fire Engines and Fire Trucks perform significantly different functions at a fire scene, they are very different. Fire engines are equipped with hoses and water so that personnel can aggressively fight the fire. Fire Trucks are like the firefighter's tool box -- carrying ladders, rescue equipment and other tools to enable personnel to support firefighting activities. The terms fire truck and fire engine are used interchangeably by some folks. They have similar meanings in their general applications. But toss out the "fire" and shorten the terms to truck and engine and now we're talking. An engine is generally a "triple combination" rig, which is "old school" for something with a pump, a water tank and some hose (the "triple" part of the triple combination). This unit is the basic "fire engine" that we are used to seeing. Firefighters have a variety of hoses (called "lines") that they can pull and deploy. Some engines have a "hose reel" or two with a "hard line" on the reel. It's hard rubber and is non-collapsing. The reel allows it to be quickly deployed without having to pull it all off the reel. And it's easy to stow it when you're done! Recall that collapsible hose must all be pulled from the bed to charge it with water successfully. (Unless this is done, the kinks will prevent the flow of water - you can't get the wet stuff on the red stuff.) Some engines also have some kind of "master stream" [water cannon!] appliance on the top for pouring out a big volume of water in a hurry in case they need to soak a major fire. And their hose bed will be full of (usually 2 ½ inch) line that will allow them flexibility in the way they deploy as an engine. (They can be used as a pump and a manifold.) The engine will also have a number of hand ladders hanging on it, too. And their compartments are full of stuff to support the deployment of the lines. Certainly there is a fat supply of first aid stuff. There is probably a "jaws of life" [spreader/cutter/combi-tool] appliance on the unit. And some engines will have a fixed ladder that can be deployed from the vehicle [the "stick"]. This ladder may or may not have a nozzle at the top. We good? Let's look at the truck. The truck is a big boy with a fixed ladder. The ladder portion may be towed on a rig that is articulated, or the whole body of the truck might be one big piece so no one has to "drive" in the back like on the articulated unit. As for the ladder, it may or may not have a basket on the end for firefighters to stand in. And the ladders usually always have a nozzle (or two) on the thing so a master stream of some sort can be set up from a high point to help douse flames. Certainly the advantages of the ladder in rescue operations are a primary reason for the development of this big rig. There are usually outriggers [usually? Howzabout "always???"] that stabilize the truck when it is being set up to deploy the ladder. And there will be a pump in this unit to supply the water needed by the nozzle(s) on the ladder. Trucks usually don't have a water tank aboard like the engine. The truck compartments will have extra equipment for working big fires. A big gas-powered saw for cutting ventilation openings and large fans for smoke ejection can be on this rig. Hey, someone has to carry them. The squad isn't going to have the whole load. (The squad is the "carry all" for fire scenes. It has a lot of extra material and equipment for other emergency action from fire ground support to rescue operations to scene clean up.) The main difference between the truck and the engine is usually cited as being that the truck is the rig with the big ladder. That's what makes the truck the truck. It's a bit more of a specialized piece of equipment than an engine, which is usually the first piece of equipment that is sent to a scene. The truck will be called out for structure fires and other activities where extra manpower is required. (The firefighters on the truck can support the firefighters on the engine even if the truck itself isn't being used directly.) Having worked with both an engine company and a truck company, the differences blur a bit in a situation where the sky is red, the smoke is thick and the water is streaming.
Vivi Posted February 7, 2014 Author Posted February 7, 2014 Ah yeah its kinda logical, i just wasnt sure lol. Thanks for your time to write all this down. Now its all clear. Our trucks/engines only got portable ladders i beleive. We have a "ladder truck" and another truck for the basket. There was a prototype "combined" truck with a basket, but its never gotten to production. I knew about that saw just didnt know its name but yeah, it looks serious also seen some vids about the hydraulic combi-tool in use, thats badass.
AKM Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 Pretty much everything we have has ladders of one form or another. I was slightly amazed the day I went searching our Quint and found a stepladder. I guess it falls into the same category as the 5-10 feet of garden hose. Yep, used that a time or three as well. (Quint's a combi-truck. Ladder on top, ladders inside, pikes, poles, hydraulics, combi-tool, water, pump, etc and so on.) Yeah, the hydraulics pack some force. I know of at least one guy who lost part of a finger when he and the operator weren't paying attention. Oh, and you're quite welcome. I love this stuff.
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