The consequences of layoffs
- Thread starter Clarence H
- Start date
Steve0625
Member
Firefighter has to fight fire alone in Washington Park | FOX2now.com
Something doesn't add up. If you go to the KTVI website and view the article and video, the department is 6 volunteers and a fire chief who is a city employee. While the guy in the article was at the fire house when the alarm came in, why the heck didn't the chief and the other five volunteers show up at the scene within a few minutes? The fact that the others did not show up forcing this one brave soul to attempt an outside defense shows some real serious problems in that community.
Sadly, I suspect many more communities around the country are awfully close to having this same situation occur in their towns.
Something doesn't add up. If you go to the KTVI website and view the article and video, the department is 6 volunteers and a fire chief who is a city employee. While the guy in the article was at the fire house when the alarm came in, why the heck didn't the chief and the other five volunteers show up at the scene within a few minutes? The fact that the others did not show up forcing this one brave soul to attempt an outside defense shows some real serious problems in that community.
Sadly, I suspect many more communities around the country are awfully close to having this same situation occur in their towns.
Where I volunteered for 10yrs till end of last year it was quite often john wayne time for a minimum of 20+mins. I did not get any help unless by some chance my 2nd due was getting fuel or eating somewhere between me and their station. And even then it was almost always a minimum of 18mins.
I am just proud he kept trying and did not give up..
I am just proud he kept trying and did not give up..
RescueWV
Member
Steve0625 said:
The call was at 1:30pm on a weekday afternoon. That's a particularly rough time of day for volunteer departments that operate on an on-call basis rather than specific duty shifts. 1 out of 6 members is 16.6% participation, which honestly isn't that bad. My department is probably closer to 50-60 active members responding to calls and there are weekday afternoons where we're lucky to get a full crew of 5, even for a confirmed structure fire. That's closer to 8% or HALF of what this department got with it's one member out of six. And so while it concerns me as to how a department might function with only 6 members and only one one a call, it doesn't surprise me THAT much.
That being said, I'm sure there's more to this story that we're not hearing, so excuse me for playing armchair incident commander for a moment.
chono said:
Absolutely nothing strange about this in our Obamanation. Most households all members have to work, most even more than one job to make a living. The few with the time to volunteer are usually too busy playing video games and stuffing their face on the govts and the working classes dime to volunteer or help anyone but themselves.
Not to mention getting and retaining volunteers gets harder every year due to rising cost of outfitting and training volunteers as well as the amount of time and training that are required and asked of volunteers these days.
chono said:
The county I work in is 363 sq miles with a population of 9600 we only have 8 volunteers that show up regularly with a few others that are hit and miss. My last shift we had a mobile home fire. Took my partner 15 minutes to get there and me 30. We only had 2 volunteers show up with only one of them being certified. So three guys to fight a fire. Welcome to the new fire service.