Area firefighters will be facing off tomorrow at Westford's muster

I hope no one goes. Show them what you think of their 4th of July behavior. Be sure to spread the word to the surrounding towns, stay home, go to the beach, wash your hair.

I can't make it...darn it! I have to cut my toe nails.

The celebration starts with a parade of engines at the fire station at 14 Oak Hill Road beginning at 10 a.m.

You know where they can drive them :-
)

The little kids enjoyed it.

I wont be there to watch the zeros.

observer wrote:

My heroes...a pissing contest to determine who can " squirt " the furthest. You firefighters have got way too much time on your hands. please don't pull a back.

Its a bonding experience for departments, not a "pissing contest". And please do not condemn all departments for the actions of one ignorant community of firemen.

Several surrounding towns sent their trucks to the muster,but Chelmsford. Nice community spirit!! I guess they didn't get invited,huh?

Well put Shawn

Shawn wrote:

<quoted text>
Its a bonding experience for departments, not a "pissing contest". And please do not condemn all departments for the actions of one ignorant community of firemen.

Kids like it, which is wonderful. I still hate firefighters.

Why dont fire departments merge their resources? "Greater Lowell FD", that way you can trim the fat with layoffs across the board and distribute the most qualified Firefighters/paramedics across greater Lowell. That would make too much sense and Massachusetts is backwards though....

BigDee wrote:

I still hate firefighters.
Why dont fire departments merge their resources? trim the fat with layoffs across the board and distribute the most qualified Firefighters/paramedics across greater Lowell.

So Ignorant, where to begin?
More regionalization would be great, but we already do it. It's called Mutual Aid. We all share resources whenever we're asked by neighboring communities. Lowell has a Dive Team and Communications truck, Tyngsboro has an air supply truck, just to name a few examples. You know why regionalization won't happen, too many chiefs and town managers lose their local control.

Paramedics in this area are run by the hospital or private companies. Very few Greater Lowell communities operate at the ALS/paramedic level, Billerica is the only one and it is dispatched out of the Police Dept as an independent EMS service, not by firefighters. Most fire dept EMS response is at the first responder/EMT-BLS level. Most fire depts carry oxygen, defibrillators and first aid supplies along with the jaws of life, they don't transport people in ambulances. If they don't need us we go back in service for the next call. In Lowell that's about 12,000+ calls a year only 40% are EMS. We could transport people or run as paramedics but most communities don't want to pay for that directly in property taxes when they can have a private contractor do it for free. Of course those companies make their money by charging the patients, insurance companies and medicare. Guess what else has gone up in price lately, how about all those things? These companies all make profits or they go out of business. They also pay lousy so you have turnover and inexperienced people trying to save your life. You're paying for the private service in ways you don't even realize.
There isn't a lot of "fat" to trim. All area departments run below NFPA minimums for staffing. Take a look at what NY State or CA require for staffing their paid fire departments, they are public OSHA states and their taxes are higher than MA. I'll tell you right now, no city fire department will merge with a town that doesn't provide at least 3 men on a truck because they won't subsidize an unsafe town fire department. The same goes in reverse, ask Lawrence what happened when Andover, No. Andover and Methuen stopped coming to cover the city because Lawrence cut so deep at the height of its arson problem in the 1990s.
Pick a community, Not one has more than 3 firefighters per truck barring an extremely unusual circumstance, most except Lowell have 2. Half of what independent (non union) agencies like the NFPA specify. You can't do the job safely with 2 firefighters at a fire, not if you expect to save lives and property.
It takes the same amount of people to put out a building fire no matter where they happen or how often. Every firefighter on that scene has a job assignment to do. The longer it takes to get firefighters there the longer it takes to put them out and the more damage you have. Its not a problem if it's not your house, but if you live next door to the house that's burning you might have a problem too if they don't get there fast enough. In densely populated areas that means everyone can be put at risk by someone else.
Hate all you want, trash talk all you want, it is obvious you have no clue how emergency services operate in Greater Lowell. I'd love to hear your real definition of the most experienced firefighters, and all the "fat" in our budgets without making a snide comment about sleeping or watching TV. Keep trashing firefighters like you have been on all these topic threads. Beat the dead horse, tell us how lazy, useless, greedy, stupid, whatever you want to believe we are, but the more you post the more obvious it becomes how little you know.
Those of us who walk the walk have something you'll never have. Actually we probably have a lot of things you'll never have.

How ignorant: "I still hate firefighters" That is rather broad & general - with no explanation. What's your deal?!

BigDee wrote:

Kids like it, which is wonderful. I still hate firefighters.
Why dont fire departments merge their resources? "Greater Lowell FD", that way you can trim the fat with layoffs across the board and distribute the most qualified Firefighters/paramedics across greater Lowell. That would make too much sense and Massachusetts is backwards though....

We need to cut back on firefigters they respone to only 5% to 10 % that are fires now. In California they have regional fire department. Many are voluteers. Maybe you should have voluteers in MA again. You would save a lot of money. Just have a base of 6 payed firefigters the rest voluteers. 12,000+ calls? I bet 5 to 10% are just fires. Can you give me the numbers of just fire calls. I bet you can not or will not tell me the numbers. All calls should be broken down in the newspaper. It is my understanding in MA the firefigters must respone to a car accident because it is a law. Change the law. I bet firefigters lobbyed for the law.

DOH, your response is pretty good. I dont like Firefighters because where I work, they are AWFUL for a myriad of reasons and it has affected the way I think about all of them. That is as honest as I can be.

I was thinking more along the lines of re-alignment and distributing the firefighters evenly across greater Lowell. The way individual towns have to tax the heck out of its citizens in order to provide basic services is outdated. If emergency services would merge, it would allow even distribution throughout the area. Therefore allowing the new organization to trim the fat. The added benefit is that the best employee's would be kept, and then you could get around the forced selections that Civil Service gives these Depts by canning the unqualified. I do not think I am ignorant about much, but DOH, if I am that off about the way things are back there, I apologize.

California dreaming wrote:

We need to cut back on firefigters they respone to only 5% to 10 % that are fires now. In California they have regional fire department. Many are voluteers. Maybe you should have voluteers in MA again. You would save a lot of money. Just have a base of 6 payed firefigters the rest voluteers. 12,000+ calls? I bet 5 to 10% are just fires. Can you give me the numbers of just fire calls. I bet you can not or will not tell me the numbers. All calls should be broken down in the newspaper. It is my understanding in MA the firefigters must respone to a car accident because it is a law. Change the law. I bet firefigters lobbyed for the law.

I agree, so many of these small towns do not have enough activity to justify a full time Department. Volunteers are all a place like...Dunstable, for example, needs. That is another way that merging into one large Department would help.

DOH wrote:

You know why regionalization won't happen, too many chiefs and town managers lose their local control.

That is the biggest problem in that whole state. Too much local control. If you could get rid of this strict local control, you could probably lower taxes. But, that is a long story.

Probably 5-10% are fires causing property damage. Go to a volunteer department and watch the damages go up, especially in densely populated areas. Watch your insurance premiums go up too.

One key to a volunteer department is people need time to commit. Being a volunteer firefighter requires a lot of time for training and calls at all times of day. When you live in one of the most expensive areas in the country, you work more to make ends meet. Do you want to spend a lot of your free time working for nothing at a hazardous job? Do you think many employers are going to allow their workers some time off in the middle of the work day? Do you think every one works where they live and are able to get to the station in less than 4 minutes? Take a look at volunteer recruitment for firefighters across America, falling fast and not coming back. Even still there are quite a few areas with volunteer fire departments in Massachusetts, especially out West.

There is no law in Massachusetts I'm aware of that requires firefighters to respond to car accidents, it is up to each municipality to determine their level of service, but someone has to respond to protect the public. Who else would you prefer? If you are advocating for less firefighters in California you must be crazy, they respond to every hazard there is (man made or natural disaster). While there are many regional fire districts there are also many municipal departments. There are probably more large paid departments in California than almost anywhere in the US.

I wish all calls were broken down in the newspaper, but if you really want the information call the Massachusetts state fire marshal's office in Stow, they can tell you the actual numbers for virtually every department in the state. 5% of 12,000 runs would be 600 fires in a year. That's a significant number. And the other 45% of non-medical calls are not all false alarms, there are calls for hazardous materials spills, water rescue, building collapse, industrial accidents and so on. If you think its just a department that responds to only fires, you are hopelessly out of touch.

By the way try working on proper language usage and spelling, or have they stopped teaching English in California? Must be too expensive to hire teachers with all the firefighters you have. I mean honestly, is it too much to ask for you to spell firefighters correctly before you bash us?

BigDee wrote:

DOH, your response is pretty good. I dont like Firefighters because where I work, they are AWFUL for a myriad of reasons and it has affected the way I think about all of them. That is as honest as I can be.
I was thinking more along the lines of re-alignment and distributing the firefighters evenly across greater Lowell. The way individual towns have to tax the heck out of its citizens in order to provide basic services is outdated. If emergency services would merge, it would allow even distribution throughout the area. Therefore allowing the new organization to trim the fat. The added benefit is that the best employee's would be kept, and then you could get around the forced selections that Civil Service gives these Depts by canning the unqualified. I do not think I am ignorant about much, but DOH, if I am that off about the way things are back there, I apologize.

I'm sure you could be honest about where you are and why they are so awful but you choose not too.

Resources are distributed according to need in the community they serve and stationed based on the ability to get the appropriate resources to the incident in a timely manner. Neighboring communities almost never refuse to come to another's aid. Geography is geography, redistribute all you want. You still need to be able to get on scene anywhere in your community in 4 minutes or less to meet standards.

All your idea sounds like to me is taking from one and giving to another. How do you propose to fund this? With a new large government agency with the power to tax on its own? We have no county government in this state. So its either the commonwealth or a new agency. Ask Long Islanders how much waste their independent "fire districts" have. More government layers are not likely to save any money.

All paid firefighters hired in the last 14 years in my community and from here forward are required to attend the Massachusetts Fire Academy and become certified level II firefighters to the national standard. The towns require this as well. The guys who are grandfathered have seen more fires than you can imagine and won't be around much longer as it is.

Civil Service only provides a list of candidates, based on the laws of the state. This list is one communities can choose not to use at all if they want their own hiring process. Trouble is most communities don't want the hassle, politics and expense of doing it themselves. One thing about Civil Service, it cuts done on the nepotism quite a bit. All new hires are on probation for one year with no union protection, ample opportunity to cut anyone who can't do the job.

Most city and town budgets in Massachusetts are funded heavily through state aid, not local property taxes alone.

BigDee wrote:

Kids like it, which is wonderful. I still hate firefighters.
Why dont fire departments merge their resources? "Greater Lowell FD", that way you can trim the fat with layoffs across the board and distribute the most qualified Firefighters/paramedics across greater Lowell. That would make too much sense and Massachusetts is backwards though....

I bet you wouldn't hate firefighters if your house was burning down, or your child was choking, or you were in a car accident!

Well, I know I got nothing but a 700 dollar bill for an ambulance transport.(when they took my blood pressure and gave me a towel for my injury). I know Police dont bill the public after a big call. Fire Departments are like a money making corporation at this point.

I can perform CPR and basic life saving techniques on children, so, no I wouldnt need them.

If my house is burning down, I would rather it just burn to the ground and rebuild, rather than trying to repair it.

S'oh Please, I guess I will hate firefighters no matter what.=)

Big Dee, you sound like quite the expert on fire deptartments, and the massachusetts fire service... so what fire dept are you on?