a bit harsh

[Camo]

camo; i guess it depends who is requested as to who is responded... politics in adelaide? adelaide will page whomever they are requested to by the locals.

Apart from the politics of Adelaide and paging which has nothing to do with the local brigade.

brigade responses have EVERYTHING to do with the local brigade requests

Medevac if a member of the public rings up and reports a fire on millicent rd mt gambier then adelaide look up where it is a page that brigade...they dont ring someone and ask who to page.  and just incase your totally off track we are talking about MFS Comms not CFS.

[medevac]

i give up...

[Stefan KIRKMOE]

Hi All,
Camo. I fully agree that there isnt many brigades in the state that can guarente a minimum turn-out in line with SOP's (re- training levels and response times). However if i can remeber correctly you're with Compton brigade, and isnt that relativly close to a SAMFS regional command retained station with 4 vehicles (capable of turning out a crew of 4 Ba operators, am unsure as i'm not from that neck of the woods) is this not clser than 30 minutes away? Sorry my thoughts only, again am not familisr with that area.
SK

[Stefan KIRKMOE]

Camo et al, Opps, sorry, replied to a post with-out reading further on to see what i had to say was already being discussed. Again Sorry. Although i do agree with Matt. It does work both ways (CFS/MFS) and I know the Mount (and surrounding area) aren't the only ones who have the problem either. Medivac, i know how frustrating it is to see brigades, groups and individuals paying little attention to the SOP's (i'm not sure if any of us are innocent, if even in a small way) but I really dont think there is a quick fix answer to it. Like Camo and Blinkey have said if you dont turn-out with 2, will you turn out at all???, as well as that a vehicle with reduced crew arriving substantily earlier than a fully crewed appliance can have big advantages in rural, defensive urban & rescue incidents (not saying i agree with-it, medivac i'm on oyur side here, but its reality, not just in rural parts of SA, it affects region one too) Who knows the answer, with dwindling volunteer numbers, and reduced availibilty of those remaining vols, a career SAMFS station isnt an option in the majority of these cases!! I do however beive that dual, tri or quad response of brigades goes someway to answering the question (so long as it is the closest, most appropriate resourse!!)
-sorry what a long rant, its late!
SK

[Alan (Big Al)]

At Goolwa our closest BA backup is Pt Elliot and they have 2 BA operators (who live in another town... ) next is Victor MFS for back up and they are 18kms from Goolwa. Yet we get told by a group person (i won't specify who) that Mt Compass at 30km away is to be responded because "we respond CFS before MFS" which nearly caused an argument of the century when it was said, but i totally agree with everyone that who cares if dad's army or whatever are closer if they can do the job get them there???

[Camo]

Hi All,
Camo. I fully agree that there isnt many brigades in the state that can guarente a minimum turn-out in line with SOP's (re- training levels and response times). However if i can remeber correctly you're with Compton brigade, and isnt that relativly close to a SAMFS regional command retained station with 4 vehicles (capable of turning out a crew of 4 Ba operators, am unsure as i'm not from that neck of the woods) is this not clser than 30 minutes away? Sorry my thoughts only, again am not familisr with that area.
SK

Yes you are right SK originally i did overlook the MFS as an option sorry Matt.  and in the circumstances of the house fire on tuesday they should of been rolled but werent and although it probaly wouldnt of changed the end result it still would been nice to have the extra sets of hands.

Camo

[Mike]

Im somewhat confused about where this thread has gone... but anyway....

If common sense prevails it should be the next available resource, which has been said many times in many different threads...

We need a crew of 4 according to the SOP's. Well these things are in place for a reason, and lots of brigades have trouble crewing now days. I know in our are is a minimum crew cant be met the next brigade is responded and the GO is asked for permission to roll. This works! Look at it this way, at least when you rendevous at site you can form a composite crew... not breaking any SOP's then (as a matter op opinion).

Still each to there own interpretation!

And jsut to relate this back to the original topic, how many of these brigades are seen to be sending "harsh" messages. Instead they think 'out of the square' to get the job done....

[probie_boy]

Minimum crew for an appliance is 4 persons. Both our rescue and our tanker can only seat 3 persons...

toast, you can get away with 3 on your tanker, you only really need that many crew on a tanker I reckon, heck, even 2 does the job. rescue, well in your case pumper will be there most cases anyway so your cool.

[strikeathird]

Cammo and Blinky, I understand what you guys are saying in moral, however have to back what Medevac is saying.. It is a SOP, if you cant do it, (E.G - dont / cant crew with the right number of people) .. dont make the excuse that " Everyone has there own rules / ways of doing it "... fix the problem, and respond with the SOP required minimum crew.


Your asses will be on the line if something happened and you didnt respond with the S.O.P required crew !  And that was proven as the cause of what ever problem arose..

[Darius]

toast, you can get away with 3 on your tanker, you only really need that many crew on a tanker I reckon, heck, even 2 does the job. rescue, well in your case pumper will be there most cases anyway so your cool.

the SOP of 4 does not apply to tankers (or the small single-cab 14s like landcruiser utes).  I reckon 2 is the right number for a tanker.  3 is a squeeze in the cab and usually leaves one person standing around with nothing to do anyway.

regarding do you respond or not with only 2 crew, if other brigades have been responded as well, you contact your group duty officer and check, then tell SHQ you are responding short-crewed and make up the numbers with another brigade at the scene (even if that means parking one truck).

if it's a problem for a brigade and the next closest brigade is miles away, then your group has to organise what they're going to do beforehand (that's what response plans are for).

[Camo]

I totally understand why the SOP is there but really to me it needs to be a bit flexible.

For us to provide an efficient service its just not feasible to roll during the day with the required amount...

but on saying that when we get on scene its not like we are only operating with those two people only...its a group effort of (in the other days case about 10-15 people).

Maybe i havent made myself clear....we would never respond to a job e.g grass fire, scrub fire etc without the minimum of 4 people unless we knew we could get others from elsewhere on scene.  but at a job like a house fire or vehicle accident, you know its not going anywhere and if you have to short crew trucks so be it...there really is no extra risk to anyone as like i said its a group effort once on scene.

Camo

[strikeathird]

^ Personally, I agree...  and totally see where you are coming from..


Altho... if the blame game starts to happen over something... Could get hung out to dry on sumthing so simple as crew numbers...

[CFS_Firey]

I think I'd probably rather get in trouble for short crewing, than live with the fact that soemone died because we couldn't get a full crew... (for example)

But as you say, we should follow SOPs...

[rescue5271]

I have seen first hand a number of country MFS stations only have two or 3 on their appliances,they are in the same boat and they have the same plan if that is all that shows up go and deal with what ya can till help arrives... In teh USA in LACOUNTY they have one man fire stations that have a 14 type unit that rolls and does what it can till help arrives...

[probie_boy]

regarding do you respond or not with only 2 crew, if other brigades have been responded as well, you contact your group duty officer and check, then tell SHQ you are responding short-crewed and make up the numbers with another brigade at the scene (even if that means parking one truck).

I've done that before. Middle of a pretty warm weekday, got a call for a grassie, and only three rocked up, me included. so we called striling and they came with enough peeps so we could cover both trucks.

then it turned out to be some dude burning off.

[CyberCitizen]

I totally understand why the SOP is there but really to me it needs to be a bit flexible.

For us to provide an efficient service its just not feasible to roll during the day with the required amount...

but on saying that when we get on scene its not like we are only operating with those two people only...its a group effort of (in the other days case about 10-15 people).

Maybe i havent made myself clear....we would never respond to a job e.g grass fire, scrub fire etc without the minimum of 4 people unless we knew we could get others from elsewhere on scene.  but at a job like a house fire or vehicle accident, you know its not going anywhere and if you have to short crew trucks so be it...there really is no extra risk to anyone as like i said its a group effort once on scene.

All We Do Is Get On The Radio To The GO & Advise That We Only Have 3 Crew For Example & He Either Tells Us To Roll & Do What We Can Or Roll Us & Send Another Brigade To Help. Leave The Judgement Call With The GO.

[rescue5271]

You can always roll and work with the other crew or use your water to refill other appliances.....better to roll with 3 and not at all....

[strikeathird]

All good in hindsight... but..


You respond with 3...   a crew member gets hurt ... and they rule that if you had your required crew the accident/injury may not / wouldn't have happend....   


Heads would roll....

[CFS_Firey]

How is that different from rolling to an RCR with 6 crew members but only 3 RCR trained? Head are going to roll anyway if something goes wrong, thats the society we live in...

[medevac]

that would be why there are SOPs for minimum RCR crews....

[CFS_Firey]

That's the point I was trying to make medevac...  That not only do you need full crews, but you need trained crews, and that's yet another problem... (I just didn't make it very well )

[probie_boy]

Head are going to roll anyway if something goes wrong, thats the society we live in...

I've always found that piece of humans interesting... we've all got to point the finger of blame in a direction.


oh also found this...

For the members who where not at the station last Monday night, **** is now the acting Captain untill the AGM. From Lt1. - SEAFORD STATION

take it for what its worth..

[rescue5271]

Look there are a number of groups in the state that do group pages and they all roll to the job,some appliances may only have two crew....

[Toast]

Ive never seen more than about 3 brigades turned out in one page...?

[The Assistant]

Some people have to realise that all our pages that we send out are there for public viewing, so maybe have your slag in the privacy of your own briagde station and not over the pager system. Happy Valley for instance sends out pages to thank their returning crews maybe we should all take a lesson from this. People always respond better to praise than being put down, the drivers won't turn up to a brigade that treats them with disrespect. I think we have to remember that people have a life outside the CFS and can't always make callouts