Delusional Duck Discussion Forums

Fire/EMS Departmental Crash

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Saturday night there was an accident on Leonardtown Rd. @ St. Charles Pkwy involving a fire truck and a POV, I haven’t heard anything or seen an article in the MD Independent about this incident and was wondering what happened and more importantly how everyone is doing.

Has it come to this…..

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Has it come down to this in “Good ol Chuck County”, early this morning (12/9) a certain company in our county was dispatched for an outside gas leak at a commercial structure involving a propane tank, and all this company could get out to respond to this possibly dangerous incident was a brush truck.

I would think the county fire service would mandate what is due to respond (apparatus wise) on what type of incidents the fire departments are dispatched on, and a brush truck responding to a gas leak shouldn’t be one of the options.

Is this what our hard earn “Tax” dollars should be paying for?

I know most of you….

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I know most of you here reading this don’t know what I’m talking about with this post, but when it comes to the fire Service here in Charles County I just think we need to wise-up and take a look at the fire protection we recieve here in Charles County.

This post has to do with manpower and readiness, on the morning of 01/15/11 a Fire Station here in our County responded on a M/A (Mutual Aid) call to Prince George’s County for a shed fire. Their Ladder Truck was due on the call and they responded to this call with seven (7) personnel on their Ladder Truck leaving no one back at their station to staff another piece of apparatus, to respond on another call if needed.

Because of this, when another call was dispatched in their first due for a gas leak O/S a commercial bldg., this company couldn’t get another piece of apparatus on the road in an acceptable time frame to respond to it, the “B” Chief had to respond to the station from his home to get another piece of apparatus out, but upon arriving at the station he had to respond by himself driver only, I’m just glad this second call wasn’t a house fire.

My question is why didn’t this company let 4 F/F’s respond to the call in Prince George’s County, and leave 3 back to man another piece of apparatus, this would have made more sense.

It appears to me, that a neighboring county requesting M/A gets better fire protection than the “Tax Paying citizens’” here in Charles County.

A black-eye for Charles County

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Just found this article, I wonder if there is any “Real” investigation into this incident, or again have the Commissioner’s stuck their collective heads in the sand and are saying “If I can’t see it, it will go away”.

People it’s time someone in the County starts to look into the fire service here, before something drastic happens, and it becomes too late.

http://statter911.com/2010/11/06/image-issues-king-george-virginia-residents-complain-about-actions-of-charles-county-maryland-firefighters-officials-say-there-is-plenty-of-blame-to-go-around-at-september-fire/

Beard’s on fireman?

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I posted a thread back in August in reference to the health of some of the firemen in our county, now I want to bring up the policy of letting fireman wear beards in our county. In the past several weeks I’ve observed numerous firemen who have beards; my question is, is this practice safe? Can they get the proper seal on their mask when they’re fighting a fire? I know I wasn’t allowed to have a beard when I was a LEO because of the possibility of not getting a seal on my mask (plus it gives a bad guy something to grab onto).

Why isn’t there a fire station in the north end of the county?

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Can someone here tell me why there is no F.D. in the north end of the county, let’s say in the Pinefield area?

Health of your firemen

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I just posted this over on “The Watch Desk”, and was wondering what you all thought about it.

The other day I rode pass an accident where the Fire Department was on the scene, what I saw got me thinking.

I saw 2 firemen standing next to the fire truck and they must have weighed at least 300 lbs or more a piece. I know this has to be unhealthy, because both of these firemen were sweating profusely and their faces were beet red. So my question is does the county or their respective stations have any kind of standards on physicals or health standards for their firemen. If one of these firemen has any kind of medical condition due to their weight, and they can’t perform their duties at the time of an emergency they may be putting themselves or someone else’s life in danger.

Fire Tax

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Why is it that we keep hearing that our emergency services are free when we citizens pay a fire tax that raises some $14,000,000 annually. That money is in turn handed out to our volunteer organizations. The law states the county commissioners have no say in the running of these departments since they are non-profit contractors. So let’s get his straight…......we hand out approximately $14,000,000 to organizations where we have no say in how they spend the money. Further, the county has now added a paid EMS service because response times weren’t being met. That funding comes from the general fund and not from our fire tax. No wonder we needed to raise more tax money….....we have fiscal leaks every where. It is time to overhaul the entire system!

Commissioners to build gym

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It is well known that the Commissioners recently eliminated the County’s Economic Development and Tourism Department and fired seven dedicated county employees.

But is it as well known that they did this after having spent thousands of tax dollars to renovate space for this department? Earlier this year, the County’s Economic Development and Tourism Department was relocated to the county building. Prior to their relocation, the space to accommodate them was totally renovated, from moving walls to building new offices and purchasing new furniture. In addition, other county employees were relocated in order to reconfigure a new conference room for this department.

Not even a year later, the money is spent, the department is gone and the space is empty.

But do not despair. Our extremely intelligent and astute leaders have come up with a new game plan. Renovate the office space once again and build a gym! What a great idea! With the savings the county realized from eliminating employees, they can now re-renovate and equip the county building with exercise equipment.

This new idea ranks right up there with purchasing four new Ford Explorers during a gas crisis so that no Commissioner ever gets stranded, in their own personal car, on a dark and dangerous Charles County road, during a snow storm.

Did we really elect these people?

Public Safety Board

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I see where the Charles County commissioners approved taking a look at recreating a board of public safety.

If they do bring back this board, I just hope they create a panel within it that includes a “Fire/EMS oversight panel”.