re: Fire fighting needs to be rethunk

quote:

---

LSUcajun77

---

The Stache is watching you

It's all about your insurance.

Your situation is different. Rural firefighting has largely survived on volunteer work to do the lions share of the service. When residents leave and tax dollars wane....you have to cut back but it’s up to the officials to be fiscally responsible and yet still mitigate the needs...it’s a balancing act that makes it imperative to have a smart, forward thinking, problem solver in charge....stretch the dollars, utilize federal grants and operate within their means to protect the community. This specific dynamic is complex and takes a lot of hard work not only from the fire dept but the community as well.

Also Chuker I will add that you cannot gauge actual events with preparedness for specific exposures. IE: industrial situations, schools, healthcare facilities, etc. all of that potential must be taken into consideration. Another option rural depts Have is cooperation and assistance from other counties as well, but I get what you are saying, on the surface it appears wasteful.

quote:

---

Thanks for your advice on the law and how to change it

---

No problem. I’m always willing to help the ill-informed.

quote:

---

The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office has over 700 employees and only one chief. Somehow, they manage to function.

---

Along with the Slidell police, Mandeville police, Madesonville police, Folsom police, Pearl River police, and Covington police departments and all of their chiefs.

Look, I don’t expect you to understand or know why there are individual fire districts, like there are individual police departments, but at least try to understand the reasons for it instead of just assuming you know the answers and demanding change.

But I’ll try to give you a short answer (relatively speaking) and hopefully you’ll think about it with an open mind.

First, there is zero doubt that in some cases the districts are split up because of personal feelings and unwillingness to do things someone else’s way. You can see that all over LA. In those cases, it isn’t necessarily in the public’s best interest to do those things. However, the public continues to vote for these things. A fire district can’t just pop up, say we’re now serving you, and you have to pay us X to do it. Now that we have that out of the way...

A fire department’s or district’s rating...class 1,2,3, etc directly affects how much you pay on your homeowners insurance. A large part of that rating is determined by the distance between stations and their ability to respond in the district to a call. It’s also affected by their ability to have X numbers of firefighters on a scene in X amount of time when called. Fire departments don’t set that number or time. Since I don’t know the exact layout of St Tammany, I’ll use EBR as the example, although I’d assume that the two are pretty similar in terms of distribution of population. The city of BR is a class 1 department. The next largest, St George, is a class 2. In terms of homeowners insurance rating, there is no difference really. The residents of that area pay well for their fire protection and see a savings on their insurance because of it, as well as the peace of mind knowing they can have a truck on scene in a couple minutes when they call. The populations in those two fire districts are the largest and most condensed. There is a necessity for having a station every so many miles to be able to respond. In addition, there are many large structures that require the ability to have several trucks and personnel on scene to not only mitigate the issue, but to comply with rating requirements. Having a station every 4 miles on greenwell springs road, for example, along with a minimum of 3 personnel on every truck to comply with ratings, would cost the taxpayers LOTS more in the way of taxes. The 10% of the population that live in those sparsely populated areas would see a benefit in terms of response times and insurance, but it would be done on the backs of the 90% having to pay 3-4 times what they do now. So, the residents of those areas pay accordingly to the service they are provided. While it may seem like bloated government, and in some cases it is, fire protection really is one of the few areas where taxpayers actually get what they pay for, instead of having their money go to others in other areas. There simply is zero need to man an area and have the maintenance costs and everything else that goes with it for 30 square miles that has 10-20% of the population that say, the city of Slidell has. When you look at a particular parish, you can see how the population distribution is broken up. The level of service needed in the city isn’t the same as the level of service needed in the area with 2 stop signs, no red light, and a house every 10 acres. While it is nice to try to compare officers vs firefighters and staffing numbers, the two are not really similar, other than they are both paid through tax dollars.

quote:

---

This question might beling in own thread but it seems to be a trend to thank firefighters for their “service” the way people rightly do with veterans and current servicemen.

---

I always feel uncomfortable when someone does this, and I don’t agree with it. I am not in the military, and in my opinion, do not deserve a “thanks” for my doing my job. That’s just my opinion on it. I’m also not a big fan of dickbags who like to toot their own horn because they did their job.

quote:

---

It’s a pretty cushy job that lots of people want to have and they get paid pretty well for it.

---

If you only knew...we have trouble, and have for years, in trying to fill classes with rookies. They certainly aren’t beating down the doors to come in.

As to pay, I work an average of 56 hours per week (overtime is only figured after 53 hours for firefighters), and after 15 years I make about half of what a plant baw makes after 6 months. And in the state of LA, for my years of service and rank, I make very well comparative to other departments. So...if you figure that is getting paid pretty well, there are classes starting every year! And oh yeah, my health insurance is through my wife because I can’t stomach the $700 per month for my family that we are provided through work. And 10% of my check comes off the top and goes to my retirement. And I don’t get any extra pay to work Christmas, thanksgiving, Easter, none of that. Living high on the hog, I tell ya! Understand though, I’m not complaining. Only trying to inform. I chose this profession.

I definitely think that they could scale back on the amount of firestations and trucks. For instance, in opelousas alone we have at least 4 firestations all within a couple of miles of each other. A little unnecessary... But another thing is that the insurance rating for homeowners is based on the fire stations and also the water system capabilities... So you may end up paying more for insurance.

I think we need to return to the old days, and privatize fire departments. I want to see crews fight in the streets like in Gangs of New York. Not only would it be cool to watch. But metal band would film some great music videos.

Kuho fails again