Modified Response Pilot Program in Queens, NY

[Acklan]

Latest form the FDNY fire comminssioner...

"Fire Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano announced the start of a Modified Response pilot program in Queens, where firefighters will stop using lights and sirens when responding to certain non-fire and non-life threatening emergencies."

What is your opinion and does your department (fire department) have a graduated responds, code I, II, III?

Source: The City of New York

[nameless]

water leaks and downed trees I can see. But sending one unit to a pull box no emergency seems very iffy. Yea, a lot of them can be false alarms, but the risk when it isn't is too great. Why have the property owners spend money on these systems, if you aren't going to trust them?

Everyone cites safety for this kind of stuff, but what is the risk per mile of apparatus running lights and sirens compared to normal traffic? Id bet its not that much of a risk, and if you have issues about safety fix the driving not the response.

[Acklan]

Seems to me there was a department, several years back, that did a study on sending the first engine code III and everyone else code I until the first engine had status on the alarm. Never did hear the out come.
I agree with you that the driving needs addressing not necessarily the response.

[RFDACM02]

We run "hot and cold" responses. Unlike the FDNY program and many others, the decision is purely upon the duty officer. This works well where we have multiple units responding, but from only one station. The dispatcher gives us all the info via the piped in comms overhead so the officer is using as much info as the dispatcher would.

Basically, calls that have very little likelihood of causing injury or immediate property damage are responded to with the flow of traffic, all others are "hot". Add in that our officers are very familiar with the dept's thoughts on reducing responses to increase the safety of our members and civilians on the roadway.

Some cold responses: CO alarms with no symptoms and occupants evacuated, water leaks, outside trash fires with no exposures, wires down, common fluids spilled, fires reported to be out, SFD alarms with no smoke/odor, etc. The officer at anytime may bump these up if the report indicates anything that makes him uncomfortable going cold. We also run three ALS ambulances and most non-life threatening calls are responded to cold as well.

We tried the first engine hot, the rest of the response cold, but found the civilian drivers were confused to be passed by one engine only to have other apparatus following cold.

[pasobuff]

The fire department here runs different response levels depending on the type of call.....also of course different response types - where I work we get extra apparatus for an alarm drop - but we have the largest buildings in the city - also very complex....