Fire and EMS

[tonyk31]

i am a volunteer firefighter and emt when i'm not out playing Marine. i have belong to both a volunteer fire dept and a volunteer ambulance corps both at the same time. i rather enjoy participating in both sides of the house.i've noticed in my few years the ambulance corps get's along well with the fire dept, but the fire dept wants nothing to do with the volunteer ambulance. they seem however to hav no problem with the paid ambulance service in the area. while my town has 6 different fire depts to cover the town. my ambulance corps covers the area single handed. i find the lack of mutual support disheartening. just looking for people's opinion. ami the one that's wrong or is there something the fire depts are lacking.

Semper Fi!

[46Truck]

hmmm...

Sounds like there could be a history between the FD and your ambulance corps. It's not necessarily that either agency is lacking but there was probably a political or personality clash at some point. I wouldn't take it personally. (just my 1/2 cent)

[Dave1105]

My fire brigade has a long-running dispite with a neighboring brigade and nobody can tell you why. We just hate them, and they just hate us. We have to work together on a regular basis and it always results in bad feeling. Nothing ever happens that is unsafe, it's just not fun. We're usually the second appliance on scene for most of their jobs (as we cover about 60% of their primary area in a primary support role) yet almost always our appliance will be the appliance put on standby to cover the response area and appliances still en route from other areas will take up the firefight when they get there. Our brigade at the moment is trying to make an effort to change things, but it's really hard going and doesn't look like it's going to break anytime soon.

Nobody knows why it's like this it just is. Some of the really old timers claim to know, but none will talk about it.

I really don't think this kind of dispute has anything to do with the two services in general.... as it can happen between any two organisations... I've seen football clubs do the same thing.

[cozmosis]

Originally posted by Dave1105
Nothing ever happens that is unsafe, it's just not fun. We're usually the second appliance on scene for most of their jobs ... yet almost always our appliance will be the appliance put on standby to cover the response area and appliances still en route from other areas will take up the firefight when they get there.

Sounds like things are already unsafe. If I'm on scene, I'd really like the closest rig to be heading to help me... and not to my station to cover the district. If a personality conflict that happened too long ago for most people to remember is causing them to turn around their second-due, something needs to be remedied.