Anyone from Rochester?

[tomcat101]

Hello! I am currently a paramedic in Florida. I am looking to take the Rochester FD exam this May. I'm originally from Queens, Sunnyside but never been too much upstate. I would love to hear from anyone who lives or works in the area. Any info about the Rochester FD or area would be fantastic!

THANKS

[DepChief135]

Heres their website.

http://www.ci.rochester.ny.us/PublicSafety/Fire/about_us.cfm

Good luck in May.

[mdcook]

Rochester FD recruitment

tomcat101, look in the Hiring & Employment Discussions section of these forums. It may be a few pages back in the forum menu.
I posted some info, with links, about the start earlier this month of RFD's recruitemnt drive.
Good luck

[tomcat101]

But about the area.......

Thanks MDCook, I actually did see your posting awhile back. Very helpful. I was just wondering if someone who lives in the region might give me a break down on what it's like to live in or around Rochester. Anyone out there work for the RFD? Thanks!

[jbates2]

rochester

Hi live near rochester and work in rochester every day. the weather is 5 months ok and 7 months of rain cold and snow, crime in rochester has been alittle high for the last few years and taxes are killing us. the fire dept has been very good for several years. the last i heard ws that there are over 3700 applications for the openings. the better areas to live in are south west and south east of rochester. Good luck!

[upstater]

Tomcat, I work for Rochester Fire, and lived in the city until recently. (Ran to the 'burbs...)

Rochester isn't much different from most other medium size cities in the northeast - it has problems like declining revenue and population, aging infrastructure, crime and high taxes. I don't know for sure, but I don't think we are really any worse than most other places. The weather has a bad reputation, but after looking at Denver and the midwest the last couple of weeks, I don't think it's unique that it's cold and snowy a lot of the time. On the plus side, up here the weather almost never tries to kill you. Tornadoes are rare, hurricanes, mudslides, wildfires and earthquakes even more so.

Also on the plus side, there's good colleges and museums here, and good golf and skiing if you like. The finger lakes about a half hour away which are great recreation and wine areas....

...dear god I sound like a travel brochure.

The great thing around here is housing prices. In the city itself you can get an pretty nice house in a decent neighborhood for 80-150k. You can get a really nice house in a great neighborhood for less than 240. The suburbs are more expensive, but I got a nice little house in a decent suburb for 117k.

The fire dept is great, except for the political nonsense that everyone has. The guys and officers are, for the most part, excellent. We run a system of quints and midi-pumpers instead of truck and engine. We have 9 quint/midi companies (1 officer 5 firefighters), 8 engine companies (1 and 3), a rescue (1 and 3) 3 battalions and a deputy running out of 15 houses. We work 4 groups, working 3 days, get two off, 3 nights, 4 off. We specific companies trained in hazmat, confined space, high angle, swift water, ice, and hurst tool rescue. We go on a lot of ems, but we contract ambulance service to Rural/Metro. We don't provide ALS at all.

ummm.....

We have red trucks and black helmets (except for officers).

I'm not sure what else to tell you, but you can e-mail me at [email protected], or just ask on here, and I'll give you what I can.

Fair warning, it's hard to get on. A lot of applicants for a few jobs, and a stupid hack of a psychological test. I'm pretty new myself, and have absolutely no pull, sorry...

Do you have the information about the application process and deadlines and stuff? Let me know.


This was way too long - my fingers hurt

[tomcat101]

Thanks Upstater!

Appreciate all the info..very helpful. Not so sure about my chances b/c I imagine preference will be given to residents of Rochester...but like I said I'm a medic and spanish bilingual; I miss NY so I'm going to give it a shot . By the way, have to agree with you on the weather trying to kill you thing....

[TaberLFD]

Hi, I'm from Jamestown, NY and will also be taking the test in May. Rochester seems like a great city. I havent spent much time up there but i do have family members that live in victor. I have heard victor is a pretty high priced community. I would like to know if you live in the suburbs say victor or webster area, can you belong to thier volunteer department and still remain active as a paid firefighter in the city. Here in jamestown there is a union problem with volunteers joining a paid fire dept, something with having to do with them being worried about getting injured performing your task in a volunteer department and missing work. Are there many paid firefighters in the city that belong to volunteer departments in surrounding areas?

[XCAPT1]

TaberLFD

Do you guys run into Syracuse? I'm up in Jamesville once or twice a year and it doesn't seem all that far to the out skirts of Syracuse.

Stay Safe

[upstater]

I don't know officially how the union feels about it, but there is nothing to my knowledge written down about paid members volunteering in their home communities. We have several members that are active volunteers out where they live. Like you said, you are taking a risk of injuring yourself and being out of work, so you should take that into consideration, but the same applies if you play sports, ski, hunt big game, or whatever. If you're hurt as a volunteer, as far as I know, the city considers you just an "off duty injury", just like if you'd got yourself with the hedge clippers.

I don't volunteer myself because the suburb I live in has a combo department with union paid staff, and it doesn't feel right. If I lived out more in the rural areas with a podunk VFD that needed people, I would.

Webster and Victor are both nice towns. They are both recently rural-ish areas that have had a large amount of new money pushed into them - lots of McMansions, big-box stores, subdivisions and Volvos. The drive into the city from each can range from 10-30 minutes.

XCAPT: gotta correct you here, boss. Jamestown and Jamesville are different places, about 230 miles apart. Jamesville is near Syracuse, about an hour and a half from Rochester, and Jamestown is closer to Erie, PA than to any city in NY - at least 2 hours to the southwest.

Taber - best of luck with the test. They're overhiring off the current list, so every point counts.

[XCAPT1]

Thanks upstater. I was at work and looked quick at his location. Whoops.....

Stay Safe

[TaberLFD]

Hey XCapt1. Yeah Upstater is right, I'm located down in the south western corner of NYS.

Upstater- Thanks for the information. Any little bit will help me to reach my dream. I already tried to get into the Jamestown Fire Department. I passed thier CPAT test and I'm currently on the waiting list there, but they're just not hiring right now. I skipped right passed buffalo because i'm really not a big fan of that city. Erie just had thier test last year and all they did was lay off guys. Rochester is about my last hope to being a paid firefighter, and still living within visiting distance of my family and friends. I really do like the way you have communications set up in the city. I've listened to the fire wire there and some of the fires you have had and was amazed by the structure and communication between dispatcher and cammand. Acountablity checks are things that are rarely done in our department. Listening to rochester utilize them and always having a designated fast team and safety officer gives me the feeling that you guys really do think about your brothers a lot more than other departments I've listened too. Any place that can perform as well as you guys do while still keeping safety at the top of the list is a department I would love to be in. thanks again for all the information brother.
-Paul
Lakewood Volunteer Fire Dept.

[upstater]

Hey XCapt1. Yeah Upstater is right, I'm located down in the south western corner of NYS.

Upstater- Thanks for the information. Any little bit will help me to reach my dream. I already tried to get into the Jamestown Fire Department. I passed thier CPAT test and I'm currently on the waiting list there, but they're just not hiring right now. I skipped right passed buffalo because i'm really not a big fan of that city. Erie just had thier test last year and all they did was lay off guys. Rochester is about my last hope to being a paid firefighter, and still living within visiting distance of my family and friends. I really do like the way you have communications set up in the city. I've listened to the fire wire there and some of the fires you have had and was amazed by the structure and communication between dispatcher and cammand. Acountablity checks are things that are rarely done in our department. Listening to rochester utilize them and always having a designated fast team and safety officer gives me the feeling that you guys really do think about your brothers a lot more than other departments I've listened too. Any place that can perform as well as you guys do while still keeping safety at the top of the list is a department I would love to be in. thanks again for all the information brother.
-Paul
Lakewood Volunteer Fire Dept.

No problem - if there's anything else I can do, PM me here, or [email protected].

One good piece of news is that our contract is up in summer '08, so the rate of retirements will probably increase. Don't think of Roch. as a last hope, either. When I got on, I was going through the process of 7 fire departments in 3 states, and I'm sure that there are guys out there that have done a lot more than that. In my academy class were guys that had been trying for 8 or 10 years. So don't take "no" for an answer....

Thanks for the compliments on our communications and stuff (I didn't set any of it up, so I can't take any credit... ) Never having really worked anyplace else, I don't really know if what we do is considered good or not. Of course from the inside it's never as good as it ought to be.....

Good luck! Keep in touch, and have a plate while you're up here.

[TaberLFD]

Upstater- Thanks for the help. The communication is great just knowing that you have a safety officer (I think thats car 99 for what I've been listening too) on scene right from the get go. Usually safety officers are assigned half way through our fires just due to the cluster **** that seems to happen at the fire scene. I do have a question, what types of nozzels do you usually operate with up there? I've been trained on task force tips combination nozzels and haven't worked much at all with a smoothbore. Also do you work much with thermal imaging at your fires? These are just things I would like to know more about. I would also love to come up for a day and just ride along with one of your busy departments if that is allowed. Thanks for the info.
-Paul

[upstater]

Upstater- Thanks for the help. The communication is great just knowing that you have a safety officer (I think thats car 99 for what I've been listening too) on scene right from the get go. Usually safety officers are assigned half way through our fires just due to the cluster **** that seems to happen at the fire scene. I do have a question, what types of nozzels do you usually operate with up there? I've been trained on task force tips combination nozzels and haven't worked much at all with a smoothbore. Also do you work much with thermal imaging at your fires? These are just things I would like to know more about. I would also love to come up for a day and just ride along with one of your busy departments if that is allowed. Thanks for the info.
-Paul

Yah, car 99 is the line safety officer - it's a captain's position, one for each group, and assigned (so it's always the same person on your group, unless he's on furlough or otherwise off..) He responds out of a firehouse in a buggy like a chief. He's usually dispatched on the "working fire" dispatch, along w/ the deputy, Protectives, and extra (RIT) company. He's also dispatched to hurst tool runs and other technical rescue scenarios, and he can and will put himself on runs if he wants to.

We use TFTs also - regular ones on handlines, and the switchable low-pressure on the hotel rolls. The high rise bags have smoothbore tips in them, so you can break apart the regular nozzle and put a smoothbore on, but its rarely done. Our highrise setup is a bit behind the times, but I think that there are some good officers who are working toward a change.

They were experimenting with smoothbore on regular handlines for a while, until someone screwed up the pressure and sent someone for a ride, and I haven't heard anything about them since.

All the chiefs cars have cameras in them, and the rescue has two. I think Quint 2 has one as a test case for putting them in more companies. For day-to-day operations, the rescue is the only company that uses them with regularity, because if you're holding a camera, then you obviously can't pick up a hose.... I'd like to see them in the hands of more company officers.

I don't know what the rules are on ride-alongs. You'd have to go through the chief's office. http://cityofrochester.gov/PublicSaf.../contactus.cfm

Take care