Fire Fighting

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houstoncutter":2ar0lbzn said:
A question for you volunteer firefighters here in Texas. Is it true that you don't have to pay county taxes and school taxes if your a volunteer ?
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Houston I'm not a volunteer fireman but I've never heard that. Will have to ask some of the volunteers. May just be a local perk here and there.
 
TennesseeTuxedo":fhi73rrb said:
I admire you for giving of your time to volunteer like you M-5.
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There are some fantastic VFD's and some others that need to go away.
I am glad to see they are starting to inspect for certification needed to be a fire fighter in the state.
For a long time around here it was Bubba with a light bar on his truck. These guys were dangerous.
A lot around here are just clicks of hicks. Had a man move into the county that held a Master cert
and was over a large industrial complex that had responded to mutual aide calls in my facility before.
He offered his services when he moved here and our Click of Hicks told him they didn't need his services. :shock:
They are now at least having to get their basic cert. At least now they might be able to read a NIOSH Placard
and there might be someone on the truck actually qualified with a Hazmat or HazWoper cert.
They shut two down in our county that couldn't pass requirements or inspection.
The most dangerous fire IMO is a structure and I didn't fight those you have no clue what you are
rollin up on.

I hold an advanced cert and only fought oil and chemical fires you always knew what you were
dealing with on site.

Hats off to the guys that roll up to the house that has Bubba's meth lab in it
or a bunch of Vato's stash house.
 
I joined a Vol Fire Dept in 1976 in WV, we had to take courses and tests and pass from WVU fire service.
Our funds came from the county and donations from the public.
We rolled on everything house fires, wildfires and car wrecks.
We trained on Monday nights on rescue work and Wednesday nights on structure fires.
One of the hardest things was leaving the fire dept to move to Florida in January of 1986.
 
Out here there is a click kind of mentality in some of the smaller VF stations. I did have to get my FF1 and First Responder certs to be put on, and we trained once a month. We too had to respond to car accidents (those can be hairy on farm roads) and medical emergencies, along with fires.
I did it for about 5 years, and got tired of "the good 'ol boy" club/mentality. When I lived in CA, I ran a huge research facility that involved pigs, and had to haul a huge Honey Dew (green liquid manure injected into the soil or sprayed on top of fields), so I know about liquids and weight driving on roads. My chief knew that I had years of experience driving that kind of equipment. After a year with the first fire department I was on, I asked the chief when he was going to let me drive the engine or water tender... His response? "Oh honey, you can not handle that big of equipment". I walked away disgusted, and turned in my resignation. The second company I was with allowed me to drive all the equipment after I was properly trained. I stayed with that one until I got tired of the politics (we were written up for putting a house fire out because "we should have let it burn to the ground" because of it's condition). One of our biggest adjustments moving from CA to MO years ago was the mentality that most volunteer fire department have.... "Let's all just sit around and talk about it while it burns...". We call that a "foundation save" in California, and that was unacceptable.
 
Fire Sweep Ranch":2zspglbl said:
Out here there is a click kind of mentality in some of the smaller VF stations. I did have to get my FF1 and First Responder certs to be put on, and we trained once a month. We too had to respond to car accidents (those can be hairy on farm roads) and medical emergencies, along with fires.
I did it for about 5 years, and got tired of "the good 'ol boy" club/mentality. When I lived in CA, I ran a huge research facility that involved pigs, and had to haul a huge Honey Dew (green liquid manure injected into the soil or sprayed on top of fields), so I know about liquids and weight driving on roads. My chief knew that I had years of experience driving that kind of equipment. After a year with the first fire department I was on, I asked the chief when he was going to let me drive the engine or water tender... His response? "Oh honey, you can not handle that big of equipment". I walked away disgusted, and turned in my resignation. The second company I was with allowed me to drive all the equipment after I was properly trained. I stayed with that one until I got tired of the politics (we were written up for putting a house fire out because "we should have let it burn to the ground" because of it's condition). One of our biggest adjustments moving from CA to MO years ago was the mentality that most volunteer fire department have.... "Let's all just sit around and talk about it while it burns...". We call that a "foundation save" in California, and that was unacceptable.
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There are some that only seem to want to make sure they save the building lot and the water well. :mrgreen:
 

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