By Daniel P. Sheridan
I had just come into work for the night tour last night, and as soon as I changed into my work duty uniform, we received an alarm for a fire in a commercial building. I went to my chief’s car and waited for the engine and the ladder to leave quarters. We followed them out of quarters to the alarm location. I noticed that the engine was leaving a trail of water behind it as it responded. This was not a small leak, but a large amount of water pouring through a crack in the 500-gallon booster tank. With the tough economic times we are facing, repairs to apparatus may be slow coming. A leak like this may seem insignificant, but it could have a major impact on the companies at a working fire. It brought to mind a fire we had last week in a three-story attached private dwelling.
The other day we responded to a reported house fire in the middle of the afternoon. My response ticket showed that I only had two engines and one ladder; I was going to ask the dispatcher for the full assignment because I had a gut feeling that we were going to have a working fire. En route, the dispatcher notified me that they were receiving a second source and filled out the rest of the assignment with three engines and two trucks. My normally assigned first-due ladder was relocated to another part of the city to cover for a ladder that was at another fire.
Daniel P. Sheridan is a 25-year veteran of the Fire Department of New York and a covering battalion chief iassigned to Division 6 in the South Bronx. He is a national instructor II and a member of the FDNY IMT. He is a consultant for firetecinc.com.