"The only difference between men and boys is the price of the toys." Have you heard that before?
You can see it in action in today's fire departments. What does a fire truck cost? $500,000? $750,000? $800,000? And the crew? What does it cost?
Now multiply that by 20.
Yesterday's house fire at 11611 Hawthorne Way, (rural) Huntley (according to Google Maps, just off Route 47, south of Route 176 (toward Crystal Lake)), brought them all out. According to the Northwest Herald, this house is more than three miles from the nearest fire hydrant, so Huntley Fire called for assistance through the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS)
In addition to Huntley, fire crews responded from "Algonquin, Barrington, Boone County, Burlington (Ill.), Carpentersville, Cary, Crystal Lake, Elgin, East and West Dundee, Fox River Grove, Hampshire, Hoffman Estates, Lakewood, Marengo, McHenry, Nunda Township, Pingree Grove, South Elgin, Rutland-Dundee, Union and Woodstock."
How many of these were really needed? Two? Three? But I'll bet not 20 departments!
Fire Departments, and especially separate taxing districts like Woodstock Fire Rescue District, fly mostly under the public's radar. They are their own little kingdoms, with little public awareness and oversight of operations.
There will be those who cry out, "But if we save just one pet (car, garage, tree), ..." Get out a map and look at where all those trucks came from. Then ask yourself, "Why would fire crews come from so far away?" The answer? Because they were called.
Did Huntley Fire call first for a few water trucks from only the nearest departments, and then increase its request? Obviously, you want to keep a fire from spreading, but calling 20 departments in?
The paper threw out a couple of new terms to the public: "MABAS" and "change of quarters". Jargon from the FDs. Tell the public what you really mean next time. How long did it take to contain the fire? How many departments arrived, looked around and went back to their stations? Was there a pond, lake or well on the property for water?
You never know who is interested…
3 months ago
5 comments:
"How many of these were really needed? Two? Three? But I'll bet not 20 departments!"
You'll bet? Branching out into other areas of public safety "expertise"? Running for a position as a fire chief next?
MABAS is the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System.
You are way out of your element here. You bitch about cops and now fire departments. You are an equal opportunity “know it all.”
The BOX ALARM System is designed to bring in escalating levels of equipment and manpower. Same as large cities use pulling fire equipment from other fire houses.
When the Chief or whoever is “fire command” at the scene decides what level of fire fighting he needs, he looks in his book and calls that cooresponding BOX CARD. If he wants five tankers and three engines and 25 firefighters he may call BOX # XXX. The dispatchers then use the MABAS frequency and alert these agencies due to respond. Agencies not in the county are notified by their own dispatch agency.
Yes equipment comes for far away. This is a well designed system. Nobody sends all their equipment. Equipment must be left for response in they home area so more agencies send limited trucks. Often they have a change of station. If Huntley has three ambulance calls going they need someone to man the district for the next call. The may ask Algonquin for a CHANGE OF STATION. Algonquin send an ambulance to stay in one of Huntley’s Fire Stations until their equipment is available. Same for fire equipment.
You make it sound like you just drop a line into a lake and suck away. Suck up dirt and there goes the pumper (engine).
Some engines pump water to the fire, some pump water from the responding tankers up to the other engines.
Like I said Gus, you're out of you element.
Hats off to the firefighters that thankfully have plans such as MABAS
Why not go down and have a fire officer EXPLAIN MABAS to you.
OH BTW...cops have ILEAS which is the same basic system but is for police. Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System.
You're out of your element and not as much an expert as you think
Gus, as you already know, there was no fire hydrant within 3 miles of the residence, which meant water had to be shuttled in by tankers. With such a large garage fire, just think what you have in your garage, flammables, building products, a car. Those contents will produce a large amount of fire and we saw that with this fire. The pictures showed fire damage through the roof which would mean that the garage fire is in a fully developed stage which would produce very hot flames above 1800 degrees, and since fire doubles if not triples every minute, you now have a fire that has the potential to expose to neighboring houses and the living portion of the residence. So to call 20 department for a fire of this magnitude for a water shuttle, suppression manpower, and to cover huntley's fire district would not be unreasonable. If each responding department sent one rig, and I would say about 11 of those rigs were tankers for the water shuttle to go at least 3 miles to to refill their probably 1000 gallon tank of water after they used it, but if you really think about it the average gpm for a 2.5 inch handline is 250gpm, so if Huntley had 3 of those deployed then the average use of water is 750 gpm which in 10 minutes of strong fire suppression would use 7.5 tenders of water, the majority of water on the scene. Now the rest of the 9 departments was probably engines for manpower, EMS at the scene, and RIT to stage. With a fire as large as the one seen yesterday, fire crews must be switched out for fresh crews and there must be firefighters on scene staging in case a firefighter needs to be rescued from a building. So to say 20 departments is to extreme and unnecessary at a fire is saying you do not advocate firefighter safety on the fire ground, gus get your facts straight and stay out of the strategic and tactical decisions of fire departments, Huntly fire dept, did an exceptional job with this fire, Great Job Huntley
Nota, hopefully you leave your "attitude" at home, when you go to work.
You won't find any place where I have ever claimed to be an expert.
goturback1, thanks for your polite and informative explanation.
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