Hello- February 14, 2012
In an effort to improve services to you, we have undertaken a few changes & improvements to the Office of the Fire Coordinator and the 911 Center:
FIRE:
The Juvenile Fire Setters program is now being administered from the Office of the Fire Coordinator. Several volunteer firefighters that work as dispatchers have attended training that was also attended by members of law enforcement, mental health, probation officers and caseworkers. They will begin to meet regularly. When you want assistance with a juvenile fire setter, call or fax the information to my office and someone will be assigned to the case and will work with other professionals as needed.
Brian McQueen from Whitesboro has been selected as the Deputy Fire Coordinator for Zone 1. As a result, zone coverage assignments have been modified in Zones 1 & 2. Please refer to the attached map.
Brian will continue to specialize in training activities also.
Scott Nicotera from New Hartford FD has volunteered be the Assistant Fire Coordinator for Operations. Scott will be assisting me in a variety of administrative topics.
There have been some changes in Chiefs in several departments. If this email is not being sent to the correct person, please forward it and provide me with the correct contact information.
EMS:
A meeting was recently held with representatives from the fire service regarding EMD. A variety of topics were discussed. Several conclusions were made, including: departments will receive the plain language description upon initial toning. EMD determinates will be provided when your department acknowledges the medical call. We are continuing to get medical calls out as soon as possible and overall, 911 staff is doing a good job, but we will continue to strive for improvement in call taking times. I ask that your department familiarize yourselves with the determinates. They are not response codes, but are meant to provide you with the level of severity of the medical call. How your department responds is up to you.
Thanks,
Kevin
Hello- May 2, 2011
We are exploring the possibility of getting a group rate for fire pump tests for all interested departments. In order to save money for fire departments, we are going to propose that the tests be completed at specific locations spread across the county (one per zone) on specific dates this summer. After discussing this with Mello Testa, the Director of Oneida County Purchasing, the financial aspects of this will have to involve the Town or Village you cover, so your department will pay the town or village for the cost, and the town or village will reimburse the county, who will pay for all of the tests under one invoice. Any participating fire department must make their own arrangements with their respective town or village who must agree to participate in this program.
So, in order to get started, I need you to advise me if you are interested in participating in this program by providing information on each of your engines you would want tested: Make, model, year, pump size, and that you have contacted your respective municipality and they have agreed to participate. We will then send a bid request out and, hopefully, award it to the lowest bidder.
Please reply by May 20th, 2011.
We are making no promises about this becoming a reality, but the more participation there is, the lower the cost will be.
Thanks,
Kevin
Hello Chiefs- March 18, 2011
There was another fire radio committee meeting last night, and the April 1, 2011 deadline for narrow banding was discussed again. It was the unanimous conclusion of the committee to switch to narrow banded transmissions on or about April 1. I was surprised to learn at the meeting that there are still some departments that have yet to address this issue and have yet to reprogram and/or replace equipment. This has been discussed for years, and was scheduled to occur on January 1 of this year. Please take note that we will be shutting down the wide band equipment in April. I can’t stress enough to those that have not done it to take care of this immediately. We will be scheduling some tests with each department during April to ensure radios that are believed to be converted are working properly.
Thanks,
Kevin
Chiefs, December 27, 2010
As part of the review ordered by County Executive Picente relating to the services the Office of the Fire Coordinator offers you, I am considering purchasing “I Am Responding”. For those of you not familiar with this product, please go to their website at: iamresponding.com and review the features this product can offer. Other counties in New York have “I am Responding” already, and others are considering it. I believe it will assist you in organizing your response to fires, medical calls, internal announcements, training and drills, in addition to reducing radio traffic on the county fire channel.
There is a possibility for limited funding we can access to cover the annual costs for departments. Assuming you are already paying for an internet connection at your firehouse, the only costs you would have would be for extra monitor(s), (if you want to) and the cost for calls, which would be no more than $300/year maximum. For those who already have this, we will make arrangements to have your department be reimbursed - if we make this purchase. I request that after you review their product, advise me via email if you are interested in it or not. Non replies will be considered as not being interested. Please respond by the close of business this Thursday, December 30, 2010.
Thanks, and Happy New Year!
Kevin
Chiefs, please review this message from Gerald October 7, 2010
Since the implementation of text messaging the program has become very popular with Fire and EMS agencies. We know that there are well over a thousand Fire/EMS Responders getting text messages for calls and departments are using the text program to notify members of events/meetings/training etc. Because of the large number of cell phones listed within your departments and the constant changing of cell phone providers, numbers, and members coming and going and sometimes just mistakes in typing in numbers a lot of text messages are getting rejected. Rejected numbers are starting to cause a backlog in the in boxes of the accounts and we are receiving an increasing number of calls from people who are getting your texts because they have been given a cell number that shows up on your lists, or if you make a mistake in typing in the number in, are getting texts and have no idea what they are for.
Whoever is responsible in your department for maintaining the list of members and their numbers need to review the information and make sure it is correct. Incorrect numbers or numbers no longer being used by your members need to be deleted. As with any email program you should also ensure your ‘sent items” and ‘in boxes’ are cleared out on a regular basis. Thanks for taking care of this as soon as possible.
Hello- October 5, 2010
A few updates for you…
SMOKE DETECTORS: NYS Department of Health, OFPC and County Executive Picente’s Office have arranged to have Oneida County receive approximately 850 smoke detectors that can be distributed through our office to target certain residences. The project calls for fire department personnel to install the detectors in homes with children or the elderly. The informational meetings you were invited towere held and those departments who attended have begun the process of distributing detectors to residents of their fire districts. We will be notifying the public about this program soon. This is a first come, first served program. If you want more information, please email or call me.
TRAINING: Several firefighters have applied to be county fire instructors; the approval process is moving forward through OFPC. This program is meant to supplement the State Fire instructors, not replace them.
SURVEY: For those who have yet to complete the long range planning survey, please do so ASAP, we need the information. It is on the website.
CALENDER OF EVENTS: New to the Emergency Services page on the county website is a calendar of events. Please email me anything related to your department you want the public or other departments to know about and we’ll take care of it, including, events, parades, training, fundraising, and meetings.
PAGERS: They should be ordered this week; since it was such a large amount (over 400), it has taken a little longer processing this through the county system. I’m hopeful that those who requested pagers have already completed the long range planning survey.
Take care,
Kevin
Hello Chief; September - 2010
Bob Day from National Grid will be holding an electrical and gas safety seminar on October 12, 2010 at the Floyd Fire Department. The training will begin at 7:00 pm and lasts 3 hours. All Departments are urged to attend. Bob is going to arrange for additional dates for Utica and Rome Fire Departments, one in the New Hartford area and at least one in the northern part of the county. I’ll forward the information as soon as it becomes available.
Gerald and I are working with the County IT staff to put a calendar of events, training, and announcements on the web site. We will announce our progress with it soon.
Kevin
Hello, from the Office of the Oneida County Fire Coordinator, August - 2010
I am honored to hold this office and will do everything possible to help you. Although I have wanted to meet with each chief sooner than this, administrative/budget issues along with the consolidation project have been very time consuming. That being said, we are planning on doing everything we can to assist you in your duties. Please don’t ever hesitate to call me if you need something or have a question.
As some of you may have heard, email will be the routine mechanism for our office to contact you, and we would like you to use it to contact us regarding training, event announcements, administrative information, etc. We also plan on revamping the county website to provide more information to you and your department, and do so faster than ever. So please advise us if your email address changes.
I’ve listed some topics below that we will need your help with. Basically what I’m asking is: Help me help you.
TRAINING:
Deputy Director Gerald Pedersen, the fire coordinators and I recently met with the state fire instructors regarding not only upcoming training, but how the training is planned and organized. Due to some past issues with early birds enrolling in classes before others even knew they were announced, we have identified a simple solution: We will send a mass email to each of you announcing the training. You can then go to the county website and enroll your firefighters or have them do it themselves. So, from this point forward, if it’s not on the county website, don’t bother enrolling. No early applications will be accepted until the classes are posted. The 25% enrollment for host departments still applies, we willl sort those out on a class by class basis. The motivation is to make this process fair for all, and to better manage the process on our end.
On a related note, I am meeting with OFPC this week to discuss the possibility of Oneida County having its own fire instructor(s). Anyone out there willing to donate their time to instruct please contact me as soon as possible. The selected person(s) will have to meet state requirements. This will be a long-term commitment so please consider it carefully.
RADIOS/PAGERS
We have secured funding for radio interoperability. We have requested and have been granted approval from County Executive Picente to use this funding for pagers, which seems to be a significant need for departments. As a result, I need the number of pagers you anticipate your department will need. Please do not overestimate! There are no guarantees how many we can provide, but we do recognize this need and want to help. Please reply to our Principal Clerk, Kathy Gray at
kgray@ocgov.net by 4:00 pm on Friday, August 13, 2010. If we don’t hear from you we’ll assume you are declining to participate. After we tally a total, I’ll meet with the county Purchasing Department and start the process to determine if we can purchase them and give them to each department or there will be a reimbursement process set up.
WEBSITE
As stated above, expect changes to the website, including events, training, public information, recruitment, and a kid’s fire safety page.
911 CENTER LOBBY
Please drop off any photos, “Hero Shots” or memorabilia you would like to donate to decorate the lobby with. If anyone has ever been to Applebee’s in New Hartford you know what I’m talking about.
Please have a safe and happy summer.
Kevin