r/Firefighting • u/TigerBack56 • 7d ago

General Discussion Whats your departments dumbest/strangest policy?

So i come from a military background and I know how stupid some policies can be. Our department has a few i can think of but I wanted to here from the community, what is your departments dumbest/strangest legitimate policy?

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136

u/Unwitnessed 7d ago

Not enough radios for every interior firefighter. Not really a policy, but pretty idiotic.

63

u/Barabarabbit 7d ago

That is not good at all. I would not be comfortable going interior without a radio.

Radios are also not as expensive as other things like turnouts. If your department is skimping on radios, what else are they cutting costs on?

19

u/Datsunoffroad 7d ago

Our radios are $5000, our turnouts are $2800

9

u/Barabarabbit 7d ago

Wow.

You clearly have way better radios than we do

9

u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 7d ago

For that kind of money that radio had better be able to transmit my gps location, let me do my run reports, be able to transmit simultaneously on CB, AM, FM, Low band, mid band, mid band, high band, 800 mhz,  cellular, & satellite. It had better be able to scan all those bands, and automaticly pull me into any frequency transmitting.

And automatic know to let my wife I’m going to be home late and why.

That is a 5,000 dollar radio.

24

u/Tasty_Explanation_20 7d ago

Been a while since you’ve priced radios huh?

-1

u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 7d ago

Personally? Yea. 

But a lot of radios are a lot fancier then what it needed.

10

u/Agreeable-Emu886 7d ago

There aren’t a lot of options especially if you’re looking to buy NFPA compliant radios

4

u/fish1552 FF/EMT who thankfully doesn't have to do medical 6d ago

I think a LOT of people don;'t know as much about their dept radios as the people who manage the program. That is one of my duties and there is so damn much I've learned over the last 10 yrs on it.
That little sticker on there showing it is Intrinsically Safe is important. That isn't on police radios as they will not be in the same environments as we are. Our biggest concern the few years I was in LE was not using the radios at a bomb scare.

14

u/Fif112 7d ago

Our radios are $6500, Canadian, and can transmit gps.

They can, but the department just doesn’t use that function.

For… reasons?

8

u/Impressive_Change593 VA volly 7d ago

we have GPS but I've seen it get used once to get coordinates for a landing.

the reason it's turned off by default is it eating battery life insofar as I know.

6

u/randomlyanonff 7d ago

Motorola 6000xe. I was told the model number is the price 😂

2

u/fish1552 FF/EMT who thankfully doesn't have to do medical 6d ago

Maybe they said that humorously, but our 6000XE and the 8000XE are around the same price.

2

u/L_DUB_U 7d ago

The Motorola's we use are 5k dual band 700/800 mhz. I have swam in my radio and it worked fine. We lost one off the side of a boat during flood, went out the next day after the water went down and it still worked. Expensive but worth it.

2

u/fish1552 FF/EMT who thankfully doesn't have to do medical 6d ago

Ours are about the same. We run the APX 6000XE from Motorola with standard batteries.

41

u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 7d ago

For some reason, and damned if I understand it. Radios / pagers are one of those things people think ain’t important.

I’ve seen volunteer departments not want to buy pagers. Like. Wtf. How do you think people are going to know to show up?

I’ve seen paid depts skimp on radios, and not have pagers for duty crews, without station alerting. It is wild.

21

u/kc9tng Volunteer FF & EMS LT/EMT/FTO 7d ago

But they have the phone app!

And the one guy who lives closer to the station can’t figure out why I beat him there by several minutes. Well when the pager went off I left my house. I was driving past your house before the app went off. Or when the app system is down or delayed. Or they forget to send it.

2

u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 7d ago

Yep.

They have gotten better, but

2

u/Powder4576 Cadet 6d ago

In my experience my app goes off before the radio, but still, there’s a lot of times where my app won’t even release the tones at all, especially for structure fires weirdly

1

u/kc9tng Volunteer FF & EMS LT/EMT/FTO 6d ago

Protocol in my area is the pager tones, dispatch x2, siren tones, then send to app. So if they stumble on their words it takes forever.

7

u/Firefluffer Fire-Medic who actually likes the bus 7d ago

Probably 20 year old bunkers.

3

u/Angling_Insights FF1/2, Fire Officer, Fire Instructor 1/2, EMT 7d ago

Our radios are just as expensive as a set of turnout gear. Both are between $4,000-5,000.

4

u/fish1552 FF/EMT who thankfully doesn't have to do medical 6d ago edited 6d ago

The average radio for us is now $4500. The average set of our GXtreme turnouts is about $3300 with helmet/gloves/particulate hoods/boots.

Sounds like the dept needs to write more grants. Or start keeping the radios in the trucks and get the dispatching software to alert people to their phone so radios aren't carried home by half the people who aren't showing up 24/7.

3

u/BenThereNDunnThat 7d ago

You haven't seen the price of digital radios recently, especially Motorola, have you?

2

u/Barabarabbit 7d ago

To be honest I have not.

They used to be cheaper than turnouts.

However I get the feeling that is no longer the case

I think that every FF should have a radio. Especially for interior operations.

2

u/hath0r Volunteer 6d ago

our radios are like 5K each

4

u/Unwitnessed 7d ago

Depending on who you are, you either get turnouts replaced in accordance with the NFPA requirements, or they refuse to replace because "they were inspected and are fine."

0

u/Angling_Insights FF1/2, Fire Officer, Fire Instructor 1/2, EMT 7d ago

NFPA is not a requirement, it is a standard. There is a difference. Standards that make sense get adopted.

1

u/L_DUB_U 7d ago

Texas has adopted NFPA 1851 and a couple others, for us they are a requirement.

20

u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 7d ago

If you don’t have a radio, you’re not interior.

Not on a fire.

Not on a EMS call.

Chief have a portable? Walk up and take it. His ass can run command from the cab of the engine where it should be anyway.

10

u/Peaches0k Texas FF/EMT/HazMat Tech 7d ago

There’s a guy in my crew that’s burnt out as fuck. Won’t bunk out for fire alarms, doesn’t take a radio anywhere not even the grocery store, sleeps all day after lunch, doesn’t workout with us, doesn’t wash the rigs with us, nothing

8

u/Fif112 7d ago

He either needs to get to a therapist, or stop taking overtime.

That’s not a healthy way to live on shift.

6

u/sexyfireman289 7d ago

Sounds like pure laziness not burnt out

9

u/Coffee-FlavoredSweat FF/EMT 7d ago

I’m in charge of programming and issuing radios on my volunteer dept. when our chief wouldn’t buy batteries, I swapped his new one with one that was 5 years old and wouldn’t hold a charge. We had batteries the next week.

3

u/randomlyanonff 7d ago

I have saved my oldest worn out uniform for when I can not get replacement uniform. It gets worn when higher ups are scheduled to visit. Guaranteed I'll get fresh uniform no matter what the budget said.

1

u/Tasty_Explanation_20 7d ago

My chief likes to leave his radio in the rescue when he goes in for an ems call. :roll eyes:

1

u/Agreeable-Emu886 7d ago

There’s no excuse to not have it on a fire. But really everyone needs a radio on a med….??

Also command should be wherever your department wants it. I’m all set with having the deputy down the block, ours belong in front of the building

1

u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 7d ago

Depends how many people are going on a med. If it is 12 dudes (which would rarely be justified) then no.

But if it is a more reasonable number? Then yea. Everybody.

As to command:  it was a pretty specific situation. Someone going interior needs a portable radio a hell of a lot more than someone standing outside, regardless of their duty position. Do if the deputy has a portable, and an interior guy doesnt? He can get his ass on a truck and move it to the front of the building if that is where he wants to be.

1

u/Agreeable-Emu886 7d ago

I work in a city, we don’t run buses and we’re getting 3-4 guys on a truck. Company officer is the only one who typically carries a radio on non fire calls.

This is one of those the fire service varies drastically, our deputies have their own take home radios that are labeled with their call sign C2, C3 etc.. every riding position has allocated radios and our deputies are dedicated shift commanders. We have spare radios, radios for callbacks… if you’re at a paid department and you don’t have enough radios, I’d suggest finding better employment

The reason I touch on command, is the east coast is known for having command in front of the building. Some of the west coast people park their car down the block and run it that way. It’s a widely divided topic.

0

u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 7d ago

4 guys? Everyone should be grabbing by a radio.

Some guy goes to another part of the house to get information, a met list, whatever and previously unknown nut job appears.

Someone goes outside to grab something and some crazy ex wife shows up and starts assaulting them.

This kind of shit happens.

As to the west coast, well.

Outside of Seattle Medic 1, I can’t think of any thing positive to say about west coast public safety, be it policing, fire, or EMS. 

But that really is another topic.

1

u/Agreeable-Emu886 7d ago edited 7d ago

There’s no reason to, especially in a sense city where most apartments are <1000 sq feet.

You can play the what if game all day. What if I fall through the floor going to fight a basement fire. What if we roll the truck on the way to some useless medical call.

What if I have a stroke sliding down the pole?

The CYA what if game is why so many places struggle. What if the guy with atraumatic back pain for 2 weeks is having an NSTEMI, better wake 6 people up at 4 Am for that because what if.

What if the ambulance crew meets someone scary on the call for a blocked catheter, better send a full engine with them just in case…

Most people also carry cellphones…

3

u/KGBspy Career FF/Lt and adult babysitter. 7d ago

We just got issued our own a little more than a year ago otherwise it was 1 at each ride position, of course guys took them accidentally when they’d forget them in their coats. They were shit radio, batteries were crap you’d have to carry 2. Now we got those green ones loaded with frequencies.

1

u/Unwitnessed 7d ago

Half the limited radios in our department have battery issues because they haven't been replaced in 20+ years. 1 at each ride position is a good plan, so long as they are properly maintained.

1

u/fish1552 FF/EMT who thankfully doesn't have to do medical 6d ago

People don't know the batteries are only good for 5 years FROM THE DATE OF MANUFACTURE. Above the barcode on a Morotola is a 4 digit number, The first two are the year of manufacture, the second is the week of that year it was made. So I have a 2413 I'm looking at so it was made between March 25th and March 31, 2024.

They could sit on a shelf in a warehouse for 2 years before you get them and only be good for 3 more years.

2

u/KGBspy Career FF/Lt and adult babysitter. 6d ago

Thx. We went from HT 1000’s to xts 1250’s I think they were and they’d buy knock off batteries from someplace, they were always dying so you’d have to carry extras during the shift. We got the green ones now and they’re new so we get some mileage out of the batteries.

1

u/fish1552 FF/EMT who thankfully doesn't have to do medical 6d ago

Ok, those batteries SHOULD be the same type of code. I would make sure to let the person making the purchases know that they need swapped out every 5 years on a life cycle list. Then make up a proposal to only buy 1/5th each year so the oldest get replaced each year. That might help both get it done as well as spread out the payments.

2

u/RedditBot90 7d ago

My first department was like this. In retrospect, pretty wild. But that’s just how it was

1

u/Unwitnessed 7d ago

How long ago though?

My first department had a radio for every firefighter's riding position in the 90s. My current one doesn't in 2025!

2

u/RedditBot90 4d ago
  1. It was a pretty small, volunteer department. Officers had radios; rigs had a couple radios on the chargers, but if we had a full rig not everyone had a radio.

1

u/Unwitnessed 4d ago

Sounds similar. Not a safe situation if someone needs to call a mayday and is separated from the crew.