City Government's think Firefighters do nothing

AUBURN, Maine — A city
councilor followed a fire truck for 11 minutes and posted the video
online to make a point that firefighters cost the city money by driving
around in apparatus.
"They always say it's for training. That's always their excuse,"Councilor Mike Farrell Farrell told The Sun Journal.
Acting Fire Chief Geoff Low said the firefighters were touring the
route of a drill involving 14 fire agencies, scheduled for later in the
month.
http://www.firerescue1.com/labor-issues/articles/1066258-Maine-city-official-trails-fire-truck-posts-video-online/

Video at link!

I like how he blows a stop sign while doing this.

I could understand maybe if he said they're getting paid too much to sit around, realistically, my fire department sees maybe 1-2 fires a week, maybe 30 MVAs and another say 50 calls on top of that. The rest of the time, outside of 8-4 minus 12-1 is all just relax and wait for a call, and they make startin salary of 72,000. Do they earn it on their calls, yes when they go, but if he went to the station and saw them spending 10 out of 24 hours on a shift doing nothing and getting paid for it, then yeah I could understand. If he was in my jurisdiction, he'd get a nice ticket and summons for driving wreckless, and driving distracted, both that come with huge fines, and depending on his previous conduct, his licence evaporating as well.

I hope this city council doofus is a FD reject, and decided that since he's got some power, he's gonna take out his inadequacies (and probably lack of length in external genitalia) on the FD. Would make for epic lulz when his plan backfires, and he loses face with the city government.

be nice Mr. Stone :p lol

I am from an area of mostly vollie depts and we do drive around quite abit, but agin it's just for traning. We usally take out First Responder units with our main operators to do address scouting so not to use to much money. We also drill usally 3 of the 4 mondays a month. I do see how this could come off as a waste, but take it away and you will be sorry.

Well when you don't get a lot of calls, why not take the truck out for a drive once in awhile? And what would money be used for, gas?

yea^
and i had already seen this video before, freakin jackass, i hate politicians..it was said that they were scouting out a rotue for a upcoming water shuttle drill

Yupp, those things eat gas. I know ours is not a gas friendly beast, and it's brand new (all within the lesser side of 5 years old) I understand where he is coming off with the gas wastage, but obviously he's a dickweed that knows nothing about someone he wants to insult, and wants to sit on his high horse instead.

Do they have pumps in the station or what?

In my city? No, to install one would be a senseless waste of money, since it would require special delivery, storage, and additional installation of equipment. We have a gas station near every fire station, and whenever we go out to do whatever, we'll stop there, usually returning on the way to station, we'll get some gas. It also works better, because many gas stations have been known to give discounts to fire departments, so we save that little bit extra

Yeah, we have a lot of gas stations, too, but I've never seen the fire trucks at them, much less seen a gas tanker at the fire station, so...well...I think they just go to the pumps.

They are hard to come by, suually around 3:20pm ish is when they'll go out if they don't NEED gas urgently (ie less than a quarter tank)

And of course, this is new truck season, so every now and then, you'll see one from far away getting a quick top up in both tanks before being driven out to the town they belong to

Yep, last May we got our new Quint, saw it in the station on the way home from school.

If He gets fired I'll send him Puddi Puddi