The community of Northborough has assisted us in developing THEIR Fire Department with the tools necessary to to respond to most of their calls for help. As with all Fire Departments, our need for specific equipment is different for almost every call we receive for assistance. That is the nature of the business.
Foremost in our mission is to help the town's citizens in their time of need. We are called on for assistance when their emergency overwhelms their resources and knowledge to mitigate it. It is our mission to respond and try to mitigate their emergency. Based on the diversity in nature we are presented by calls for help, our responses require a diverse compliment of tools and experience to bring most incidents to a successful outcome.
Unlike some public safety service departments, our profession requires an extensive collection of tools.
It has been said that to outfit a policeman to do 98% of his duties he needs to be given a: gun, cruiser, handcuffs, pen, and paper. While the statement simplifies the duties of law enforcement, it does have some merit. The fire service is frequently held to this paradigm of staffing and equipping. It is unfortunate that because of the diversity of our emergency requests, we require a much more diverse collection of tools and skills than many other departments. Because we do therefore stock what may appear to many as A LOT
of TOYS, let me assure you we do not. They are NOT TOYS they are TOOLS. Our department has always tried to care for these tools with the care and maintenance that they require. This keeps them in working condition for when they are needed, as well as prolong their life span. When Engine-6 was retired in 1998 it had 23 years on the line. Engine-4 the previous year was retired with 24 yrs on the
line. Forestry-2 is a 1953 army surplus vehicle and just came to retirement in 2006. Can any other department claim any road vehicle (emergency or not) that has been kept on-line for that type of time? I think not. We, as a department, will always try to improve our equipment to provide better protection and assistance to you. That is What does a Fire Department need to do its' job? What tools should we have to mitigate any of the
following types of calls?
- An Ice Rescue
- A Diabetic Emergency
- A Building Fire
- (Residential, Commercial)
- A Victim Trapped in a Motor Vehicle
- A Trench Collapse
- A Wild-lands Fire
- A Person Having a Heart Attack
- A Lost Child or Elder
- A Chimney Fire
- A Tanker Accident with Spill
- (Flammable? HAZMAT? Environmental Impact? )
- An MCI (Mass Casualty Incident)
- A Tornado, Hurricane, Earthquake, Flood, or Blizzard
- A Carbon Monoxide Problem
- An Emergency Childbirth
- An Unknown Hazardous Material Spill
- etc. etc. etc....
I am sure that being issued an extinguisher, fire truck, pen and paper would not solve many of these.
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