Safety is of no concern, when it doesn't suit you

As most of these posts start out attacking our local fire departments, let me start off stating the is far from that!

This Saturday the 20th, east Concord fire department had a structure fire. Many companies were called in For mutual aid including all three of Bostons companies. They all worked flawlessly together and did what Needed to be done in a professional manner. I thank them all! However it came to my attention along with many others that during the water relay process that took place at Boston's Firehall that water was being spilled everywhere, not at any departments ignorance, but as a unfortunate side effect of filling multiple trucks with water. All this water was turning to ice very quickly and started impeding into the roadway. A call was made by a firefighter to Bob Telak to ask to treat the surface for safety issues to public traveling Mill street and insuring that the tanker trucks could safely enter and exit the hall. Bob's response was that it was past 3:00 and he would not call a worker in nor come out himself to help, but feel free to go fill some buckets yourself and spread it on your own. Not his problem. A few hours later he arrived on scene to scope out the issue and asked for the firefighters who place the call including spelling of his name, as if the mighty hammer was going to fall upon the firefighter. Bob left the scene again saying get the salt yourselves, and stuck his nose to the sky as him and his poodle in the towns truck pulled away. ( can he even have his poodle in a towns truck everyday ) long story short, a public personal plow driver seen our situation of members slipping and falling just trying to walk, and came over and salted and plowed the parking lot and roadway for the firefighters and public alike. Thank you to that individual!

Bobs gone off the deep end and this is a election year, just thought the general public needs to know his actions to not help and to put public safety on the back burner. I mean he took his town truck to the scene, why not just grab a plow truck from the yard and show up?

:congratulatory: Great point StanderBy and you're right.

If they were more careful and not spilled so much water, then calling Bob wouldn't have been necessary.

For you, is it more that you didn't want to spread some salt yourself, the co-pilot poodle or that your name was asked that boils you?

All three are wonderfully made complaints and I hope you get some satisfaction and resolution.

Either way, I'm with you..... Bob does a tremendous job and always has:)

Thank you Bob!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Over The Valley

:congratulatory: Great point StanderBy and you're right.

If they were more careful and not spilled so much water, then calling Bob wouldn't have been necessary.

For you, is it more that you didn't want to spread some salt yourself, the co-pilot poodle or that your name was asked that boils you?

All three are wonderfully made complaints and I hope you get some satisfaction and resolution.

Either way, I'm with you..... Bob does a tremendous job and always has:)

Thank you Bob!

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1. When a fire truck is filled with water, it is filled to the overflow. There is no point of only filling half of a truck. With Multiple departments filling each of their trucks multiple times, a little water from each revolution adds up. That's not even taking into consideration the water left in the hoses after each disconnect. Do the math: 50' of 4-5" hose volume times let's say 15 truck disconnects @ on the conservative side 20 gallons each time. That right there is 300 gallons of water that has no where else to go.

2. Spreading the salt myself? So during a active structure fire where every available volunteer resources are being utilized to save property from multiple departments. They should pull people away from their primary goal of putting a fire out , then they should take the fire truck away from scene and go to either the store to buy salt themselves or go to buy buckets to fill with salt and haul that back to the scene to spread on the ground to insure safety for everyone? That makes no logical sense. Why even fight the fire or spill any water then? The stance your taking is the fire departments should just take care of everything themselves and not utilize or even ask a paid town official for help? I mean he took the to drive to the scene, why couldn't he voluntarily fill a pail and deliver it?

3. As for the poodle co-pilot in a town vehicle, I am just curious of the towns view on that or even the safety aspect of it all.

4. As for asking a members name and spelling it, why? What does asking directly for a name and spelling do? Scare tactic? Going to report them, and to who? Just for his personal knowledge? To seem authoritative?

5. Lastly I'll admit Bob did do a good job, key word did. The roadways this year have been terrible, worse then I've seen around here in many years. Granted the cold weather hasn't helped the situation, but roads not getting plowed until the afternoon ( back creek for example) is just a pissing match to give the county a big F you after the very small, what was it a few thousand dollar fight? Hell I would have paid the difference myself to drive on safe roads

I was just notified of this post and feel compelled to make a statement. I am the chief of Boston Fire and would like anyone who does not know what happened that there was no leak or problem that caused excess water to run onto the road. This fire was not in an area with hydrants and required tankers to shuttle water continuously from a water source to the scene. Anyone who does not know how that works, one you disconnect the tanker when it's full, the water that in the hose had to go somewhere. A 4" diameter hose is used in that situation at a length of approximately 25 feet. a hose that size would hold approximately 30 gallons of water. Each time you fill another tanker, this30 gallons would be lost onto the ground. under ordinary conditions, this is not a problem, but this day was exceptionally cold and caused freezing issues. Not only at the road, but where the firefighters were working it got extremely hazardous. As for the statement that the firefighter in question was complaining about having to salt the road himself, that should not even come up. There was a actively burning fire, priority number 1. Assistance was requested to help so they could continue their duties safely without interruption.

This post is meant to inform certain people of what happened who may not have been on scene, and I did not attack or blame either side. What I will do, is ask that anyone who may be involved with the fire companies not turn this into an issue on this forum. The issue is being dealt with through proper channels with the town.

Thank you

Also, if any resident has a fire hydrant at, our near your residence, PLEASE make an attempt to keep it clear approximately 3' on all sides. The day of the fire above we attempted to establish a water supply at a hydrant closer to the incident to speed water delivery to the scene, however it was completely buried in a snowbank along with numerous others. After failed attempts to clear the hydrant with a shovel on hand to no avail, it was decided taking the longer trip to a further hydrant that we knew was clear at our fire hall was the best option. This is for your own protection sho please do all you can to assist.

As you stated this thread was merely created to inform the public of the efforts made by volunteers and the actions of a salary town employee. Everyone is just looking to make it home safely to their families at the end of the day. It's just a shame that so many can work together flawlessly giving up their free time insuring safety with no benefits in return, and a paid employee can't chip in to help with the firefighters and residents for even 15 minutes of his time. Luckily a good pubic plow driver seen the situation and rendered aid. Kudos to him! I'm glad this matter will be addressed, as I should be. Thank you Pat your department did a great job, and you confirmed the lack of careless water spilling. I will that as my last post to this thread since I spoke what I needed to, unless anyone has a direct question or quote for me. I will gladly try to be helpful and answer.