Posted by Willy-N on Tuesday, July 05, 2005 at 3:24PM :
In Reply to: Re: Sounds like posted by Bruce B. on Tuesday, July 05, 2005 at 12:43PM :
You can't respond with a Contract Truck till you are dispached even if it is your neibors house on fire! I am allowed to respond to any fire bordering my property or endangering my property with it just won't get paid till they dot the Is and cross the Ts. I can allways jump into our VFD Brush Rigs any time I want when we have a fire in outr area. It just seems a shame that they will not dispatch a Tender 8 miles from burning homes but will bring them in from over 100 miles away! Contract Equipment makes up 50% of the stuff used on fires and we pay to get signed up each year, have our trucks inspected, pay for our training, equipment, cloths, radios ect. Yes you do hope to get a little of your money back off the fires but if you figure I worked 14 days for pay last year and many days for free you get upset not being called out. If I don't make some money the Tender will be sold and it is the only one with in 12 miles of many homes so there protection would be gone if I sold it! I cannot afford to keep picking up the tab on a Commercial Fire Truck just so others don't have to spend a penny to have there home protected when the need arises. I do not even break even doing this so it is not a real job. When you get your next pay check from work give 50% of it back and say thanks to your boss for letting you have a place to go to during the day. Bet you won't do that but 1/2 my work and more is for FREE fighting fires! Mark H.
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