I've always wondered this too. My husband and I were taking our two kids to eat at McDonald's last week and we were nearly run over by one of these truck barging down main street at breakneck speed. We got out of the way just in time. My husband followed them to see where they were going and they went to the old folks housing place on Engineer Street. My husband asked what was going on and someone there told him a lady living there had burned some bread.

I dont know why the truck had to come down Main when there is a fire station within a stone's throw away on Master Street. The mayor needs to address this situation.

Why not just do the sensible thing and have the closest fire department respond to the call especially if it is a place that has false alarms often. Then that fire truck crew can call the other fire trucks in if there is a problem. Under this plan a fire truck would never have to drive down main street unless there was a real emergency. Don't they already do something like this? Surely they do. If the fire department is scrambling everything they have from all locations every time a call comes in then the city officials need to ride the fire chief out of town on a rail.

There is no problem here. The problem is that people won't get out of the way of the fire trucks when they're on the way to an alarm. I've watched dozens of times the trucks going down main, and there's always some idiot that pulls out in front of them, or won't move over, and the trucks sirens blaring and horn honking.

And another thing, when the automatic alarm goes off at the Christian Church Homes Complex, the alarm doesn't say "Burning Cookies" or "Burned Bread", it says "FIRE!". And one issue in particular for that area, it does have mostly older people , and when they can't take care of themselves, they can very easily panic.

And, why do they send all the trucks? They have to. There's only 2 people on duty at the East and South station, and 2-4, sometimes 6, at the main station. You have to have people at a fire scene, to help with searches, move equipment, etc. If they need more help, they can page out the off duty fireman, or page out the area volunteers to help with men and equipment.

Two people and one truck at a place like the Christian Church Homes can do nothing.

As for speeding down main, they're not going much faster than the usual traffic, it's just they run through the traffic lights, BECAUSE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO.

Get out of the way next time, and don't be a part of the problem.

I think the two firemen on Master Street should just go up there and see what is going on. They could call for the rest if it was a real fire. It works in London. They don't call out the cavalry unless they are needed.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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I think the two firemen on Master Street should just go up there and see what is going on. They could call for the rest if it was a real fire. It works in London. They don't call out the cavalry unless they are needed.

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I sure want you at the helm in an emergency. You sound like one of those budget politicians, we only need an army AFTER we go to war. You're probably one of those that pull up behind the fire trucks and get in the way to see what is going on so you can complain about them going to fast. Get real.

If you like London's fire dept, PLEASE MOVE THERE!

 

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You seem very defensive and I don't know why. The previous poster makes a reasonable suggestion. There is no reason for fire trucks to go blasting down Main Street all the time when a couple of firemen can check these alarms. Perhaps a better idea would be to move a few of the firearm who aren't doing anything away from city hall and over to the dept. on Master Street since so much of the trouble comes from there.

I wonder something else. Why do all the fire trucks in Corbin show up at every fender bender in town? Isn't this overkill? Other cities handle this stuff in a much more sensible fashion. Maybe Corbin's fire department should implement some of these ideas.

 

I think the previous poster knows what he/she is talking about. If 911 is alerted to a fire - especially in a building with a lot of people and disabled people at that - there is no time to waste.

To emergency services personell, EVERY call is a worst case scenario. It has to be. That's why a cop always has his hand on his weapon when he walks up to any car he pulls over. That's why a cop always stands more than an arms length away from an interview, to react to a worst case scenario. For fireman, it's the same thing. Smoke alarms MEANS THERES SMOKE. Where there's smoke, there is usually, though not always, fire. If not fire, there's some other problem. That's why there's always life support equipment available any time surgery is done on someone, just in case. That's why there's always a crash truck on site ready to roll when airplanes are taking off or landing. That's why we have radar for attacks on our country. It's even why we have flashlights in our homes for when the lights go out.

It's not about the number of trucks, it's about the number of fireman we have on duty. Two men can't fight a fire. Two men can't run a truck, pull hose, search for people, check fire control boxes, check fire panels, and run the scene all at the same time. So, we bring all the on duty fireman to the scene. When it's clear, they all go back. They're getting paid whether they're there or not. Sure, you could have a fire on the other end of town, but, thats part of the business. Leave the fire issues to the professionals. Fireman don't come into your homes and business's to tell you what to do, and you shouldn't try to tell them what to do when there's an emergency. So, lets leave that alone for now.

As for the "town to the north", as the poster loves to use as an example, their fire department isn't considered a full time fire department. They have a few men on duty as city employees, the rest of the department are called "permanent volunteers". They're paid if they respond. That's why their fire department budget is so low. If you remember, when corbin went to a 4th class city, the fireman were worried they would lose their jobs by the city reducing the full time firemen they have. So far, the city leaders has left it alone.

The last poster must be the one always talking about london.

I'd say the last poster would also rather only have a part time/reserve military too. Only call all of them up when you need them.

When corbin changed city classes, from 3rd to 4th I believe, so we could do the restaurant tax, it was mentioned that we could also have a part time fire department being a 4th class city. The lasat poster sounds like a city leader or city management person wanting to cut dollars on the back of public safety.

Yes, in a sense, there is.

They have a combination full/part time departmetn.

Corbin has a full time department.

Both have call up firemen.

They have much less full time staff, and they pay less benefits, so that is a huge chunk of their budget for their fire department.

I knew this would come up eventually once we went to a 4th class city.

Although I disagree with the concept of changing anything do with our fire department, but, one way to find out what is going on is try to get a line item budget copy of the fire departments budget.

I think one of the major parts of their budget is the overtime they pay each pay day. For example, i think they work 24hrs on, 48 off. I think that's it. After the first 8 hours on duty, they have to pay overtime, time and a half, to those firemen. So, that's 16 hours overtime, per person, per day for all staff on duty at the stations.

Lets use $15 an hour as a base ( I hope this is way too low, but you never know when you're dealing with corbin leaders), for the first 8, = $120. Then, for the next 16, at $22.50 an hour for 16 hours, thats $360, + 120= $480 per person, per day. (again, I hope this is too low, a trained fireman is worth way more than that). If they work 5 days in a 2 week pay period, that's $2400 gross pay for one pay period, for one person.

If there's 6 people on shift combined for a work day, that's 2 persons per station for 3 stations, that's $2880 per day the city spends on staff to man the stations 24 hours. At 14 days per pay period, thats $40320.00 per two weeks, times 26 pay periods per year (if they get paid every two weeks), and that's $1,048,320.00 in salaries per year, just for the 6 people to man the 3 stations every day.

Now, I don't know how they do their vacation times, or, if they only work 5 days out of 14, there has to be some more in there to fill in the gaps for those odd days. Maybe they have part time workers, but, they have to pay them too.

Add in the chief's salary, and any others that only work 8 hour days, and it'll go up slightly.

Someone check my math to make sure it jibes, but it looks right. And, remember, if they make more than $15 an hour, it goes up dramatically.

A solution would be, to only work fireman 8 hour shifts. There would be no need for sleeping quarters, no food prep areas to maintain. They would have to hire more people to fill all the shifts, but, from what I hear, when they advertise a firemans job, dozens apply, just like the police dept.

One issue from the staff end would be "what if we're on a call and our shift ends". That would be in the job description of the fireman, that it would be mandatory to remain on duty until the emergency is clear and the truck is back at the station. Then, they would obviously paid overtime for their extra time, no one would argue that. The oncoming shift would clean and reload the gear for the next run. Would we lose some vetran fireman over this, maybe. The thing is, where are they going to go. Like I said, you'd have 20 people lined up for one job with the city.

I was driving down Master Street the other day and there was a minor wreck happened in front of me. I got out to make sure everyone was OK and stuck around as a witness to talk to police. I heard sirens in the background and looked up and saw a fire truck racing toward us nearly running cars off the road. In all three trucks showed up. I remembered reading some of the stuff about this on here. After this I'm convinced we have too many firemen with nothing to do.

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ok first off lets start with the person who has no clue what we make as firefighter's.unlike he posted,a firefighter starts off at 7.23 an hour not 15,so thats about 24,000 a year,and we don't get overtime after the first 8 hours like most jobs.you are right about one thing,a well trained firefighter is worth more than that,but like i said we do it for 7.23 an hour.can you imagine running into a burning house for that kind of pay.we don't do the job for the money,you can make that kind of money at mcdonalds,but we do it for the love of the job and the love we have for the city of corbin sounds like a lot of you don't have nothing better to do but put your nose in someone else business.i have been with the fire department four a little over five years now and do not remember a wreck on main street caused by a fire truck.when you wonder why we need so many fire truck's to go on a call,it's not the trucks we need it is the man power.we have 6 guys on duty at a time,two at each station unless someone is off then we only 5,so unless you all have firefighting experience,you know you need all the guys you can get on a call,especially on a house fire. when you all talk about the wrecks,when we get a call for a wreck with injury,we don't know what we got till a truck gets there,so if that was one of your family member's that was trapped in that car,you would won't use to get there as fast as we could to get them out.we don't just do rescue,most of us at the fire department are emt so we provide medical care while we wait on a ambulance.next time instead of bad mouthing the fire department,why not stop buy and ask us why we do thing's we do and let us explain.for the residents of the city,we work 24 hour shifts,ready to put our live on the line to save whatever it may be.for the guy that said we all have pot belly's,the city has started a fitness program,as far as the fire department goes,we have been working out daily since mid summer.for the ones that talk about london,if you don't like it here it move.when we go to a nursing home or hospital for a fire alarm,remember the size of these places and how many people are in there,so we need all or guys there when we get there,every second counts in a fire,remember in most fire related deaths,it is the smoke that kills people.for all the people that posts anonymous,have some guts put your name with your post,you never know when we might need to come ask some of you how you think we need to do our jobs.so until next time, proud member of the CORBIN FIRE DEPARTMENT,ERIC ISOM

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Thanks for your post with this information, and thanks for the job you and our other firemen do for all of us. Merry Christmas!