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I know the wording may not be the best here bare with me. Your  company is dispatched for a motor vehicle accident another company is dispatched as well. Your chief by passes a station which is only a two block from his house to go 6 miles to the scene in POV. With no equipment he's useless equipment still takes 5 minutes to get out. Many people have wrote in the newspaper in what we have here called the opinion line. Just wondering what your views are toward by passing a station just to get in charge of scene.

People who live close to the station like me  will go get a truck.  Everybody else goes to the scene.  We don't have anything in writing about who goes to the station and who doesn't. 

One of our officers does that and I hate it! Our rules say " The only ones allowed to the scene POV are EMT's and Paramedic's." Our EMT's and Paramedic have their own med bags, everything except the AED. I can understand that, but this particular officer isn't an EMT and only does this so that he can be IC. If you ask me, it's stupid and alot of us get REALLY frustrated with this. But the only one that can really do anything about his is our Chief and Assistant Chief and I know that they also know about it.

I see both sides of the fence here and agree to a certain extent, but here is some food for thought.

Chiefs are trained to be the "Incident Commander" and have certain tasks to be completed prior to the arrival of the crews to insure the safety of those crews, like a good size-up of the scene and the call for additional resources to assist and back-up the initial crews like a FAST and more water/engines, or ladders.  In our department every Chief Officer is supposed to call on air as soon as they are enroute.  If the Chief is on air, than the assistants go to the station to man rigs.  If the Chief is not available than the first available assistant will go to the scene and start the size up.  It may frustrate some of you that this is done, but it is a vital part of the overall incident mitigation.  A fire Chief can not do an accurate scene size-up while operating a pump and hitting a hydrant.  Granted, we do have manpower issues everywhere, but to me, that initial scene size-up is vital, and the position of IC needs to be filled ASAP in order for the overall incident to run smoothly.  We have Mutual aid for a reason, and if our chief gets on scene and we have nothing rolling yet he will dump tones for the nearest 2 departments to respond full roll.  We have a simple motto...We would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.  So, in my eyes the chief is doing his/her job just fine, and the others need to pay more attention to what their jobs are.  THIS IS NOT AN INSULT OR BASH!!  Everyone has a job to do, and the chief going direct to the scene is in my eyes the right thing to do.  On another note, what if the chief arrives on scene and its a false alarm?  He can stop the equipment from even responding, saving the department and the taxpayer money for the fuel.  Chief officers are supposed to be trained extensively, and supposed to have EXPERIENCE, when they arrive on scene of a hazardous materials incident they can prenvent the crews from getting killed like you see all too often lately. 

BUT...do we need ALL of the chief officers responding direct?  Nope, not at all.  If you are an assistant chief and hear your Chief call enroute to scene than you should be heading for the station to get equipment rolling.  Line officers like Captains and Lieutenants should ALWAYS go to the station and get the rigs rolling.  My beef with EMT's and Medics going direct to the scene is....who knows whos getting the rig???  You may have 5 EMT's on scene but no one at the station to drive the bus to the scene.  Its more important to get the ambulance and the equipment to the patient, and transport to the appropriate facility to receive the proper level of care.  Just my 2 cents and not to be taken personally by anyone, just sharing my thoughts of 20 years in both services.

Stay Safe

at our dept. we respond direct to the scene unless your already at the station. i like it that way because almost all of our volunteers are certified of course firefighter 1 and many are 1st responders.

I am not on our drivers lists yet so I go to the station first to see if the trucks are gone. If they are already responding, I drive to the scene myself. If the trucks are still in the hall, I get the doors open and jump in a truck to be ready to go. We are a very small community and if the call is during the day, the trucks are usually waiting to be manned. At night, even though I live less than a mile away, the trucks are usually pulling out as I get there. So I drive if the call warrants extra people there. If it's nothing major, I stay at the hall, which is ok too because I am also the Fire Dept Auxiliary Pres so if they need the Aux to bring water to drink or if it's a bad fire and it goes through a meal time, I can bring food and water to the scene and feed our firefighters.

We all go to the station including the chief and get on a truck. We do have exceptions to this but not many. The chief trucks is set up as a medical truck  and he carries his turn outs so he can drive straight to any scene. However if there is also someone on an EMS shift, then he goes to the station. (still exceptions). Only an officer can go straight to a medical or mva scene if 1: they have to drive by on the way and/or the truck has left, 2: they have the chief's truck and no one on the schedule. If someone is on the EMS schedule who doesn't drive then the officer goes to the station to take a truck. Fire calls- everyone to the station. So basically we all go to the station then go to the scene.

At our station only the chiefs go directly to the scene.  My dad is deputy, and we had a few calls on our block and he just went right to the house and not to the station, but those were nothing calls.  Our chief always goes unless it's for standby or assist.  My company goes into a neighboring town automatically for a building/dwelling, so he goes to the station and takes the truck.  For the firefighters, we all go to the station, we rarely go to the scene, the only time I went to the station and then the scene in another car was when we had a confirmed house fire and all 5 trucks were gone.  Some may come to the scene, but they stand back like a bystander and don't do anything because they don't have their gear.  If you don't have your gear in our station and other station in our department, you can't do anything, unless told by the chief, which would be doing something with the truck.

I do see both sides of this situation, and our chief drives right by the station most of the time, he did for the vehicle into the building the other morning for us, but we still had a driver for the truck and a full crew to stand around till the tow truck came.

The wonderful unwritten rule of where it is who goes direct or who goes to the station. Running out of two stations almost equal equipment  and 4 communities. I am part of a rural dept  that is blessed with everybody havin two ways(not a wonderful thing all the time with radio traffic)  and EMT's with very well stocked bags and entry people with turn out gear on hand. Oh yeah and a few that can start a high angleor water rescue out of their POV. Chief's rule why F up a bad situation standing around and make it worse, try to do something to help! If you are a goofer go to the station go for something to help out!Most of the time I am happy to see a goofer or a probie they have what you need while another trained person is handling something else. Damned if you do damned if you dont!

in our dept. all firefighters (including officers) responding go to the hall grab there gear then jump on the truck. the only time firefighters are allowed 2 go 2 the scene is wen they have 2 drive past the incident, or if they need more man power then they may go with approval of the chief.

I am part of a volunteer company.  Our rule is that everyone but the line officers must report to the hall.  Even our line officers sometimes report as one lives not even a block away and he may drive the truck.  I know someone mentioned about the space issue, well in our company sometimes that doesnt matter as depending on time of day, he maybe the only one able to drive the big engine.  We dont like too many POVs there as it clutters up the scene

Having lived in a rural FD, we usually responded directly to the scene with a POV. If we passed station 2 on the way to an EMS call then we would stop and get the aid car. Fire calls though it was pretty much assumed that the usual people would grab the apparatus and if we needed something else we'd send someone back for it. Not to big a deal. Usually what happened is if we went to a station we had to pass the incident. Not everyone in the department had radios and trucks didn't wait for more people to show up.

At the department I volunteer at our S.O.P. states something like... that unless the scene is in our normal route of travel, no firefighter is aloud to go to the scene. only the OIC is aloud to go to the scene.(which ever officer has the command truck) unless command directs other wise. no pov's aloud. Ive been on the department 4 yrs and can count on one hand the number of times i have seen a POV on the scene. we dont like POVs on the scene they take up to much space and get in the way. ( i will try to get a copy of  our s.o.g.'s and, s.o.p.'s posted...)

Our medical is run by a contracted ambulance company, so the only people who respond POV are officers, while everyone else responds ot the station.

I feel that is wrong !! All members should report to the firehall , 1 to see if any 1 else is coming , 2 get the equipment you need . as far as the chief !! he or she should know better .if you dont have equipment you are useless.but they can do the ult most thing also that is set up the fire ground and secure the scene . If needed they can call in for more help.BUT I would check in at the fire hall 1st.especially if you have to drive by it !!