Firefighting & Rescue Social / Professional Network
Do You Keep Your Bay Doors Closed?
I Just started volunteering at a department 40 minutes away that I knew little about previously. I've noticed on numerous visits to all 4 stations that every apparatus bay door was up at each one. I was able to walk inside each station in plain clothes. Once I walked right through the bay and into the living quarters only to discover everyone was out on the engine staging at some planned event. When I returned 30 minutes later to find them in quarters, one of the FFs told me to go wait for the captain inside as if he were suspicious of me looking at one of the trucks. Some of the stations also have ALS ambulances assigned there.
This makes me very nervous considering today's climate and the fact that I am very security obsessed at home. I hate the idea of people being able to walk in and out or sneak around. Perhaps hide and wait for us to return. I cringe as I run scenarios in my head.
I know the department in my county, which I grew up around, has a policy requiring the doors be kept down at all times. I also know of a foiled plan to steal a fire engine in this county, an incident where a bunch of bunker gear was stolen out of a rural station, and recently a teen had a joy ride with lights and siren in a reserve engine.
So the question: What's your policies, and and also your habits? I am new at the department and feel awkward asking questions, but this is a dangerous practice.
This makes me very nervous considering today's climate and the fact that I am very security obsessed at home. I hate the idea of people being able to walk in and out or sneak around. Perhaps hide and wait for us to return. I cringe as I run scenarios in my head.
I know the department in my county, which I grew up around, has a policy requiring the doors be kept down at all times. I also know of a foiled plan to steal a fire engine in this county, an incident where a bunch of bunker gear was stolen out of a rural station, and recently a teen had a joy ride with lights and siren in a reserve engine.
So the question: What's your policies, and and also your habits? I am new at the department and feel awkward asking questions, but this is a dangerous practice.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by PFC Harmon on -
They come in handy on forest fires. Use them to help clear fire lines. Like Jenny's department our leaf blower and chainsaw grew legs and walked off one day.
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Permalink Reply by Brian D. on -
I get it. Here in the suburbs of Chicago, we don't tend to get many forest fires. Great outside the box idea though.
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Permalink Reply by Jenny Holderby on -
Yup, leafblowers, they do work very well in brush/wild land fires also work great as electric brooms for cleaning the bay. Chain saws, hand saws and many other small tools seem vanish if they aren't locked up.
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Permalink Reply by Royce Terry on -
When we are there there open, sometimes we forget to close them when we leave for a call, but durring a hot day in the summer we leave the doors open and our ambulance which is ALS is there too.
Wow some drug addict could just come through the open oor break the lock and steal the drugs from the ALS box
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Permalink Reply by Romulus14541 on -
Our department is in the middle of a hamlet of 200 people with a total annual budget of $16,000.00, running a average of 70 fire calls. There's not much to steal if they want it. Like I said earlier, for the larger departments, I would agree to keep the doors closed.
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Permalink Reply by KARL on -
It's a good practice to close the apparatus doors whenever there is no one in the station. On my paid dept we are not allowed to have the bay doos up unles we are leaving or coming back from a call. On the vol dept,it's would be hard to close the doors when leaving on a call unles you have a remote for the doors considering the station is on a main roadway. But you are right that it is a safety concern..
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Permalink Reply by Barry Homyack on -
Our bay doors are always closed when nobody is in the fire house. Even if we are on the 2-nd and 3-rd floors, the bay door is always closed. If someone wants to get into the firehouse when us members are on the different floors, all they have to do is ring the door bell. You gotta remember, there is so much gear inside and on the fire trucks that cost a lot of money, that why we keep our bay doors closed.
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Permalink Reply by Captain Bigshow on -
At our dept. we leave the doors closed and we lock them. Everyone that is a member has a key to the entrance door. After we start the apparatus that give us plenty of time to unlock the slide lock and open the doors and don our gear, all this while the air pressure builds. The only set back is that while we are on a call the doors are left open, unless a member shuts them if we are out for an extended period of time. I wish we had automatic doors that would open and close at the push of a button, but we are just a small volunteer dept.
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Permalink Reply by PFC Harmon on
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We are a small volunteer department and we know seconds matter, but the passenger will wait till the truck pulls out then shut the door and jump in.
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Permalink Reply by David Gill (FF/HAZMAT/EMS) on -
Well since I work on a Military base we have some more sense of security than most. Most of the time we leave our doors open during the day with the exceptions of summers in Texas or aircraft are parked out front. The doors are closed by night fall. As I said I'm on a military base which puts us near the airport flightline and since 80% of the time someone is in the station, security is always roaming around, so in the event that the station is cleared,ie for dual training or a major incident eyes are around to watch things.
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Permalink Reply by Cannon on -
If you did that in my area... well we'd be fired and then tracking down missing equipment.
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Permalink Reply by morris washburn on -
Of all the depts. I have been in, we always kept the doors closed and locked . If we were having a meeting ,training ,then opeened, but while we were on a call then someone would close them usually the asst. chief . This one dept . we had kids breaking in all the time .But took food out and cooked it on trhe stove . LOLwe even had drinks taken out of a coke machine . That was just some of our support money we got ,after the coke bill was payed .Butnow they lock it up tight .
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