Larry Brown
Ed Burkland
In an attempt to address the decreasing number of firefighters in Pennsylvania, an amendment to a House Bill was submitted to permit 16 & 17 year old firefighters to attend and participate in interior firefighting training AND (with permission of parent or guardian) once training has been completed, respond to and engage in interior firefighting operations. We are seeking your feedback and opinion.
www.surveymonkey.com/r/16_17TYO_Interior
16 & 17 year Y/O and Interior FF -PFESI is seeking Feedback by Thursday January 17
Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.I am absolutely in favor of being able to take the training prior to being 18 however I am not in favor of having someone under 18 as an interior firefighter.
This idea is absolutely insane! Children lack the psychological skills and maturity to thrust them into harms way in this manner. To vote yes on this horrible bill will be signing the death warrant to a child! The only way to fix dropping numbers of firefighter is as simple as 3 steps consolidation, geographical redistricting and hiring career firefighters. These are the same children we restrict their use of vape till 21 years of age to protect them but it’s some idiot politicians idea to in the same breath allow children to be placed in Imamate risk fighting fire just because they want free firefighters. Use your heads people!
I would say would have to depend on each individual. As we know 16 and 17 year olds mature differently. Some of them I believe could handle the environment while others may not. For this I would believe the best course of action would require them to complete a settles an additional 32 hours a live fire training before being allowed to participate in interior fires in a real environment.
Wow, the state has become so desperate to avoid the inevitable that they now want to make Pennsylvania's fire service a Doogie Howser spin off.
I usually stay silent on these things but the politician who submitted this and anyone who thinks this is a good idea needs to be put in check. What a truly awful idea.
The solution to the staffing issue is to have fire service delivery on a county or regional basis like many other places in the country. Many if not most of these are combination departments. Cost can be spread over a much wider tax base, self-funding duties (bingo, carnivals, etc.) can be curtailed or minimized, there is a larger population pool to draw members from, additional services can be provided, and training, equipment design and purchase can be standardized. Until this concept is accepted and implemented I believe that everything has NOT been done to address this issue and that use of younger personnel is probably not justified. A warm body riding on a fire apparatus does not a firefighter make although it may fool the community into thinking all is well.
I have been asking to teach or even an informal evening on this topic. It must not be fun to understand and interact with people.
Check the 5/6 stages of life. Life experience, brain development and decision making process is not developed. Is it so important to maintain your sandbox that we are now placing children in life or death situations? Have you no shame.
I support this. If I can sign off on my child enlisting Junior year in the military then I'll sign off on this.
PFESI, when does the survey close, will you be posting the results? What is the Bill that this dialogue is related too? Thank You.
I can’t believe they would even consider this.
Completed
Completed
Jonathan Halt
Completed
What is the bill number?
Eric Bryan
Please check out the maps of Senate Districts! Please take Action!
What action are we supposed to take?
NEED ACTION from YOU - PFESI 2020 SR 6 Legislative Action Plan
Download Action Plan: pfesi.org/2020_action/
Message - Current Bills in Senate: pfesi.org/sr-6-bills-in-the-senate_-messaging/
Legislative Contact List: pfesi.org/sr-6-legislative-contact-list-senate-2020/
These bills are great for incumbent members of our emergency services, however most of these are not addressing the real problem. The main focus needs to be on mandatory consolidations and funding for staffing! The volunteer interest just isn't there anymore like it was thirty years ago. And no matter how hard we try, it's not going to come back to sufficient levels. I fully support rewarding Pennsylvania's incumbent emergency service volunteer personel, but enough is enough. We keep patching the dam with water soluble caulk and continue to avoid the inevitable. It's the same ol' dead horse over and over again. At some point, someone, somewhere needs to act upon this. I fully support the PFESI, especially when it comes to your services provided for mergers and consolidations, but SR6 is mainly once again simply an attempt to postpone the inevitable.
