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Comment by curun1r | Hacker News Reader

LOL at SFFD giving any shits about costs. This is the same department that power grabbed emergency medical response away from dedicated paramedics in ambulances. Responding in full ladder trucks to take care of drunk homeless people...yeah, they do that, costing millions every year in added expenses and road repairs. But good for them for saving a few bucks on ladders, that must make a huge difference.

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This is part of a first responder program, occasionally saving lives. Plenty of cities across the US do this sort of thing.

If you have an emergency - especially a medical one - whoever is closest is the right person to respond, be it fire department, ambulance, or police. 3 to 10 minutes in an emergency can make a huge difference. Like it or not, a drunk homeless person is generally a health and/or safety issue. Coming in trucks that they would usually drive also means that if there happens to be a fire call while they are out helping someone with possible first aid, they can leave from the scene, keeping more people safe. For auto accidents, sometimes the fire truck is one of the better things to have at the scene for visibility purposes.

I would also like to add that many - but not all - fire departments also drive ambulances.

Does it cost money? Sure. But if it helps folks, I'm for it. There are other options, but I'm not convinced they will cost less money (more ambulances of different sorts, more manpower for first responders positioned in places across cities, and so on... all have their costs).

I'd fully recommend actually looking into the reasons for some of this, and what other options are for similar outcomes.

A lady at a bar passed out for a few seconds last week, and they sent out a full ladder truck, and ambulance, and four sheriff cars, even though she had resumed consciousness before the dispatcher was done gathering info. I would think they could have coordinated via radio and picked one vehicle to show up. A couple of the responders even seemed to be annoyed that she was conscious when they got there. That didn't seem very efficient to me.

That in itself likely wasn't. But we are human and stuff happens. We tend to notice such outliers. Having flaws and miscommunication doesn't really mean the system is all bad, though.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/us/san-francisco-firefigh...

You're not wrong, but it's more that they are in a position to help and the city doesn't seem to want to have another organization deal with the homeless. They're not exactly gunning for the role of taking care of the homeless.

That's kind of a silly thing to say given that the government of SF spends hundreds of millions of dollars on the homeless a year.

My immediate reaction is incredulity at the notion a city could spend hundreds of millions on its homeless population and still have a homeless population...

Are there further details/good articles you would be able to provide?

The common trope in LA and SF is that more and more homeless migrate to the west coast every day due to the services and weather.

According to [1], the city gets 40-50 people off the streets every week, but there are 100-150 new homeless people each week. So at that simple numbers game, the homelessness problem is not yet being solved.

You can see the budget at [2]. Most of the budget goes to Supportive Housing, ie, paying for housing for people to keep them off the street.

1: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/29-million-incre...

2: http://hsh.sfgov.org/overview/budget/

I feel like you could house and feed all the homeless in America with that much money.

Now I kind of wonder how many homeless they have in SF. Because if it's 10,000 homeless people (that would be over 1% of its 800k population), they get to spend $10,000(s) on each one ..

So either: they got a ridiculous amount of homeless people, or they got a ridiculous hole in their wallet, or the city doesn't actually spend 100s of millions on the homeless.

Also from the article:

>There's a city-specific reason why San Francisco has stuck with wood rather than swap over to metals, and the answer lies in looking up. The high-voltage cables and wires that guide the city's (oft-maligned) public transport system Muni, and trolley cars crisscross above nearly every street, mean that ladders made of conductive elements are generally just too dangerous to use.

>"I think there's a lot of fire departments that went aluminum and wish they could go back to wood but it's too expensive," Braun says. "There's only two ladders manufacturers in the states—and we're one of 'em. We only make our own ladders and can barely even keep up with what we have."

How do other countries with OHLE cope? AFAIK, most use metal ladders. Just rely on quickly getting the wires isolated?

I think when the electrical service wires have insulation it isn't as much of an issue as opposed to the electricity driven trollies needing bare conductors.

OHLE is specially overhead equipment like that used for trams, trolleybuses, etc. Most places I was thinking of don't have electrical supply wires overground.

melbourne has probably the worlds most extensive tram network, with exposed overhead wires and our fire department uses metal ladders

Having never been to melbourne how close to they run to multi-level structures? In San Francisco the wires powering trollies are practically feet from dwellings.

I don't understand this. Fiberglass is non-conductive, so that's not really a reason to not use non-wood ladders. It is also generally stronger and more durable for the same weight.

Every fiber glass ladder I've seen has aluminum caps at both ends and aluminum steps.

As long as those steps and caps are connected with fiberglass sides, what’s the issue?

At high voltages the electricity may be able to arc between the steps. Electricity will do some pretty incredible things at high voltages. Check out this video of some idiots turning a powerline into a Jacob's ladder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yBTHrXEK4U

That video was awesome.

I'm guessing that the types of ladders SFFD are using aren’t going to be anywhere near power lines of that high a voltage.

I can't tell what, if anything, they were doing besides filming.

i think a weight tied to thin uninsulated wire, thrown like a baseball over the lines

At the voltage needed to arc between aluminum steps you've got a lot bigger problems than worrying about your ladder. A quick search shows overhead trolley cables deliver 600V DC. Not exactly "turning air to plasma" level there. The rest of the overhead cables firefighters should encounter are the same normal residential 34kV lines you see everywhere (data tables show an air arc distance under 2 inches) unless I'm missing something.

Coming from NYC, it is somewhat surprising to see such anger directed at fire departments. Here, the FDNY seems universally loved.

Consider the impact of 9/11. Prior to that, FDNY was of course well-liked, but not to the incredible degree it is today. The role they played in the response, and the heavy losses they suffered when the towers fell, resulting in a huge outpouring of grief, support, thanks, etc. It's still going today. Other fire departments perhaps benefit a little from that, but not to same degree as FDNY.

TBH I am from the Bay Area, work in SF, and I have never seen ire like that directed at SFFD before. I wouldn't take this example as representative or common.

SF in general seems to be more vitriolic towards public services. Might be the entrepreneurial mindset of the region rubbing off.

The LAFD might be the most admired municipal organization in the city. They have a very difficult range of environments and handle them very well.

From afar it seems the LAPD has a horrible reputation. So the LAFD must seem like saints by comparison.

I don't think its anger. It's just that police and fire departments have garnered this "can do no wrong" mindset to the extent that trying to fix what they actually do wrong (waste money) has turned into a political third rail.

Fewer fires but larger departments [0], 6-figure trucks driving to fender benders, pension spiking, minimum staffing requirements & huge overtime pay (union-negotiated), etc.

Look, I appreciate what first responders do. I just don't think they're above reproach.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2015/09/04/05316abe-...

Can confirm. Grew up in the area. Lots of neighbors, family and friends are FDNY. Everyone loves them.

I'm a transplant, but in my casual observations living here it seems like SFFD is pretty impressive and worthy of respect. I've seen neighbors call for minor issues, the response time has been very good and the calls taken seriously. It's almost as if they're keeping cultural memory of 1906 alive, i.e. they really don't want widespread fires.

I've got nothing but praise and admiration for the actual firefighters in SFFD. They do shit for out city that no one else wants to do and should rightfully have the same kind of admiration that FDNY gets.

But for the people running the department, specifically those in those positions in the early aughts (naughties?) who maneuvered to eliminate dedicated paramedics from the city, I've got nothing but hate. I had friends who were part of ambulance crews who were forced to either transition into being full-fledged firefighters or get let go and have to look for work in neighboring cities. None of them wanted to run into burning buildings, so they all left. It was a nonsensical decision to gain political power and ended up increasing costs and negatively impacting a lot of other highly dedicated folks who should receive similar amounts of praise. First responders of all sorts, whether they be police, fire fighters, paramedics or otherwise, are always taking risks to help the rest of us.

I'd hope that New Yorkers would have similar admiration for the folks in ambulances that also put their lives on the line to help their fellow citizens. Now imagine that some fucks at the top of the NYFD decided to fuck over the ambulance personnel in an attempt to gain more political clout while simultaneously wasting a ton of taxpayer money doing nonsensical things like needlessly sending the large 2-driver firetrucks to the scene of medical emergencies. Then how would you feel about NYFD? You'd probably feel the way I do about the SFFD and draw a clear distinction between the men and women who actually put on a uniform and serve their community and the bureaucrats at the top who are wasting our money and destroying our roads.

There was that time an _on-duty_ firefighter was drunk driving the rig, hit a motorcyclist and everyone involved tried to cover it up, including fleeing the scene. He didn't get questioned by the police for hours.

https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Former-SF-firefighter-g...

It’s also a function of the job - people don’t hate them because the vast majority of their work is non-confrontational and they don’t pose a risk to citizens (write tickets, arrest people etc) so most people are happy to see them when they arrive somewhere they are needed. Put it another way - I’m willing to guess that a large percentage of people here have had or witnessed a negative interaction with a police officer, and far fewer could say the same of a firefighter or EMT...

I am not sure what you are referring to. I was involved in a motorcycle accident in October of 2017 and I was treated by SFFD paramedics in an ambulance.

Why does the fire department respond to a medical emergency?

Often this is because many firefighters are also certified EMTs. So sometimes, it’s just easier to have the fire department respond.

That being said, I live in a rural state where this makes sense. I cannot imagine the crowded streets of SF are good for this.

They do in most countries actually. There's a lot of similarity in the skills you need.

Don't most countries have a separate ambulance/paramedic service for medical emergencies? Certainly in the UK we have fire, police and ambulance as the three emergency services, one (or more) of which will be sent by the dispatcher following a 999 emergency call. I think most commonwealth countries are the same.

Because Ambulances tend not to carry the kind of heavy duty cutting equipment required to get people out of mangled cars

Often times fire engines and trucks are staffed with 3 EMTs and at least 1 Paramedic. Then the ambulance with 2 paramedics, or 1 paramedic 1 EMT arrives.

It's all about level of care. Overkill for a twisted ankle sure but crucial for a cardiac or other life threatening event.

Because “fire department” is the label put on the general purpose non-law-enforcement emergency response unit of most local governments.

US fire departments are classed as "first responders", with a service level requirement that they normally arrive on-scene within minutes, usually long before police/ambulance/etc.

It makes sense to staff FDs with EMTs and give them responsibility for responding to all manner of emergencies (medical included), since they are already the first responders.

The fire department does have some ambulances, but they still respond to non-fires with fire engines as well. Prior to the unification of services, non-fire medical emergencies were serviced by ambulances and EMTs were not required to be firefighters. Now, all EMTs have to be firefighters. I had friends who lost their jobs when the switchover happened because they didn't want to train as firefighters.

I don't like this type of argument. Dollars saved are dollars saved, even if there are bigger problema that could be solved

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