Having been a firefighter/paramedic in a past life... There have been several instances in recent memory where fire departments have been sued (and had to pay damages) where unnecessary or excessive damage was caused by their response to an emergency call. One example that always stuck in my mind: Breaking down a door that would have opened if they tried the handle. -- Very few local governments even have top-notch legal representation, and many don't know how to defend something like that against a good legal team. Deepak Jain AiNET On Sun, 18 Jul 1999, Sean Donelan wrote:
nathan@robotics.NET (Nathan Stratton) writes:
As a volunteer fire fighter I will agree with you on that one. I often wonder why more people don't sue for damage, I guess there is little they can do. Some people in fire fighters actually have fun cutting holes where they don't need cut or flooding places with water they know don't need it. Our department is very good, but many of them are not concerned with the property at all.
One of the lessons from the Los Angeles CO fire was the danger to firefighters with fires in telecommunication facilities. Fortunately such fires are rare. But that rarity means few departments have any experience with such fires. Hinsdale was a wake up call for the telecommunications industry, L.A. was a wake up call for the fire service. Five years later, NFPA, AT&T and Telcordia (bellcore) are still debating what should be done. For the most part, the experience has not yet reached down to either the local fire departments or the people building data and telecommunication facilities.
http://www.nfpa.org/Research/summaries/los_angeles.html -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation