x635

LAFD Heavy Rescue 56 Moving To Station 3

26 posts in this topic

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 0:21 PM, RicardoBerg said:

Awesome rig and I just heard that Heavy Rescue is going to relocate to Fire Station 3 in April but don't know if it's official maybe someone can shed light to this.

Well, it's official now. A lot of guys assigned to the unit are not too happy about this.

Quote

Did You Know? Most LAFD promotions, transfers and transitions happen on Sundays.

Those with a keen eye will note that this Sunday, April 2, 2017, after more than a quarter century of being housed at Station 56 in Silver Lake, our single LAFD Heavy Rescue unit will be moving to its new home at Fire Station 3 in downtown Los Angeles, where it will now be known as "Heavy Rescue 3".

 

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That gonna be cramp space with every one at that station, got full task force, usar, rescue and division chief and now heavy rescue. Doesn't make sense. Well guess be easier getting into the bay. 

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If u really think about it, it all makes sense. Moving heavy rescue 56 to station 3 makes them more essentially located and gives them better response times. 

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19 hours ago, EMT_FS46 said:

If u really think about it, it all makes sense. Moving heavy rescue 56 to station 3 makes them more essentially located and gives them better response times. 

Wouldn't the traffic in the downtown area be a hinderance?

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St56 has a much easier fwy locations. South 5 to 110 for Downtown or the Harbor. North for the valley and other districts. Task Force,USAR,RA3,RA803,B,EMS and HR3. Hope they found a hole for the guys to sleep.

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And at station 3 they have the 110, the 101, and 5 with easy access to the 10 freeway  as well as better surface streets to combat rush hour freeway traffic. Pairing the heavy rescue with a USAR task force is a good thing. I can bet that the heavy rescue call volume will increase just like when squad 4 moved to 21s.

Edited by EMT_FS46

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Not necessarily the traffic can be pretty bad if not crawl in that area. I see it as redundant. They are Meant and designed for two totally separate things. HR call load should not increase since they respond to all major wrecks city wide, and what ever else they may be needed for. It wasn't up to couple years back did they start sending usar to wrecks. I saw HR3 on tv today on multiple physical Rescue incident on 2fwy. They already remarked it to 3's 

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Squad 21 call load increased because they shut down all other squads. 

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Not true when you look at the areas they mainly responded to battalion 13, 1, 2, 11, 5, and east side of 18. I also feel USAR 88 should be swaped with either 27s or 3s for better coverage. Also I feel USAR 88 should have a dedicated crew of 4 or 5 personnel unsteady of just a A/O and captain.

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USAR 88 is a fully staffed unit. The only staffed USAR in the city. As for the HR, a city of this size should have two in service on each side of the city. Unfortunately they aren't busy enough to justify a second one. Not like the old days when they had 3 in service.

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Not busy enough until a 7.4M quake, where they will wish they had a whole lot more USAR's and heavy rescues.

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11 hours ago, pump305 said:

USAR 88 is a fully staffed unit. The only staffed USAR in the city. As for the HR, a city of this size should have two in service on each side of the city. Unfortunately they aren't busy enough to justify a second one. Not like the old days when they had 3 in service.

 

11 hours ago, Rescue51 said:

Not busy enough until a 7.4M quake, where they will wish they had a whole lot more USAR's and heavy rescues.

With this new rig, the former one is now a fully equipped spare that can be placed into service as needed, given they have a trained A/O and firefighter to do so. I believe it was supposed to be kept at Station 88. The fate of the former unequipped spare is unknown to me.

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Spare and reserve HR are at ST89. Unless they have been moved. There was talk at one time of adding a second HR at 89's.

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On 4/5/2017 at 2:09 PM, pump305 said:

Spare and reserve HR are at ST89. Unless they have been moved. There was talk at one time of adding a second HR at 89's.

Yes when WIlliam Bamattre was the Chief of the Fire Department there was a plan to put a second Heavy Rescue in service at Station 89.

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On 4/4/2017 at 11:28 PM, pump305 said:

USAR 88 is a fully staffed unit. The only staffed USAR in the city. As for the HR, a city of this size should have two in service on each side of the city. Unfortunately they aren't busy enough to justify a second one. Not like the old days when they had 3 in service.

Pump 305 I recall when there were 2 Heavy Rescues in service one was at Station 88 and the other was at Station 6 and at the time the were known as Heavy Utilities. Where was the third one at ? Was that Heavy Utility 14 that you are talking about. I understand that they were relocated further north around 1960 so I am not sure 3 were actually being operated at the same time or whether they had just relocated one of them?

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On 4/4/2017 at 11:28 PM, pump305 said:

USAR 88 is a fully staffed unit. The only staffed USAR in the city. As for the HR, a city of this size should have two in service on each side of the city. Unfortunately they aren't busy enough to justify a second one. Not like the old days when they had 3 in service.

A better way to put it is to say that they have a dedicated staff assigned to them because are they still dispatched to scene either with their Light Force or their Engine so they can have fullsized crew to operate their equipment? Or when they dispatch USAR 88 are they dispatched by themselves with only the 2 man crew? I know that the other 5 USAR units normally will get dispatched either with their Light Force or their Engine in order to have someone drive the unit to the scene as well as to have a full sized crew to operate it once it gets to the incident  
Is the normal practice to dispatch the USAR units with their Light Force to scene of an incident or they normally dispatch them along with their Engine company  to the scene of an incident?

 

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On 4/1/2017 at 5:45 PM, x635 said:

Well, it's official now. A lot of guys assigned to the unit are not too happy about this.

 

 While I don't have exact dates on all of the moves (as I am not from LA) I understand that at different times in the past Station 3 did have a Heavy Utility (which is what the Heavy Rescues were once called) did have one assigned to the station.  I had read that there was a Heavy Utility that had been assigned to Station 14 from 1948 until 1960 when they were relocated Station 3. I think that the one one at Station 3 was relocated to the Old Station 6. In 1967 to my understanding Heavy Utility 6 received a new Crown Heavy Wrecker  that was painted Yellow and they were relocated to Station 27 was the Old Station 6 was torn down. While I don't have any dates I have a suspicion that the one at Station 27  was Station 3. I am not sure if the one at Station 56  was relocated there from Station 27 or whether they were relocated there from Station 3  because I believe that sometime in the early 80's Station 3 did have the Heavy Rescue assigned there probably before the current Station 56 was opened.

Does any one on this site have the specific dates and years that the Heavy Utilities were in service.  Such as when did Heavy Utility 88 go in service and when were they taken our of service?  I believe that the one at Station 88 was only in service for about 3 years as the new (current Station) was opened in 1975 and  there were major cutbacks in 1978 which is probably when Heavy Utility 88 was taken out of service The one at the current  Station 88   was a newer Mack  Heavy Wrecker  however when the one at Station 88 was taken out of service (probably around 1978) it was relocated to Station 3 and then to 27 and eventually ended up at Station 56 when the current house was opened. Perhaps someone on this site might have a more detailed or specific history.

Edited by firepost

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6 hours ago, firepost said:

A better way to put it is to say that they have a dedicated staff assigned to them because are they still dispatched to scene either with their Light Force or their Engine so they can have fullsized crew to operate their equipment? Or when they dispatch USAR 88 are they dispatched by themselves with only the 2 man crew? I know that the other 5 USAR units normally will get dispatched either with their Light Force or their Engine in order to have someone drive the unit to the scene as well as to have a full sized crew to operate it once it gets to the incident  
Is the normal practice to dispatch the USAR units with their Light Force to scene of an incident or they normally dispatch them along with their Engine company  to the scene of an incident?

 

USAR 88 is always a primary unless on another call.  Depending on the call you get an additional USAR as well as a USAR TASK FORCE like 85s, 3s, 5s, 89s, or 27s. This includes the RA's too.

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13 minutes ago, EMT_FS46 said:

USAR 88 is always a primary unless on another call.  Depending on the call you get an additional USAR as well as a USAR TASK FORCE like 85s, 3s, 5s, 89s, or 27s. This includes the RA's too.

So EMT_FS46 are you saying that USAR 88 gets dispatched to Incidents before the other 5 will  get dispatched to the scene  and only if a second USAR is needed will one of the other 5 go? Even though USAR 88 officially has a 2 man crew who man's it once on the scene of the incident? For example are the companies at 88's station also considered to be a USAR Task Force or does USAR 88 respond without Task Force 88?

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1 minute ago, firepost said:

So EMT_FS46 are you saying that USAR 88 gets dispatched to Incidents before the other 5 will  get dispatched to the scene  and only if a second USAR is needed will one of the other 5 go? Even though USAR 88 officially has a 2 man crew who man's it once on the scene of the incident? For example are the companies at 88's station also considered to be a USAR Task Force or does USAR 88 respond without Task Force 88?

What are the calls that they would nornally get dispatched on beside building collapses and major wrecks? For example do the USARS normally get dispatched on Greater Alarm or Major Emergency fires? Who is usually assigned to RIT duties at a fire? For example when  Category A or a Category B fire is dispatched and it is found out to be a working fire do they call for an additional company to perform RIT duties or do they assign one of the Engines that are on the scene to be the RIT company? I know that a Category A fire usually only gets one Light Force so do  they then call for a second Light force for RIT duties or do they just use one of the Engines for that. I know that many places use Trucks for RIT duties but there are some towns that also use Engines as RIT companies. When I say RIT I mean Rapid Intervention teams. Thanks.

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Yes they do get dispatched to seconded alarm fires and serve as ric and as well as any rope rescues. I believe their light force gets dispatched with them some times, idk if they will get dispatched before closer usar task force. 

Edited by mr.ranger

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USAR 88 can self dispatch if they fell the need. They respond city wide and as stated earlier a second USAR with there LF will respond. Yes TF 88 is a USAR TF s is all the TF's with USAR assigned to them. Same with SQ21 can also self dispatch as needed.

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1 hour ago, pump305 said:

USAR 88 can self dispatch if they fell the need. They respond city wide and as stated earlier a second USAR with there LF will respond. Yes TF 88 is a USAR TF s is all the TF's with USAR assigned to them. Same with SQ21 can also self dispatch as needed.

That's a pretty good deal to be able to dispatch yourself on an alarm. Where I'm from only some of the brass gets the privilege of self dispatching.If

 If I'm correct the Haz Mat Squads in Los Angeles also operate as Manpower Squads af fires.

I know that Los Angeles lost quite a few companies during the height of the recession which had included 11 Engines and 7 Light Forces. While several of the Engines were put back in service I understand that none of the Light Forces have been put back in service yet.  I hope that they finally start putting those Light Forces back in service for a City the size of Los Angeles to lose 7 Trucks is a big deal.

 

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15 hours ago, firepost said:

 While I don't have exact dates on all of the moves (as I am not from LA) I understand that at different times in the past Station 3 did have a Heavy Utility (which is what the Heavy Rescues were once called) did have one assigned to the station.  I had read that there was a Heavy Utility that had been assigned to Station 14 from 1948 until 1960 when they were relocated Station 3. I think that the one one at Station 3 was relocated to the Old Station 6. In 1967 to my understanding Heavy Utility 6 received a new Crown Heavy Wrecker  that was painted Yellow and they were relocated to Station 27 was the Old Station 6 was torn down. While I don't have any dates I have a suspicion that the one at Station 27  was Station 3. I am not sure if the one at Station 56  was relocated there from Station 27 or whether they were relocated there from Station 3  because I believe that sometime in the early 80's Station 3 did have the Heavy Rescue assigned there probably before the current Station 56 was opened.

Does any one on this site have the specific dates and years that the Heavy Utilities were in service.  Such as when did Heavy Utility 88 go in service and when were they taken our of service?  I believe that the one at Station 88 was only in service for about 3 years as the new (current Station) was opened in 1975 and  there were major cutbacks in 1978 which is probably when Heavy Utility 88 was taken out of service The one at the current  Station 88   was a newer Mack  Heavy Wrecker  however when the one at Station 88 was taken out of service (probably around 1978) it was relocated to Station 3 and then to 27 and eventually ended up at Station 56 when the current house was opened. Perhaps someone on this site might have a more detailed or specific history.

I don't have exact dates either, but I shot this in the mid 80s at 88's during Fire Service Day activities.

31919443542_452412f1a9_z.jpgLAFD Heavy U 88 by LAFD42, on Flickr

Btw, old Station 6 was not torn down, they built a new station on a different property to better serve their district.

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