Emergency lights on a large scene

Chimpie

Chimpie

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This was posted in another thread...
Mariemt said:
We have LED lights, I am a bit mixed on them. I think they are bright and pretty, but have you ever been dispatched 2 ambulances at once and followed one at night? Its horrible to see, you can't see where command is trying to park you. And it is literally a hazard when coming to intersections and trying to get the spots out of your eyes to clear it safely.

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Does your department/agency have a policy/protocol/procedure where on a scene that is blocked off, you turn off your emergency flashing lights? I've been on scenes that have lasted for hours, far away from hazards of traffic, and units (police, fire, ems) have left all of their emergency lighting on. With halogen rotators, this wasn't as much of an issue as strobe and now, LED lights. I've seen personnel walk around, keeping their eyes to the ground. This, in my opinion, is a safety concern.

What are your thoughts on this issue?
 
It's our policy that we turn off the emergency lights when we can. For instance, when we pull into a subdivision, off the city street, we'll typically turn off the emergency lights. Unless, of course, we're parked in a hazardous position, in which case we turn on the secondary warning lights, small LEDs and arrow stick

However… It seems as though every fire company loves to leave all of their emergency lights on ,whenever they can. It's easy to locate a scene. Just look for all the blinking lights.

Also, Delaware fire companies have the unique ability to have fire police shut down any road, at any time. Even for a simple accident, the road will be fully shut down.
 
I turn my lights off when parked on a residential st, or in a parking lot on a 911 call. On the side of the road or freeway if there's a fire app blocking us & CHP on scene, I'll shut down all the way at night and stay with floods and 4 ways if I can get totally off the roadway.
 
I pretty much leave my lights on during a call. There have been a handful of times where I have shut off the lights (if I'm parked far away from where any traffic can get to).

Knowing my work if the lights are off and someone hits the ambulance the company will probably be on me about not having the lights on during an emergency call.
 
If I'm a single unit on scene I usually leave them on. Aids in location for other resources, fire, pd, ect.
 
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Leaving the lights on during a big scene does make for some cool looking pictures.

(Scene pictured: Evacuation of NYU Langone Medical Center right after Hurricane Sandy passed through).
 
At my full time place we have to leave them on per FD policy. I appreciate when the fire guys leave them on so I can find the scene at night, but honestly it's not really necessary.

At my part time place we rarely even respond with them on, much less leave them on once on scene.
 
Chimpie said:
This was posted in another thread...


Does your department/agency have a policy/protocol/procedure where on a scene that is blocked off, you turn off your emergency flashing lights? I've been on scenes that have lasted for hours, far away from hazards of traffic, and units (police, fire, ems) have left all of their emergency lighting on. With halogen rotators, this wasn't as much of an issue as strobe and now, LED lights. I've seen personnel walk around, keeping their eyes to the ground. This, in my opinion, is a safety concern.

What are your thoughts on this issue?
Click to expand...
hey, that's me!

The LED lights are extremely bright but we have to keep them on, unless we are having a heli land then we change them over to one color, but they are still, super bright
 
Just about every place I have ever worked has had a day mode, a night mode and then secondary. You could control each light separately with a switch on some of the units.
 
Front off rear on.
 
Sadly, we only have 2 options, primary or secondary. Primary is all lights including the lightbar. Secondary, is well, all the lights but they just all flash at the same time <_<
 
emt11 said:
Sadly, we only have 2 options, primary or secondary. Primary is all lights including the lightbar. Secondary, is well, all the lights but they just all flash at the same time <_<
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We have the same primary and secondary. Primary is all lights (light bar included if the unit has one). The secondary mode is either 2 or 4 lights flashing in the rear (someone here had a clever name for what it was called but I don't remember).
 
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