catry said:
BISP (Building Inspection Safety Program) is conducted every Monday, Friday, and I think Tuesday. Companies from around the city use this time to go out and conduct regular building inspections on buildings in the area, checking for violations and gathering CIDs information. BISP replaced AFID (Apparatus Field Inspection Day) in 2007 after the Duetche Bank fire where it was revealed that L10's officer skimped on inspecting the fatal building. When a company is delayed due to BI it means they have members in the building and are responding from a different part of their response area.
Catry: (Respectfully) I'll have to correct you. Building Inspection (BI, AFID,BISP all meaning the same thing) is conducted Monday through Friday with each company having 3 periods out of the 5 days. A day is broken up into 2 periods, morning period is 10am-1pm and afternoon is 1pm to 4pm.
When a unit goes on the radio and say they will be delayed due to BI, it lets the dispatcher and other units responding know they will be delayed Like tbendick and e203 stated. Buildings in NYC can have many floors, have maze like rooms or can be deep where it takes time to even get to the main entrance/exit of the building, then you probably will have atleast a block to run where the rig is parked cause you can't just park these things anywhere. And because BI is supposed to be conducted in normal duty uniform( station attire as others call it) you then have to put your bunker gear on and then drive to the address of the call, some units BI district is at the far end of their response areas so it could be a unusual amount of time before they get their.
L-10's officer was scape goated but that's a whole other discussion. How can you expect a unit to do BI in a hazardous material area. For starters it would involve level B suits at a minimum and then a decon task force once they were done conducting BI, then you have to dispose of the suits and waste water properly which costs $$$$.
MUD (Multi Unit Drill) is usually conducted on the weekend. Companies will get together with units in their area and just go over different things that concern operations in their specific areas, also equipment mostly motor powered equipment (saws, chain saws, generators, hurst tools) is started or "exercised" and allowed to run for atleast 10 mins. Where as a normal start of the tour the equipment is just started and run briefly to make sure it works. Ladder companies will also put up their ladders or tower ladders and just rotate and extend them.