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Critical need for RIT teams
In southern Rhode Island there aren't really any thoroughly trained RIT teams that I am aware of. I think a neighboring department are calling themselves a RIT team I am just not sure the extent of their training. What does this department do when they get a working fire with the RIT team? Do you have a 2 in 2 out rule? Does the C/O stand by this rule? How is Rapid Intervention handled in your district?
I think there is a major need for these teams across America and world wide, it will give a faster jump when someone is in trouble. We all are human, and with that being said all can fall into harms way. What better way to get help than a team of professionals whom are there for that one purpose?
I think there is a major need for these teams across America and world wide, it will give a faster jump when someone is in trouble. We all are human, and with that being said all can fall into harms way. What better way to get help than a team of professionals whom are there for that one purpose?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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What Eric didn't mention is that Burton also has stripped-down RIT SCBA in RIT drag bags. These are a SCBA with the cylinder, a minimal frame, and the regulators and hoses. No backplate, no harness, no PASS, no frills - just extra air and hookups for the downed firefighter. Their firefighters, chiefs, and training staff are serious about their RIT gear, training, and procedures.
Their RIT bags are heat and flame-resistant, and have extra light sources, webbing, carabiners, cutting tools, and a complete mask/facepiece to help a firefighter who has lost facepiece integrity due to impact or fire damage.
It's a good system and they're good at using it.
Burton also uses automatic aid/mutual aid with a couple of their nearby neighboring departments that helps get adequate numbers of well-trained warm bodies to their working fires.
Bottom line - they're a good department with good leadership and good firefighters.
That's where an effective RIT program starts and ends.
Did I mention that they're also terrific neighbors?
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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With the spare pack in the bag stripped down as you mentioned above, would you recommend a regulator swap? It sure is a lot faster than changing a bottle as some have seemed to latch onto.
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Good post, but actually, there is something worse than what you described. The "worse" is having multiple secondary Maydays because the engine company went to rescue the downed firefighter with partially-expended SCBAs, ran out of air, and created multiple downed firefighters.
One downed firefighter is bad. Multiple downed firefighter situations are infinately worse. The first action in a Mayday situation is to make sure that we don't create a well-intentioned suicide pact.
If your engine company is right on top of the downed firefighter and he/she isn't trapped, then make the rescue and tell Command what you're doing so he/she can send another company to take over your line. Or...Command can just go defensive and not risk any more firefighters in the interior of a fire building in which something has already gone seriously wrong.
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I recommend against regulator swaps except as a last resort.
Regulator swaps expose the downed firefighter to the toxic atmosphere, no matter how quickly you do the swap. Then there's the "fumble factor" when you're trying to do the swap, on someone else's face, in smoke and heat, in the dark...and suddenly that quick swap takes 30 seconds or more with the downed firefighter breathing toxins or getting face and respiratory burns.
If you take off a fire glove (just call it an Oven Mitt) to do the regulator swap, then your hand may get roasted and now there are two firefighter victims.
That's why the new NFPA SCBA standards call for Universal Rescue Connectors (URCs) and transfill procedures that don't require either a regulator swap or a hot zone cylinder exchange. If you're not familiar with the procedure, I'll look up some online references.
We use the MSA 4500 Firehawk SCBAs. They have the URC in the industry-standard left butt cheek location.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Davis on
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Here in rural nw tennessee, we do not have dedicated rit teams and it almost cost us 2 ff last thursday. 3 dept where toned to a struture fire fully invovled. the primary chief was first on the scene and report heavy fire in 3/4 of the house. a pov was in the driveway and neighbors stated that the homeowner had arrived home 15 min ago and as usually in the house. the chief order a primary search on the unburned portion which included 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and hallway. 2 ff made the search and upon completion of the search begin to exit the bedroom window where they had entered. as the first firefighter reached the window the roof collopsed. the first ff was pulled from the window and the second ff recived a 2x6 across the head, which knocked him back into the room. about 90 seconds passed before we could get him to the window to exit. this really hit home to all the chiefs in our county which has 9 depts and they have all agreed to countywide training involing rit teams. i am just wondering why it takes a near miss to get everyone interested in doing the things that should have been in place along time ago. so if anyone has any rit sop's email me at bwdavis6109@yahoo.com and put rit in the header and i will make sure the county chiefs get it .
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Any department not currently using a RIT as a standby or using the PFD On-Deck System is just asking for trouble. Almost every NIOSH report or LODD internal report will cite the 2in/2out rule and the use or lack of use with a dedicated stand by rescue team.
I have a class I have developed to show how a RIT/RIC can be beneficial long before the mayday occurs. Doesn't matter if you have a 12 member deapartment or 120. RIT is needed at every IDLH.
Back to 2in/2out rule, NH is not an OSHA state but the OSHA rules have been adopted by our state governement, so we are also held to the OSHA standard. The difference is they are adopted by DOL, DES or EPA. Depending on what situation you are operating in.
The 2in/2out rule was developed to assure firefighters and fire officers were awaiting for sufficient resources to attempt an interior IDLH attack when there was NO known life safety issue. When you have a report of people trapped, there is an exemption to the 2in/2out rule which offers the opprtunity to attempt a rescue with insufficent manpower.
2in/2out should not be confused as a reason for RIT. 2 person RIT is ridiculous and just a lipstick policy to applease the feds. RIT deployment is far more complex and needs a full compliment of manpower. Remember one of our own has gotten caught in a bad way. Statistically, 1 in every 5 rescue team members will declare a mayday themselves. The Bret Tarver PFD call had over a dozen maydays the incident commander had to deal with, granted it was a commerical occupancy, but we can easily get into a larger residential home 150'-200' with disorientation-seperation.
I teach the RIT class, Managing the Mayday, we have policies and SOG's, plus I also have sample ones too. Email me if you want to do some training or looking for more details.
Bill
FETC
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Since the vast majority of fire departments struggle to have enough manpower just to fight the fire, much less to staff even a two-firefighter RIT, there is going to be a lot of short-staffed RIT or no RIT out there. Even if we have RIT established, and the most wonderful RIT training, equipment, and procedures in the world, we're still going to save more firefighters by learning how to read smoke, read building construction, match strategy and tactics to size-up, and most importantly, stay the hell out of Born Losers.
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I agree with everything you said Ben, by covering all of those things you will definately reduce the number of line of duty deaths. Way more than the precentage of successful RIT rescues. Most of that training does fall under a good Command/Control training program but you still should cover the RIT aspect for those non-expected events.
In this day of personal safety, the push for everyone to go home, etc. there is no excuse for a short staffed let alone a non-existant RIT at a building fire. No RIT is borderline negligent.
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FETC,
What do you base those statement on? If you don't have the warm bodies to even carry out all of the necessary search and rescue, fire attack, ventilation, and other routine ireground duties because you're in a volly system with almost no daytime manpower or a small, isolated career department with little or no mutual aid capabilties, then what is the chief supposed to do? Create an 8-person RIT out of thin air?
It's easy to say that there's "no excuse", but if you don't have the warm bodies or a reasonable way to get them in a hurry, what is the chief supposed to do? Never conduct an interior search? Never go interior for a room-and-contents incipient fire?
How is that chief supposed to handle this situaion?
I'd really like to hear your opinion.
And remember, I work on an isolated barrier island in the Atlantic Ocean. King Neptune doesn't run mutual aid or even have a fire station, as far as we've been able to determine. :-)
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OK Ben, you said you wanted to hear my opinion...
So after all the great pre-fire training and identifiaction of born losers, you do not expect to be cited in a NIOSH report for not filling out a rescue team on standby? I am sure you are not responding with 2 men on a truck, so the 2 in 2 out rule should be covered fairly easily. You are a huge proponent for not committing to a born losers, read that about a million times on different posts. Well if you are responding to the casino with only two guys, then maybe its time to let one burn so you can say, hey it was a born loser back at budget time sir. Nothing to gain, then there is not much to commit to either. Casinos are big money, no doubt but I am sure their are some big ass insurance binders too.
As for assigning a true RIT team, I am not sure why people think it is so hard or difficult to fulfill. (2 guys) initially covers your 2 in/out rule. That can be pretty much two outside guys by the rules? Especially at an early incipent stage fire. That rule is for only "confirmed no life safety" incidents. So unless you are going interior with total of a 3 person first alarm assignment, then what is the issue?
If a small department is so isolated that they get no help, from within or mutual aid... than isn't that a born loser?
In the north, we a littered with small combination vollie-paid departments. For smaller departments than yours, I suggest they should work out a deal with their neighbor and train together, they respond as your RIT and you to them in return. Place them on the 1st alarm, get them on the road. Your not asking them to respond to cover your station, they are going to a fire. I have seen a fire department that only has 12 members total, in which 8 are certified interior guys cover their butt with RIT. Sometimes you have to think outside the box. Heres another one, ask that M/A department to send a Chief Officer with their RIT assignment, when he arrives you can front load your ICS with a Rescue Branch Supervisor. This is someone who will run your Mayday Operation with the RIT, while Command focuses on maintaining fireground/accountability and suppression discipline.
So after pre-determining your RIT assignment, make some solid policies as to what you expect RIT to do once they arrive on scene. Then train on them. Empower your RIT to be acting Safety Officers on the fireground. Get them trained as S.O.'s. Now this just added 3 or 4 additional S.O.'s on the fireground and if they are performing a size-up from time-to-time, wow bonus - potentially 8 additional eyes! We have a 9- person shift, by no means enough to cover every aspect of the fireground. We rely on callback to get anything more than 2 engines and a ladder out the door. The heavy rescue is next to roll with a minimum of 4. On arrival they report to the command post, get the frequency assignment and tag into the accountability board. The team stages their tools and equipment, don airpacks, identify themselves with the SCBA covers and start their RIT 360 size-up, while walking around the building they take notes on the RIT Operations Worksheet, the same size-up procedures as Command but much slower and more methodical. They look at the ventilation profile, obtain as much information about the construction, layout, access, egress, and where the fire and firefighter's are operating. Upon completion, the RIT Officer alone reports back to command with his findings while the remaining team waits at the tool staging area. If they should identify any safety concerns and command has no manpower to correct them, like no ground ladders on all four sides, poor or a under ventilated fire, command can assign these tasks to RIT as long as they maintain monitoring their radio, do not breath SCBA air, and preferrably do not complete a task that is delaying their response to a Mayday. I have seen RIT effectively rescue a trapped civilian from the rear of a multi-family tenament when they reported finding a locked door on their 360, they called Command to get the OK to force the door, (access/egress) and a courtesy considering, IAP and ventilation concerns and BOOM, a unconscious victim lying on the floor. On another fire, RIT forced a locked bulkhead as a proactive fireground safety measure, and later had a FF fall through the floor and crawled out the bulkhead stairs without delay... hmmm all heroes, no medals, no report on firehouse but all things that RIT effectively did to prevent a LODD.
So if you still feel that leaving 3-4 guys asssigned to RIT; is a waste of manpower, or impossible to fulfill; especially when you work in an "isloated barrier island" as you state; with an ON-DUTY shift staffing of (30) then we unfortuantely do not see eye-to-eye on firefighter safety...
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I don't see a lot of RIT success stories, even from places that assign a fully-staffed engine, truck, medic, and chief to RIT. If a multicompany RIT doesn't have a lot of success at rescuing downed firefighters, how is a RIT made up of 2 to 4 firefighters going to meet or exceed what a much larger team can accomplish?
It shouldn't take a RIT assignment to make the civilian rescues you discussed.
I've worked in four different parts of the country, and in all four, we called forcible entry, throwing ladders, ventilation, and rescuing civilians "Truck Work", not RIT.
If your interior search and rescue and fire attack teams are attacking through the front and the RIT team is doing basic truck work in the rear, then the RIT is probably out of position to try to help the interior firefighters if they get into trouble.
I'm all for firefighter safety. I just don't think a 3 or 4-firefighter RIT is a very effective way to get it. If I'm wrong, where are all the RIT success stories where RIT rescued FIREFIGHTERS. In other words, we're putting lots of training time, money, and effort into something that's getting us very little return. I don't think that's adding much to firefighter safety. I do believe that it makes too many of us charge into born losers because that 2 or 3-firefighter RIT gives us a false sense of security.
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You might want to try a Hazmat SKED if a Stoke adds too much bulk. They have a much narrower profile than a Stokes and they're designed to drag downed firefighters, including SCBA, and turnouts or Level A. The video link shows the basic operation - granted, in a hazmat scenario in a flat parking lot, but enough to get the idea.
The Hazmat SKED is a derivative of the Rescue SKED that was designed for cave and confined space rescues.
As with any other rescue tool choice, some of these choices will be game-time decisions. The more tools you have in the toolbox, the better the chance that you'll have one that works.
Ben
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWewmvZDH8g
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