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Permalink Reply by Adam Box on March 4, 2009 at 9:52pm

Around here, the towns are so close together that if your department doesn't have their own, you can call a neighboring town and get theirs on scene pretty quick. My town is just starting one. We have pretty much dedicated our utility truck as FAST truck. That has our own air packs, bottles, tools, ropes, SKED, along with some other stuff.

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Permalink Reply by Chad Furr on March 4, 2009 at 10:37pm

We are screwed. WE have nothing like that and none of the other towns around su do either. Closest I know of is about 18 miles away from our town.

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Permalink Reply by John Rulli Jr. on March 4, 2009 at 11:35pm

We are big on RIT in my dept. We use our rescue for fires in our general area but our utility has a old ems strecher with a stokes basket and the following tools in it.

Irons
Roofhooks
RIT pack
100' rescue rope
vent master (chainsaw)
K12 saw
accountability board
Ti camera

We have 15 members RIT cert. Our area has four RIT teams.
2 of the 4 teams have succesfully rescued down firefighters.
RIT is a must on all working fires!!

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Whoric on March 5, 2009 at 1:10am

we dont have one in our own Co but our neighbors (connellsvile twp) respond to all our fires for RIT. we also have another RIT team in the neighboring westmoreland county (Scottdale) for fires on the other side of our service area. RIT is normally on scene right behind our first in engine.

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Permalink Reply by John on March 5, 2009 at 9:31am

At any fire big or small we set up a RIT team and as of now its up to the assigned personell to grab the right tools. But we are in the process of getting RIT bags set up from what I am hearing.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Mulligan on March 5, 2009 at 1:54pm

We are just really getting started in our township we have about 20 firefighters with different levels of RIT training.
we have just started responding to calls. In our company we use our rescue/pumper 7333. Our RIT equipment for a deployment is:

stokes basket
2 sets of irons
TIC
RIT air pack
radios of all members
200' rope with hardware
200' search rope w/ tag lines
k-12
2 6' roof hooks
2 8' roof hooks

All other equipment ia available on the truck any ladders are taken from other trucks. We are progresser meaning we will force doors throw ladder and clear window with IC ok as needed. The SOP that is still in the works will have us going on all working fires depending on where it is. Two of the four companies in the are will cover the fire the other will handle RIT but we are still working out the bugs.

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Permalink Reply by FETC on March 5, 2009 at 3:35pm

The entire department (44 paid / 30 paid-call) are RIT certified. We use it on all emergencies involving IDLH.

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Permalink Reply by John Rulli Jr. on March 6, 2009 at 2:43pm

Thats rite!!!!!

The two RIT teams Nate mentioned are the two with grabs.

AED is also we as a rit team carry. Never know when you might need it

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Permalink Reply by Robert Owens on March 6, 2009 at 4:26pm

We establish an RIT at every incident with an IDLH. If there is no life hazard present in the structure we can not make entry until the RIT engine has arrived on scene.

Every peice of apparatus has a dedicated RIT bag and 200 ft unit tag line. The RIT bag has basically a spar SCBA with fresh bottle, regulator, mask, and transfill valve. The tage line is 200 ft of nomex/kevlar rope there are knots tied in it every 25 feet. at 25 feet there is 1 knot 50 feet 2 knots and so on. This tag line is also used for large area searches.

All other tools we deploy are just regular engine company equipment. We perform an active RIT, we do a fire ground recon of the occupancy on all 4 sides to identify hazards. We then try to correct any probable hazards to firefighters such as egrees/exit issues etc.

Our typical tool deployment is:
RIT BAG
Tag Line
RIT Hand Line
Set of Irons

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