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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on July 17, 2011 at 1:44am

You hit on an area I am passionate about and that is a proactive RIT. I was on a RIT team when called into service and next to calling a MAYDAY yourself, I don't think there is a more stressful, critical place to be.

You are right, for the most part RIT can be viewed as a non-chalant aspect that needs to be covered. It can be viewed as a shit assignment because you can't "play" with the rest. However, it is a very critical assignment and one that should be very proactive. This means a RIT should be involved in the fireground, throwing ladders, shutting gas off, forcing entry, watching the corners, watching the fire, etc. Know where interior crews are, preplan, prestage, etc.


From the pics, yep, very easily open the gate, cut locks if needed, force entry, especially if this is a basement fire. Another consideration, which you hit on Jason, is the basement access in the garage. While this may be the sole means in some places of the country, it can definately be a secondary in other parts. In our neck of the woods, a garage basement access is typically secondary to an interior stairs. However, if there is a garage access, consider this heavily as a staging point for RIT, or even attack.....most garages are on a slab, meaning the floor won't collapse, this gives you a better staging point to access a basement fire from.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on July 17, 2011 at 8:04am

RIT prevention?

It used to be called "Truck Work".

I'm all for proactively removing obstacles, but having RIT do what should be routine truck work is really assigning two tasks to one company.

Other than doing a 360 and looking for access/egress, building considerations, and reading the fire and smoke, the more truck work RIT does on the outside, the less ready thay will be to respond to a MAYDAY.

If you are going to assign truck work to a RIT team, then you need two RIT teams.

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Permalink Reply by FETC on July 17, 2011 at 8:52am

Well in many parts of the country, the RIT is expected to be "progressive on the fireground". I agree with you Ben that it is truck work but for many the key word is used to be. Before reductions over the years, full compliment response (multiple trucks) afforded us the luxury of covering tasks that need to be done. Many big cities still get full compliment responses, and they are covering all of the truck work but many smaller communities though, have seen truck companies reduced, downsized, consolidated or closed. Many are lucky to have one truck respond for an alarm of fire. One company is limited to what they can complete quickly and efficiently. With consideration to life safety, (occupants and the firefighters) a limited or short truck company with 2, 3 even 4 firefighters, well the ventilation task prevails.

This leaves the incident commander with the burden of tasking an incoming engine company to pickup the short truck work. Which can be done, problem is dependant on where you operate and the makeup of the paid, paid-on call or volunteer makeup, time of day, etc. many engine companies are short as well. Years ago it was unheard of to get retones or actual denial of a mutual aid engine when called due to lack of manpower to fill the assignment.

Therefore using a Progressive RIT mentality, maybe an option to cover tasks that are short while covering the safety side of interior firefighting. Would a RIT company that is not assigned anything but staging for a Mayday be better? Maybe, maybe not. Standing for hours does create a complacent RIT, for which can be far less in touch with the incident when actually deployed. I submitted a class to FDIC 2012 called "The Dreaded RIT Assignment - Beyond the Textbook" to address this exact issue in areas that are covering RIT but are short staffed.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on July 17, 2011 at 9:41am

Bill,

I agree. Today's chronic short-staffing, combined with the necessity to staff RIT has led to diluting both duties.

I also agree that the duties described as "proactive RIT" need to be done - by someone, usually the 2nd and/or 3rd due truck, squad, rescue engine, or whatever.

The bottom line is that RIT actually has two different sets of duties. The first is the "proactive" stuff - opening up Side C, throwing ladders for secondary egress, clearing obstructions, and otherwise ensuring clear egress for interior companies.

The other RIT duty is to be ready for a MAYDAY. That involves being in a fixed position with a standardized tool cache.

As for one company being bored and feeling cheated out of the action, a good solution is the Phoenix "ON DECK" concept. My department uses a modified version of this, although it can be situationally modified by the incident commander.

We run a 3 and 1 assignment to SFD fires. Normally, the 3rd engine gets the initial RIT assignment. A working incident call usually gets a 4th engine - or more. When the 4th engine or subsequent company arrives, it normally gets the RIT assignment and the previous RIT rotates to an operational assignment, usually relieving a company that's going to rehab. The RIT tool cache is carried by the truck company (we only have 1) but all firefighters are trained to use it.

Not only does this alleviate the "RIT BOREDOM" syndrome, it also helps us ensure that we have at least one fresh company, and that the freshest troops are in position to respond to MAYDAYs. This also prevents the "everyone in Rehab, no one fighting the fire" problem.

Companies rotating out of Rehab can pick up the RIT assignment for more prolonged operations. We have also adapted a similar system for our Hazmat and for prolonged USAR operations. For Hazmat, the RIT/backup team becomes the 2nd entry team and the 3rd team goes to backup/RIT, etc.

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