Why does RIT receive attention so late in the game?

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Permalink Reply by Kelby Childers on May 17, 2008 at 10:28pm

It sounds like you are ready to take the bull by the horns on this issue. Realistically it sounds to me as though your department is ahead of my volunteer department of over 100 members. Although we run almost 3000 calls a year and typically only have one engine staffed we still resist establishing better mutual or automatic aid with our surrounding departments. Good luck with your training.

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Downie on September 15, 2008 at 10:01am

Kelby,

We are required by SOP's to have a RIT team dedicated on every working fire. I cannot tell you the last time that we actually did, at least on my shift. I have heard our Shift Commander say during critiques that " We got things knocked down so fast there just wasn't time" multiple times in the past few months. Manpower for us is really not a large issue. We have 25 firefighters on duty at all times (5 FF's on each of the 5 companies) and send 3 companies to every reported single family residential alarm and 4 to every multi family or commercial alarm. If it is a working incident, an additional comapny is sent.

We recently had a large detached garage fire that was fully involved on arrival with partial collapse of 2 walls - no RIT was assigned because "It was a defensive operation" Now I've heard everything.

RIT should be accounted for on the first alarm assignment. Regardless of your department size or status, make whatever arrangements you need to make to not only put enough people on the fireground early to actually accomplish something, but expand the response to have a fully equipped and trained RIT team there and ready to go. If this means mutual aid or automatic aid, so be it.

Bryan

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Permalink Reply by Ron Becknell on September 15, 2008 at 11:33am

Bryan,
I agree that RIT does not take the priority that it should. We are fortunate that our Chief ( Vol. Dept.) has always used a backup line , since the days that the dept. only had 2 air packs. Those 2 in air packs were the backup team now called RIT team. But our standard operations only calls for a RIT when Firefighters are in an IDLH atmosphere. Which means that RIT is not necessary for Defensive operations, unless some crews are forced into operating in the collapse zone.

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Downie on September 15, 2008 at 1:16pm

Ron,

Thanks for the reply. Your last sentence is exactly what I am talking about with RIT being lower on the priority list. Just because you start out in a defensive mode doesn't mean you will stay in a defensive mode for the entire incident. You also don't know what situations may present themselves at any time and force you into a rescue or other operation.

Lets put firefighter safety at the top of our priority list and commit to RIT early on and be prepared for Murphy's Law paying a visit. As Chief Mike Smith stated so eloquently at the Charleston Fire Safety Symposium last April:
"You can always send companies back if you don't need them, but you can't magically pull them out of your ass if you do!"

Stay Safe,

Bryan

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Permalink Reply by Frank Ricci on October 17, 2008 at 1:49am

I encourage everyone to obtain a copy of Vincent Dunn's article in July 2008 in Firehouse mag. He wonders as I have, even though I teach RIC and enjoy teaching it, has our profession over sold the RIC concept? Also read Phoenix, AZ report on the Bret Tarver incident and the subsequent training by PFD. Does anybody have the ability to send 12 to rescue 1 and be ready to have 3 of those 12 get in trouble themselves and need help? Do we need RIC on 2,500 sq ft or less residential? Commercial another animal, my opinion only if we concentrated on having 1 person do air management on the scene instead of three being ready for RIC, where would we be? If maydays are occurring before the RIC even arrives, what do we do? I ask everyone this question, why do we have to go in? Can't we hit through window and contain until we have resources in place? When they handed you your badge did they tell you, oh by the way you to die to safe an unsaveable life or property? So, why do we put our people in places we do not need to be? I have hit numerous fires from the outside and then went in did a good calculated attack, I tell you what I never, ever, pushed a fire through a home. Why do we not teach are firefighters if flames are blowing out of a bedroom window that this is not a rescue situation, this is a recovery! Another thought I will leave you with, when you went to the academy and when you do live fire training why do you train on air until the bell rings? Why are we not training to pull people out before the bell rings? The old saying goes we play like we practice, so if you train all the time on staying in a structure until your bell rings, you will do it on the fg no doubt!

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Permalink Reply by Ray McCormack on October 18, 2008 at 11:20am

I am not quite sure what you are teaching your firefighters or would have them trained to do. Well meaning civilians shoot water through windows. Trained firefighters weigh risks and do good size ups. Hitting the fire from outside on occupied buildings is an incorrect tactic, no matter how much you care about firefighter safety.

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Permalink Reply by PJ Langmaid on October 18, 2008 at 2:26pm

Chief, With all due respect to your experience and years of service. I have to comment on the hitting fires from the outside. You may be correct about not pushing fire but what about the products of combustion and hot steam? My depts position is that this is a great tactic but the experiences of guys interior is one of steam burns, poor visibility and generally miserable conditions. Is the American Fire Service starting to write off lives inside in an effort to decrease risk to firefighters? If this is so perhaps we should focus more eliminating volunteer POV crashes and increase staffing to decrease cardiac workloads. RIT has its place but is it at the expense of an aggressive interior attack? If we put the fire out the problems go away. I will have to do some research but I am pretty sure that quick aggresive attacks early into the fire has not killed firefighters. Again Chief, I mean no disrespect I just disagree. That tactic would likely be acceptable for a volunteer company showing up with two members but for the professional? However, I do agree with your air management comment. Being a rescue diver we practice air management and so should rescuer's.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Ricci on October 18, 2008 at 7:41pm

Ray everyone is entitled to their opinoin and I am teaching my firefighters to do calculated risk assesments on every structure, we use the Phoneix risk profile as I am sure you do. This was not ment to be posted for people to take personal shots at me or my companies, if you read the context it is to be thought provoking not finger pointing. I never did I say I hit occupied structures from the outside, however from the area I came from we ran a two person engine company, so sometimes yes I did knock it down from a window and then went in. If trained firefighters always go in and fight fire, is that why we kill how many firefighters on the fireground? I am not talking about total firefighter fatalities, but those directly realated to an agressive fire attack? When you have a room totally involved fire, what are you saving? A life? Nope that person is dead? I do not know about you but I am personally tired of seeing 100+ deaths a year.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Ricci on October 18, 2008 at 7:53pm

Thanks PJ, I am glad you responded, I appreciate the respect and to be honest with you I am playing the devisl advocate role a little bit here. My references to hitting it from the exterior was the culture I came from where at most times our engines were staffed with two people because the MICU was at the ER. My point was we still hurt firefighters and do some stuff that if we looked really hard at the probelm, we probably would be able to solve it for ourselves, but we don't. 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon in an involved strip mall what is are life hazard, us! It's three o'clock 99% of the people self-evacuate. So in a sense we are risking a lot to save none, when we shoud risk a little or risk none. I mean really we could debate this topic till we all retire, but I was just trying to put some thought out there, we really need to take a look at do we really need to go! Your point on staffing and volunteer POV are exactly some of the things we need to be talking about. RIT is good, but I am not willing to give up on the other tasks that will make my members safe to put a RIT team in place at a structure fire. I feel the RECEOVS model is dated and should not be taugh. We should be making our prioirities on the fireground, FIREFIGHTER SAFETY, FORCEIBLE ENTRY, FORCIBLE EXIT, VENTILATION, EXTINGHUISHMENT,SEARCH,OVERHAUL.

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Permalink Reply by Erich Roden on October 19, 2008 at 11:15am

Frank,

When someone posts 1950's ideology on a contemporary fire service community forum, one should expect to be called out on it; particularly when relating current logic to it in a somewhat vague context. What I understand from your post, you are implying that when a room is involved with fire, you are writing off the interior life hazard. While I agree that if the life hazard outside of the building is greater than the life hazard inside the building, then we can take a pass on putting ourselves in harm's way. However, we call these defensive fires and begin to operate accordingly; and you could parallel this same argument about heavy smoke in the room. Should we write off victims in smoke filled rooms and first put a smoke ejector in the window before entering? Smoke does us(victims) in long before fire does in most instances; and this can also be done with only two people. I am not attacking your principles or operational value-sets, just the logic of opening up the first line from the exterior on an offensive "calculated attack."
Digressing, I agree that maydays occur early in the game as companies and members begin placing themselves and operating in their respective areas of responsibility. I have been at several fires where maydays have been called for missing members, partial collapses, etc. The entire operation changes regardless of who and or how many are outside waiting for it to happen. Everyone not on the first line usually makes a bee-line towards the last known location of the missing or trapped member, save those members operating on other floors, wings, etc..A good practice? Probably not, but a witnessed reality nonetheless.
As an aside, if departments put these areas of responsibility in written SOPs, we would have a pretty good idea of where these guys are supposed to be when they call a mayday; thereby eliminating the fallacy of placing faith in the responsibility of RIT to determine where people are at. Rather, they should be ready to and focus on theremoval of a downed or incapacitated firefighter. We also need to understand that it is the numbers arriving on the first few companies that make the difference, not how many eventually get there; and not what kind of specialized rig they bring to the show. How many Squad and Rescue companies do you see flying down the street in many towns with two people on them? That's enough people to take these rigs for an oil change, not to remove downed firefighters.

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Permalink Reply by Ray McCormack on October 19, 2008 at 4:04pm

Frank I am only repeating what you said. "I have hit numerous fires from the outside and then went in"" now you restate your case with "sometimes yes I did knock it down from a window and then went in" I understand that you are using the Phoneix model, however I am not sure it translates to hitting fires from windows. I never said firefighter always go in and fight fires. There are only two types of fire attack offensive and defensive. It is up to the officer to make the correct determination as to what mode to take for fire attack. Having been a company officer for fourteen years one thing distresses me more than others and that is the attitude that we give up before we start. People are dead already so why bother. I prefer to give it my all and then see what the results are I don't prejudge. I also do not believe that having firefighters do an agressive fire attack is as your tone makes it sound deadly, not all fires are fully involved in soon to collape structures.. We loose a lot more firefighters just driving back and forth. When we have a room totally involved in fire and we place a line between it and the egress of the home we are protecting the still to be located occupants and ourselves. I am also tired of seeing 100+ LODDs / year. But the real numbers have more to do with health and stress issues than fireground operations. The civilian life hazard of a building is not always what it seems.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Ricci on October 20, 2008 at 12:00am

Exactly my whole point the key ingredient everyone posts about is people, people, people. Apparently everyone has an idea and opinoin because they all post about personnel on scene. Well if I do have not have enough people for a good calculated interior attack and satisfy the bullshit OSHA 2 in and 2 out, I am writing off the occupants and will do a defensive/offensive attack until I have the resources on scene. It's not my fire, its not my emergency, but THEY ARE MY PEOPLE and I am responsible for them to go home and see their spouses and hug their kids.

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