RIT for Volunteer/Nonurban Departments: Skills Needed

Your department has gone through the preliminary steps for ensuring that, despite being short staffed, it will have a capable and well-trained rapid intervention team (RIT) ready to go whenever it is needed. You have all agreed on this goal, have the buy-in of all members, made the necessary mutual-aid arrangements, and have a core of RIT instructors in place. You are now ready to address the details of your training program. Where do you begin?

RIT Skills Training Components

For a RIT to be competent and capable, it must possess and maintain specific skills and knowledge. The four training areas we will discuss here are skill techniques, fireground knowledge and the RIT size-up, handling the Mayday, and the seven key elements of a RIT activation. These subjects and skills must be part of any RIT training program. Use National Fire Protection Association 1407, Training Fire Service Rapid Intervention Crews, as your guide.

Training is needed for all rank levels. Senior officers must be skilled at running the rescue attempt. Ensure that your department develops and implements a standard operating procedure (SOP) that clearly and thoroughly describes the responsibilities of all RIT and department members, and provide copies for your mutual-aid partners.

The hands-on skills components of your training will include techniques in the following areas:

• Self-rescue, including entanglement, long lug out skills, wall breaching, and rapid emergency escape (bailout) skills.
• The RIT search. This should be a thermal imaging-based search with members using a search rope.
• The actions to be taken once the down firefighter has been found, including the four methods of delivering emergency air. They include (1) using the universal air connection when available, (2) using a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-certified emergency breathing support system/buddy breather when available, (3) replacing the mask-mounted regulator, and (4) repositioning or replacing the self-contained breathing apparatus face piece.
• Rapidly moving the down firefighter.
• Rescue techniques to move a down firefighter up and down stairs.
• Rescuing firefighters through windows, over ladders, and from restrictive limited space (Denver Drill).
• Rescuing a firefighter from below grade through a hole in the floor (Nance Drill).

Fireground Knowledge and RIT Size-Up

If activated, members of a RIT can and will put themselves at high risk when entering the structure depending on the circumstances. Because of this, they need to be trained in understanding how to read a building and identifying potential hazards they might encounter. This includes a good foundation in fire behavior; the ability to read smoke; and understanding building construction, its effect on the burning building, and how that will affect firefighters.

RITs need to conduct their own 360° recon and understand what they are looking at. What they see and how they interpret it and anticipate what could happen can greatly affect their survival and the survival of any down firefighter.

Handling a Mayday

What training has your department conducted on handling a Mayday? Are you capable and prepared to make a skilled and competent response to the Mayday not only on the RIT skills level but also on the officer and command staff levels? The officers and command staff will run the rescue attempt.

Are your members trained in calling a Mayday? Have they practiced doing this while in full personal protective equipment, on air, with a portable radio, and in blacked-out conditions? Have the senior officers participated in this training by practicing and training on answering the Mayday using the radio?

What about command staff accountability and tracking crews? Sometimes when teaching, I am asked why we don’t just evacuate the building when a Mayday is called. Think about it. If our first reaction is to pull all the firefighters out of the building because something went wrong, what about the survival profile of the firefighter who called the Mayday? What about the RIT trying to fight its way in against the tide of all those who were ordered out? We need to practice not only calling and answering the Mayday but also taking a personnel accountability report (PAR) with companies in place to determine the actual extent of the Mayday and the real number of firefighters in trouble.

You can have the best-trained RIT firefighters on earth, but if your members do not know when and why to call for help and your command staff does not know how to manage a Mayday, then what? Poor skills, lack of actions, and incompetency can determine whether a firefighter lives or dies.

The Seven Key Elements of a RIT Activation

I have determined that there are seven key elements to a RIT activation. As firefighters who are either on the RIT or commanding the Mayday, we need to understand each of these elements in depth. As you read them, think about how well-versed and trained your department members are in each area. Expertise in these areas is absolutely essential; we can’t just “go with the flow” (no pun intended) and deal with them as the need arises. These elements are as follows:

1. Risk assessment and crew management. Do you really understand what these words mean? What training have you had in these areas, which are vital to firefighter safety and survival?
2. Activation and Management. How will the crews be activated and managed? Has your department drilled, practiced, or even discussed how a Mayday with a RIT activation will be handled? Do you have an SOP?
3. Communication. What are your department’s communication procedures during a RIT activation? Does every member know them? Have you practiced them? Think about this: How will you move multiple companies and the command staff officers to a second channel? It may sound easy, but it may be very different. You need procedures and practice to make it happen the way it should.
4. Incident accountability. What does your accountability system look like? Do you really have a 100 percent solid handle on it? Are your members well-disciplined? Do they use the system every time? When a company member calls a Mayday, that does not mean he is the only one in trouble. You need to run a PAR to determine the status of all members operating. A good accountability system will support this. By the way, if your accountability system relies solely on batteries, what will you do if the batteries die or the system crashes?
5. Roles and responsibilities. Do all members involved in the RIT operation understand their roles and responsibilities? Again, you cannot assume anything. All involved must know their jobs and understand their responsibilities before a RIT is activated.
6. Recovery. A recovery plan needs to be discussed and be in place so that the recovery operation can be handled with dignity if your department should have to face the tragedy of losing a member on the fireground.
7. Impact on department. Think about the impact a RIT activation might have on your department. Even a successful operation might cause members to be angry and raise questions and may cause dissension in the ranks. A well-trained department that can handle a RIT activation with skill and courage will help to avoid this problem.

Refreshing and Enhancing Skills

Have you ever asked a member to participate while running a hands-on drill and were given the answer, “I’m all set”? The secret to retaining any motor skills is to use or practice them. How many times a year do you throw a 24-foot ladder or are on the pipe during a fire attack? In the past 90 days, how many minutes of bottled air have you breathed? Was it under stressful conditions? As capable firefighters, we need to retain and keep all of our skills sharp for when we need them. In nonurban departments, we do this by training and drilling for skills retention. The next time you drill, show that you are confident in your skills and abilities so that the other members of your department can see why they must train to retain.

If your department is lacking in RIT skills, the next step is yours. Be a fire service leader: Be a change agent and set the example by doing the correct thing—train.

JOE NEDDER was an on-call firefighter in various departments for more than 36 years and has served in various ranks. He retired from the Uxbridge (MA) Fire Department in 2013. He has been involved in training for more than 27 years and instructed for the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy for 16 years and at FDIC from 2010 to 2016. He has written for Fire Engineering. He is the founder and lead instructor of Cross St. Associates, a fire service training company. He is the author of Rapid Intervention Crews (Jones and Bartlett).

RIT Positions and Assignments
Fireground Tactics: The “RIT Order of Action”
Regional RIT : the Suburban Response to Rapid Intervention