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Post by 2Truck on Jan 10, 2004 2:13:52 GMT -5
Although a RIT ties up manpower can we afford to assign them to another task that takes them away from their primary assignment? From everything that I have been taught about RIT the crew is allowed to do support activities such as throw additional ground ladders or set up scene lighting in order to make their assignment begin to occur much faster if they are put into service. When a mayday occurs time is of the escence and we can't afford to have the crew doing other tasks on the fire ground. Let's not forget that when our brother from Shippensburg died almost a year ago he died when the chimney in the structure collapsed during OVERHAUL, not initial attack. A mayday event can occur at any time therefore we need to have crew that is ready to go at all times during the incident! Greg touched on "getting back to the basics" type training classes. In today's bio-terrorism world we somtimes forget about some of the core skills that we first learned as firefighters when we take all of the anti-terrorism classes. When was that last time that companies in Central Bradford County got together and trained as one on the basics? If my memory serves me correctly it's been a while. In today's day and age we have become so dependant on our high tech equipment that it sometimes takes the place of common sense(boy is it fun to take someone elses line and put a fire out when they are whining it's too hot and are sitting in the door waiting for a TIC ;D) and causes us to lose focus on the actual conditions that we are in. For those of you looking at starting a RIT check out www.firefighterclosecalls.com/sopsog.shtml. They have some links to some very progressive fire departments who have SOP's written for RIT.
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Post by Skip18810 on Jan 10, 2004 22:21:50 GMT -5
Lets focus on what our job is.
Before I get crucified let me make some of my beliefs very clear: 1. Firefighter is VERY important 2. Safety is the reponsibility of EVERY firefighter 3. Freelancing by any firefighter is very dangerous both to themselves and to others.
All this talk about RIT is important, but it is not the most important consideration on the fire ground. Our job is to fight fire. We need to do it as safely as possible, we need to watch out for our own, but we need to do the job. That is what we get paid for, whether by taxes or donations.
This is a dangerous job, no doubt about it. Its not the most dangerous job, but if you fight fire you will find yourself in danger from time to time. People who don't want to be in danger should find some other line of work.
An IC has a great deal of reponsibility. They must they must formulate a strategy that locates and rescues possible victims, checks the spread of the fire, extinguishes the fire, and do all of those in the safest way possible. Rarely does IC have enough people capable of doing those jobs. Until sufficient staff is on scene to carry out all the highest priority jobs, IC can not establish RIT.
RIT should be established as soon as possible by having crews with an officer report to the area of the Command Post. If the IC needs the crew available to do a higher priority task, than they should be put to work. They also need to be replaced by another crew as soon as possible.
All this is to say that RIT will take time to arrive. In the meantime tou have to the best you can with what you have.
This is not only a safety issue but a fireground management issue. If an IC does not have a free crew on hand or coming to do whatever needs to be done they are in trouble.
While waiting for everything you need to get into place IC's might want to remeber a saying someone taught me. " To gain much, risk much. To gain little,risk little. To gain nothing, risk nothing"
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Post by 911wacker on Jan 11, 2004 1:53:57 GMT -5
Like I had siad before: 1 - I am 100% for RIT 2 - I never suggested that 2-3 people was enough manpower to effect an actual rescue. My point was that we don't even set aside 2-3 people let alone 8-12 for firefighter rescue, first we must take the "baby" steps before leaping into a new conceptFirst and always "MY A$$ IS #1" My brother and sister firefighters are #2 everything else is secondary too #2, all fire will eventually burn out.
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Post by 911wacker on Jan 12, 2004 12:01:50 GMT -5
LYCOCAPT -
You have a couple of good points, with regards to using a radio on the fireground, not a problem in this county. We actually have issues with overuse and improper use around here. Personaly I would prefer to see an operational channel set aside just for RIT at every fireground, that way team members can communicate and not be walked on by farmer bill. ;D
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Post by 2Truck on Jan 12, 2004 17:06:35 GMT -5
When talking about RIT and radio frequencies every member of the crew should have a radio and be monitoring the fire ground operations channel. One person might hear a mayday that another person might not. If a mayday is recieved EVERYTHING except for the RIT operation should be switched to a DIFFERENT channel. By doing so it frees up the channel for the crew to communicate with the downed fire fighter and find out information about the mayday event.
The topic of having portables for every riding position in a rig in my opinion is a must (in Upper Allen we have a portable for each seat on our rigs). I know that in most places in BC just the officers carry portables. What's to say that a member of an interior crew doesn't get lost from their officer, we then have no communication with them. Yes it does cost a little more to give every riding position a radio but by spending the extra money on it, it in turn could save someone's life.
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Post by 911wacker on Jan 14, 2004 12:23:14 GMT -5
Somehow I would be willing to bet that it would be a whole lot easier to have the 6 or so people on the RIT team switch to another channel than the 30 or so fireman who would'nt remember or hear the order anyway. Seems to me that you would want a channel assigned nobody else but IC and the RIT team would be on in the event RIT was needed.
What I have heard and seen about RIT is that the team leader posts himself with IC after he and the team members do a walk around and stage, that way he can recieve the order to activate from the IC face to face after averyone starts yelling on the radio and the RIT team can go into action on the pre-assigned frequency that the IC will have to monitor purposes and to relay last known location etc.
The idea of having radios at every seating position is a nice dream, some company's have the money and some just don't. For most departments 1 or 2 extra radios on the first due peice would be an improvement over none at all.
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