RIT- ENG, TK, OR SQ - Why

[gotwork]

If you read my posts and most agree, I believe what we are all saying is that the Apparatus does not matter. That is where the training came into play. You can have the super dupper what the "F" of a truck loaded with every single toy know to man and still not be good at what you do. If you want to know what we would take if a RIt assignement went out, Thaen here you go.... We would take the SQUAD engine because it has more tools than our engine does. However we do not advertise ourselves as a RIT company (even though we are extremely trained and prepared to do so).

[WebBoss]

gotwork said:

If you read my posts and most agree, I believe what we are all saying is that the Apparatus does not matter. That is where the training came into play. You can have the super dupper what the "F" of a truck loaded with every single toy know to man and still not be good at what you do. If you want to know what we would take if a RIt assignement went out, Thaen here you go.... We would take the SQUAD engine because it has more tools than our engine does. However we do not advertise ourselves as a RIT company (even though we are extremely trained and prepared to do so).

I will never understand why people like to advertise and bid for RIT assignments. Who actually wants to be a Yard Breather with a purpose anyways?

[hp4l]

Lurker,

We take an engine out of 201 because that's all we have is engines. They are all similar with each one having a specific task. One is pipeline, one is RIT, one is Rescue.

Better?

[thelurker]

gotwork said:

If you read my posts and most agree, I believe what we are all saying is that the Apparatus does not matter. That is where the training came into play. You can have the super dupper what the "F" of a truck loaded with every single toy know to man and still not be good at what you do. If you want to know what we would take if a RIt assignement went out, Thaen here you go.... We would take the SQUAD engine because it has more tools than our engine does. However we do not advertise ourselves as a RIT company (even though we are extremely trained and prepared to do so).

Chief, not saying I disagree...just saying you guys are off topic. I could care less if you co-authored IFSTA RIT or Brannigan's Building Construction. You guys are just saying what we always say in every other post, TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING....yeah we get it, that's why we are here. Now please be so kind as to tell us what truck your department responds to RIT calls in and your rationale for using that truck.

[thelurker]

hp4l said:

Lurker,

We take an engine out of 201 because that's all we have is engines. They are all similar with each one having a specific task. One is pipeline, one is RIt, one is Rescue.

Better?

There ya go champ!!

[riverlinetk]

If anyone's point of posting on here was to talk about something else, then another thread could have been started. If you simply feel that any piece can do the job regardless of the tool compliment all you need is someone who knows what they are doing then say so. However, I hope that if someone does get hurt in this county that there is a full and competent crew waiting out there with whatever they need to get the job done because they were proactive and not reactive. I said why I would chose the truck and why. There are in fact times that the main can be used b/c many times there is still access to a structure assuming its not a s/f/d on a one lane residential street.

I didn't start this to talk about who has what training and how many years of experience or pieces of paper. It was to know why you would chose one of the three pieces and why. It's kind of been made a mockery and i'm not sure how it got away into that.

[daveconstantine]

Moorestown will be bringing an engine. My specialty pieces will be remaining in town. Everyone of my members have been told to thieve the s#@t out of every other vehicle on the fire ground for equipment, ladders - Christmas! steal the truck if you need the equipment on it for the assignment, only kidding! Unless the building has a large enough street exposure / parking lot surrounding it, most of the fires that I have been to you have to valet park your apparatus just to get close enough to the incident. Would it be certainly be nice to have my engineladderrescueboat close enough to utilize the equipment but the reality of it is we are hump our s^$t 2 miles to the incident. Why bring my ladder or rescue when it is going to sit there 2-4 blocks from the incident when I have 4 engines in town, two of which I hope are equipped with enough stuff to start the job.

Problem #2, we do not know and I hope we NEVER do find out what equipment and other resources we will need in the event of one firefighter being down. I can not carry enough crap on one piece and I do not think anyone else can either. That is one reason I have three RIT's coming on my first alarm, mix of equipment-multiple personnel. It also takes a minimum of 22 FF to rescue one FF. Of the 22FF, 1/2 will become their own MAYDAY, so why am I going to take my chances with ONE RIT per alarm - not a knock on the RIT's coming to Ho-town. I am going to give my members and the RIT every chance in the world to make the grab.

Dean - I think it was a horse graveyard you were looking for.......

This is very hot topic and further discussion needs to take place. Dress me ups on the fire ground enrage me, as part of a RIT, I do not have time for them..........

Thank you for allowing the vent

[riverlinetk]

Chief,

excellent feedback! if i'm not mistaken you were the first to grab the bull and go for the futuristic "RIT taskforce". I'd say you are 100% correct in doing so b/c in no way will it take one crew of 6 to perform and effect a labor intensive rescue. And that can't be supplemented by the guys already on the scene working and well involved as is. Plus those guys have to continue with their current tasks or the incident only escalates.

[daveconstantine]

We did the first that I know of RIT/FAST/RIC assignment at a job in Delran when Chief Lehmann was Chief of Department in the 90's. After that he asked if I was interested in getting together members to draft the document which we did it with a great bunch of fire service professionals in Burlington County. We did revised it once since then. The third revision is long over due and has failed because I have not put the time into the document.

A group of us sat down from the RIT ESTC instructors numerous months ago. I promised them by the beginning of this year the document would be ready, but I am just getting to it now.

Seeing some of the great ideas floating around here will help the process as well. I hope this thread is the beginning of great dialog and can works way into the document.

[WebBoss]

thelurker said:

gotwork said:

If you read my posts and most agree, I believe what we are all saying is that the Apparatus does not matter. That is where the training came into play. You can have the super dupper what the "F" of a truck loaded with every single toy know to man and still not be good at what you do. If you want to know what we would take if a RIt assignement went out, Thaen here you go.... We would take the SQUAD engine because it has more tools than our engine does. However we do not advertise ourselves as a RIT company (even though we are extremely trained and prepared to do so).

Chief, not saying I disagree...just saying you guys are off topic. I could care less if you co-authored IFSTA RIT or Brannigan's Building Construction. You guys are just saying what we always say in every other post, TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING....yeah we get it, that's why we are here. Now please be so kind as to tell us what truck your department responds to RIT calls in and your rationale for using that truck.

Bitterness?

I'll answer this one...

What truck? The Squad. Why? Except for extra ground ladders, it is equipped to handle 99.9% of the anything we will ever need to do.

While I agree that it is not a bad idea to "borrow" the equipment you need from other companies on scene, the problem I do have with that is in the heat of the moment is not the time to learn how to use someone else's unfamillier equipment.

Personally, it doesn't really matter what truck the equipment and manpower comes on, it's just the fact that you have the right tools for the right job and the right people to use them.

[thelurker]

hp4l said:

Lurker,

We take an engine out of 201 because that's all we have is engines. They are all similar with each one having a specific task. One is pipeline, one is RIT, one is Rescue.

Better?

As Jim stated, there are nothing but Engines in 201, so we don't have a choice about that, but as Chief Constantine said, our specialty pieces will stay in town, and when we do take the Rescue out of town for something that isn't an extrication, we get in trouble.

That said, we have added some specialty equipment to Engines 2012 and 2021 which are twins.
1. RIT PACK- Essentially a 1 hour pack in a bag, just commercially produced, with a spare mask and a large area search rope in the bag.
2. STOKES BASKET- Serves double duty as being both a carry all to get our equipment to scene, and carry any firefighters out if we have too. This has been mounted to our hose bed covers because the truck was not designed for carrying one when speced.
3. RIT BAG- This is a turnout gear bag that contains a bunch of handy RIT stuff. The staging tarp, Officers Checklist, large bag of wood chocks, and bags of Rope and Webbing. There are also spare K-12 blades in this bag. Handy to grab for that 2 mile hike 3100 was talking about.
4. TNT Tool- Just a nice multi-use hand tool, this has foud it's way to a permanent home in our RIT compartment.
5. Spare SCBA Bottles- We carry one for each pack when we walk up.
6. K-12 saw with "CHUNK" Blade- This thing cuts through whatever we need it to. By far my favorite saw blade.
7. IRONS- The Key to the City.
8. Box Lights- Better to see you with.
9. Tool of Comfort- Whatever hand tool the member prefers. Nothing better than to have "Ole' Faithful" with you when it hits the fan.

That' what and why we take the piece.

[thelurker]

admin said:

thelurker said:

Chief, not saying I disagree...just saying you guys are off topic. I could care less if you co-authored IFSTA RIT or Brannigan's Building Construction. You guys are just saying what we always say in every other post, TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING....yeah we get it, that's why we are here. Now please be so kind as to tell us what truck your department responds to RIT calls in and your rationale for using that truck.

Bitterness?

I'll answer this one...

What truck? The Squad. Why? Except for extra ground ladders, it is equipped to handle 99.9% of the anything we will ever need to do.

While I agree that it is not a bad idea to "borrow" the equipment you need from other companies on scene, the problem I do have with that is in the heat of the moment is not the time to learn how to use someone else's unfamillier equipment.

Personally, it doesn't really matter what truck the equipment and manpower comes on, it's just the fact that you have the right tools for the right job and the right people to use them.

Not bitter. You just gave the answer that B.I. asked for. Actually, we had a discussion about what you guys took here in the station, and someone said, they probably take the Squad b/c that is the only truck they run out there. I said I wasnt sure b/c you have another engine, so you probably leave the specialty piece in town b/c as 3100 said, your truck is never close enough, and you cant carry everything. Thank you for answering the question, and sharing your feelings about training.

[WebBoss]

thelurker said:

admin said:

Bitterness?

I'll answer this one...

What truck? The Squad. Why? Except for extra ground ladders, it is equipped to handle 99.9% of the anything we will ever need to do.

While I agree that it is not a bad idea to "borrow" the equipment you need from other companies on scene, the problem I do have with that is in the heat of the moment is not the time to learn how to use someone else's unfamillier equipment.

Personally, it doesn't really matter what truck the equipment and manpower comes on, it's just the fact that you have the right tools for the right job and the right people to use them.

Not bitter. You just gave the answer that B.I. asked for. Actually, we had a discussion about what you guys took here in the station, and someone said, they probably take the Squad b/c that is the only truck they run out there. I said I wasnt sure b/c you have another engine, so you probably leave the specialty piece in town b/c as 3100 said, your truck is never close enough, and you cant carry everything. Thank you for answering the question, and sharing your feelings about training.

For us, this is sometimes a catch 22. If we are dispatched for a RIT assignment, we will run the Squad. If we're dispatched for a structure fire outside of the RV district, we run 21. So if we're going with 21 and detailed for RIT, then we have the basics on the engine too, but we have to beg, borrow, and steal to be properly equipped.

BTW - Engine 2721 actually runs quite a bit, we have a policy in place that splits up the responses based on call type. 21 sees ALOT more action then people think. It has a habit of making long lays and doing lots of pumping.

[riverlinetk]

Those damn second alarmers!!! ;D

[voyager9]

admin said:

I want a rescue with all the tools and toys to cut, push, pull, pinch, crunch, demolish, and destroy anything and everything that is blocking my path towards getting my brother or sister firefighter out of harms way.

Is there such a magical apparatus? I understand your point, and agree for the most part, but I don't think its always possible. Unless you have a dedicated Tech Rescue team as your RIT your probably not going to have all equipment for any possible situation on a single apparatus. Nobody can spec an apparatus for that situation. Heavy Rescues are close, granted, but even they have limitations and are truly rare in the county (as you point out).

Staffing is another issue: If you're in a situation where you need Heavy-Rescue type equipment for a RI emergency then chances are it won't be the RIT that uses them. They're going to be the first in the door to locate and assess the situation. Its going to be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th..etc team that would perform the rescue.

My point: In a truly Oh-shit FF rescue situation we are going to have to pull from every member and apparatus on scene. It does not have to come on a single piece. The RIT should bring with them anything the need to Search, Locate a downed FF. If a rescue is possible they should but if not they need to be able to extend the life of the FF while additional teams and equipment are organized outside.

[riverlinetk]

Dave and everyone,

I have a county and company rit sog to post, it's going to take up some space. Do you guys want it posted here or in a separate thread? Let me know.

[voyager9]

riverlinetk said:

Dave and everyone,

I have a county and company rit sog to post, it's going to take up some space. Do you guys want it posted here or in a separate thread? Let me know.

IMHO, I'd upload the SOG file to another service (Google Docs..etc) and then provide a link on here. That way the thread is kept a little cleaner. (you know _someone_ would quote the whole thing for their 1-line reply).

[gotwork]

Dean - If you read the post you were refering to it had the answer you were looking for. I am simply staying on the training side because along the same theory as Chief Constantine you will still need to grab equipment off of everyone else's truck. But since you missed it WE TAKE THE SQUAD (even though we are no one's RIT) because it is heavily equipped with some special type equipment we may need to secure the area and free a downed firefighter. I generally send the SQUAD to anywhere that a chief has requested it for a special purpose. If no request was made we send 21 to leave the SQ in town.

[Reverend]

RIT Equiped Engine:
Good manuverabilty & If I dont have something I think I need after my size up. I go shopping.

My thoughts on this would be different if the county had dedicated ladders, rescues, and squad co's. but we don't so I say Rit equiped engine.

[riverlinetk]

dedicated services......... lol........ another whole world of discussion awaits for that!