Rapid Intervention Teams: Saving Their Own

摘要

Rapid Intervention Teams (RITs) represent the most important function implemented on the fireground: a group of firefighters going in and saving one of their own. This group is going to keep us from creating another statistic. However, being a part of this team is usually the job that most firefighters hate; they feel that they are "out of the game" and not a factor on the fireground. With this attitude, is the RIT prepared, in the right mind-set, and ready to go if the catastrophic event of a down member occurs? The fire service has many thoughts regarding the RIT's role while operating on an incident scene. Some feel that members need to be masked up so they are ready to deploy at a moment's notice. However, are they really ready if they are wearing their masks and the masks become fogged up while waiting, reducing their visibility? Are they able to see what is going on around them and conduct a continuous size-up? The RIT can perform limited fireground functions while still maintaining the sole purpose of being ready to rescue a down firefighter.