Rapid Intervention

Rapid Prevention
You've carefully thought out all the angles.
You've done it a thousand times.
It comes naturally to you.
You know what you're doing, its what you've been trained to do your whole life.
Nothing could possibly go wrong, right ?

Rapid Prevention
Think Again.
Chris Forkner

Rapid Prevention
Goals and Introduction
To better understand fire ground fatalities and injuries.
To facilitate and implement personal accountability and awareness to reduce your chances of injury or death.
Help with better decision making so that rapid intervention wont have to be used at all.
Standardization of working fire assignments within the department as well as mutual aid & automatic response.

Rapid Prevention
Goals and Introduction
Program will be focused on three key areas.
Current trends, and basic fireground realities.
Revising fireground assignments
Self awareness and survival skills.
Rapid Intervention Teams.

Rapid Prevention
Current Trends
Overall number of fires are down.
Today’s fires are burning hotter than in the past.
More synthetics in construction & furnishings.
Pre-fabricated lightweight trusses, held together with gussets that fail after a brief exposure to 800-1000 degrees F. Resulting in quicker collapse.
Buildings are less fire resistant.
Due to declining number of fires, firefighters have less fire ground experience.

Rapid Prevention
Current Trends
Young officers with less live fire experience.
Inability to “read” the fire building.
Inability to read signs of flashover and building collapse.
Inability to have a “command presence”.
Live fire training in acquired structures.
Lack of good burns, all burn building type evolutions.
Personal protective gear is better than it ever has been before.

Rapid Prevention
Statistics

Rapid Prevention
Statistics

Rapid Prevention
Statistics

Rapid Prevention
Statistics

Rapid Prevention
Motor Vehicle Accidents
MVC’s 11.8% of fatalities for 1990-2000
Wear your seatbelt.
Approach intersections with caution.
Implement driver’s training programs.
In-charge people look after your folks.

Rapid Prevention
Cardiac Arrest
1990-2000 Statistics cardiac arrest was responsible for 43.9% of fatalities.
Overexertion & Strain was responsible for 46.6% as the immediate cause of fatal injury.
Consider placing an AED with the RIC or at the command post.
Have the support on scene to rehab working members.

Rapid Prevention
Statistics
Since 1977 Firefighter deaths are down 38%.
However the rate of deaths per 100,000 incidents is up.
So in reality our problems are going up.
1 ¾” Fire? Staffing issues?

Rapid Prevention
Back to the Basics?
Why did we leave them in the first place?
It’s the fundamentals that carry us through successfully.
Firefighter Safety
Civilian Safety
Stop the Problem
Conserve Property
20 minutes later. Time checks at regular intervals?

Rapid Prevention
Back to the Basics?
Risk vs. Benefit
What benefits are to be gained by committing firefighting personnel into a certain tactical operation under certain conditions?
Slow down and take in what’s going on…the emergency is over once we arrive.

Rapid Prevention
Back to the Basics?
Tactics
Attack
Search
Back-up
Ventilation
Exposures
Extension
Overhaul
Salvage
Oxygen cylinder explodes at “bread & butter” trailer fire.

Rapid Prevention
Building Construction
Understanding the elements that building components are likely to fail.
Understand the effects of gravity on the fire building.
Peaked roof operations.
Parapets walls
The forces of nature on the structure.

Rapid Prevention
Building Construction
Type I - Fire Resistive
Type II – Non-Combustible/Limited Combustible
Type III – Ordinary/Brick-and-Joist
Type IV – Heavy Timber
Type V – Wood-Frame
Type VI – Hybrids ????

Rapid Prevention
Building Construction
Chili’s Restaurant

Rapid Prevention
Building Construction
Go ahead, have it your way!

Rapid Prevention
Building Construction

Rapid Prevention
ALERT FIRE BOX 14-7

Rapid Prevention
E-321 ARRIVED
HEAVY SMOKE SHOWING

Rapid Prevention
7 MINUTES AFTER ARRIVAL
MAYDAY IS CALLED
2 FIREFIGHTERS ARE DOWN

Rapid Prevention

Rapid Prevention
These are TGI beams,
Before a Fire.

Rapid Prevention
This is what’s left after a little fire impingement.

Rapid Prevention
This is where they should be hanging.

Rapid Prevention
And this is what happens when they are gone.

Rapid Prevention

Rapid Prevention

Rapid Prevention

Rapid Prevention
TGI beams are used on a lot of modern residential construction.

Rapid Prevention

Rapid Prevention

THIS COULD BE YOUR NEXT FIRE.
BE CAREFUL!!!

Rapid Prevention
Incident Size-Up
Don’t ignore incident size-up.
It’s everyone's responsibility.
Proper size-up begins at the time of call and continues throughout the whole incident.
Be personally accountable for monitoring and communicating changing conditions.

Rapid Prevention
Incident Size-Up
What do we have?
Construction
Occupancy
Fire location & extent, smoke conditions, life hazards.

Rapid Prevention
Incident Size-Up
Where is it going?
Fire travel
Smoke travel
Inside and outside conditions

Rapid Prevention
Incident Size-Up
Where are the people?
How do we get them?
How do we protect them?
How do we get them out?
Where are the firefighters?
Who’s who, what, and where?

Rapid Prevention
Incident Size-Up
What do we need to do?
Offensive
Defensive
COAL TWAS WEALTHS
Construction, Occupancy, Appliances & Staffing, Life Hazard, Terrain, Water Supply, Auxiliary appliances & aids, Street Conditions, Weather, Exposures, Area, Location & Extent of Fire, Time, Height, Special Considerations

Rapid Prevention
Fire Behavior
Get enough GPMs to override the BTUs
Do we have enough initial resources & the resources to deliver it?
Specific incidents where proper water application had a direct outcome to the incident.
23rd Street collapse in Manhattan, NY, 17 October 1966, which killed 12 firefighters. “Only Herculean efforts of the firefighters pushing back the fire with 2 ½ inch hand lines allowed rescue teams to reach the trapped firefighters…” preventing the loss of many more lives.

Rapid Prevention
Fire Behavior
Commercial Building fire, 12 March 1987, in which the Detroit, MI Fire Department lost three firefighters. “In an odd set of circumstances, an officer and a firefighter were killed by the collapse of a fire wall, and another officer was killed in a fall from a third floor window after being trapped by rapid fire spread.” The article points out that if it were not for aggressive fire stream application by an additional engine company this tragedy would have been greater.

Rapid Prevention
Changing Fire Conditions
Rollover-precursor to flashover, flashes of fire in the heated smoke.
Flashover-total room involvement caused by thermal re-radiation, simultaneous ignition of the area.
Backdraft-caused by combustion of a flammable gas-air mixture, the introduction of air into a confined space containing combustion gases, that are heated to their ignition temp.

Rapid Prevention
Accountability
SOPs & SOGs
ICS
Riding Positions
Crew Integrity
Crew Discipline

Rapid Prevention
Personal Gear/Personal Accountability & Safety Equipment
Lost or disoriented.
PASS Activation.
PPE, Gloves, Hoods, Helmet Straps, & SCBA Masks.
Don’t view PPE as optional equipment!
Officers lookout for your people!
Lookout for yourself!

Rapid Prevention
Thermal Imagers
Remember to take them with you.
Train with them regularly to understand the way objects look on your camera.
Some objects may give false temp.
Does not monitor air temp.

Rapid Prevention
Communications
Don’t ignore communication problems or hazards.
The fire ground is not the place to find out you have an interoperability issue.
Relay important information to command.
Notify command immediately when there is a problem.
Many hesitate to call for help, you can always downgrade the response if it’s not needed.

Rapid Prevention
Staffing & Mutual Aid
Limiting or ignoring resources.
Bring enough equipment soon enough so that all fire ground tasks can be accomplished.
Have mutual aid & automatic response where available.
If not for your customers. DO IT FOR YOUR PEOPLE!
Personality Based Mutual Aid IS WRONG!

Rapid Prevention
Possible Changes
Increased response initially on “good calls of fires”.
Proposed change to add 2 Engines & Chief to all “A” and “B” assignments.
Medic units assisting with sector & command responsibilities.
Utilizing a back-up line.
Disciplined crew with extra “firepower” in the event that the first line gets in trouble.
This crew does not actively seek out fire it actively monitors conditions and protects interior crews.
Placement of additional crews within the action area or a “forward staging area”

Rapid Prevention
Possible Changes
20 Minute callout is given after the call is received; not upon crew’s arrival or the mark of a working incident.
This serves as an accountability report.
As well as an air report.
In charge people check on your people.
People check on YOUR air!
Have the crews in the “forward staging area” relieve crews before the bell tolls.

Rapid Prevention
Possible Changes
Propose a downgraded response on service runs.
Update a what’s “hot” & “what’s not” policy.
First due crews respond, Other crews advance in on a “cold” response.
Slow down after nothing showing.

Rapid Prevention
Mayday vs. Urgent Transmissions
Urgent or Emergency Traffic
Demands radio silence and the problem may be remedied by the person making the call or those in the immediate area.
Minor S.C.B.A. leak
Minor entanglement
Firefighters exiting building on SCBA low-pressure alarms
Investigate an active PASS
Investigation of an unaccounted firefighter

Rapid Prevention
Mayday vs. Urgent Transmissions
Mayday
Demands radio silence, firefighters in immediate area can try to assist, activation of RIT required.
Lost FF on SCBA low-air alarm
Difficult entanglement
Complete loss of SCBA air
Lost FF due to confusing room configuration, vast room size, or collapse cutting off the exit

Rapid Prevention
Self-Rescue Scenarios
Entanglement
Wall Breach
Think, not only forcible entry, but FORCIBLE EXIT!
Rope slide
Hose slide
Think and work on getting yourself out!
Ladder Bail-Out
Just one Ladder on the rig?

Rapid Prevention
Firefighter Removal Methods
Conscious
Unconscious

Rapid Prevention
Rescue Scenarios
Floor Collapse
Confined Space
Above Ground
Below Ground Level

Rapid Prevention
Commanding RIT Operations
Extra companies needed
Different channel for suppression operations
Keep rescue ops on original channel
Don’t abandon the firefight
Have fresh crews ready

Rapid Prevention
Tools & Equipment
RIT Staging List-1 Officer & 3 Firefighters Min.
RIT Tarp (tool placement)
S.C.B.A./face-piece (each member)
S.C.B.A.-complete w/face piece or RIT bag
Search Rope 200-ft. Team Search, Kevlar rope with tag lines & strobes
Thermal Imager
Attic Ladder
Hand Line (Separate water source?)
Spare bottles
Irons (Flat-Head Axe/Halligan)
Hand Lights
Stokes Basket
Portable Radios
RIT Rope Rescue bag (Through the floor/window & ladder scenario)
Defibrillator
Get clipboard (stopwatch, reference sheets, graph paper)

Rapid Prevention
Items to know!
PASS Device
Buddy System
Exiting with a hose line
Coupling direction
Operating without a hose line
VES?
Search Lines
Emergency Breathing Procedures
Personal Escape
Wall Breach

Rapid Prevention
THE T.E.A.R PRINCIPLE
T-Team Leader
E-Extrication
A-Air
R-Rope

Rapid Prevention
TEAM LEADER
Communicates progress and receives orders from command.
Provides guidance to the team members including the way out to the ffs dragging the downed ff.

Rapid Prevention
EXTRICATION
Carries irons or other tools suspected to be of need.
Carries wire cutters.
Frees the downed ff from obstructions and restrictions.
Assists with the air bottle switch over and ff removal.

Rapid Prevention
AIR
Carries an extra air supply, pack or air bag (depending on the department).
Ensures the downed ff has an adequate air supply and switches the air supply if needed.
Helps remove the downed ff.

Rapid Prevention
ROPE
Carries the search rope.
Deploys the search rope on the way in.
Picks up the search rope on the way out.

Rapid Prevention
Commercial/High-Rise Structures
Multiple teams
Staging areas within the structure
Multiple companies operating
Greater potential for getting lost or disoriented