How well is F.A.S.T. working in Westchester F.D.s?

[fireboyny 61]

This is regarding the "Two in, two out" rule.

Example, Tones drop for a confirmed structure fire, engine-1 arrives on scene with 4 interior guys(none being FAST "certified") and a driver. No other unit has yet signed on.

The two guys standing by outside, are they considered a fast/rit team?

[PFDRes47cue 653]

Having the fast requested to standby initially is not necessarily a delay because all of you are responding to the firehouse first. This gets your resource ready to go for when you need it.

Still makes more sense to have the resource ready to go at the scene.

[wraftery 1,275]

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My takeaways from the drill:

1. 4 people is not enough. We were all hustling to get to the down victim, get him air, and get him packaged to move, and then had to move him. It would have been nice to have had 1 or 2 folks there who were fresh to drag him out.

2. It takes a lot longer than I thought. We did the evolution in about 13 minutes, and while I knew it was slower than we wanted, I did not think it was that slow. As I watched the next group, I thought they were in there longer than we were. Turns out they did it in about 10 mins. Sitting outside waiting made that wait seem really long.

Be safe,

JR

[/quUOTE]

Excellent observation. If you have a Missing Member, FF Down, or Mayday message over the air, it often requires a lot of resources on scene to correct that situation. The immediate recources available to the IC are the people already on-scene, and you still have the original incident to contend with. ( What to do with your attack lines when a Mayday is called is an entirely different discussion that we can get to in another thread. Not now.)

So that everybody knows the deal, your policies for these situations (you do have these policies, don't you?) should include something like this:

1.1 In the event of a Missing Member, FF Down, or Mayday message, the IC shall activate the FAST Team.

1.2 A replacement FAST team shall be established by the IC as soon as resources allow.

1.3 The IC shall transmit an additional alarm if the situation is not resolved within 2 minutes of the original emergency transmission.

I didn't write a whole policy. I left out things like radio procedures, medical units, and so on. OSHA doesn't tell you all of stuff you should do. Common sense does.

[ex-commish 490]

Then you've got the rig with some guys who have 20yrs but still no experience and are incapable of doing the basics correctly. Speaking of Basics, I strongly feel we get too wrapped up in the FAST team concept and policies instead of worrying about our members being competent in the Basic Firefighting Skills. Get a proper sized and supplied handline in the right location, with adequate and properly timed ventilation and good chances we won't even need a Fast Team.

Very true.....excellent point!!

[Dinosaur 844]

This is regarding the "Two in, two out" rule.

Example, Tones drop for a confirmed structure fire, engine-1 arrives on scene with 4 interior guys(none being FAST "certified") and a driver. No other unit has yet signed on.

The two guys standing by outside, are they considered a fast/rit team?

I guess by default they would be but they're only meeting OSHA's two in-two out requirement.

They can't ladder the escape routes, prepare for rescues, assess the structure, and do all the other tasks that a FAST/RIT team would be able to do.

If departments have responses to a confirmed structure fire with only four FF, they also have other issues. Of course this is happening all over every day because we continue to do things the way we did 75 years ago.

If we had one large department FD consisting of 10-12 of the current fire fiefdoms we could get the 3-4 guys available in each and have a reasonable response more quickly and effectively than we do under the current patchwork. This isn't rocket science; its done damn near everywhere else better and cheaper than we do it.

Consolidating doesn't mean closing fire houses - it just means managing smarter and using resources more wisely. It's not a bad word and should really be looked at more seriously than we do.

[wraftery 1,275]

This is regarding the "Two in, two out" rule.

Example, Tones drop for a confirmed structure fire, engine-1 arrives on scene with 4 interior guys(none being FAST "certified") and a driver. No other unit has yet signed on.

The two guys standing by outside, are they considered a fast/rit team?

I would say they are not considered FAST. OSHA requires that the two out must be qualified to assist the two in.

If they were considered FAST, nobody would have to call for a FASt team that's 20 minutes away...just turn to the crowd of onlookers and say "Hey guys, I'm goin' in. Would any of you guys be available to get me out if things go wrong?" All you would need is 2 yesses and you're covered.

[v85 212]

I've noticed some posters have commented about 20+ minute response times for FAST.

In Orange County that is partially because there is a policy that neighboring departments with FAST teams will not be called because they feel the FAST team firefighters might be too emotionally attached to firefighters in trouble, and may make rash decisions. Does this make sense? I don't think it does. Do police departments have a policy that says neighboring districts can't respond to a 10-13 because they may be "too emotionally attached", I don't think so!

Also, I think every department should have a FAST team, not just certain ones.

[Newburgher 241]

I've noticed some posters have commented about 20+ minute response times for FAST.

In Orange County that is partially because there is a policy that neighboring departments with FAST teams will not be called because they feel the FAST team firefighters might be too emotionally attached to firefighters in trouble, and may make rash decisions. Does this make sense? I don't think it does. Do police departments have a policy that says neighboring districts can't respond to a 10-13 because they may be "too emotionally attached", I don't think so!

Also, I think every department should have a FAST team, not just certain ones.

In Orange County, the 20+ minute response is because in Orange County, much like every other area with volunteer firefighters, it isn't a requirement for firefighters to be trained in F.A.S.T. in order to be allowed to ride a firetruck. It has nothing to do with neighboring departments being emotionally attached. Until the state says to ride a firetruck, you have to be trained (certified?) in all the important things, not just able to close the door and fasten your seatbelt, there is not much that's going to change.

[16fire5 693]

In Orange County that is partially because there is a policy that neighboring departments with FAST teams will not be called because they feel the FAST team firefighters might be too emotionally attached to firefighters in trouble, and may make rash decisions.

There is no such policy. An individual department may have that as their policy but there is no such policy county wide.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Interestingly, we just did RIT training for our fall skills development. We reviewed the RIT bag, did some mayday training, and did a RIT evolution in our burn building. The evolution had us rescue a down FF. We had to find him, get him some air, and get him out. The building was dark and smoked up. And, we had to crawl through a small opening, over a knee wall, and down a tunnel to find him. We broke into teams of 4 using an acronym I had never heard TEAR (Team lead, Extrication, Air, and Rope) and we were timed and our air level was noted. It was a great drill.

My takeaways from the drill:

1. 4 people is not enough. We were all hustling to get to the down victim, get him air, and get him packaged to move, and then had to move him. It would have been nice to have had 1 or 2 folks there who were fresh to drag him out.

2. It takes a lot longer than I thought. We did the evolution in about 13 minutes, and while I knew it was slower than we wanted, I did not think it was that slow. As I watched the next group, I thought they were in there longer than we were. Turns out they did it in about 10 mins. Sitting outside waiting made that wait seem really long.

JR

If anyone hasn't read it, find the article that Phoenix published in I believe it was Fire Engineering when they took a good look at their operations after FF Brett Tarver died in a supermarket fire. They brought in and evaluated every RIT and time them and talked about their findings.

1. On average they found it takes 15 firefighters to rescue 1 down firefighter.

2. 1 out of 5 RIT members will end up having an issue themselves at some point in the operation.

A few more points as I've taught FAST for a few years and conduct drills and take part in them. If you're not training on the basics for your team and just out of control scenarios..you are doing your team a disservice. Review the SCBA, the maneuvers, operation both normal and emergency. Throwing ladders, ropes and knots and search. Back to the basics. It makes or breaks most teams. Also remember we work often in teams..if you constantly drill with 1 firefighter down your teams will not react well if you have 2 or more down. Also every once in a while..you have to pull teams during a rescue attempt or make it that they do not succeed. This builds in their brains that sometimes things may not work out and prepare them for the stress and understand that risk vs. benefit while stretched for one of our own...still applies and they may be pulled.

[PFDRes47cue 653]

If anyone hasn't read it, find the article that Phoenix published in I believe it was Fire Engineering when they took a good look at their operations after FF Brett Tarver died in a supermarket fire. They brought in and evaluated every RIT and time them and talked about their findings.

1. On average they found it takes 15 firefighters to rescue 1 down firefighter.

2. 1 out of 5 RIT members will end up having an issue themselves at some point in the operation.

A few more points as I've taught FAST for a few years and conduct drills and take part in them. If you're not training on the basics for your team and just out of control scenarios..you are doing your team a disservice. Review the SCBA, the maneuvers, operation both normal and emergency. Throwing ladders, ropes and knots and search. Back to the basics. It makes or breaks most teams. Also remember we work often in teams..if you constantly drill with 1 firefighter down your teams will not react well if you have 2 or more down. Also every once in a while..you have to pull teams during a rescue attempt or make it that they do not succeed. This builds in their brains that sometimes things may not work out and prepare them for the stress and understand that risk vs. benefit while stretched for one of our own...still applies and they may be pulled.

Since these findings. do they have 18 FF's (15 +3 additional to anticipate 1 out of 5 having an issue) on scene acting as a RIT or FAST? Does anyone have this many FF's on-scene as a RIT or FAST? If these were the statistics that the investigation found to work, then by not at least meeting the number found to be successful you are not operating correctly. I understand that this is the average number, so by having anything less, it seems that a FD is only prepared to deal with the less than average rescues.

I find the findings of this evaluation to be intriguing, and personally, if funding was not an issue, I would think that these evaluations should be done more often and in more places to keep things honest.

Are there any OSHA regulations that give a minimum number for people to be able to say that there is a FAST on scene? Do individual departments have SOG's/SOP's stating this?

Great reminders about the importance of reviewing the fundamentals. As with most skills, once the fundamentals go, everything will begin to go.

[Dinosaur 844]

Since these findings. do they have 18 FF's (15 +3 additional to anticipate 1 out of 5 having an issue) on scene acting as a RIT or FAST? Does anyone have this many FF's on-scene as a RIT or FAST? If these were the statistics that the investigation found to work, then by not at least meeting the number found to be successful you are not operating correctly. I understand that this is the average number, so by having anything less, it seems that a FD is only prepared to deal with the less than average rescues.

I find the findings of this evaluation to be intriguing, and personally, if funding was not an issue, I would think that these evaluations should be done more often and in more places to keep things honest.

Are there any OSHA regulations that give a minimum number for people to be able to say that there is a FAST on scene? Do individual departments have SOG's/SOP's stating this?

Great reminders about the importance of reviewing the fundamentals. As with most skills, once the fundamentals go, everything will begin to go.

Probably not but a lot of other fireground activities can (should) be halted to effect the rescue so you can reassign resources to the rescue effort. It also speaks volumes about having resources staged and not simply operating. If you kept an engine and truck company staged and this happened you'd have at least six additional FF's to assist. But since most departments can't operate without mutual aid, they're reluctant to call extra for staging because they'll be viewed as having abused the mutual aid. That's BS

You don't need special funding to analyze and evaluate your operations. That's part of the job that is most often overlooked. How many chief's do after action analyses of their working jobs? Not too many sadly.

As good as most departments may be there's always room for improvement.

[JM15 386]

Probably not but a lot of other fireground activities can (should) be halted to effect the rescue so you can reassign resources to the rescue effort.

While it is great to assign as many resources as possible to the rescue just remember that if you put the fire out a lot of your problems go away....

[PFDRes47cue 653]

Probably not but a lot of other fireground activities can (should) be halted to effect the rescue so you can reassign resources to the rescue effort. It also speaks volumes about having resources staged and not simply operating. If you kept an engine and truck company staged and this happened you'd have at least six additional FF's to assist. But since most departments can't operate without mutual aid, they're reluctant to call extra for staging because they'll be viewed as having abused the mutual aid. That's BS

You don't need special funding to analyze and evaluate your operations. That's part of the job that is most often overlooked. How many chief's do after action analyses of their working jobs? Not too many sadly.

As good as most departments may be there's always room for improvement.

Agreed, it is total BS. Having units staged rather than operating can be very useful if the unfortunate happens. Obviously, other FF's would most likely join in the search/rescue attempt but if they are doing something else, there will be a delay. I always enjoy hearing reports from post-incident evaluations. More departments should do these more often, especially, if it is just a matter of the Chiefs getting together to do so.

Amen to your last sentence. It is so important to not get comfortable with your successes as a department and not continue to make advances.

[TSull 33]

As we look at this issue and other issues concerning fire ground operations, remember the 6 "P"'s: Piss Poor Preperation Prevents Proper Performance.

A committment needs to be made that all interior firefighters should have FF1, FF Survival, FAST, OSHA/BBP,NIMS 700/100 at a minimum. And each interior firefighter needs to complete refresher training in these basic competencies each year. JMO

[wraftery 1,275]

As we look at this issue and other issues concerning fire ground operations, remember the 6 "P"'s: Piss Poor Preperation Prevents Proper Performance.

A committment needs to be made that all interior firefighters should have FF1, FF Survival, FAST, OSHA/BBP,NIMS 700/100 at a minimum. And each interior firefighter needs to complete refresher training in these basic competencies each year. JMO

Were you in the Navy, Sully? That's where I first heard the "6P's" except back in 1966 it was "Proper Planing Prevents Piss Poor Performance." The P's are in different places but the gist is the same.