The RIT program that has been instituted here at Consolidated Fire
District #2 was born from tragedies suffered with the loss of life of
two CFD2 firefighters. The first loss occurred in 1988 with the loss of
Marvin Wilcox and again in 1995 when we lost Don Koeble, both lost their
lives while battling fires in residential structures. After both of
these losses it became apparent to our organization that we had to be
more pro-active when it came to saving our brothers during these types
of mishaps.
Our RIT program began in 1998 with the vigorous training called Saving
our Own, hosted by the Overland Park Fire and Olathe Fire Departments.
This increased our awareness to this very important need of being ready
and able to actually save ourselves when things go wrong. The next step
in our education was sending members of our Fire District to more
specific RIT training in Downer’s Grove Illinois and Indianapolis
Indiana where some of the leading authorities on RIT training are
located. We developed a program for delivering the RIT training and by
2002 all of the CFD2 personnel had been trained in RIT which consisted
of self-rescue techniques, firefighter drags & lifts, firefighter
removals, breaching of walls & floors using a multitude of new tools
purchased for this new endeavor. Currently all of our firefighters are
required to have this training with yearly ongoing skills refreshers and
to learn new techniques.
The CFD2 RIT Program has been so successful with the full support of our
board and staff that we have trained over a 1000 students throughout the
state of Kansas at no charge to their organizations, part of our
commitment to our fallen brothers. We have also had articles on RIT
published in Firerescue Magazine and we have been featured in a national
FETN video called Managing the Mayday.
While most of the original RIT instructors are moving onto other
projects or instructing other classes the CFD2 RIT Program lives on with
a new group of CFD2 personnel that will most assuredly take this program
to new heights while always keeping in our memories the two fallen
brothers that gave the ultimate sacrifice.
Rapid Intervention Team (R.I.T.)
