What is a FAST team ?
You may have noticed that a relatively high percentage of our calls are classified as FAST TEAM.
FAST stands for Firefighter Assist and Search Team. This is a team of 2 or more fire fighters whose sole purpose at a fire (usually a multiple alarm structure fire) is to stand ready, in full protective gear, to participate in search and rescue of any other fire fighter who is in distress at the scene. Examples of this could be a fire fighter lost, trapped or disoriented inside the building or overcome by smoke.
Other acronyms for this team are:
- RIT Rapid Intervention Team
- RIC Rapid Intervention Crew
- RID Rapid Intervention Dispatch
Here are some of the most common situations that a FAST or RIT team member must be able to handle:
- Rescuing firefighters based on a variety of impacts
- Creating access in all building construction types
- Performing an incident size-up on their own
- Read fire behavior and project its movement time
- Performing team search techniques and deal with problems such as large area searches
- Competent in thermal imagers to enhance search success
- Setting up change-overs and utilizing their emergency breathing support systems
- Dealing with entrapped, entanglements, floor collapses, confined space, above ground level and below ground level rescuing.
You can read more about FAST teams here:
https://fast-act.com/fire-department-rapid-intervention-team-rit/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighter_assist_and_search_team
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