Rapid Intervention Crew
NFPA 1407: 14 years later, what’s your RIC policy?
In the fourteen years since its initial publication, NFPA 1407 has been a big part of fire departments elevating the "status" of the RIC as a critical fireground task assignment on par with that of search, fire attack, ventilation, and laddering. While this has been a positive step in the right direction regarding firefighter safety, the RIC is a "reactive" approach to firefighter safety. The RIC is in the "background" until something goes wrong (e.g., a firefighter becomes lost, entrapped or otherwise endangered). The presence of the RIC can also provide a false sense of security, especially when the RIC consists of only two firefighters.
Making Rapid Intervention Crews even better
Read a great piece, and even better guidance and direction, on this critical issue from my fire service colleague and…
Incident Safety Begins with Proactive Fireground Behaviors
In these days of budget reductions and inadequate staffing, the best use of RIC is the non-deployment of RIC because our proactive fireground behaviors ensured that they were never needed.