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14 November 2025
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Massachusetts firefighters practice rescue of trapped crew during rapid intervention training, US
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The Salem Fire Department in Massachusetts, US, conducted four days of fire rescue training at Salem State University’s currently unused Bates Complex, where crews are practicing rapid intervention strategies to safely rescue firefighters who could become trapped or unresponsive while inside a burning building. The Rapid Intervention Team training has firefighters wearing full gear and self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBA) responding to maydays and breaching into a building to retrieve a fellow firefighter who has been separated from their crew — in this case, a 150-pound mannequin. “It can be complicated,” Deputy Fire Chief Peter Schaeublin said. “It could be as little as the firefighter being trapped behind a door and running low on air or they could be caught under collapsed debris or stuck in wires. It can be a lot of different things that lead to a mayday call, so the more information they provide when they do make that mayday call, the better the team will be equipped when coming in.”
A Rapid Intervention Team (RIT), which is on standby during firefighter operations in the case of a mayday call, is specially trained and equipped to rescue injured, trapped, or missing firefighters with the goal of responding immediately and safely. Based on the information provided in the mayday call, the RIT will enter the building in groups of at least two with specialized equipment such as flathead axes or a Halligan bar to pry, breach, and break their way to the stranded firefighter.
Upon arrival, firefighters immediately assess the breathing of the trapped crew member. If the person is low on oxygen or their tank has run out, the RIT will connect them to the oxygen in an “RIT pack” — a duffel bag also brought to the scene with life-saving tools like wire cutters, webbing, and additional oxygen masks. While oxygen levels are being assessed, another member of the RIT is converting the harness to use as a drag device to physically pull the person out of the building if they are unresponsive.
“All new fire gear that is made now have DRDs — Drag Rescue Devices,” Schaeublin said. “Basically, in the gear and the SCBA there is webbing that goes around the arms so that the RIT can feed something in to drag them out of the building.”
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With crews only able to stay in the building for 15 to 20 minutes max before switching out, RIT training is important in ensuring crews can quickly make the on-the-spot decisions necessary to save their crewmates’ lives.
Salem Lt. Justin Henderson and Capt. Seth Hagerty, who are also instructors at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, conducted the training sessions on Thursday.
The training has been carried out by the Salem Fire Department on an annual basis since 1999, following the tragic Worcester cold storage fire in which six firefighters died while searching for a homeless individual believed to be trapped inside an abandoned building.
“It was the perfect scenario of being a deadly fire for firefighters, because it was a cold storage building which of course keeps cold in — but that also means it keeps heat in,” Schaeublin said. “There’s no windows for smoke or cross combustion to escape. And so I hate to say that we’re a reactionary society, but this training came out of that so that we could be more prepared to rescue our own if something similar were to happen again.”
With wax paper covering the inside of their helmet visors, crews practiced entering the Bates complex in an environment similar to an intensely burning fire — with limited visibility requiring the RIT to stick close to a line fed into the building for navigation.
The Bates complex, built in 1990, was used for housing students until 2021 when it was closed, only to be later used by the city for emergency pandemic housing and an emergency temporary shelter in June 2024 as Salem State waits on the redevelopment of the property.
“Part of the beauty of this training is that we actually get to put on our SCBA, because we don’t have a lot of opportunity to use those other than in actual incidents,” Schaeublin said. “We also get to practice things like forced entry, which is used in fire situations as well as carbon monoxide or hazardous material situations where we have to find ways to get into units. So we’re breaching walls, breaching doors, and using the different tools we have at our disposal for practice. Firefighters are very hands-on people, so the training is very valuable.”
Source: The Salem News
A Rapid Intervention Team (RIT), which is on standby during firefighter operations in the case of a mayday call, is specially trained and equipped to rescue injured, trapped, or missing firefighters with the goal of responding immediately and safely. Based on the information provided in the mayday call, the RIT will enter the building in groups of at least two with specialized equipment such as flathead axes or a Halligan bar to pry, breach, and break their way to the stranded firefighter.
Upon arrival, firefighters immediately assess the breathing of the trapped crew member. If the person is low on oxygen or their tank has run out, the RIT will connect them to the oxygen in an “RIT pack” — a duffel bag also brought to the scene with life-saving tools like wire cutters, webbing, and additional oxygen masks. While oxygen levels are being assessed, another member of the RIT is converting the harness to use as a drag device to physically pull the person out of the building if they are unresponsive.
“All new fire gear that is made now have DRDs — Drag Rescue Devices,” Schaeublin said. “Basically, in the gear and the SCBA there is webbing that goes around the arms so that the RIT can feed something in to drag them out of the building.”
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With crews only able to stay in the building for 15 to 20 minutes max before switching out, RIT training is important in ensuring crews can quickly make the on-the-spot decisions necessary to save their crewmates’ lives.
Salem Lt. Justin Henderson and Capt. Seth Hagerty, who are also instructors at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, conducted the training sessions on Thursday.
The training has been carried out by the Salem Fire Department on an annual basis since 1999, following the tragic Worcester cold storage fire in which six firefighters died while searching for a homeless individual believed to be trapped inside an abandoned building.
“It was the perfect scenario of being a deadly fire for firefighters, because it was a cold storage building which of course keeps cold in — but that also means it keeps heat in,” Schaeublin said. “There’s no windows for smoke or cross combustion to escape. And so I hate to say that we’re a reactionary society, but this training came out of that so that we could be more prepared to rescue our own if something similar were to happen again.”
With wax paper covering the inside of their helmet visors, crews practiced entering the Bates complex in an environment similar to an intensely burning fire — with limited visibility requiring the RIT to stick close to a line fed into the building for navigation.
The Bates complex, built in 1990, was used for housing students until 2021 when it was closed, only to be later used by the city for emergency pandemic housing and an emergency temporary shelter in June 2024 as Salem State waits on the redevelopment of the property.
“Part of the beauty of this training is that we actually get to put on our SCBA, because we don’t have a lot of opportunity to use those other than in actual incidents,” Schaeublin said. “We also get to practice things like forced entry, which is used in fire situations as well as carbon monoxide or hazardous material situations where we have to find ways to get into units. So we’re breaching walls, breaching doors, and using the different tools we have at our disposal for practice. Firefighters are very hands-on people, so the training is very valuable.”
Source: The Salem News