“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” the radio crackles. Two firefighters are trapped inside a concrete, tilt-up building. It is a nightmare scenario, but it’s something for which TVF&R’s firefigthers regularly practice. Outside the practice building, TVF&R’s Rapid Intervention Team (RIT) springs into action circling the building and hammering on exterior walls, hoping the “trapped” firefighters will hammer back. Within seconds, the RIT team has made contact with the firefighters on the other side and determined where it’s safe to begin cutting a hole in the wall.
TVF&R Lt. Richard Stamps uses a cutting tool to cut through rebar in the wall
When firefighters aren’t busy responding to emergencies, they’re often doing training like this. Today’s practice session takes place at a vacant movie theater near Washington Square Mall. Firefighters frequently use these old buildings for drills like this. Today, the firefighters are from Tigard’s Heavy Rescue 51, Truck 51 and Wilsonville’s Truck 56. The Heavy Rescue team carries special tools, air-packs and other equipment designed to help firefighters rescue another firefighter who becomes trapped or injured during a structure fire or building collapse. TVF&R’s RIT team responds to every working structure fire prepared for a worst-case scenario.
A "trapped" firefighter crawls through the new hole in the wall
Today, the concrete wall is 8 inches thick and beefed up with rebar. The RIT team knows that time is of the essence. Their first priority is cutting a small hole in the wall through which they can feed a line for the trapped firefighters’ airpacks. Within minutes, long before they run out of air, a hole is drilled in the wall and a new line is fed through so the trapped firefighters can breathe.
Meanwhile, another team of firefighters takes turns with saws, drills and a sledgehammer as they work to bore a person-sized hole through the wall. It takes time. The firefighters work calmly and carefully, but they’re sweating as they swing a sledge-hammer for more than half an hour working to bash through the thick wall. The concrete slowly gives way blow by blow and, before long, the “trapped” firefighters are able to crawl through a hole in the wall.
